31 May 2010

Between Exams

So yes, I'm between exams at the moment. It's 1.10pm and my printmaking exam will begin in 50 minutes. I still haven't printed the stuff I was meant to because the stupid macs at school refuse to connect to the school printer... hmmmmmmm. GL to everyone sitting their maths exam right now I suppose ^^ seeing everyone stressing out on the table at lunchtime made me nostalgic about stresses long past... (not really, maybe just a few hours ago). Well the calc exam turned out exceedingly easy, since they put in the E questions in from last year that I'd done as part of my study (and I'd imagine a lot of others had done too) so nobody's complaining about that :P Calc schol on the other hand.... ehhh, never expected to do very well, ended up answering about 1/2 the questions and probably wrongly D:

I suppose I could just get off this computer and use one of the windows computers to try to connect to the printer but I can't be bothered... multimedia room is empty and tranquil. I hate this keyboard though. It's hard to type on and I can already feel the strain in my wrists ):

Itt's quite misty outside. It's just rained... quite a bit of rain actually, but the sky is still grey. I guess it's going to keep raining. At least it doesn't make me feel too bad about going into exams hahaha. Hate it when the weather's awesome and I have to sit an exam...

ONLY PHYSICS TO STRESS OUT ABOUT NOW :] and I can study that all morning tomorrow! these exams have certainly been short lived. I can tell that I'm not going to get very good grades though hahahaha. ewww unfamiliar texts.

I noticed that people have stopped commenting ): WHY? It makes me feel lonely. So if you read my blogs please comment. :] it keeps me writing things for your entertainment. Unless of course you hate my blogs and would just like me to please stop updating. XD but that'll never happen completely either hahahaha. I've been terribly consistent with this blog, haven't missed a month since I started it in november 2007. How's that possible? I have no idea either. Maybe I just get bored a lot.

I think some blogs I'm following are a bit bugged too D: I haven't been getting any updates from cindee's blog on my feed even though she's updated like 20 times in the last 4 months. Ughh stupid blogger javascripts.

Well I've just wasted 1o minutes. I think I'll go print out the stuff now and then head down to the art dept to bum around a bit... no I won't, I'll just sleep here. Sigh cbf doing work. I'm so over working already and not even graduated from high school. wow I'm going to have such a productive hardworking life.

26 May 2010

160. Someone who does not want to study.


I know why the caged bird sings
Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange sun's rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.

This is one of my favourite poems :] I thought I'd share it here today because a) It serves as a good tie-in to my blog (bird's wing: one day all of us might fly towards freedom) and b) english unfamiliar texts is tomorrow. So I decided that I'd try to delve deeper into this poem haha, as a
form of not so serious study?

Well firstly, the poem is about the comparison between the life of a free bird and the life of a caged bird in an A B B A B B structure where A is a stanza about the free bird and B is a stanza about the caged bird. As we can see, the caged bird is more of the focus (hence the title).

Extensive imagery is used when describing the life of a free bird. I won't go into the techniques and stuff because it's boring >_>; even though that's what I really should be talking about. The free bird "dares to claim the sky" and "names the sky his own"; the free bird is empowered and has no limits -- it's even able to claim such a big thing as the sky. Pretty much the poem describes a free bird's life to be beautiful, amazing, with words like "dawn-bright" "orange sun's rays", symbols of light, goodness, to show how good its life is. This contrasts with the caged bird's "shadow shouts" and "nightmare screams", images of darkness, symbols of badness and oppression. Also the sights described that the free bird can see are contrasted with the experience of the caged bird who can "seldom see through his bars of rage". Furthermore "fat worms" is used since "fat" suggests plentiful resource -- the free bird has everything; the free bird prospers. The caged bird? He "stalks down his narrow cage"... "narrow" being a description for something that is not big enough for him... He does not have enough for himself.

Despite all the above, despite how "his wings are clipped and his feet are tied", the caged bird sings. In fact, it's WHY he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird cannot fly, cannot run... what does he have left? He can only sing. I believe that this poem is relating the caged bird to the enslaved and oppressed in our world who are also, literally or metaphorically 'tied back', who have nothing left but their voice and will. They have never known freedom, yet they yearn for it and sing for it. ("The caged bird sings with a fearful trill / of things unknown but longed for still") Perhaps the concept of freedom is frightening as well?

Interestingly, birds are also a symbol for rebirth (eg. mythical phoenix that can rise from its own ashes). Perhaps this poem is also using this symbolism and saying that when the caged bird sings it is also dreaming of its 'rebirth' and potential to become a free bird.

