Episode 524: I Overslept And Missed Church, But I've Been Working!

After the lack of sleep on Friday and Saturday, I couldn't take it any longer, so I overslept this morning and missed church. Could have gone to the evening service, I suppose, but I ended up spending the day working on the assignments for the Warwick Skills Certificate module. Have finished three out of six, and it's been relatively easy. I should probably be able to finish another two tomorrow, if not all of the remaining three. Haven't forgotten about that remaining poem I've got to write for Thursday either, so I'll get that done after the portfolio of assignments is completed. At some point, I also have to bang out a plan and an opening paragraph on how the Singaporean system is (wilfully) misunderstood by the Western world. I've actually got an idea for what sort of angle to take on it. Definitely the sort that's still inadmissible in the Singaporean media, but practically par for the course in the Western one. I'm going with the idea that Singapore is basically a carefully engineered experiment that has been remarkably successful over the past four decades or so, and now that a winning formula is in place, it makes little sense to do more than tweak the variables. It's not saying that we've got it perfectly right, but that compared to most places, we're doing pretty okay, so who's to say we should have to change to please the West? Laura said that we're not allowed a real democracy because people like me would just break it with arbitrary decisions like voting against candidates who made a grammatical error, but hey, the British are the ones who are being offered David Cameron as a choice for their Prime Minister, so in comparison, I think Singapore's actually, well, rather more palatable. Wouldn't you say so?

Episode 523: Epiphany!

After this module on personal finance, I'm actually mildly tempted by the prospect of working in the financial industry. Sadly, my current life trajectory doesn't look headed anywhere remotely in that direction. I suppose I could always get certified, if I decide not to stay on in education. Giving financial advice sounds like a day job that would pay better, and I'm definitely not one of those who believe that you have to starve for your art. MNight was okay. I thought they had an interesting story, but Butterworth Hall doesn't seem to me like the ideal venue for dramatic performances. It's somehow too cavernous, more like the sort of place you'd expect to attend a concert. Anyway, I was doing some desperate research in the Library before the performance, trying to connect religion and sensuality in 'The Eve Of St. Agnes' Hit paydirt when I found some university module webpage that did just that! It seems so blatantly obvious now, I'm ashamed of myself for not having thought of it sooner. I'm a terrible close reader! Sigh...

Episode 522: Kasbah Redux

So I'm back from another night at Kasbah, and have to be up in another four hours or so for the second session of the Warwick Skills Certificate module later this morning. I am tempted to forego sleep altogether, but intellectually, I recognise that even getting just four hours will be immensely helpful for staying awake throughout a day in which I will not get back home again till around 11 pm. Kasbah was okay, although there was this weird guy who was either trying to hit on me, or hit on my friends via getting friendly with me, by telling me that one of his grandparents was Chinese. Well, hoo-bloody-ray for him. I must have missed the memo that says ethnicity automatically gives you a free pass. Anyway, I didn't manage to finish reading the two chapters from The Art Of Political Murder that Maureen Freely handed out during the seminar, but what I've read so far has been fascinating. Still no progress with regard to the Keats/Rossetti essay, although I think I'm fumbling my way towards some sort of breakthrough. I have no problems with 'Goblin Market', since as Emma Mason mentioned in the lecture, that poem is so odd you can make pretty much anything stick to it, and since she was High Church Anglican, my idea about religion and sensuality is on the right track. The problem is that I instinctively sense that 'The Eve Of St. Agnes' is similarly entangled in the two, but I can't articulate how precisely, at least not in a way that allows meaningful discussion alongside 'Goblin Market'. Two more weeks to figure it out!

Episode 521: Enfin, Enfance

Strange but interesting session on sound poetry in the morning with George Ttoouli. I would say that it's not really my thing, although there are interesting things that can be done with it. We have to write two poems for next week, using modifications of the Oulipean constraints, The Beautiful Inlaw and The Beautiful Outlaw. I've just done the poem for the former, using Nick Chen's name. I've managed to get some sort of sense going, in addition to discovering quite by accident that K is a brand of British cider. So now the poem is about kicking alcoholism. Haha! Will try to write the other poem tomorrow, in that vast swathe of time I have between my last seminar and the skills workshop in the evening, which I'm only going for because I did one last year and it's on my transcript, so it feels silly to not stick it out and finish off the whole certificate now, even though the modules I'll be taking aren't the ones I would have picked. There could be worse things than learning about personal finance, I guess. I've been reading Enfance, which as I described to Eugene, is the sort of novel that I would rave about if I were reading it in translation, except I'm reading it in French, so I understand just enough of what's going on to know that I would like it, but it's too tedious reading it in French for me to really enjoy the process! Had meant to do essay-related reading, but it seems getting through a decent amount of Enfance is going to be hard enough work. Maybe I'll bring my laptop onto campus tomorrow and try to start writing the essay in the Library?

Episode 520: Nothing Rhymes With Orange

Could have gone home after my seminar in the morning, but ended up hanging out with friends in Curiositea and then The Dirty Duck until 7 pm! All this after my good intentions to start reading for my essay today. To comfort myself over this skiving, I had four Gü brownies for dinner. (I hope they're still on offer at Tesco this Sunday, in which case, I'll buy loads because they are so good.) I have done a tiny bit of work today though, composing a poem about a hypothetical dressmaker driven out of business by Queen Victoria's decision to wear white at her wedding. Apparently, she did it because she had some lace she wanted to use. I decided not to write about a queen because the lines I was coming up with sounded silly. That's not to say the poem I did end up writing is particularly good, but for what it's worth, it's much easier to imagine what it's like to be a royal dressmaker than a queen. Am going to write one tomorrow about the asp that bit Cleopatra. (Thanks to Dan for the idea that I've more or less stolen!) Anyway, I shall leave you with this poem that I discovered while doing a bit of historical research into the tradition of white weddings. I'm particularly impressed by the perfect rhymes, which also explains why there's no mention of orange:

Married in white, you will have chosen all right.
Married in grey, you will go far away.
Married in black, you will wish yourself back.
Married in red, you will wish yourself dead.
Married in blue, you will always be true.
Married in pearl, you will live in a whirl.
Married in green, ashamed to be seen.
Married in yellow, ashamed of the fellow.
Married in brown, you will live out of town.
Married in pink, your spirits will sink.

