Monthly Archive
Browsing entries posted on October 2004
A Rainbow List
Friday 10.29.04 [2:33 am]
Not named thus because I like rainbows, but because rainbows make me happy.
Things that fill me with joy: (in no particular order)
1. Rainbows. They’re rare, pretty, ethereal, and a sign of God’s covenant.
2. Puppies. They’re cute, even the ones that grow up to be unpretty dogs like bulldogs. And small and fragile. Makes me want to protect them and carry them home.
3. Hot soup. It radiates warmth as it travels down to your tummy, and feels good on rainy days (which is every day to me, now).
4. Hot showers. They relieve stress and muscle fatigue, and I like showers because that’s when I come up with ideas for my essays and so on.
5. Chocolate. Mmm. In all its forms. Gorgeous. It’s so versatile - it can be luxurious and decadent, or preppy in a Kit-Kat way. I always think Kit-Kat is kinda preppy. I don’t know why.
6. Sleep. 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep is a rare gem I continually search for.
7. Finishing an assignment. Imagine the release when your Sword of Damocles no longer dangles above your head.
8. My family. Now that I’m more grown-up and have my independence, it’s a lot easier to talk to my parents. And my sister and I no longer bicker over the remote, we have better things to do…
9. Being loved, and loving. Feels good. It makes you realise that you’re not alone, you don’t have to be alone and there is a future for you that isn’t as black as you imagine. It makes you optimistic!
10. My reflection. Because it means I exist. (Descartes scholars feel free to debate with me.)
Devil’s handmaiden
I have been reading the excellent comic Lucifer for some time now, and I was comparing it to its original series The Sandman. I call it the original series because it was in Sandman that Lucifer in his current form and character appeared.
More specfically, I was pondering its use of mythology. Neil Gaiman’s landmark series practically DRIPS with references to myth, literature and popular culture. Lucifer does so but to a lesser and more subtle degree. I never thought I would imply that Neil Gaiman was anything less than a consummate storyteller with the vital skill of subtlety, but here I am. When characters from other realms of mythology appeared in Sandman, it was always very clear and obvious who they were and where they came from. Thessaly was obviously a reference to a bunch of witches, Calliope to the Muses, Bast to the ancient Egyptian pantheon.
Mike Carey, writer of Lucifer, also brings in elements of mythology and history, but somehow I didn’t really notice until I started on this comparison exercise. I’m looking through my 4 volumes of Lucifer now, playing spot-the-reference.
In Volume 1 - Devil in the Gateway, the first culture to come up is the Navajo culture, through the introduction of Rachel Begai. I was re-reading it, and noticed a small foreshadowing of Erishad, who will appear in the next book. The angels Remiel and Duma (a particular favourite of mine) appear, and the Japanese god as well, although not in a particularly significant role. (Everything with this books is about foreshadowing.) There’s something in there about tarot cards, and even more angels (seem to be a lot of them wandering about on Earth).
Volume 2 is cool. Beginning from this story arc, the artistic team is settled. Although there’s nothing special about Peter Gross and Ryan Kelly’s artwork, that is to say nothing unique and different from the usual comic style, I like it a lot. It’s clear, easy to see and captures action and emotion, which is all I ask. The layout for “The House of Windowless Rooms” is particularly good. A good part of Volume 2 is occupied by Japanese gods. There’s something about Chaldaea in here, which I don’t get at all, and the religious practices of civilisations long gone. The tarot cards appear again later, and then a bit of angelic mythology. Heaven looks like a proper bureaucracy. Not the heaven of the afterlife, rather the heaven of the angels’ residence. They sit around and debate, strategise, and whine. No happy human souls wandering around this part of town…
In fact there aren’t many happy souls to be seen. You have disturbed souls like ghosts, spirits of the underworld, and of course the souls in torment who inhabit Hell… Hell just looks gross. Vertigo has the goriest drawings I’ve seen in comics, apart from Japanese manga. But then… I haven’t read any other comics in some time. But perhaps there is a reason why my Vertigo titles are ’suggested for mature readers’.
Volume 3 doesn’t have any mythology in it. It’s all just about hell and the demons that live there. They live such pampered lives. It’s like a grotesque mirror of the aristocracy. Those who own fields of tormented souls are the landlords, and they live like the aristocracy of England did. Swanning around, playing cards and being fashion victims. Pity about having to live in hell forever and ever, though. There’s also something about the first wife of Adam, and how she left Eden to be free from the subservience expected of her.
