I don't have a lot of respect for sportsmen. I mean, I think Harry Kewell is hot, but...that's about it, really.
But I try not to blow them off too much though. I know it tends to upset some people. People who actually like sport, which happens to be most of the freaking population here in Australia. So I try not to let on too much that I don't really count tossing a ball a huge achievement, at least not an achievement worth squillions of dollars that could be put to better use, given to worthier people of a worthier cause.
One thing I do love is history. I first caught the history bug when I was eight, bored to death of our rather uninteresting and uninspiring history that spans less than two centuries and my mother borrowed a documentary of Elizabeth I to keep me occupied. That documentary happened to be narrated by David Starkey.
I love David Starkey. (if you don't know David Starkey, by the way, he's a historian who studied at Cambridge University and taught at the London School of Economics who rose to fame making documentaries of British history, his speciality being my personal favourite era, the Tudor Dynasty). I don't agree with his political views or views on women, but there's no denying he's a wonderfully gifted and enthusiastic historian, crazy knowledgable and his documentaries suck you in and won't spit you out until you can reel off all the names of Henry's six wives. He inspired me to enter the wonderful world of history, let me escape to a place where things had meaning when people had passion and defiance and bravery instead of the lumpen sacks of useless flesh that make up most of the modern day global population, a time of chivalry and knights in shining armour.
So yeah, it does piss me off when people laugh at his dramatic and flamboyant narration style, how his eyebrows move, his English accent, so different to our Aussie pronunciation (or mispronunciation) of things. You know what I think is stupid? How soccer players carefully cup their balls when a ball's coming towards them. I think the cricket teams wear the most retarded clothing. I think that AFL is basically scheduled, expensive chaos and I think that the only good thing about rugby is the All Black's haka. But I don't say shit like that to people, because they get a bit annoyed, shocked, even, that I think that their hero is a jerk or looks funny.
Trampling over other people is never a good thing - we all know it, but we all do it any way, even if we pretend we don't. But trampling on our heroes is like trampling on our souls.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Things.
Okay, so I should explain my other stalkerific gadget, because on the surface it may seem a bit...weird. But what isn't? I wonder what word they used to describe weird things before Shakespeare came along, saw the gap in our beloved mother language, and invented that word along with about three quillion other words that are now used by people who think that Shakespeare is 'weird' but the word 'weird' is not.
My other gadget is a flag count, which means it keeps track of how many people stop by my blog in the different countries. If you click on it, it tells me how many 'unique' visitors I've had (as apposed to me making my feedjit feed look impressive by visiting my own blog obsessively). So that's that.
Another, completely unrelated thing I wanted to talk about is this interesting phenomenon I like to cal human senses.
Obviously, humans have five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. But the ways this can be manipulated is amazing. For example, put two pungent substances, like spices, into two seperate containers, than both into another container. Sniff one of the substances, then the mixture. The substance you have just smelled will be mysteriously absent from the mix, even though it's obviously there.
Another thing that is funny is that if you don't tell people, they often can't taste things. For example, just now I was making sugar soup, an Asian thing, which is basically boiling water with pandan leaves, and various different sugars and honey (it was lacking ginger). For the hell of it, I experimented and added a splash of maple syrup.
You may think that maple syrup is a weird thing to add to an Asian sugar soup, but my reasons were justified. Reason the First, maple syrup is sweet, and the whole idea of a sugar soup is to make a sweet soup to add glutinous rice balls into. Reason the Second, maple syrup isn't as Canadian as you may think - there are maple trees in Korea, and I know alcohol is made out of it...I dunno, that's how I made the connection. Reason the Third, we have proper maple syrup, not that random brown goo that is sold as maple syrup, so it's not like I'm trying to combine America and China together and getting an amazingly fucked up ABC like myself.
I tried to sneak in the maple syrup without anyone knowing, but my sister walked down to the kitchen just as I was putting the syrup back into the fridge. She immediately started tirading, because after all maple syrup is, despite my Reasons, a pretty weird thing to add to the sugar soup, and also because she hates it when I deviate from my mother's instructions - because my experiments more often than not go disasterously wrong. But despite her pulling faces at my brilliant concoction, I was happy with it. It tasted really good, and the aroma of maple and pandan mixed together is weird but nice.
