Episode 970: See You The Day After Tomorrow...

Have just finished re-reading The Taming Of The Shrew, which took less time than I could have made it take, but also certainly most time than was strictly necessary for something that wasn't a first reading. Tomorrow, I'll tackle the Middleton plays, and then back to more Shakespeare over the weekend. I think I've basically abandoned any attempts to do more for EN236, although since I've read all the books at least once before, I'm pinning all hopes on a cursory skim the day before being enough. Would probably be good to memorise some generic quotes, especially since some of the books have snazzy introductions, but I guess it'll be fine, right? It can't be as bad as everyone is freaking out about on Facebook, right? Plus, people, it's the Rapture tomorrow evening at 6 pm, isn't it? A bit of perspective in order here. In other news, my previous entry about Rebecca Black as prophetess of the Rapture has so far failed to go viral. Absolutely gutted. On the other hand, Eunoia Review got a passing mention in the Poetry Foundation's blog! That was pretty awesome. It wasn't for anything earth-shattering, mind you. Just props for how quickly I get back to people who submit. Currently, it's hovering somewhere around half a day, which I'm quite proud of, considering it's basically a one-man operation and I read every single word of every single submission that comes in.

Episode 969: Rebecca Black Predicted The Rapture!

Read a bit of Shakespeare tonight, until revision got totally derailed by an impromptu barbecue. Guess it won't matter though, since the Rapture is scheduled for Saturday apparently. So did not get the memo for that. Also, the Rapture before the new episode of Doctor Who? Not cool. Seriously though, the horrible thing is that there are people who have basically sold everything in the belief that they're not going to be needing anything beyond Saturday. Lucy brought up an excellent point, by the way. Rebecca Black's 'Friday' is absolutely about predicting the Rapture. Right from its first line. See, the reference to an ark is meant to remind us of Noah's ark, in which a fraction of humanity escapes the wrath of God. It's important that she wakes up at 7 am, as seven is the number of spiritual perfection and holiness. The line 'gotta go downstairs' may possibly reference the Incarnation, a descent from the heavenly realm to earthly realities like needing to 'have [your] bowl' and 'have cereal'. I suppose 'Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends' could be talking about fellow believers in the Rapture. Alternatively, it could point to a reunion in Heaven with those who have already passed on. The pre-chorus, 'Kickin' in the front seat / Sittin' in the back seat / Gotta make my mind up / Which seat can I take?' is a lot clearer. It's obviously a challenge to believers to take a stand for their belief in the Rapture, and she's advocating active promotion of it, rather than being a passive backbencher. When you get to 'Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend' in the chorus, it's patently clear what the song's agenda is. Curiously, her theology gets a bit muddled in the bridge, where she sings 'Tomorrow is Saturday / And Sunday comes afterwards / I don't want this weekend to end'. Perhaps her prediction of the Rapture is purely on a subconscious level, and she's in denial of it? Or is she cannily suggesting that we need to exist in this state of perpetual preparedness for the final reckoning?

Episode 968: Another Lame CW Finale...

Seriously, did The CW just decide to put all the lame finales in this week? Watched the Hellcats one, which was equal parts average and bad. The fact that there was a whole season leading up to competing at nationals, and then they didn't even do that, was just plain silly. All the other plot elements dropped in were setting up a good Season 2 opening at least, so it's a shame it's been cancelled. I bet the show had such low ratings because by and large, its cast was quite homely by the standards of American TV, especially for a bunch of cheerleaders. There were exceptions, of course, but when the other shows on the same network boast almost uniformly attractive people, well, something's got to give. Not quite sure I like the pilots that The CW has chosen to pick up for 2011/12 by the way. Only The Secret Circle seems promising, although I wonder if a show all about witches and only witches will get boring in these times, where any supernatural-themed show seems to demand a smorgasbord of creatures and powers. A bit disappointed Awakening wasn't picked up, just one of the pilots passed over in favour of the Sarah Michelle Gellar vehicle, Ringer. I came to compulsively watching TV too late to get into Buffy The Vampire Slayer, although I'm sure I would have loved it, so I guess the chance to see Gellar in a show should be good. I did so want more zombies on TV though...