Episode 519: Shortlisted By Angelic Dynamo!

Contrary to what most critics had led me to believe, I actually enjoyed Michael Tolliver Lives, Armistead Maupin's return to the characters he first created in Tales Of The City after two (ill-advised in my opinion) forays into writing other stuff. I'm sure their criticisms will stand up should I cast a literary eye on the novel, but I can't help wondering if they've missed the point of the novel, or indeed, a series like Tales Of The City. You don't go to it looking for great literature; you go to it to escape and be entertained. I'm not saying great literature can't do that for you as well. What I am saying is that Maupin is doing it without claiming to be writing what most critics apparently want to see, i.e. 'literary' stuff. There is no shame in writing commercial stuff. After all, we can't all be starving artists 100% of the time. It's like how my dream is to be both a respected poet and a commercially successful science fiction novelist. In the absence of the latter, a job in the civil service would do fine too. (Come on, I'm Singaporean, i.e. pragmatic.) I've made a small step towards the former too, which you can find here. Please read and vote if you like it!

Episode 518: Donne-moi La Main

I've just finished watching Donne-moi La Main, which was the film I picked for our latest task in LL209. It's a really frustrating film to get through though. Pascal-Alex Vincent began as a director of short films, and it still shows in his first full-length feature. What would otherwise be enigmatic in 15 minutes borders on insufferable when it's made five times as long. Too many questions are left unanswered by the end of a film that seems more interested in showcasing the attractiveness of its twin main actors, Alexandre and Victor Carril. (Hollywood does this all the time, but this film is clearly not in that league of spinning something out of nothing.) The really annoying thing is that the twins clearly have a love-hate relationship with each other, but Vincent's idea of exploring that seems to consist of pointed glaring and fisticuffs. It all seems like a missed opportunity to do more than rehash the sibling rivalry Vincent already (sort of) explored in his short film Bébé Requin, also starring the Carril brothers. Decent cinematography, but hopeless plot construction, even by arthouse standards.

Episode 517: L'Oréal Hydra Energetic

Was tempted to give the morning service a miss and attend the evening one instead, having come back past midnight following a couple of drinks after Measure For Measure. Then again, if I'd done that, I'd most likely have reasoned that I was too tired and it was too cold to attend the evening service, so I'd have ended up not attending that either. Anyway, in Varsity after the service, I saw a L'Oréal commercial for some cream to combat eyebags. What was most intriguing though, was that the celebrity endorsing it was Matthew Fox, who plays Jack on Lost (which you may or may not know I've stopped watching until the whole series has ended later this year), so I thought to myself, if he's man enough to (pretend to) use that, it totally makes it okay for me to do likewise. (I know, stunning display of rational economic behaviour right there.) I actually found the product in Boots after doing the usual grocery run at Tesco and bought it. I also had my fear of aging thoroughly awakened by the extensive product range on the shelves. There goes my confidence in my youthful good looks! (Who am I kidding?)

Episode 516: Measure For Measure

The Measure For Measure production was quite good. My only problem was that apart from the Duke and a few other characters, the rest of the cast seemed a tad too bent on delivering their lines like they were, well, delivering lines, which made it difficult to connect emotionally with them. Dan did point out that in the case of Isabella, this might have been deliberate, emphasising how as a novice nun, you wouldn't necessarily expect her to be comfortable with the world she has to confront in order to save her brother. Point taken. I did like how in this production, they've interpreted Isabella's silence after the Duke's marriage proposal as a rejection, with her following the nuns back to the convent. The Duke's performance, incidentally, was superb. (I think I've seen him before, in Pictures Of John Gray.) He was the only one, I felt, for whom Shakespeare's lines rolled off the tongue, coming across as sharp rather than slightly antiquated. I do agree though with the idea that the Duke's character is perhaps too glib in his manipulation of all the other characters, which seems somewhat unnecessary if you think about it. He's the Duke! He could have fixed everything without continuing to pretend to be a friar, although that would have deprived Shakespeare of a nifty denouement...

Episode 515: The Indie Love Bundle

So to balance out yesterday's hard work, I've been playing a computer game all day! Bought it as part of a discounted bundle being promoted by Cipher Prime, which gave the world Auditorium (a fantastic melding of audio and visual candy by the way), which was really the only reason I even bought the bundle, to be perfectly honest. I'm glad to say, however, that the three other games I've tried (Eufloria, Osmos, and And Yet It Moves) have all been pretty fun. Eufloria, in particular, has intriguing graphics. Osmos boasts a good ambient soundtrack, while And Yet It Moves, well, let's just say you have to play it to appreciate how bizarrely good it is despite its (relatively) simple gameplay. Basically, any of these games is perfect for procrastination, just like Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook. Eufloria was the most addictive for me, so a full day of playing it has been enough to get it out of my system. It's back to the (sort of) grind tomorrow, although not for very long, since I'm going to see Measure For Measure in the evening!