Episode 200: Take That, Microsoft

I reformatted my primary hard drive because there were just too many things going wrong. Bluetooth driver, Windows Media Player, JavaScript. All not running properly! So after spending a few hours this morning trying to figure it out, I gave up and decided to use the Dell restore partition and start from a clean slate. So I spent the rest of the afternoon reinstalling software, and so far, none of the problems have resurfaced and virtually all the software that was on the laptop before has been reinstalled. Shen Ting suggests that there was some file corruption, and I'm inclined to agree, except I couldn't trace the source. That and resorting to the restore partition was much more straightforward a solution. As if to remind me of how prone technology is to failing, Vodafone is screwing with my Twitter account. Any update I send by SMS somehow keeps resending itself over and over. I only realised when Vaish told me. It's not stopping, so I've had to temporarily disconnect my handphone from my Twitter account. So I didn't get any work done today, but at least I've managed to stabilise my laptop. Eugene says I should just switch to using a Mac and eliminate all my problems, but I hardly consider that an actual solution. That and it's only a matter of time before people start targeting Mac instead of taking cheap shots at Windows...

Episode 199: One Down, A Lot To Go

I finally shaved after three days because I went out for groceries and didn't want to look scruffy. I swear that eating less for the past couple of days has made my face leaner. Probably more a function of not having junk food around. Will have to be more disciplined about rationing what I've bought today. On the work front, I tweaked a couple of lines in the script and finished the commentary. Sum total of my achievement today. I think the script's not bad as it is, but I've sent it to Bella and Eugene for feedback. The accompanying commentary is a little rambling, and I ended up writing too much, so I excised bits here and there, and hopefully it's better now. Now that the EN124 portfolio's out of the way, tomorrow I can continue reading Women Editing Modernism and possibly even write a paragraph or two for The Warwick Review essay. Need to decide what's my focus going to be, but I'll only know for sure after reading all the relevant chapters in the book. Hopefully, writing this essay will take until, at the very latest, next Tuesday. Then I can start working on everything else. Sigh...

Episode 198: ...And Then We Met Them

As you can see from the title of this entry, the radio play has been retitled. Again. I am going to finish it before going to bed though. Showed the first three scenes to Bella, and she gave some sensible suggestions again, so I've edited and will carry on writing from there, whilst finishing the last of Doctor Who. Whoever scripted the Series 4 finale was good, although two episodes might not have been enough to do everything justice, given that they were basically the mother of all crossover episodes. We're not going to sign the contract tomorrow anymore, but I still need to get food, so I'll have to get dressed and make a trip down to Iceland and Tesco just for groceries and snacks. I have also decided that I really can't be bothered to churn out a couple of poems just to include them in this portfolio, so I'm going to extend the radio play back to what I originally planned, i.e. five scenes. Would really like to get this done, and then I'll write the 500-word commentary for it when I wake up, which won't be a problem at all because I'm just going to rattle on about how the idea developed as I went along. Then I'll (hopefully) start on The Warwick Review essay after coming back from Cannon Park Shopping Centre. That's my plan for tomorrow anyway...

Episode 197: Technology = Fail

Another day of blue screens of death. I'm beginning to suspect that my hard drive might be failing. I can't say for certain, but I've backed up my documents, music and pictures, just to be safe. Nights like these, William Gibson's cyberpunk future à la the Sprawl trilogy never seemed more distant. It's a bit odd, as I've managed to start up and shut down the laptop a couple of times with no problems. I've realised that the crashes seem to occur when I'm multitasking on the laptop. Do you think that might be the problem? Odd that it should only start being a problem recently though. Have already tried uninstalling some software that I seldom use, to no avail. Oh well. I could try doing a reinstall of the OS, I guess, but that's such a hassle, I'd rather keep my fingers crossed and hope the problem goes away as mysteriously as it came. Have I mentioned that Windows Media Player has also stopped working on my laptop? I discovered that a week ago when I tried to play my MobTV videos before the subscription expired. Unfortunately, Microsoft has integrated Windows Media Player so tightly with Vista that there's no easy way to uninstall and reinstall it. In some sense, I think Vista has been a step backward as an OS, so hopefully, Windows 7 will resolve some of the issues. Given that it's Microsoft though, I'm not too hopeful. Still not switching to a Mac though...

Episode 196: Two Out Of Four's Not So Bad, Right?

Finished Scene 2 of what is now called Hello & Goodbye. I showed it to Bella, she made some suggestions, and so I tweaked it a little. Have mapped out the plot for the remaining two scenes, but I'll probably write them tomorrow. Have sort of started on Scene 3, but I'm more inclined to go to bed or read a book than finish off the script. I'm quite pleased with the two songs I picked out to end Scenes 2 and 4 though! The second song is truly inspired, Natalie Imbruglia's 'Goodbye'. So in terms of my own vague, personal timeline for completing my work, I'm still right on schedule. Or as much as you can be when there isn't actually any dates set in stone anyway. I'm tentatively aiming to finish the play by tomorrow, then bang out two poems and the commentary for the whole portfolio on Wednesday. That'll leave the rest of the week to get started on either The Warwick Review essay or the EN122 essay. If not the actual writing, at least the research! I've probably said it before, but next year, I'm going to be so much more disciplined about deadlines, Year 2 me won't recognise Year 1 me at all.

Episode 195: Gearing Up...