So my parents came down and drank up the soup, and none of them knew what was different about it until I told them, wherelse my sister insisted that it ruined it completely. Sigh. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
My other gadget is a flag count, which means it keeps track of how many people stop by my blog in the different countries. If you click on it, it tells me how many 'unique' visitors I've had (as apposed to me making my feedjit feed look impressive by visiting my own blog obsessively). So that's that.
Another, completely unrelated thing I wanted to talk about is this interesting phenomenon I like to cal human senses.
Obviously, humans have five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. But the ways this can be manipulated is amazing. For example, put two pungent substances, like spices, into two seperate containers, than both into another container. Sniff one of the substances, then the mixture. The substance you have just smelled will be mysteriously absent from the mix, even though it's obviously there.
Another thing that is funny is that if you don't tell people, they often can't taste things. For example, just now I was making sugar soup, an Asian thing, which is basically boiling water with pandan leaves, and various different sugars and honey (it was lacking ginger). For the hell of it, I experimented and added a splash of maple syrup.
You may think that maple syrup is a weird thing to add to an Asian sugar soup, but my reasons were justified. Reason the First, maple syrup is sweet, and the whole idea of a sugar soup is to make a sweet soup to add glutinous rice balls into. Reason the Second, maple syrup isn't as Canadian as you may think - there are maple trees in Korea, and I know alcohol is made out of it...I dunno, that's how I made the connection. Reason the Third, we have proper maple syrup, not that random brown goo that is sold as maple syrup, so it's not like I'm trying to combine America and China together and getting an amazingly fucked up ABC like myself.
I tried to sneak in the maple syrup without anyone knowing, but my sister walked down to the kitchen just as I was putting the syrup back into the fridge. She immediately started tirading, because after all maple syrup is, despite my Reasons, a pretty weird thing to add to the sugar soup, and also because she hates it when I deviate from my mother's instructions - because my experiments more often than not go disasterously wrong. But despite her pulling faces at my brilliant concoction, I was happy with it. It tasted really good, and the aroma of maple and pandan mixed together is weird but nice.
So my parents came down and drank up the soup, and none of them knew what was different about it until I told them, wherelse my sister insisted that it ruined it completely. Sigh. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Typos
I have been re-reading some of my posts and I've realized that there are a hell of a lot of typos. But I can't bring myself to edit them out, unless they're blantantly nonsensical or rude. Why? Because I think, perhaps erronously, that they add character to my writing.
I'm not the kind of person who carefully structures out her writing and rereads and re-edits over and over. I write the second ideas occur to me, my fingers flying over the keyboard, not bothering or noticing mistakes. My ideas ebb and flow unpredictably, hence the reason I may have a writing famine for about a month and then have about five posts in one day.
I don't believe in spotlessly polished writing doled out regularly, predictably, boringly. I believe the true heart of writing is writing written in the heat of the moment, writing complete with errors and little imperfections. I don't think I've ever proof-read a post before - because, blog posts are only fun when one writes them or when you read them, all published, on a blog. The little window that I blog in is not interesting, and I consequently want to get out of it as soon as possible. When I do notice an error when I read the published post and go to edit it, I normally can't find it as the publishing window makes every word look like all the other words around it.
Just thought I'd let you know.
I'm not the kind of person who carefully structures out her writing and rereads and re-edits over and over. I write the second ideas occur to me, my fingers flying over the keyboard, not bothering or noticing mistakes. My ideas ebb and flow unpredictably, hence the reason I may have a writing famine for about a month and then have about five posts in one day.
I don't believe in spotlessly polished writing doled out regularly, predictably, boringly. I believe the true heart of writing is writing written in the heat of the moment, writing complete with errors and little imperfections. I don't think I've ever proof-read a post before - because, blog posts are only fun when one writes them or when you read them, all published, on a blog. The little window that I blog in is not interesting, and I consequently want to get out of it as soon as possible. When I do notice an error when I read the published post and go to edit it, I normally can't find it as the publishing window makes every word look like all the other words around it.
Just thought I'd let you know.
Friday, July 23, 2010
40 Hour Famine Donating
I have officially signed up for the 40 Hour Famine, and I have made a few edits to my list of things I am giving up. The official famine weekend is on August 20-22, but I plan to do it a week before to avoid doing the famine on my mother's birthday.
I have a page on the 40 Hour Famine website, where you can donate money to my famine effort online, and receive an emailed receipt. You can donate both to my personal cash aim or to the 40 Hour Famine in general, as much or as little as you like, whether you live in or out of Australia, with a choice of payment options. I will not be keeping any of the money raised for personal use. My aim is AUD $200.