Episode 967: Of Finales As Failures

So it's that time of year when the fall/winter TV season is winding down (in the spring, yes, I know it's a bit odd), and we're heading into that gap of about a month before summer shows like Covert Affairs (how I have missed you!) premiere their new seasons. (I'm glad now, by the way, that Pretty Little Liars has been kept as a summer series despite its success that saw it being extended into winter scheduling. Guilty pleasures need to be spread throughout the year!) I saw three season finales today, all pretty awful, for Hawaii Five-0, 90210 and Gossip Girl. Now Hawaii Five-0 has been dubbed one of the genuine breakout hits of the 2010/11 TV season, and ratings-wise, it is pretty solid. So that's why this finale episode seemed rather silly, in that it tried to tie up too many of the dangling threads in the most ridiculous ways possible. Hopefully, next season will be a bit saner. Now for this pair of shows from The CW. This network is all about escapism, let's be honest. It is also apparently not incapable of delivering a good season finale. Exhibit: The Vampire Diaries (although admittedly, this show is an anomaly in terms of how good it is at being frothy and yet still constructing storylines worth caring about).

This week though, 90210 delivered a finale episode so ridiculous that it beggars belief that this show can even have a Season 4. Seems like new showrunners are coming in for that, and there might be changes to the cast. Just when I was starting to like the dynamics of the show's sprawling cast! This was always its advantage compared to Gossip Girl, which in terms of character dynamics, has pretty much been stuck in a rut since forever. I suppose it's what happens when you let everyone sleep with everyone else too early on. I find it hard to imagine what sort of interesting stories there are left to tell. Maybe if Rufus had a proper affair this time? Wouldn't that be fun for him? I can't imagine the devoted husband storyline lasting much beyond the summer, to be honest. Creatively, I think these two shows are in the most trouble out of the ones that have already been renewed by The CW, although not being someone who follows One Tree Hill or Supernatural, I can't say for sure. Glad Nikita has been renewed, slightly disappointed that Hellcats has been cancelled because I kind of liked Ashley Tisdale playing someone other than a blonde bitch.

Episode 966: Anticlimactic French Examination

I don't think I'll ever get tired of the Game Of Thrones theme music or how cool the animation of the opening credits is. This show has characters that make me so angry for and at them, it's pretty incredible. Plus there's so much scheming going on, even I'm at risk of getting lost trying to follow it all. If I didn't already have so many books to read, I'd definitely get stuck in George R. R. Martin's series. As it is, a book for review arrived today, and I'm hoping my editor doesn't want the review in till at least the end of the month. To be safe, I've e-mailed to check that I can take until then to deliver. Warwick Accommodation also got back to me on my peculiar application experience. According to them, I shouldn't have been able to pay without filling in the form, and they suggested logging back in and filling it out. No prizes for guessing how successful that was, and I've sent a polite e-mail back pointing this out. Let's see what happens nest. One thing's for sure though. The accommodation website is definitely one of the more confusingly designed of the university's pages! Incidentally, I thought the French paper today was pretty okay, even though I did make the mistake of saying 'une épée à double tranches' rather than 'une épée à double tranchant'! Ah well. It could have been worse, and now there's just the oral to get through a week from now. Would totally do a French module again at the Language Centre as part of my MA, if my department will pay for it, which is rare for postgraduates, I think. Definitely wouldn't pay to do it, not after three years of realising how the language modules I do invariably don't meet my actual needs. I'll save a few hundred pounds for a holiday, thank you very much. Might even use the money to get to Paris. Imagine how useful that would be, if I had to speak the language constantly.

Episode 965: Revision At Last!

