30 March 2011

happiness



Happiness is the colour yellow, bright and vibrant, completely saturated; it fills up those who possess it, the purest colour that overpowers anything else that comes next to it.

Happiness is stretched out arms, the urge to embrace all your surroundings, to savour every last drop of the sweet landscape before you, to cherish the world as it is at that particular moment

Happiness is a photograph, suspended in time; a fleeting moment of perfection, where the sparkle in your eye betrays your elation for all eternity.

Happiness is a sugar cube dissolving in a cup of coffee, having the potential to make something bitter into a dream.

Happiness is a sunflower, forever seeking warmth and love, being open to receive it, standing tall and proud.

Happiness is the placidness of a still lake, reflecting the endless sky above so it seems like if you jumped into it, you'd fly.

Happiness is the oxygen in the air, dancing in the breeze between every one of us, entering and exiting and giving us life; an unconditional act of giving.

Happiness is the stars at night, free and so far away from any problems we invent for ourselves, donning playful twinkling smiles, faint wisdom of millenia ago.

Happiness is the grains of sand on a long beach, so many different forms and shapes, together forming the delicate surface on which we walk when we look out at sea and find peace within ourselves...

Yes, happiness is the horizon and beyond, the sky above and the ground below,
happiness is all around, and within all of us
and happiness is when I'm with you :)

18 March 2011

ffs

you know what pisses me off? when people try to do me favours without asking, or when they tell you to take care of their own business of which you have no knowledge. I just had to fucking search through the laundry for my long skirt, not find it, go downstairs, take the keys, go outside into the rain to my mum's car, discover i had taken the wrong keys, come back inside, take the right keys, go back outside to my mum's car again (which isn't even supposed to be outside, but my dad's car was inside today for some retarded reason), search through it, not find my skirt, come back inside, go upstairs, get told by my dad that it's in HIS car, go back downstairs, find my skirt in his car, go back upstairs with it, get told by him that the buttons on mum's keys don't fucking work, so i had to go back downstairs, take the keys, go outside, check the car and IT WAS ALREADY LOCKED...................................... and none of this would have been necessary if they would just trust me to look after my own damn laundry. oh and now i have bruises on my knuckle from punching the wall out of frustration. jesus christ.

don't even try to cheer me up, I enjoy being angry. at least it means I feel something strongly for once =___=

I understand that people feel like they're doing you a favour when they do stuff for you, but personally it just annoys me... I'm independent to that point where other people helping me is like a hassle for me. Unless I specifically ask for help, I'd prefer to just be left to do my own thing by myself... also it makes me feel like I owe them something which I dislike... it's not to say that I don't like groupwork, it's just that if it's my own business then I can take care of myself. Likewise, I won't get involved in someone else's business if it doesn't involve me. A lot of people find my way of thinking selfish or whatever, but do unto others right..? idk, it's just the way I feel. I don't even like it when my mum put stuff in my bowl when I eat. I find it so patronising.

lol nobody's gonna want to marry me unless they have the same feelings hahahahaha FOREVER ALONE...

10 March 2011

the point of view of a jack of all trades

So today in French we got into quite a heated debate about how sciences are supposedly 'harder' to get E in than subjects like Geography or Art, and that they are more 'valuable'. I was vehemently opposed to this idea, but it seems a lot of people think that way. I can't speak for Geography since I don't take it, but I remember last year my art class was also exasperated in holiday workshops about how people thought art was easy to get E in while we suffered indoors during the beginning of summer, trying to complete our boards when the weather outside was perfect for beaching.

It's not easier or harder to get Es in one or the other. It depends on the person and what they are good at. It's just that usually people who suck at art know that they suck at art and choose not to take it, which is why we have such a high concentration of Es in the department, since everyone who takes it is actually good at it. But, in science, a lot of people take it just so they can do med or engineering etc, but they are not necessarily that strong at it (I'm sorry, I have to say it). It's easier to tell if you are good at art or music than science. From what I can evaluate, people who take sciences are the ones who are INTERESTED in them -- whether they are any good is another story. But, with art, it seems everyone who takes it is somewhat good at it. The statistics are skewed.

Another reason for the higher concentration of higher ended credits is that the standards in art are more compacted -- we have 2 standards -- 6 credits and 12 credits. This means as well as us not wanting to screw them up because they are worth so much and thus working hard at them, when we succeed we get 12 credits straight up. But in science, there is a random scattering of 2s and 3s, 4s and 5s. So if we drop one standard (silly mistakes etc, since these standards are also much smaller and so if you screw up one little thing, you're screwed), we lose those 2 or so points. It's not much, but it can give the illusion that it's harder because we're like "omg! this paper is only worth 4 credits! how come the art ones are 12 credits in one go?" In a way it's kind of protecting us -- so if we screw up we won't lose as many credits.

Also, let me break it down -- the sciences and the arts are different. I don't think we should compare them in terms of difficulty. Someone said today that in art all you have to do is put time in, whereas with physics (the science in question at the time) you have to understand the concept. From my experience, art requires a more philosophical and technical kind of understanding than physics, but it is understanding all the same. Not to mention one also has to put time into ANY subject, not just physics, to have a full understanding. As someone who takes both art and science subjects, I feel that I have grown as a result of both -- but in different ways.

Furthermore, the salaries or success at finding jobs after graduating uni of someone with a science degree vs someone with a fine arts degree shouldn't be relevant to how easy or hard it is. Statistically speaking, there are more people with science degrees than fine arts degrees. But it is true, science is more relevant to the modern world than art. There is more demand for scientists than artists. However... how does this relate to one being easier or harder than the other? I would bet that only a small percentage of those scientists could drop everything and become an artist if circumstances demanded it, as with artists becoming scientists. Neither is easier than the other, they are equipped with different skill sets.

Perspective is everything. I actually wondered how any of them could make the call that science > art when it seemed all of them took at least one science but none of them took art...

Well, this isn't just about science and arts. I also recently had a debate with someone about how mathematics is just as relevant to life as literature. Many people think that studying shakespeare is worthless because "we will never use this after we get a job", and many people think that higher level pure mathematics is worthless also because "we will never use this after we get a job" -- but I think the value of these, of ANYTHING, comes with how it changes the way we think. As someone said in my english scholarship class earlier this year, well-read people are usually more open minded -- they can empathise better for they have learnt from a variety of experiences that they may have not necessarily experienced themselves. Likewise, people who have studied mathematics know how to think about logical problems, and how to twist lateral thinking to solve a problem while still not breaking the rules of logic.

Everything is so rich, full of opportunity for learning. Shutting ourselves off from a whole field of study because we think it is 'irrelevant' or 'not as useful' is a damn shame in my opinion.

[EDIT] so I found out the reason this debate started was because people felt that subjects like art weren't exactly 'academic' enough to warrant being part of a scholar's badge. I think the reason people think this way is because of the misnomer 'scholar's badge' -- in my view it's not actually a badge for SCHOLARS per se(GPA of 80+ in 5-6 subjects), it's just a badge showing that you're good at the subjects you do take. The way I see it, if you feel under-recognised because you take all science and maths subjects which are supposedly 'harder' to get E in, then perhaps you should consider switching your subject choices over to humanities if you find them easier (and vice versa). However from my experience for some reason (possibly for practicality reasons, as I said before uni courses like med and engineering demand sciences), more people take sciences over humanities and then complain about them. Perhaps those who take humanities know that's what they want to do and that's what they're good at, and they are not doing it simply because they want to get into a particular course in uni...?