All money I receive for my famine is given to World Vision to battle the Global Food Crisis - this year the countries in the spotlight are Kenya and Nepal. Please open your hearts to people much less fortunate than ourselves and donate generously. It doesn't matter how much you give, every cent counts.
My 40 Hour Famine Page is: http://40hf.com/ladyrenegade96. The url linking is not working, so please copy and paste it into your url boxy thing (really technical term).
Thank you.
I have a page on the 40 Hour Famine website, where you can donate money to my famine effort online, and receive an emailed receipt. You can donate both to my personal cash aim or to the 40 Hour Famine in general, as much or as little as you like, whether you live in or out of Australia, with a choice of payment options. I will not be keeping any of the money raised for personal use. My aim is AUD $200.
All money I receive for my famine is given to World Vision to battle the Global Food Crisis - this year the countries in the spotlight are Kenya and Nepal. Please open your hearts to people much less fortunate than ourselves and donate generously. It doesn't matter how much you give, every cent counts.
My 40 Hour Famine Page is: http://40hf.com/ladyrenegade96. The url linking is not working, so please copy and paste it into your url boxy thing (really technical term).
Thank you.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
MasterChef
One of my fondest memories of my childhood is racing home from school and turning on the BBC Masterchef Goes Large (I'd always miss the first couple of minutes), turning the volume to max and quickly making myself a big bowl of steaming, spicy instant noodles with an egg buried in the soup, and watching Masterchef with my ramen perched on a tea-towel covered pillow on my lap. These were the times when I had the house all to myself for about an hour, watching what I like eating what I cooked.
After that season of MasterChef Goes Large they stopped airing the British show, and replaced it with an Australian version. I didn't like the look of the adverts, because it looked far too commercialized - far too much like Biggest Loser of Big Brother. They had taken my favourite simple, homey, British TV show and completely wrecked it.
I have watched the second season of MasterChef Australia, which is currently airing, from the top seven onwards - which really isn't much of it, by the way. The grand finale is this Sunday. Apparently they've made some changes, and I think its obvious - the adverts are no longer offensive anymore, and I actually quite like the show. There's more emphasis on cooking rather than the hocus pocus that is most of Australian prime time telly.
So I went on the website of MasterChef Australia today, just checking it out, when a little window popped up and asked me if I wanted to take part in an anonymous survey. So I clicked on it, and I was about 90% through it when it asked what year I was born. I clicked on the 'before 1995' option. The survey immediately informed me that they could not accept my survey as I was under fourteen, but thanks for being interested anyway bye.
Gee, that's nice. For one thing, I am not under fourteen, I am fourteen. I am legally allowed to get a part-time job. In just over five months, I will be fifteen. So, basically, I'm closer to fifteen than fourteen.
Besides, this can hardly be a privacy issue. I didn't have to disclose my name, or my address, not even my state or email address. It quite clearly is the shocking fact that in this day and age, the voice of the youth is shockingly undervalued.
I know this sounds petty, but it is annoying. I have to lie about my age to log on to many sites I set up accounts on. It's so unfair, that I am underestimated and undervalued just because I'm fourteen, as opposed to 140. I mean, the voice of the young people is not as inexperienced and narrow as you might think. It's like being a gardener and only picking the tough, wilting plants instead of the fresh young ones. I'm not saying you should rely on a baby for stock advice, but just take us a little more seriously. Please.
After that season of MasterChef Goes Large they stopped airing the British show, and replaced it with an Australian version. I didn't like the look of the adverts, because it looked far too commercialized - far too much like Biggest Loser of Big Brother. They had taken my favourite simple, homey, British TV show and completely wrecked it.
I have watched the second season of MasterChef Australia, which is currently airing, from the top seven onwards - which really isn't much of it, by the way. The grand finale is this Sunday. Apparently they've made some changes, and I think its obvious - the adverts are no longer offensive anymore, and I actually quite like the show. There's more emphasis on cooking rather than the hocus pocus that is most of Australian prime time telly.
So I went on the website of MasterChef Australia today, just checking it out, when a little window popped up and asked me if I wanted to take part in an anonymous survey. So I clicked on it, and I was about 90% through it when it asked what year I was born. I clicked on the 'before 1995' option. The survey immediately informed me that they could not accept my survey as I was under fourteen, but thanks for being interested anyway bye.