I had the weirdest dream last night. It started out in some facility that was a cross between concentration camp and school. Everyone was in a cooking class, grinding spices. I remember using a plate to try and fill a pot with hot water. Anyway, I knew the cooking instructor was some evil entity and wasn't too surprised when the lights suddenly went out. Oddly enough, everyone else must have been thinking the same thing because they fled without hesitation. The exit was strangely an identical replica of the RI back gate. The dream then turned into an inconclusive chase sequence that began in Bishan but soon changed locale to an urban sprawl loosely based on Hong Kong. The last thing I remember was trying on my grey G2 Black Label shirt in front of a computer screen, playing some really inane game. Am now editing the first scene of my radio play, in light of a suggestion Alex gave last night for possible plot developments. I'm going to change the title too. I guess I was too hung up on having the plot unfold in a certain way, and that was keeping me from moving forward because the beginning was good, the planned ending was fine, but the middle, I just couldn't seem to see it happening. I may have a better idea now for a more realistic sequence of events, and perhaps I will write four scenes instead of five and add on some performance poetry instead. Will get into the swing of things fully tomorrow. Today will be simply for reading, unless some truly brilliant bit of dialogue comes to mind after my editing of the first scene.

Episode 194: NWA Day 6

The ride back from Wales was less wearying than the ride there, partly because we stopped midway at a service station for about 45 minutes. I started reading Sir Gawain And The Green Knight in the original Middle English, but it's proved to be slower going than getting through Tolkien's Modern English translation. The latter really helped to make the structure of the poem apparent, something that's hard to keep in mind when you're struggling through the incomprehensible vocabulary of the Gawain-poet. Have been busy sorting out things like laundry and clearing e-mails since I got back. I can't believe I got more than 400 spam e-mails in less than a week! Caught up on my TV shows too, with Gossip Girl and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles turning up brilliant episodes. House was quite disappointing. While narrating the story from the patient's point of view provided some initial novelty, the episode overall was somewhat tedious, although I loved the exchange between House and Cameron when after her display of astuteness he goes, 'Why did I fire you again?' and she replies, 'You didn't. I quit.' Can I just say that one scene completely encapsulates why the new team is so boring in comparison with the old team?

Episode 193: NWA Day 5

Have just finished washing up all the crockery and utensils. Mummy would be so proud. Went for the final session for the rough guide to handling the Bible, but gave the medical ethics one a miss because I was going to head down to the beach with the other Warwick people and the issue being covered (cloning and stem cell research) was something I'd pretty much figured out to my own satisfaction. In the end, I bumped into Jasmine and followed her to meet some other Singaporeans who were on the International Student track. Reuben was there, but he didn't recognise me from the MOE Bible study group until at the very end, after I took off my glasses. He blamed my transition lenses. If you say so! Randomly, I've probably been eating better the whole of this week than in the entire past term. I mean, I've been having breakfast! I quite like the idea of breakfast actually. Cereal, milk and sugar have proved to be rather palatable. One more food idea to implement after I get back from Singapore, where I tend to not have breakfast at all, now that there's neither school nor NS to function as a disincentive for waking up in the morning.

Episode 192: NWA Day 4

Attended the seminar on medical ethics again, focusing on abortion this time. It's curious to learn that the same institution, i.e. the British Medical Association, opposes euthanasia but supports abortion. To be somewhat reductionist, whether you support abortion or not depends on when you consider life to begin. It used to be that statements of medical ethics agreed with Christians that life should be protected from conception. However, such statements have by and large been amended to be more vague. Personally, I had my doubts that abortion ought to be completely prohibited. Surely in cases of rape, or to save the mother's life, exceptions were permissible? The speaker gave some statistics though, which suggest that abortion for physical health reasons is startlingly rare, and in the case of rape, most victims actually choose to carry the child to term. Whatever the case, Christians should believe that life is sacred from the moment of conception, and hence, abortion is always regarded as the intentional taking of an innocent human being's life. On a whim, decided to drift along with some people from my caravan to an apologetics seminar. The speaker used to be a Zen Buddhist monk! I quite enjoyed his talk, good balance between humour and teaching. Randomly, I've been introduced to the humour of Family Guy. It feels like The Simpsons without as much brainlessness? Still, not the sort of thing I'd go out of my way to catch on TV.

Episode 191: NWA Day 3

Just got back from the beach again. We were going to throw someone into the water because it's his birthday. Well, he sort of offered to jump in in the first place, but the tide was coming in and it looked too dangerous, so we all ended up on the rocks instead, watching the stars. I did make it to the seminar on medical ethics this time, which covered euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide today. It was quite useful, actually helped me to clarify my position on the issue. I used to be more of less in favour of it, but having seen the arguments presented on both sides within a Christian framework, I've changed my mind. Picked up a load of handouts from the Christian Medical Fellowship too, covering a range of ethical issues. It's interesting to see what the Biblical response is when it comes to contemporary issues of medical ethics. I think the most important thing I picked up was that in the Bible, murder is specifically defined as the intentional taking away of an innocent human being's life, the key words being 'intentional' and 'innocent'. Was so curious about the whole Christian ethical perspective that I wound up back at the caravan, reading the CMF Files rather than attending another seminar in the afternoon. Although I'm never going to be a medical doctor, I'm still keen on working out these ethical dilemmas for myself. After the evening celebration, Israel and I went to see a one-man enactment of the gospel of Mark. It was an incredible performance, although I was a bit perplexed by the ending, until I remembered that in certain manuscripts, the last couple of verses of Mark don't appear, so I suppose there was some justification for ending his performance at that point, with the women running from the empty tomb.