Most interesting thing I learnt from revising French the night before my paper is that if you end a letter off by telling someone to receive your salutations, without any qualifying adjective, it indicates you're upset with them. Ah, the French and their ways of being subtly rude! Have finished going through the vocabulary lists, so I guess this is about as prepared as I'm going to get. I think the only reason I'm revising for tomorrow is because it lets me put off doing anything for Shakespeare just a little bit longer. I suppose it should be fine. Even the letter writing doesn't seem like it's all that difficult anymore. I've totally got the formatting memorised! Still, I don't think I'll be able to fully concentrate on revising anything until this paper is out of the way. With the oral examination next week, at least I can pretend that extra revision won't necessarily help all that much when I have absolutely no idea what the passages are going to look like. Technically, I guess you could make the same argument for the written paper tomorrow though, couldn't you? So I guess I really was revising to procrastinate from tackling weightier stuff like Shakespeare/Middleton. Gosh, that really is a bit pathetic, isn't it?

Episode 964: Saboteur Awards 7.5, Revision 0

So one of my more horrifying discoveries in recent memory is how much I actually like the cover of Rebecca Black's 'Friday', as sung by the cast members of Glee. Now I don't watch this show, although it is on my external HDD, and it comes recommended from sources like Eugene Chan and Lucy, who like many of the same trashy shows that I do, so they're probably right. Heard about the cover version because the Internet is fantastic that way, and oh dear, it is pretty nice. Production-wise, the song's been sped up and the beat is now dancefloor-friendly in a way that the original bizarrely wasn't for a song about partying. The vocals are still dripping with Auto-Tune, but at least they aren't nasal anymore. Didn't get any revision done before heading to Lizzie's birthday party, where I had the interesting experience of finally being abused by neighbours for causing too much noise, although the woman was shouting at us was being rather bitchy, and silly as well, since she left her window open when shutting it would have significantly reduced the amount of noise she could have been able to hear. I did manage to finish reading most of Envoi Issue 157 before leaving the house, and was reading Horizon Review Issue 5 on my iPhone while taking the bus down the Parade. So I've read seven out of 11 magazines on the shortlist! My copies of Cake have arrived as well, so I'm tempted to get on with that tomorrow instead of revising for French. In all fairness, the amount of vocabulary I've absorbed after two terms is probably enough to see me through the whole two-hour examination!

Episode 963: My Personal Black Friday

What does it say about me that when I woke up and realised it was Friday the 13th, the first thought was honestly wondering what Rebecca Black would have made of Black Friday. Anyway, for a change, my Friday the 13th devolved into something that while wasn't quite a nightmare, could surely have turned out much better. For starters, I went to look at the room just down the road that I was planning of reserving for 2011/12. The property's nice and quiet, postgraduates-only, but it turns out I've been going about applying for accommodation the wrong way. I blame the very badly designed Warwick Accommodation site. Basically, I've managed to pay the £250 Postgraduate Reservation Fee, but I'm not sure what exactly I've managed to apply for, since there didn't seem to be any options in the application form. Most odd, and I've e-mailed the Accommodation team to express my mild confusion at what's happened. The money paid goes towards the first term's rent payment, so the money's not the issue. I would like to have an option to specify which hall I prefer for on-campus housing though, even if my preference is definitely still that room down the road. It's all a bit perplexing, and I would like to sort it out to my satisfaction as soon as possible.