Gee, that's nice. For one thing, I am not under fourteen, I am fourteen. I am legally allowed to get a part-time job. In just over five months, I will be fifteen. So, basically, I'm closer to fifteen than fourteen.
Besides, this can hardly be a privacy issue. I didn't have to disclose my name, or my address, not even my state or email address. It quite clearly is the shocking fact that in this day and age, the voice of the youth is shockingly undervalued.
I know this sounds petty, but it is annoying. I have to lie about my age to log on to many sites I set up accounts on. It's so unfair, that I am underestimated and undervalued just because I'm fourteen, as opposed to 140. I mean, the voice of the young people is not as inexperienced and narrow as you might think. It's like being a gardener and only picking the tough, wilting plants instead of the fresh young ones. I'm not saying you should rely on a baby for stock advice, but just take us a little more seriously. Please.
40 Hour Famine
40 Hour Famine is running this year, and I hope to be a lot more commited and raise a lot more money than my pathetic effort and money haul of last year.
40 Hour Famine is a great thing to get involved with, and helps to solve the Global Food Crisis and bring awareness to the fact that there are a billion people starving on this globe. A billion people. That is like, okay, this is where my math fails...okay, put it this way. THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF AUSTRALIA is about 22 million. Put it into prospective - that is a shitload of people.
This year, I plan to give up shoes (thongs (flip flops) only), makeup (only cleanser, moisturizer and clear lip balm allowed), technology (computer, ipod, radio, phone, cell phone, TV, kettle, microwave), tea, coffee, meat, dairy, SOY SAUCE, sugar, honey, shopping, (I'm Asian - giving up soy sauce is like giving up...gold), junk food, furniture (bed, tables and chairs) and baths (I will shower, though!) - things I love and rely on the most - for forty hours. I am participating as part of my school, so all money I raise will go towards the school total.
I hope this year I can involve my blog somehow - as in, my readers can donate to my 40 Hour Famine if they wish. I will try and set this up with my school, and I will post details if I can manage this.
I hope you all consider taking part in the 40 Hour Famine, it's a great cause helping people in need. Peace.
40 Hour Famine is a great thing to get involved with, and helps to solve the Global Food Crisis and bring awareness to the fact that there are a billion people starving on this globe. A billion people. That is like, okay, this is where my math fails...okay, put it this way. THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF AUSTRALIA is about 22 million. Put it into prospective - that is a shitload of people.
This year, I plan to give up shoes (thongs (flip flops) only), makeup (only cleanser, moisturizer and clear lip balm allowed), technology (computer, ipod, radio, phone, cell phone, TV, kettle, microwave), tea, coffee, meat, dairy, SOY SAUCE, sugar, honey, shopping, (I'm Asian - giving up soy sauce is like giving up...gold), junk food, furniture (bed, tables and chairs) and baths (I will shower, though!) - things I love and rely on the most - for forty hours. I am participating as part of my school, so all money I raise will go towards the school total.
I hope this year I can involve my blog somehow - as in, my readers can donate to my 40 Hour Famine if they wish. I will try and set this up with my school, and I will post details if I can manage this.
I hope you all consider taking part in the 40 Hour Famine, it's a great cause helping people in need. Peace.
Oedipus and Antigone
Mood: sore ankle :(
Listening to: 'Wavin' Flag' by K'naan
Hungry for: tangello!
Bella says: i no i am so coot can u peaz skratch tummi?
So, in English, I am still with my favourite teacher and doing a very interesting course called Heroes and Villains. What I love about this course is that it is a very specific area of English, yet at the same time so broad and diverse - I mean, we're covering everything from Greek poetry to Shakespeare to modern-day blockbusters. Lots of fun.
The main idea of the course is to learn about stereotypical and archetypal characters and storylines, famous and well-executed examples of them, and how we can bend and break rules to make our own writing original and interesting. This is an area I have found personally in my fiction writing that needs some work - originality is insanely difficult when I get immersed deeply in such heavily influential books such as Harry Potter, Twilight and The Time Traveller's Wife.
The first archetype we are studying are Tragedies, and stereotypical characters associated with tragedies. Tragedies are my teacher's personal favourite - I find them a little too dramatic, I mean, EVERYONE DIES, very depressing. At the moment we are studying Antigone by the Greek poet Sophacles, which is chronologically the third of the Three Thebian Plays, although going with the colourful confusion that is history, naturally it was written first.