Volume 4 has the Japanese god making another appearance. Man but he has a bone to pick with Lucifer. A cherub or two make an appearance, in fact, they get a whole issue to themselves. Here we learn more about the hierarchy of heaven and the creation of the universe. Something that strikes me about the portrayal of God in Lucifer is that it’s more towards the Judaic mono-theist tradition. There’s no mention of Jesus or the Holy Spirit. In Volume 2, God (or Yahweh as some characters call him) is referred to as the ‘God of the covenant’ by some hapless guy who will die in service of the story.
That’s that so far. Unlike Gaiman, no Greek or Roman gods or spirits have had a cameo. Then again, that’s because Lucifer has no use for them. Unlike Dream of the Endless, he is not of all faiths and religions. And when he possessed an item of infinite power, not gods but demons and evil spirits came to ask him for a share in it. When Morpheus held the key to hell, so many came to visit him - envoys from Egypt, Faerie, Asgard, and other cultures. They were all gods (with the exception of the angels who came to look after matters), not shape changers or demon-spawn.
Oh, and I handed up my history paper today. I stayed up till 5 am to finish it off. Now all I have to worry about is the relevance of the content to the question… but that’s one paper off the list!
Lucid imaginings
I returned my rental last Saturday. I was quite disappointed with it as the twist seemed a bit anticlimactic and the ending fell flat. It was a good effort, but not something I would recommend. It reminded me of when I read Sophie’s World, and the same feeling of disorientation persisted when I finished that book. However, while I would make my friends read Sophie’s World for no better reason than it might widen their minds a bit, my rental certainly wouldn’t fulfil that criteria. The difference was the ending.
Where Sophie’s World ended on an optimistic, ‘make-up-your-own-sequel’ tone, the rental just left me feeling cheated. That the whole thing was just an elaborate lie. It’s like those stories that end with “and then she woke up and realised it was all a dream”. Besides being overused, it just leaves the reader with an empty feeling.
But I digress. I was actually thinking of doing very odd and alarming things yesterday while waiting for the train, and wondering whether the other people on the platform were thinking similarly odd things.
She looked at the tracks and wondered where was the wire, the coil carrying thousands of volts that would kill you if the train didn’t.
She thought about just stepping off the platform and onto the pebbled track.The screen above the platform gave the time as 3.29 pm and announced that the train was coming in 2 minutes.
At 3.31 she stepped off the track.
Morbid, I know. Makes me wonder where my mind has been playing that it’s picking up all these odd and disturbing snippets.
I’ve been doing a lot of research into the history of banking in Singapore, and I think that doing so many papers at least has one redeeming effecct: they make me smarter. In the knowing-more-things sense. Now I can go on at length about the early Chinese bankers and their history. This of course is not terribly useful information in the long run, but it will suffice for now. I just need it to pass exams anyway.
I am beginning to think that the Arts faculty somehow encourages intellectual frivolity. While we do large amounts of research, it’s all academic. No, really. There’s not much market demand for a graduate well-versed in early Singapore history and such not. The more we specialise in our chosen field (for Arts encourages such passionate specialization) the more removed we are from the job market. Perhaps the engineering students have got the right idea after all. At least they learn useful things.
Not that I’m attacking Arts faculties all around the world, mind you. Arts is important because they sharpen the intellect. It’s just that they get too head-in-the-clouds at times.
As an acquaintance once advised, “Seek the middle ground.”
Meet Smooshy!
I have been at the bazaar organised by my hall of residence. Every free hour I have was spent there, and I was only in my room for brief, necessary periods such as sleep. Homework? Unfamiliar concept I’m afraid.
When you spend hour after hour in the same place looking at the same items, I guess it makes you want to buy things… I came back with a CD of instrumental soundtracks, which I was influenced to buy by the fact that it was constantly being played by the vendor. And I was tempted to buy a few football jerseys to wear. It’s difficult to find team jerseys in my size, so it was a tempting offer, but somehow I just didn’t completely like the jerseys on offer. Either the design looked odd, or the colour didn’t suit me or the fabric was too sheer. It’s a pity really.