Then I came home and realised it was possible to book rooms with Warwick Conferences without making an enquiry first. Except there's no link to the booking form on the page talking about graduation stuff! So now they're fully booked for the days that I wanted. Had to spend about an hour trawling the Internet for alternatives, and have finally settled on a hotel in Leamington. Went ahead and booked because it was down to the last room for the option I needed, but since cancellation is free, if my parents don't like it, I can always look for something else. Don't see why they'd object though, plus it's cheaper than what we'd have had to pay to Warwick Conferences. To top if all off, I haven't managed to do any revision. Again. At least I'm making some headway with the Saboteur Awards shortlist. Yesterday, I finished reading La Petite Zine Issue 24: Emotional Rescue and re-reading FRiGG Issue 29 and Polarity Magazine Issue 1: Death vs. Taxes. Going to try and get through Envoi Issue 157 before bed, and maybe Stone Telling Issue One. Then the day won't be a total bust. Could still do a bit of French, I guess. I've pretty much decided there's no point worrying about the examinations for EN236 or EN301 because I know I should be able to handle them, even with slightly over a week's worth of revision. It's just a matter of finally re-reading the plays I've selected, and going over the groups of writers I'm planning on using. I'll totally be fine, right?

Episode 962: When Good Just Doesn't Cut It For You Anymore

Received an e-mail in the afternoon saying my Shakespeare creative project was finally ready for collection. Got a 71, which is about as low as you can go and still be a First, so I guess I should be thankful. Apparently the Pirandello influence was much appreciated, and if I'd gone even further with it, I would've done better. Now I don't mean to sound obnoxious, but I think the experience of three years at university entitles me to type what I'm about to type. Basically, at this point I know that I can turn in work at undergraduate level (I specify undergraduate because I'm assuming postgraduate is a whole new ball game and will be frankly more than a little disappointed if it doesn't require stepping up my game) and feel confident that odds are, it's going to come back as a First. I've worked out how much the system here demands for the results that I need, and I can deliver that more consistently than not. Honestly, it would be surprising to graduate from the Singaporean education system without managing to pick up this sort of skill. Think of it as a tactical advantage. Increasingly though, what I'm frustrated with is not being able to get the kind of grades that I want. In three years, I have never been able to score anything above 14 on any of my English modules graded on the 17-point scale, which translates into a 74.

Comfortable mark, right? Plus in all likelihood, it's something lots of people would be happy with. To some extent, I guess so am I, but it's just that (not very) deep down I know I could do better if I put in more effort. You know, read a few more articles instead of just skimming through the paragraphs that offer up a bunch of nice quotes, or actually start doing work more than 24 hours before it's due. Except putting in more effort to get something that in the larger scheme of things doesn't really matter, apart from how it addresses my need for self-validation, seems, well, like a waste of time. I don't think anyone, not even MOE, is particularly concerned with how high my Firsts are. Rationally speaking, I should be supremely satisfied with how I've spent three years coasting through classes on significantly less effort than I put into slaving over work in JC. Totally should congratulate myself, right? I suppose I could just learn to live with this perpetual feeling of vague dissatisfaction where results are concerned, but that seems rather defeatist, doesn't it? Ah well. I suppose this is a silly thing to worry about, and my healthy sense of self-esteem will reassert itself tomorrow. You know what's the worst of it though? I probably couldn't say any of these things to my fellow students without getting labelled either arrogant or idiotic.

Episode 961: Last Undergraduate Seminar Ever!

It's not even midnight yet, and everyone's gone home from our house barbecue. I suspect this has something to do with the weather being chillier today than it has been for quite a while. Anyway, before I arrived more than an hour late at a BBQ held in my own house, I had my last official undergraduate seminar ever. It was LL251, so it was as usual a tad on the boring side. Not sure if I really need to revise all that much for the French paper on Monday, and after sitting through Tom Cornford's revision seminar earlier in the day, I'm not sure that all that much revision is needed for Shakespeare either. Feels like it's more about being able to construct a compelling argument from selected textual evidence, as opposed to some sort of comprehensive knowledge of a whole bunch of plays. Ditto for my EN236 paper. Basically, it feels like my examinations this year don't technically require much revision, although maybe I'm just telling myself that because there's less than a week to go before they start and I've done precious little revision. Going to get on with French tomorrow and then read one or two plays, depending on how far I get with the French. Shouldn't take long actually, since it's mostly about going over the vocabulary and memorising some stock phrases for the letter-writing component.