Important events that happen prior to Antigone is in the first of the Three Thebian Plays (which was written second), Oedipus the King. The long story short of this play is that Oedipus is the wrong man at the wrong time who marries the wrong woman - she just happens to turn out to be his mother as well as his wife. Out of shame, she hangs herself, and he takes the brooches off her dress and stabs his eyes, as he cannot bear to look at his children, products of incest. His children are Polyneices and Eteocles, the elder twin brothers, and Antigone and Ismene, the daughters. When Oedipus leaves Thebes in shame, Creon, Oedipus's wife (Jocasta's) brother, rules as regent until Oedipus's sons come of age.
At the age of eighteen, there is a dispute as to which of the twin brothers should inherit the throne. It is agreed that Eteocles will rule for one year, then Polyneices, and then Eteocles again, and so on and so forth. Eteocles then becomes king, but after the year is up he refuses to relinquish the throne. Polyneices then gets foreign help to invade Thebes, causing shitloads of bloodshed, and eventually it comes down to a man-on-man wrestle. Unfortunately, the brothers kill each other.
Creon, a stubborn and essentially stupid sexist bastard, honours Eteocles as a hero, seeing him as the king who died for his city, but orders Polyneices' body to be left to rot and be devoured by dogs, without a cremation, burial, or mourning period. Antigone is given this message directly, but resolves to bury her brother's body herself to protect him from going to hell. She attempts to recruit Ismene, but she refuses, fearing Creon's degree too much and fearing death and punishment. Antigone bravely sneaks out to her brother's corpse and buries it with a thin layer of dust, leaving no trace. Baffled guards find the dust-veiled body the next day, which outrages Creon.
Antigone for some unexplained and highly debated reson goes back to the body that day, and is caught. Furious, Creon nearly orders both Antigone and Ismene to be executed - Ismene falsly confesses her guilt, whilst Antigone argues her sister's innocence - however, he eventually resolves to just execute Antigone. Antigone is led away to be sealed alive into a cave.
I didn't really read this next bit (or any of it, for the whole matter) word for word, but this I think is the gist of it. Antigone's fiance, Creon's son (so that would be her cousin and her uncle,which is...gross) attempts to defend Antigone, but with little success. Eventually Creon, with the help of his trusted Oracle, sees he is at fault at a) leaving Polyneices' body and b) punishing Antigone, and sets out to her living tomb to try and set things right. However, he finds that she is dead and his son has somehow sneaked in, and commits suicide. After hearing of her son's death, Creon's wife commits suicide as well. The play basically ends with Creon going 'shit.'
That ending right there is the main reason why I don't like tragedies. For me, it just feels like cheating. In no other genre can you kill off people so suddenly and indiscriminately and still get away with it.
But I do love the character of Antigone. Perhaps one of the first literary feminists, Antigone boldly and defiantly goes against the wishes of the men above her - Creon, the sexist bastard, often says that she forgets her place, as a woman, and that he would not be ruled by a woman, and calls his son a 'woman's accomplice'. I love how Sophacles portrayes Antigone as not one of those weak, pretty, feeble characters (*COUGH* Penelope from The Odyssey) but as a woman who thought from her heart and spoke from her soul and died for her cause. Her fiance, Haemon, replaces the typical weak character - he is the wussy combination of Romeo and Juliet to her toughened-up Danae, entering the play, having a fight with his dad, and then conveniently dying. Even her sister, Ismene, although backing out of her sister's outrageously defiant plans, shows bravery by falsly admitting to guilt to stay by her sister's side in death.
I hate Creon so much I almost love him. He's the typical sexist bastard that is glorified in so much insanely sexist Greek literature, yet in this play the sexist bastard is the one who's left crying in the shithole he buried for himself. As he should, I might add.
The storyline also emphasises in the clash between patriotic loyalty and loyalty to one's kin - something that clashes in many people, especially royalty. The major theme of Antigone (apart from death, death and more death), is Antigone's civil disobedience and her extreme, almost psychotic loyalty to her religious beliefs concerning death and the love of her brother, about whom she says 'now that our parents are gone, a brother is not like a husband or a child, that can be replaced', or something along those lines.
So what do you think of Antigone? Please post your comments below.
Listening to: 'Wavin' Flag' by K'naan
Hungry for: tangello!
Bella says: i no i am so coot can u peaz skratch tummi?
So, in English, I am still with my favourite teacher and doing a very interesting course called Heroes and Villains. What I love about this course is that it is a very specific area of English, yet at the same time so broad and diverse - I mean, we're covering everything from Greek poetry to Shakespeare to modern-day blockbusters. Lots of fun.