Nonetheless, despite the apparent decrepitude of the caged bird's situation, his "tune is heard on the distant hill". As long as we have the will, as long as we continue to "sing of freedom" like the caged bird, as long as we never give up hope, our cries will be heard somewhere, by someone. Even in our darkest hours and we can't do anything else, the least we can do is not give up hope. Without his voice, the caged bird himself will become little more than a shadow beyond the grave. Likewise, without hope, we become little more than unfortunate souls waiting for death.

Personally, I've always imagined myself to be a bit like the caged bird. Perhaps not so much like this particular unfortunate caged bird, but one shut in a cage. I think this poem could also apply to the everyday person and not just those enslaved formally. There are a lot of us who haven't realised our full potential but know that it's out there somewhere, but can't see a way through the chaos of reality to reach it. Our wings may not be clipped and our feet not tied but the cage door is shut. I guess some way or another we're all seeking a way to open the cage door and fly away like a free bird. Actually this is the thought that made me name my blog after birds. When I started, this blog was meant to be a timeline of my growth and maturity as I gathered enough strength to fly out of my own cage. I don't think I'm quite there yet, but life's certainly been an adventure since I started this blog 2 years ago :] Hopefully one day I too can claim the sky as my own.

So tell me, do you know why the caged bird sings?

13 May 2010

some more sentence stories

...because I am, once again, bored. but not out of my pants (thanks laina).

Only one alien dramatically cleaned a secret chair. Every other alien cleaned the chairs quite naturally. It's unknown to me whether the dramatic alien was taking a theatre class during the time of chair-cleaning or if he was an impostor alien extremely untrained in theatrics. Nevertheless, he was a special alien (if he was in fact an alien at all) indeed. Ignoring this sentence generator's obvious lack of variety in its adjective pool, I suspect the 'secret' chair had hidden mechanisms that the other aliens didn't know about, which makes the dramatic alien so much more suspicious. Why would he be cleaning such a conspicuous chair? Or perhaps the chair itself was also an impostor!!! My mind had been blown. I pondered all the above with great austerity as I sat in the audience of the huge auditorium, holding my opera binoculars to my eyes and squinting at the stage as I remembered not to get too engrossed in the show; it was, after all, just an extremely warped musical performance of James Cameron's 'Aliens'.

Sometimes, the nerd angrily laughed at the electronic hair. Other times, the nerd angrily cried. The nerd's electronic hair had been a result of a physics experiment he'd done 3 months earlier. As part of his ongoing experiments, he had been wearing the same latex suit with rubber boots so as to keep the extra protons in his body. Nobody knew how he went to the toilet or took showers, but one would think that he had developed some kind of excretory flap system into the suit and installed a washing mechanism. He was obviously a very smart nerd. Nobody knew why he wanted to keep the extra protons in his body though, it made him look like a mad scientist. But perhaps that's what he wanted to achieve in the first place... when the nerd angrily cries at his electronic hair, it's because he feels isolated from the rest of society as they are so unwelcoming of his strange experiments. All he ever wanted was just a little love ): But at other times, he is able to look in the mirror and laugh angrily like the mad scientist he is, enjoying the self-satisfaction and reveling in the joy that it will only take him 2 more sessions of plastic surgery to become the absolute 21st century clone of Albert Einstein...

And so, the elephant angrily painted a confusing pile of biscuits. They were arranged in a huge variety of ways, making it hard for the elephant to paint their rugged sides and deliciously holey textures. The fact that its herbivorous peripheral vision completely dominated and distorted depth perception didn't really help with still life painting either. She could have been the best elephant painter in the world, the most soulful, as she swished the brush from side to side over the white canvas with delicate attention to detail... but she was angry, and it made her feel sick from the pits of her three stomachs, for she knew that she could never produce any artworks better than the anti-art of Marcel Duchamp, and even then she knew that his anti-art had more artistic value and meaning than her warped perceptions of confusing biscuits... The painting elephant threw down her brush with rage and stomped off, vowing to never paint again as it brought her so much depression. 9 months later some Dutch guy came along and found her painting of confusingly arranged biscuits, decided that it had been abandoned, took it home, painted around each biscuit to cover up his theft before slicing his ear off, labeling the plagiarized piece of art 'Sunflowers' and becoming a world famous artist.

I'm just joking about the last one btw, I'm sure Van Gogh was a very talented and moral guy who would never steal elephants' artworks.

12 May 2010

blogging about blogging and about anything

So... I just did my chemistry assignment, and I don't think I should start watching another episode of skins because I'll just get addicted again, and I'm very bored. So I will blog about blogging/anything/how suitboy is so helpful (sarcasm) in telling me what to blog about.

