Archive for March, 2010
Labels
I bought some labels. You know, Post-It labels. I bought some flags in orange and some multi-coloured paper labels. I intend to use them for some academic papers I’m looking through.
I’ve never actually used these before. While the world was busy sticking on notes and (also) highlighting words, I was still scribbling in margins, folding pages (of notes, not books), and underlining things in the most inelegant fashion. I’ve stuck with my habits for a long time now, but I’ve been forced to try these labels and flags because of another habit of mine–I’ve not written in the margins of my books in a long time out of some compulsive-obsessive streak to keep my books as good as new (a streak that is being eroded very slowly).
I don’t know what I’m going to do about the shocking pink labels.
I wonder if they’ll damage my books.
I wonder if they come off easily; I don’t suppose so.
I am actually fairly surprised at how new and alien they seem to me. They’re just the sort of thing that you think should be intuitive and familiar even the very first time you get them out of the packaging, but then you put them in your hands and you start asking all sorts of paranoid questions. Will it matter if it gets stuck slanted? Can I re-stick it? How many chances will I get?
I got myself some criticism from Kinokuniya yesterday, and I decided that I would make some notes, partly for my work, and partly just out of interest. I’ve not been very inclined to make notes on novels, poetry, and the like, but criticism just seems to want to be read in that sort of way. Plus, I’m sure it’ll make work a little bit more convenient. At least I won’t have to scribble things down across my notebook and try to locate them again when I need to.
If I like the experience, then maybe, just maybe, I’ll do this in other types of reading too. I’m not too keen on making notes in books that I read for leisure, but maybe if work requires it. As for school work, I’m sure the number of labels will be so extravagant that it’ll cost me, and I’m not even sure it’ll be of any use. This is also one of the reasons that I’ve never used highlighters for my lecture notes. I’m just not sure it’ll have any useful effect.
In the meantime, time to have a look at these labels and break them out of their packaging. It’s like taking Neo Prints. One of my friends was shocked to learn that I’d somehow escaped those snazzy machines all of my life.
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Sine Wave
Metre
No, I’m not out of the woods yet. I thought I would be soon enough, but yesterday proved otherwise.
Work
Thankfully, it doesn’t affect my work. It seems premature to suggest that there is light at the end of the tunnel for school work, but that really appears to be the case. I’m sure I’ll be changing tune soon enough, though.
My Sociology test came and went. I’m now wondering if I didn’t do what was expected of me. Well, only one way to find out.
Today we’re starting on King Lear.
As far as writing goes, everything is also going pretty well. I thought of it in three stages, and I’m probably going to finish the first phase within the month, optimistically. When Phase One is done, it will then simply be a matter of… well, figuring out Phase Two.
I’m making up a lot of things. Then again, in a sense, that’s what this job is, isn’t it?
In any case, I guess you could say that in some respect, everything is falling into place. That would be spot-on, and yet it also couldn’t be further from the truth.
Reading
Finished Slow Learner. Liked a couple of stories; didn’t like the others. Not sure what I’ll read next, though by the time you read this I should already have picked something.
Comedy
The Road: A Comedic Translation (Part 4). [via The Millions]
Fibre
They fixed up some new fibre optic network thing yesterday. I’m sure everyone tells you the same damn thing, but darn, when technology moves, it moves. The surreptitiousness with which hard disk sizes double and prices half still surprises me even now. And it wasn’t so long ago when I was proud to have my 56K line.
Sure, I sound like less of a nerd and more of an uncle at a kopitiam in saying that, but still, it’s magnificent to watch. With luck, maybe I’ll get to be Tron in my lifetime.
It also implies that I probably need to get to upgrading my desktop. Well, I don’t need to, but I sure would like to.
Erased
I never listened very much to Thom Yorke’s solo album The Eraser. I’ve been rectifying that over the past few days, though. It’s a wonderful album, and is a snug fit with the sort of mood I’m in right now. Great music.
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Testing Times
Semester Seasons
This is the time of the season where everything begins to really pile up and you start to think that homework was designed to seem impossible. You look ahead at the weeks in front of you and you wonder how you’re ever going to make it to the end without at some point sacrificing this or that. Except you never really do. You just get stuff done like it’s magic and before you know it, the exams are upon you.
So, right now, I have every reason to believe that things won’t be all right. I also have every reason to believe that they will be. And that’s how we’ll roll.
Invincible
Perhaps as a small aftermath-type effect to all my recent problems, I currently feel slightly invincible, in the sense that I think I can take on the world and no challenge is too big. I think this happens to everyone now and then, because that certainly seems to be the case for me. Without doubt, I should be back to a more… miserable? pessimistic? weak? realistic? take on things very soon.
Still, it informs a number of my recent decisions.
This doesn’t in any way imply that I’ve come up with a solution for things that have been bugging me, but maybe it suggests a level of comfort, the sort of comfort you get when you know what you’re dealing with. Doesn’t mean I’ve got it worked out–I doubt I will–but it might mean that I know what I can and cannot do, which oftentimes is cause enough for celebration.
Money Matters
Of course it does. And now I find that I have to buy some criticism and maybe spend a little on some special things as well. My only consolation is that I don’t remember any birthday gifts I have to prepare in the imminent future, though I swear I’m not doing that on purpose.
We Had Pun
Oh yes, there’s a test today. I forgot to mention that at the start of the post. It’s Sociology. It’s my first ever Sociology test. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope I don’t mess up too badly.
Let It Rain
It’s been raining these days. The weather oscillates happily between nauseating heat and fairly impressive, lightning-less rain. Sometimes the two combine and it gets so warm it makes you sick just after the rain. I don’t mind them individually, but it does get on my nerves when they decide to work together.