The main idea of the course is to learn about stereotypical and archetypal characters and storylines, famous and well-executed examples of them, and how we can bend and break rules to make our own writing original and interesting. This is an area I have found personally in my fiction writing that needs some work - originality is insanely difficult when I get immersed deeply in such heavily influential books such as Harry Potter, Twilight and The Time Traveller's Wife.
The first archetype we are studying are Tragedies, and stereotypical characters associated with tragedies. Tragedies are my teacher's personal favourite - I find them a little too dramatic, I mean, EVERYONE DIES, very depressing. At the moment we are studying Antigone by the Greek poet Sophacles, which is chronologically the third of the Three Thebian Plays, although going with the colourful confusion that is history, naturally it was written first.
Important events that happen prior to Antigone is in the first of the Three Thebian Plays (which was written second), Oedipus the King. The long story short of this play is that Oedipus is the wrong man at the wrong time who marries the wrong woman - she just happens to turn out to be his mother as well as his wife. Out of shame, she hangs herself, and he takes the brooches off her dress and stabs his eyes, as he cannot bear to look at his children, products of incest. His children are Polyneices and Eteocles, the elder twin brothers, and Antigone and Ismene, the daughters. When Oedipus leaves Thebes in shame, Creon, Oedipus's wife (Jocasta's) brother, rules as regent until Oedipus's sons come of age.
At the age of eighteen, there is a dispute as to which of the twin brothers should inherit the throne. It is agreed that Eteocles will rule for one year, then Polyneices, and then Eteocles again, and so on and so forth. Eteocles then becomes king, but after the year is up he refuses to relinquish the throne. Polyneices then gets foreign help to invade Thebes, causing shitloads of bloodshed, and eventually it comes down to a man-on-man wrestle. Unfortunately, the brothers kill each other.
Creon, a stubborn and essentially stupid sexist bastard, honours Eteocles as a hero, seeing him as the king who died for his city, but orders Polyneices' body to be left to rot and be devoured by dogs, without a cremation, burial, or mourning period. Antigone is given this message directly, but resolves to bury her brother's body herself to protect him from going to hell. She attempts to recruit Ismene, but she refuses, fearing Creon's degree too much and fearing death and punishment. Antigone bravely sneaks out to her brother's corpse and buries it with a thin layer of dust, leaving no trace. Baffled guards find the dust-veiled body the next day, which outrages Creon.
Antigone for some unexplained and highly debated reson goes back to the body that day, and is caught. Furious, Creon nearly orders both Antigone and Ismene to be executed - Ismene falsly confesses her guilt, whilst Antigone argues her sister's innocence - however, he eventually resolves to just execute Antigone. Antigone is led away to be sealed alive into a cave.
I didn't really read this next bit (or any of it, for the whole matter) word for word, but this I think is the gist of it. Antigone's fiance, Creon's son (so that would be her cousin and her uncle,which is...gross) attempts to defend Antigone, but with little success. Eventually Creon, with the help of his trusted Oracle, sees he is at fault at a) leaving Polyneices' body and b) punishing Antigone, and sets out to her living tomb to try and set things right. However, he finds that she is dead and his son has somehow sneaked in, and commits suicide. After hearing of her son's death, Creon's wife commits suicide as well. The play basically ends with Creon going 'shit.'
That ending right there is the main reason why I don't like tragedies. For me, it just feels like cheating. In no other genre can you kill off people so suddenly and indiscriminately and still get away with it.
But I do love the character of Antigone. Perhaps one of the first literary feminists, Antigone boldly and defiantly goes against the wishes of the men above her - Creon, the sexist bastard, often says that she forgets her place, as a woman, and that he would not be ruled by a woman, and calls his son a 'woman's accomplice'. I love how Sophacles portrayes Antigone as not one of those weak, pretty, feeble characters (*COUGH* Penelope from The Odyssey) but as a woman who thought from her heart and spoke from her soul and died for her cause. Her fiance, Haemon, replaces the typical weak character - he is the wussy combination of Romeo and Juliet to her toughened-up Danae, entering the play, having a fight with his dad, and then conveniently dying. Even her sister, Ismene, although backing out of her sister's outrageously defiant plans, shows bravery by falsly admitting to guilt to stay by her sister's side in death.
