Saturday, October 23, 2004
Still - Alanis Morissette
I am the harm which you inflict
I am your brilliance and frustration
I'm the nuclear bombs if they're to hit
I'm your immaturity and your indignance
I am your misfits and your praised
I am your doubt and your conviction
I am your charity and your rape
I am your grasping and expectation
I see you averting your glances
I see you cheering on the war
I see you ignoring your children
And I love you still
And I love you still
I am your joy and your regret
I am your fury and your elation
I am your yearning and your sweat
I am your faithless and your religion
I see you altering history
I see you abusing the land
I see you and your selective amnesia
And I love you still
And I love you still
I am your tragedy and your fortune
I am your crisis and delight
I am your profits and your prophets
I am your art, I am your bytes
I am your death and your decisions
I am your passion and your plights
I am your sickness and convalescence
I am your weapons and your light
I see you holding your grudges
I see you gunning them down
I see you silencing your sisters
And I love you still
And I love you (still)
I see you lie to your country
I see you forcing them out
I see you blaming each other
And I love you still
I love you still
I've been listening to this song on endless loop - Alanis Morissette's otherworldly vocals and weird pronunciation take some getting used to, but the song is hynoptic and the Middle Eastern instrumentation makes for interesting listening.
It also happens to be the showpiece song of Dogma, which I doubt anyone around here has watched. It's a religious comic satire, featuring Alan Rickman as an amazingly British Metatron, Alanis Morissette as... erm, God, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as 2 fallen angels exiled to... of all places, Wisconsin. And along the way there's much disparaging commentary on the Catholic Church, abuse of icons, Biblical revisionism and amusing heresy.
Usually, I take the ten-foot-pole approach to religion (being preached at by Jehovah Witnesses who turn up regularly on my doorstep doesn't help), so religious offensiveness doesn't bother me too much. But Dogma is ultimately a devout film, albeit in unorthodox ways. Well worth a download, since it's probably too non-mainstream for Singapore stores.
Speaking of local video availability, Se7en and Fight Club are out on DVD. They are brilliant; David Fincher's a genius.
... I can't believe that I'm reviewing obscure films. I have far better things to do, like lying through my teeth for scholarships, or downloading academically-useful information into my brain. Instead of wondering why, say, Georgetown University seems to be so closely identified with US intelligence.
I've had a John le Carre relapse. His Cold War novels are superb, but he seems to have turned into a cranky anti-Bush campaigner in his old age. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that - in fact, he's probably a far better qualified critic than Sean Astin aka 'the fat hobbit' (who annoys me with his political radicalism and ego). Still, I'd prefer that he stick to his writing, or his autobiography.
According to an old Straits Times article, some NUS literature professor (hopefully not representative of the faculty) thinks that The Da Vinci Code is 'better-written' than le Carre. My thought on that? An emphatic 'NO'. We're talking about completely different levels of writing here, and there's no question as to which is superior.
I also believe that George Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language' should be made required reading in schools. There's too much sloppiness and lack of linguistic economy being tolerated here. I should know, because I'm often guilty of it.
words were spilled on Saturday, October 23, 2004
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Friday, October 15, 2004
The 'A's are definitely drawing near - the signs are everywhere. This afternoon, instead of being the obedient student and going straight home to mug, I took bus 852 all the way to Yishun Interchange and spent a considerable amount of money on a
Sunset Boulevard CD. In my own defence, it was the world premiere recording and I haven't been able to locate a copy
anywhere for the past 7 months. Most importantly, it's a good musical - a faithful adaptation of Billy Wilder's film with some great music. Anyway, splurging on CDs is fairly typical pre-exam behaviour on my part, along with things like sudden, inexplicable crazes about cars and intelligence agencies.
Also, I can't listen to orchestral music without lapsing into daydreams about violins, even though my efforts (on other people's instruments) so far have been strictly confined to dreadfully off-pitch, halting renditions of classics such
as Merrily We Roll Along and
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
The distractions are becoming ever more multitudinous. Oh
dear.
words were spilled on Friday, October 15, 2004
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Thursday, October 07, 2004
Attempted a College Board Math IIC paper and finished it within 40min. Hmph. Perhaps there's hope after all.
I've been reading old journal entries from last year - overflowing with giddy fangirlish effusiveness, most of them. It's startling to see how much I've toned down and sobered up over the past year. My writing style has become more self-conscious. I'm even rediscovering the rules of grammar, for goodness' sake.
It's a desperate necessity: HC's effect on my English parallels RG's impact on my Chinese. Complacency + lack of enrichment = slipping standards + GP grades. (And I've just resorted to using mathematical notation, proof that I've lost the ability to string together coherent sentences.)
Heck. I'd just have to work on language proficiency and be a little more aware of every nuance, phrase and clause. No need to whine about it.
words were spilled on Thursday, October 07, 2004
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Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Let it never be said that the SATs are a pushover. SAT II Math IIC is ghastly. In place of good old calculus, it's got polar coordinates, de Moivre's Theorem, conic sections, logic, stuff on polynomial functions that I have never come across, and trigo functions that even my math tutor has forgotten. There are unpleasant suprises galore even in the unassuming linear and quadratic equations. New formulae to memorise. 50 questions in 1 hour. I need to rid myself of the long-winded A Level math habit and adapt to insanely-paced MCQ math. At the moment, I'm cutting it a little... too... close.
Whoever said that SAT II was a bore? Right now, it's so exciting that it has half-destroyed my appetite and turned my sleep patterns upside down.
Random thought: Without cross-fertilisation, inbreeding depression usually results. Plants and ideas have something in common.
words were spilled on Wednesday, October 06, 2004
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