But my prize acquisition from the bazaar is a beanbag. Not just any beanbag. They fill them with light pellets of foam nowadays, and this particular vendor had gone down the customization route. I could have my initials sewn on if I had wanted. But the one item I wanted was a footstool, and it was a cubical footstool so they made it look like a die/dice. The one they had on display was blue with yellow dots, and as cheerful as this combination may be, I requested a red one with white dots. I had dice like that when I was young, and red is a particular favourite of mine.
It arrived today because they had it in stock, so I didn’t have to get it custom-made. Cost me 40 dollars, and I don’t know why everyone else says it’s expensive. For 99 dollars you could have a proper beanbag, the type you lounge on, but I lounge on my bed. I only wanted a footstool because I keep sliding down in my chair at the desk.
I named it Smooshy, because you just want to smoosh it, hug it and squish all the beans out of it. Or just throw it around like the big fat dice that it is. It can also double as another seat when my boyfriend comes around. He’s the only guest I ever get who stays long enough to require a seat. On the rare occasions that people come looking for me, they usually just remain standing because they only came to tell me something.
In the past week I attended a total of 13 hours of lecture, out of a possible 19. I missed 6 hours of lectures due to bazaar duties, as I had to look after the camera stall. On the first day we only sold 2 items, and sales picked up on the 2nd day when more people came to buy cameras and memory cards. Sales just took off today because it was the last day and those who had the money and inclination decided it was now or never. We made about 9000 dollars in total sales, and about 6000 dollars was from today alone. Wow. At least the vendor didn’t have to worry about covering his cost of renting the stall from us, and we felt good that at least one of our stalls was a success. This makes up for the other stalls which didn’t do so well. One of them didn’t have any sales at all.
I finally met up with my old friend from secondary school, and he still looks the same. I suppose I haven’t changed tremendously, because he recognised me immediately as well. We had a good time catching up with each other.
I advanced an argument today on the state of boy-girl relationships. One of my friends was vehemently denying that there was anything between him and a particular girl. I said that platonic relationships at this age are a near impossibility, within certain parameters. It goes like this:
Girl meets boy and they become friends, then very good friends.
They are always together and some people (like myself) call them a couple.
Eventually one of them will develop feelings for the other.
Unfortunately he/she will probably have to suffer unrequited love.
They realise they will never be a couple.
They stay friends, and because they know couplehood is not an option, the relationship remains platonic.
So basically it goes like this: Platonic, romantic, platonic again. And the reason they can stay platonic the second time around is because they have tried or experienced romantic feelings which just didn’t work out.
I know this is true because most guys I am good friends with, I once had a crush on. Obviously they didn’t work out, but I still remain on very good terms with them, and there’s absolutely no issues of romantic feelings. I think natural human curiousity is to blame for this state of affairs.
I might not be thinking sanely however. My brain is addled from the overwork. And I have 3 essays due… or was that 4? I really need to keep better track of my work.
Chinchilla Heaven
I’ve developed a strange habit of adopting a chinchilla nickname. I don’t know if this is a common practice, but in Singapore a lot of people change their IM nicknames on a daily or even hourly basis, depending on how they feel and what happened to them. For example, if I were preparing to take an exam, my nickname might look something like “Buttercup *stressed*”. Other people advertise parties, crushes and slogans on their nicknames.
What I mean by a chinchilla nickname is the addition after my normal name refers to a ’something’ chinchilla. Right now it says ‘dancing chinchilla’, not that I dance, or that chinchillas dance, but just because it sounded funny. Previously it was ‘angry chinchilla’. After this, it might be ‘chinchilla watching TV’. I got beaned by a netball last week, and that night my nickname was “chinchilla with a flattened nose”.
I haven’t posted in a long time, and the last time I tried to do so was when my tamagotchis became old ladies. Unfortunately when I was typing out the post, I hit the backspace button and lost everything. I was a long way into writing it too. It was too late at night and I was so pissed off I just decided not to retype everything.
I’ve been playing this game from PopCap Games, it’s called Insaniquarium and it’s hilarious. Once you start playing, you won’t stop for ages. I actually finished the web version, and that’s quite an achievement because I’m quite lousy at games. That’s why I prefer simulation games which you can’t lose, rather than technically demanding shoot-em-ups. You have been warned - this is an exellent way to burn 3 hours of free time.
Insaniquarium [link]
Tell me how you found the game. Personally, I’m addicted to it. It’s just too darn cute!
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