I hate Creon so much I almost love him. He's the typical sexist bastard that is glorified in so much insanely sexist Greek literature, yet in this play the sexist bastard is the one who's left crying in the shithole he buried for himself. As he should, I might add.
The storyline also emphasises in the clash between patriotic loyalty and loyalty to one's kin - something that clashes in many people, especially royalty. The major theme of Antigone (apart from death, death and more death), is Antigone's civil disobedience and her extreme, almost psychotic loyalty to her religious beliefs concerning death and the love of her brother, about whom she says 'now that our parents are gone, a brother is not like a husband or a child, that can be replaced', or something along those lines.
So what do you think of Antigone? Please post your comments below.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tools.
An artist of any kind - a writer, a visual artist, a photographer, whatever - should all agree with me on this one.
Many fields of work and study require tools and instruments, which is rather annoying - machines, that never do exactly what you want them to do, or tools that don't do anything good by themselves but independently have this inane ability to ruin your day. I believe that mathematicians and scientists have it lucky - artists rely the most on tools.
And it's annoying you know, when you realize someone's messed around with your brushes or mixed up your colour-coordinated eye shadow collection. It's frustrating when someone has changed the settings on Word just as you get a good idea pop into your head. It's mind-blowingly irritating when your camera just decides to poof all by itself.
Many people don't understand the horrible frustration of inanimate objects making fun of you, and try and put it to laziness, or pettiness, or procrastination. They just think us, artists, are a bunch of tools.
Let me tell you something: it's our tools that are tools, not us.
Speaking of tools, do you know who are really big tools? People who stare at you and give you dirty looks in class, especially if you answer something only a crazy obsessed wikipedia freak like me would know. It's insanely annoying, you know, so my dear ma told me a trade secret 'if they stare at you, stare back'. So I have staring competitions in Politics and English, my favourite subjects and the subjects I happen to be quite good at, and people are quite shocked. Nerds aren't meant to know the TRADE SECRET - just stare back, look away when they do, and then stare when they start staring again. But guess what? I know it.
My blog is a great source of comfort to me when I'm forced to have staring competitions and try and avoid rather rude gazes from awestruck/disgusted/freaked out people. Even in the early days when I had pathetic traffic, it still feels good. I see my world at the moment as a darkness, not always scary dark, but spooky dark, but sometimes a nice dark. I'm aiming towards the light. But somehow, my blog is my torch, my weapon, that I hold out in front of me on the long road ahead.
Is that too cheesy?
Many fields of work and study require tools and instruments, which is rather annoying - machines, that never do exactly what you want them to do, or tools that don't do anything good by themselves but independently have this inane ability to ruin your day. I believe that mathematicians and scientists have it lucky - artists rely the most on tools.
And it's annoying you know, when you realize someone's messed around with your brushes or mixed up your colour-coordinated eye shadow collection. It's frustrating when someone has changed the settings on Word just as you get a good idea pop into your head. It's mind-blowingly irritating when your camera just decides to poof all by itself.
Many people don't understand the horrible frustration of inanimate objects making fun of you, and try and put it to laziness, or pettiness, or procrastination. They just think us, artists, are a bunch of tools.
Let me tell you something: it's our tools that are tools, not us.
Speaking of tools, do you know who are really big tools? People who stare at you and give you dirty looks in class, especially if you answer something only a crazy obsessed wikipedia freak like me would know. It's insanely annoying, you know, so my dear ma told me a trade secret 'if they stare at you, stare back'. So I have staring competitions in Politics and English, my favourite subjects and the subjects I happen to be quite good at, and people are quite shocked. Nerds aren't meant to know the TRADE SECRET - just stare back, look away when they do, and then stare when they start staring again. But guess what? I know it.
My blog is a great source of comfort to me when I'm forced to have staring competitions and try and avoid rather rude gazes from awestruck/disgusted/freaked out people. Even in the early days when I had pathetic traffic, it still feels good. I see my world at the moment as a darkness, not always scary dark, but spooky dark, but sometimes a nice dark. I'm aiming towards the light. But somehow, my blog is my torch, my weapon, that I hold out in front of me on the long road ahead.
Is that too cheesy?
A new stalkerific thing
I know it looks a bit wussy at the moment, but apparently in 48 hours it'll all look cool.
mwahahaha.
mwahahaha.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Priorities.
I'll never understand why directors will splurge millions just to get the right (or, in the case of Baz Luhrman's Australia, wrong) breed of horses, when the can't even get the country in question right. I mean, The Karate Kid II, which was supposedly set in Japan, was filmed in Hawaii. You could even see the palm trees. How trashy.