BLOGGING: I blog when I am bored. Such as right now. Or, when I am feeling creative. Such as not right now. I actually have a few things I've been meaning to blog about (intelligence, weather, the chemistry of loooooveee) but never have the time to really think it through. But that's normal, eg. the post about postman pat, I had been planning that for about a month before I actually wrote it. Maybe having school just sucks out all the creativity from my life :/ sometimes I wish I had a more interesting life to blog about, but then I realised that even when interesting things happen in my life I never really blog about it. There's something nice about having the memories and only the memories, without writing to ruin anything. "Language destroyed man's ability of thought"...? :] there are some things that are just better off as pure emotions. But the thing about that is I often forget ): So... lose/lose really. I also don't see a point in blogging about something that just happened since it just happened. It's like watching a movie twice.. boring...

ANYTHING: anything goesssss~~~ show's next week. come on friday. last show is always the best ;]

SUITBOY: has given me a list of words that have been extracted from a random generator that I will blog about, since I am bored.

red ~ Red is my favourite colour colour, because many people don't accept white as a colour (even though it IS, black isn't.) Red is intense :] But tbh I don't really like wearing red, it makes me feel self conscious since for me red is like "LOOK AT ME!!". Unless it's on my shoes, because everyone knows how I love my red chucks. Oh yeah, red nails also make me think of middle aged/old women with wrinkly hands for some reason.

And he also gave me 3 sentences from a standard random sentence generator which I will create mini stories out of. Hope you enjoy =P

1) And so, the teacher politely sat on the green gardener. The gardener didn't have the heart to protest, since he was working class after all. Lower in class than a teacher! Can you imagine? He was also green because he'd had an unpleasant sandwich earlier in the day and was starting to feel its effects in his stomach. As he crumpled painfully under the huge teacher's weight, he could not help but marvel at the dark satire of the teacher's 'polite' sitting upon him. He wasn't sure if it was considered polite in any culture to sit on another person. Except maybe in the movie bruno where he sits on the mexicans, and even then it didn't look very comfortable. After what seemed like an eternity, the teacher equally politely got up from the green gardener, who was looking positively emerald by that point, and proceeded to his next class, where he could sit on a cleaner instead. After all, gardeners are hardly comfortable to sit on, what with all that hard muscle from weeding.

2) Almost daily, a monkey quietly ate the secret paper. It was secret because it was the paper that wasn't brought in by the dog to its owner; in fact, the dogs had a secret base of operations going on under the circus, where they would bring in the secret paper -- the truth paper, where nothing was censored by corrupt governments and media -- to the show monkeys, and it was through these that the monkeys consumed (literally) knowledge of the world and eventually evolved into a superior breed of human. The show monkeys were already pretty smart to begin with (well one has to be, to be chosen to become a show monkey), so the humans evolved from their knowledge consumption were nothing short of prodigies. World peace was coming; a smarter, better race of humans were set to rule the world, eradicating all the idiot humans. Unfortunately the dream was destroyed by the tsunamis of 2012 during which the circus was wiped out, since there was never any reason for show monkeys to learn to swim.

3) The cat politely ate the grumpy mirror. The mirror was obviously grumpy because it was being eaten (albeit politely) by the cat. The cat, although polite, was also quite grumpy because the mirror was hard to eat. This is a prime example of a lose-lose situation that we should try to avoid in our day to day lives. Nobody ends up happy, the mirror ends up in pieces being broken down by the hydrochloric acid in the cat's stomach and the cat probably ends up dying of a ripped oesophagus because chewed mirror shards are still pointy. The moral of the story is to never let your cat eat your mirrors. It's doubly as bad when you have a black cat, because it's like having a black cat cross your path, then dying, and breaking a mirror in the same instance. This simple sentence carries a lot of meaning for us...

Yes I know I am good at making up random stuff ):

08 May 2010

Missing opportunities?

READ THIS STORY by Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning.

It's so sad and cute ): But I guess it means that we should take charge of our fates and try not to miss any opportunities. I quite like that short story.

Happy birthday to CHENCAKE :] and happy mother's day for all the mums out there tomorrow. There were no birthday cards when I went to whitcoulls today to get a card as they had taken them all down to make room for happy mothers day cards which were all pink and there were lots of people getting last minute cards. I found it ironic how I was one of them, except I wasn't buying a card for my mother. Yes I got chencake a mothers day card. I chose a purple one with glitter :] hope he likes it.

Ahhh these days I've been feeling so 'meh' about everything. Homework? Fine, let's do it. Going out tomorrow? Fine, see you there. Exams? Cool, I'll study for it. Party on Saturday? Alright, why not. Everything's the same... Where's the joy and sadness? =/ Arguably it's good for school I suppose.

Anyway, hope everyone's having a good life :] I have badminton and work tomorrow, then school again, and exams are in 3 weeks :D gl to everyone studying. ciao for now?