Who Would Have Thought

Weapon of individual destruction.

I went for my first classes two days ago. In between classes, there was a violent thunderstorm of Wuthering Heights proportions, so to pass the time I called my brother.

Me: Hi Ben. Bla bla bla.

Ben: There's a storm here.

Me: Here too.

Ben: Did you know that you can get electrocuted if you're on the phone in a thunderstorm?

Me: I have never heard such rubbish in my life. Also, I'm indoors.

Ben (ominously): It doesn't matter! You're not safe anywhere! It happens every year. Mum wants to talk to you.

Mum: Hi sweetie. Bla bla bl -- (suddenly cut off)

Jeng jeng jeng

I call the house phone.

Me: Did Mum get struck by lightning?

Ben: No. BUT that does not mean she might not have been.

(Apparently, my brother is right!)

UM what?

Lots of stuff happened last week, but the only thing I felt was relevant was that I am supposed to be starting my masters of english lit at UM (or reading english lit. hur hur hur. sounds so nice).

EXCEPT THAT although I start classes today and I have been assured by the faculty and the website that I have in fact been accepted, I have received zero communication from UM's Institute of Graduate Studies. No mail, emails or calls. So I haven't registered because I don't know what the heck to do next.

And the ironic part? I interviewed IGS last month and they talked about how efficient they are. NOW THAT'S FUCKING IRONIC for people out there who don't know what irony means (or maybe it would be more ironic if it had been about how competent they are). And this is just one shitty thing in a whole bunch of shitty things happening. Small shitty things tend to accumulate and become a big shitty ball of shittiness.

So I will call up IGS and ask them what they're going to do to fix it. Most likely nothing, because the concept of accountability and work responsibility seems to be alien within the government admin levels. Why are they always so resentful and defensive all the time? Yeah, yeah. Everyone is smarter than you. Whose fault is that? Not mine. I'm your customer, and I'm effing paying you for an education. It's not fucking free and neither is UM paying me to study there.

Somebody please explain to me how UM became the top rated public uni in Malaysia when they can't even be bothered to tell their students that they've been accepted?

The Games

The Hunger Games trailer sucked. It was like watching starfish copulating - you know that it's supposed to be fascinating but it doesn't look like anything's happening to you.

In the trailer Jennifer Lawrence is running through some trees. Really, really exciting stuff. Running, trees, some 'running' camera angles, trees, shoots an arrow. Yeah, this is totally how I imagined the book would be in live action.

What the fuck is running through trees supposed to symbolise? And also, screw you casting director. All I can see when I'm supposed to see Katniss is a well-endowed blonde. I don't care if she dyed her hair, SHE STILL LOOKS BLONDE. god.damn.

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen
Oh My God, it actually looks like Katniss! Half-starved, dirty, tanned, slightly exotic looking!

Jennifer Lawrence
Wait...what? Hey fuck you, photoshop.

On an unsimilar note, I just read Ender's Game. It is part of my attempt to educate myself in sci-fi classics. Or 'classics', depending. Despite winning this and that writing award, Ender's Game wasn't particularly impressive, especially if you compare it to the world-building in Neuromancer - I didn't understand half of it, but it was awesome and confusing. And coherent, if that makes sense. There isn't a strong sense of a world in EG, more like, this is this-a-way and that is that-a-way and you don't need to know all that stuff because you're not smart enough to understand it. But I need good world-building to believe a story, especially if that story reminds of, like, a space episode of Sweet Valley Twins and Friends. Or an Anne McCaffrey escapist episode.

Actually yeah. Orson Scott Card's writing reminds me a lot of McCaffrey's.

In fact, I think this is the alternate cover for Ender's Game.

The premise of a boy genius is also explored in Martian Time-Slip (Philip K Dick), but it is handled way differently. In EG, everything is so neat and cliche. Ender isn't allowed to trust anyone or make friends because he won't be a good commander if he does. This does not seem to bother him much. The book SAYS it bothers him, but it doesn't really seem like it. And all he does is train and push his subordinates and be freaking perfect all the time. He only passes out once because of this. So who is this kid, Jesus Christ?

Sorry Ender, there's only one eleven year old Jesus Christ
...wait, is that Jessica Alba?

The whole book sort of coasts along from school school to battle school to command school, every one of which Ender excels at. He is the most perfect of perfect students ever to attend these places. Hating Ender is unfair -he can't help being brilliant and only seven (WTF. I just +10 years, because tell me which seven y/o speaks in complete sentences?). Not beating Ender is normal - don't worry, he beats everyone and is super noble about it. Hey Ender, turn left, go straight and die can or not? Bleeding insufferable twat.

Also, I may be prejudiced because I discovered the writer is an anti-gay Mormon. Which is interesting because I had asked the Plum whether the personal views of an author would affect the choice of us reading his/her work. And I thought that since I knew what Card thought of gays and all that, yet I still read the book, I felt that it did not really affect me.

But now I am thinking, am I more willing to believe that it is Card's shallow word-building and Marty Stu main character that makes me unable to connect to the book, or had I, however small and subconsciously, already considered disliking the book from the beginning, or at the ending when I found out he was a Mormon?

I do not know, but my opinion is that all Scientologists are mad.

Irrelevant, just like the last sentence.

Ally

...got married last Saturday, the 20th of August. The couple were so in love I would have gagged had I not known and loved them. And it was so great to see everyone again.

Thanks for letting us be a part of your big day :).

The Dust Has Only Just Begun To Fall

On the first page of our story
the future seemed so bright
Then the saint turned out so evil
I don't know why I'm still surprised

Even angels have their wicked schemes
and you take that to new extremes
But you'll always be my hero
even though you've lost your mind

Now there's gravel in our voices
glass is shattered from the fight
In this tug of war you always win
even when I'm right

'Cos you feed me fables from your head
with violent words and empty threats
And it's sick that all these battles
are what keeps me satisfied

So maybe I'm a masochist
I try to run but I don't wanna ever leave
'till the wars are going up
in smoke with all our memories
-Skylar Grey

Sounds like a marriage I once knew

:)

xkcd.

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I think it's very hard to believe in someone who says do a certain thing and in return I will do what I should be doing regardless whether or not you do that certain thing.

For example, Don't wear that dress and I'll take you out. Or, Agree with everything I do, and I'll love you.

Or Don't defy me, and I will lead you.

But I think that all responsibility, including leading and loving, should be unconditional. You do it because you must, because you have been entrusted with someone, or many people.

The fact that you need to place arbitrary conditions on it...that means you shouldn't have that responsibility in the first place.