The Pursuit of Capital Letters

Sitting in the middle of a GEK1046 lecture, I suddenly felt detached from myself. You know the unsettling feeling as if your corporeal soul has separated from material flesh and bones and you are looking down at yourself, half-floating and a translucent grey? Yeah. And guess what the topic was about? The difference between signifieds and signifiers, how there is a gap between the intended meaning of words and symbols and the received understanding, and all the time, I was going "holy cow, what the fuck". The feeling persisted throughout PS tutorial, where I felt inarticulate and outclassed in just about every aspect. Maybe this is first-year jitters, maybe I was having a bad day, maybe I should have put in more effort in doing my readings. But what if, just what if, this is the best that I will ever get to be, and that my thinking will not evolve beyond its current level? And that I am stuck in this state of unsophistication. Yikes, in that case, I am well and truly screwed.

So what do I do now? Run off and hide myself in another drama series of course! Two of them, actually: The Inbetweeners and Misfits, both British shows from channel E4, which also produced Skins. I like teen dramas yay. The Inbetweeners was hilarious and made me wish that I was a slacker-loser in the town, hanging out with 3 other slacker-losers, doing slacker-loserly things. Hahaha hey, that sounds pretty familiar. But yeah, the dynamics between Will, Simon, Jay and Neil are comedic gold, and they get themselves into cringe-worthy embarrassing situations that probably ring a few bells as well. It's dumb, but dumb fun! :D See below image for evidence hahaha



Misfits is something quite different. It is about five teenaged delinquents who develop superpowers after being struck by lightning in a freak-storm. Sounds silly? Well, yeah... But I like how the superpowers parodied the charatcters' greatest insecurities. And NATHAN! He's refreshing, unpredictable and you never know what new bullshit he's going to pull or say. Hehe. I like how there is something bigger at play as well. Makes you sit at the edge of your seats in anticipation. Especially for Nathan hahaha.



Alright, enough slacking. Time for readingssss!

And so, it is Friday yet again. Quite surprisingly, today is the end of Week 3. I have been taking things slow and easy for the past fortnight, and it feels pretty damn nice to blank out on a bus that brings you to areas that were once so familiar to you, with the raindrops dancing down the window-panes. I reverted to my hermit-like ways for a couple of days last week, racing through a fluffy adorable Korean drama (Personal Taste) and skipping a lecture for the first time in the process. Sorry esteemed professor, but Lee Minho's smile+dimples combo demands to be appreciated. Finished up another Korean drama (Prosecutor Princess) this week, and that was really worth the 16 hours of dedicated watching! The plot was solid, the characters were full and flawed, and the interactions between the two leads (In Woo and Hye Ri) were so adorable that my toes kept curling up in squiggles of delight. Ok, weird analogy, but yeah. Along the way, I caught up with Hotaru no Hikari 2, the MatsuJun drama with the unwieldy name, JOKER and My Girlfriend is a Gumiho as well. This is the reason why, despite just fifteen hours of school per week, I still manage to lag behind on all my readings. I am a cool leopard like that. Hahahaha, so screweddd.

( the two weeks in greater -boring- detail.. )

Two weeks, just like that. Nowadays, facebook is flooded with status updates of having last nights in Singapore and how beautiful the weather is in a land three thousand miles away. I cannot say that I am not envious. Oh, I am, more than I would ever like to admit. New country, new university, new friends... a new life! It is times like these when the sharp contrasts between what could have been and what actually is, between here and there, between them and me cut straight to the bone. But status quo is alright; it is good actually. I have more than enough to be happy about. This is my path, and one day, it will lead me to where the rest of the world spreads out, fan-like and panoramic, before my eyes that hungers to memorise everything, because they have waited too long.

In two days, I managed to purchase The Perks of Being a Wallflower and finish it. I was really looking forward to reading it, and what can I say now? It was honest, it was blunt, and it was a little underwhelming for me. The language was clean and simple, the characters were full and flawed and Charlie was someone anyone and everyone could relate to, the prose was rambling and talky which I usually loved. But I found it too precious, too twee and too carefully carelessly-written at times as well. I liked it, but I didn't love it. This teaches me that lower-case text and run-on sentences sound a whole lot more beautiful when posted in isolated chunks in Georgia font over tumblr than they do in black and white and solid before you. There were several beautiful quotes and paragraphs interspersed throughout, though. My favourite had to be "we accept the love we think we deserve", because it was so simple, yet so novel and true. It was what motivated me to buy the book in the first place. Haha, silly isn't it, to fork out sixteen quid because of a single sentence. Overall, it was an enjoyable book, a heartfelt story about the poignancy of growing up and coming-of-age. I love the latter phrase: coming-of-age. Those three words are filled with such hope and anticipation and off-topic, but I love the following paragraph to bits. It encapsulates the 'feel' of the whole book so well.

"As you enter the tunnel, the wind gets sucked away, and you squint from the lights overhead. When you adjust to the lights, you can see the other side in the distance just as the sound of the radio fades to nothing because the waves just can't reach. Then, you're in the middle of the tunnel, and everything becomes a calm dream. As you see the opening get closer, you just can't get there fast enough. And finally, just when you think you'll never get there, you see the opening right in front of you. And the radio comes back even louder than you remember it. And the wind is waiting. And you fly out of the tunnel onto the bridge. And there it is. The city. A million lights and buildings and everything seems as exciting as the first time you saw it."

( learning as we go )

And whoa, that was long and banal and it is seven in the morning, the sky is lightening, my stomach is growling, but I really should pay some attention to my glazed eyes and heavy lids, so good night world. But before that! A short snippet of Better Off Ted, one of the funniest shows I have watched in a long while.