I mean, I know some of the real arty directors just focus too much on the little and not enough on the big. I know, I do that all the time in my media projects. But really, when you have millions of dollars in your hand, it is not reasonable to spend it on things that have a nanosecond of screen time that we will not notice or remember.
Growing up, one thing that has been constantly drilled into me is priorities, but it seems that the world doesn't have its priorities straight. Why are we talking about new sports stadiums when there are still homeless on the street? Why are we talking about earning more money when there is a single jewel in the Crown? Why are we talking about cosmetic surgeries when there are so many who live in misery, humiliated by disgusting deformities? Why do people mutilate themselves in the name of beauty when so many die involuntarily in unavoidable operations? Why are we talking about the petty when we should be dreaming big?
It's a big source of frustration in me. When I was barely three months old, I had an extremely risky open heart surgery performed on me, which was repeated again when I was five. I'll have another in the next year or so. I'm constantly haunted by the fear I'll die under the knife. It's made me rush into life a bit. I want it all - college, love, life, family, career, money - and I want it all now. That's why I get frustrated when people judge and restrict me because of my age - I mean, for all of us, there is a chance that we won't be any older or wiser or stronger or more capable then we are now. Maybe we won't have the opportunity again if we don't take the chance now. Perhaps my goals not really realistic goals at the age of fourteen, but at least I have plans. At least I know what I want to do. I know for most teenagers, you feel like you have the world at your feet and a lifetime ahead of you, but even though you think you're safe in your teens, soon teens will become twenties, then thirties, then fourties, and before you know it you're at Death's door. I know many people don't have reasons as I do to be so urgent about life, but that doesn't mean you should be complacent, think you have all the world when really you're just a blink away from life and death. I know a lot of us are counting on fifty years of life to make dreams happen, but I believe you shouldn't bank on that. Anything can happen.
I know I rush life, but at least I don't sit around waiting for life to happen. You can look back and convince yourself that your life of regrets are caused by bad luck and lack of opportunities, but opportunities are there, every day, every second, we just chose not to take them because we think we have so much time. But we don't. Live every moment like it was your last one, but don't be so afraid of death that you don't go out and live.
I mean, I know some of the real arty directors just focus too much on the little and not enough on the big. I know, I do that all the time in my media projects. But really, when you have millions of dollars in your hand, it is not reasonable to spend it on things that have a nanosecond of screen time that we will not notice or remember.
Growing up, one thing that has been constantly drilled into me is priorities, but it seems that the world doesn't have its priorities straight. Why are we talking about new sports stadiums when there are still homeless on the street? Why are we talking about earning more money when there is a single jewel in the Crown? Why are we talking about cosmetic surgeries when there are so many who live in misery, humiliated by disgusting deformities? Why do people mutilate themselves in the name of beauty when so many die involuntarily in unavoidable operations? Why are we talking about the petty when we should be dreaming big?
It's a big source of frustration in me. When I was barely three months old, I had an extremely risky open heart surgery performed on me, which was repeated again when I was five. I'll have another in the next year or so. I'm constantly haunted by the fear I'll die under the knife. It's made me rush into life a bit. I want it all - college, love, life, family, career, money - and I want it all now. That's why I get frustrated when people judge and restrict me because of my age - I mean, for all of us, there is a chance that we won't be any older or wiser or stronger or more capable then we are now. Maybe we won't have the opportunity again if we don't take the chance now. Perhaps my goals not really realistic goals at the age of fourteen, but at least I have plans. At least I know what I want to do. I know for most teenagers, you feel like you have the world at your feet and a lifetime ahead of you, but even though you think you're safe in your teens, soon teens will become twenties, then thirties, then fourties, and before you know it you're at Death's door. I know many people don't have reasons as I do to be so urgent about life, but that doesn't mean you should be complacent, think you have all the world when really you're just a blink away from life and death. I know a lot of us are counting on fifty years of life to make dreams happen, but I believe you shouldn't bank on that. Anything can happen.
I know I rush life, but at least I don't sit around waiting for life to happen. You can look back and convince yourself that your life of regrets are caused by bad luck and lack of opportunities, but opportunities are there, every day, every second, we just chose not to take them because we think we have so much time. But we don't. Live every moment like it was your last one, but don't be so afraid of death that you don't go out and live.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)