Well, time to tackle the test. See you on the flip side.
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Various Things
Here is a collection of facts. Some of them may be true.
I did well for a test. Not extremely well, but well enough.
Okapi sometimes eat charcoal made by lightning.
I sometimes find it quite hard to get rejected, although I may regret saying that soon. This has nothing to do with anything romance-related.
Jacques Derrida’s birthday is the 15th of July.
I am reading a Pynchon book. Slow Learner. It was a little hard to get into the book when in the introduction the author made it clear all the things he thought were poorly executed in the various stories. I’ve only just started, though, so I’ll probably end up loving it to death. Who knows.
Batman might be on offer tonight.
I have a test on Monday.
It has been raining these days.
I have plenty of things to do.
When the Heisenberg family had twins, Pauli congratulated them for their “pair creation”.
I have spent a fair bit of money recently. Well, not a lot, but still more than the usual. I suppose I can cheat myself into thinking that it suggests something about my frugal nature. It does, doesn’t it?
The Petri dish takes its name from its inventor, Julius Richard Petri, who was assistant to Robert Koch.
I have Ishiguro’s Nocturnes on pre-order. Did I already say this?
Spike Milligan’s epitaph reads, “I told you I was ill.”
My musical diet was primarily trip-hop and electronic music for a while and has recently shown a shift towards classic rock and punk.
Fossils of the Diplodocus were first discovered by Samuel Wendell Williston.
I’m supposed to do King Lear next for class.
The MRT trains in Singapore run on 700V d.c.
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Long Form
Hello.
I’ve been writing. Writing a lot. I’ve written at a faster rate than usual these past days. That may have to do with how I’ve been completing certain sections I’ve had in mind (and completing parts tends to be faster than coming up with them). Or it might be me settling into a good rhythm (I doubt so). Or it might be how I’ve been completing my other work, which would be well and good if it were true. No, I’m not saying that it isn’t true; I just can’t tell sometimes what rate I’ve been completing work at. It’s easy in writing, sure, because there’s kind of a plan, and there’s kind of a word count to measure it by, but try doing that with the diversity that is work outside of writing. Impossible to measure.
(But no, it’s not affected my work in any way, which is brilliant, because I’d always assumed that it would. I’ve also managed to do more work than I’ve done in the weeks prior to this recent productivity boost.)
And I digress.
I wanted to point out some interesting things I’ve realised about my current project. They probably took me a lot longer to realise than I would’ve thought, but I suppose it simply means I’m not very bright.
For one thing, it’s long. I don’t think I’ve ever written anything so long before (by which I mean its prospective completed length). Of course I kind of cheated, and if you looked at its structure, you’ll realise why it ends up being so long, but that’s kind of beside the point, isn’t it?
It’s taking a lot out of me too. I remember the process of writing The River, which was a kind of self-inflicted torture that I thought I would see for the rest of my life as long as I kept on writing. I was deceived into a sense of optimism when writing Bukit Merah. I think it had to do with how it was such a different form, and how it felt as if I wasn’t under any pressure to do anything.
But this one, this is something new. I’m doing new things, trying different things, but let’s just say they’re things that come at some kind of cost. It’s strenuous, but I guess I knew that from Day One. It wasn’t ever going to get any easier. Besides, it’s far from the worst job in the world.
It’s expansive, by which I mean more than its size. I mean more specifically its subject matter, actually. It covers quite a lot of ground and tries to make a Renaissance Man out of me. I’m afraid it’s going to be disappointed, and the end-result may all be quite diluted and shallow. There’s always that fear. There are more pressing fears, but this is one among many, and I’m afraid (in a somewhat ironic way) that we will not go into the subject of fear in the interest of avoiding digression.
I actually have no idea where I’m going. Still. I’ve changed my ideas for the ending three times. I’ve slotted in ideas here and there. I’ve got the general idea down pat, but too many things haven’t figured themselves out yet. I suppose it will work itself out eventually. Who knows, really. I may approach my ending half a year or a year from now and grow painfully aware that I can’t possibly have any ending. Then I will weep and eat Tim Tams. Or something.
It’s about a third done. That’s just a guess. I actually don’t know, but in the interest of giving you something concrete, there.
I found the perfect epigram to open the thing, except that it implies a certain pressure. Well, I don’t reckon that it will matter eventually, so I’m keeping it. I’m so happy to have found it. It was under my nose all along and I feel a bit like a fool for not having noticed in the first place.
Who is going to read this book? Actually, I don’t know. If The River is a rock opera, Bukit Merah a progressive rock adaptation of a folk album, then this current project is an experimental album driven by reckless ambition. It’s weird. It’s enormous. I realise those aren’t the adjectives that will prove most saleable, but it’s a struggle to think of adjectives that don’t have any shameless positive connotations to them.
Oh wait, I deflected my own question. No, I don’t know who will read this book. I might not read it, but I suppose that’s just how it is. You can’t really enjoy anything you create. Do I know anyone who might read it? One or two might take a chance. I guess this doesn’t bode well.
So, there you have it. I’ve just said everything and yet close to nothing about what I’m working on right now. I’ll add that it has partly to do with art, and something to do with myth (as always), but I just really hope that it comes across as a book about people. I’m quite sorry I made you read so much of nothing. I know that’s infuriating. It just makes this seem like a self-indulgent exercise, which it probably is. So I don’t know why I wrote this. I think it’s just useful to consolidate my position a bit, and to understand what I’m dealing with by talking to myself. So, thanks for indulging me.
I hope I don’t get distracted. I’m a long way from home, and it would be really stupid of me to get lost just about now. That said, I probably do plenty of stupid things, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened.
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