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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Hit The Pause Button

Paused

I’ve decided to take a break from the writing until after the exams are over. I’ll almost certainly be starting on the edits for The River during December, so that’ll take precedence, so this probably means I won’t be doing Singapura for quite a while.

Exam Schedule

Here’s what my timetable looks like:

On Monday, I have Chinese Music.
On Thursday, I have Singapore History.
On the next Monday, I have Biofluids.
On the Tuesday after that, I have Biochemistry.
And my last paper is on Wednesday, with Organic Chemistry.

GMail Themes

There are now themes for Gmail. [via Official GMail Blog] How very colourful.

John Barth Interview

I also found this interview over at Barnes & Noble with John Barth interesting. [via Barnes & Noble]

Well, it goes through several filters. My wife, bless her, who is my first reader and best critic, is very sharp-eyed — not only catching typos, but also applying her wonderfully retentive memory so that she can say, in effect, “Look, you played this card on page 4 and you forgot to pick it up on page 137.” Or as Chekhov said, “If you hang a rifle on the wall in Act I, you have to fire it in Act III.” You needn’t shoot out all the lampshades in the room — just fire the damn thing.

Ah, so it appears I’m missing a wife!

Book Arrangements

Finally, there’s also this intriguing article about arranging books in one’s personal library. [via The Online Photographer] I suppose that’s something I’ll have to worry about in the near future.

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Study, Study, Study (And Study)

Not Yet

It hasn’t quite hit me that the exams are right at the doorstep. Maybe there is a bit of confidence going into a couple of the papers, which has me taking the foot off the pedal a bit so as not to send myself crashing and burning. I’m sure that by the time next week hits the sense of oh-no-it’s-here will be a bit greater, and I’m also sure that by the end of next week, I’ll be suffering from a stiff left shoulder (I lean on my left when studying on my bed) and a horrendous amount of examination fatigue.

Until then, all looks peaceful. Maybe a bit too peaceful, but I’ll take all the peace I can get.

My papers are on the 24th, 27th, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Postings will probably be affected, but we’ll see what happens.

Inspiration, Desperation

While all this is going on, I’ve been writing tiny bits every day. Mostly it’s been the new project Singapura, which as you already know I’m taking my time with. It’s gone at about a hundred words or so per day ever since when I first said I had started, which I believe was Saturday. (See? That’s why I need a reminder post.) Of course, I haven’t had much time to actually sit down for hours to work at it, so I think a hundred words or so is in fact an extremely positive outcome. And it doesn’t look bad. Not horrible, at least.

In the meantime, there are just some days you think of the old projects (i.e. The River) and you just feel that most of it is trash. Yesterday was such a day. I’m sure the attitude will be different by the time the exams are over and I get back to editing, but it sure looks terrible and amateurish right now. ):

All right, back to work…

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Talking End Of Semester Blues

How Routine

Yesterday was the last day of lessons for me, so it’s merrily off to the exams we go. Except that it’s not so merry and something has in fact made me quite sad. What is curious is that this always occurs around this time, near the examinations. It’s like a cosine graph.

But I’ll be okay. Nothing to worry about.

First Laugh

In any case, the first thing that made me laugh ever since the depression set in was this. [via pictures for sad children]

Story

Read Jonathan Lethem’s Lostronaut. [via The New Yorker]

Flashy

There’s a Flash game of Mirror’s Edge that I found on Kotaku yesterday. [via Kotaku] Direct link. [via Borne Games] Certainly feels more fun than the actual game as described in the reviews.

Solitude

All right, I guess I better start on my revision in this little case of the blues.

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