yes is a world

the sanctity of books

2012-01-05T18:00:00.000+08:00

This is really just a recap of my tweets.

I don't get why some people are so against book art, sculptures, carvings, etc. The value of the book is in its contents, not the paper it's printed on.

I do recognize the origins of the sentiment, from how we are taught to hold the book sacred as a vector of knowledge, and not disrespect it. And indeed, when books are willfully destroyed for its contents (e.g. book burnings), we should be outraged, but that is because the physical act of destruction symbolizes the destruction of the ideas within, and that is what we really should be against. Conversely, book-banning offends us for those very reasons, yet there's no physical destruction there.

Book art on the other hand - the creation of something new from the books, is paying a homage to them. One would have to be purposefully blind to not see that. Yes, books are to be respected, but there is no need to be so mindless in our regard for them that we refuse to consider looking at them in new and different ways. Words don't have to be art only in a linear form, and book art recognizes that.

Have a look at the Edinburgh mystery book sculptures. How could anyone possibly come to the conclusion that the creator of these works of art is not a booklover? I see the love in every attention to detail, even without the unabashed declaration from the artist itself.

The ones below are my favourite.

whore

2011-12-26T17:02:00.001+08:00

The concept that a woman's sexuality isn't her own to do with as she wishes:
A man who uses sex to get what he wants may be an asshole, but he doesn't lose anything of himself in the process. (Hello, James Bond)
A woman who uses sex as a means to an end whores herself out; it diminishes her value as a person, because as a woman her sexuality is apparently tied with her worth to herself and to others (especially herself, if she has any notions of decency! slutshameslutshame).

So bloody sickening.

Romance novels are usually chock full of female-sex-positivity and I love them for that, but sometimes the lingering negative aspects of the genre like the double standard mentioned above makes me want to tear my hair out and make a bonfire of every book that was particularly obvious in its transgression.

Palate cleanser time! Recs: Your Scandalous Ways by Loretta Chase deals with this double standard beautifully. Linked to my review, but it's more of a gushing declaration of love for the author than anything.

tethered

2011-11-29T23:10:00.001+08:00

I'm sitting in my room in Perth, and looking at all the things I have hoarded. Letters, notebooks, old magazines, silly hats, keepsakes. And it makes me think back to three years ago when I first came, how eager and excited I was. How I packed up anything that meant something to me, as if they were pieces of me, pieces of home, of safety and certainty–all the things I naively thought I would just cart up and carry wherever life took me.

So, so mistaken.

childlike faith

2011-11-07T17:05:00.000+08:00

I thought of all those biblical anecdotes of people believing in Christ's ability to heal/resurrect/etc. and how the moral of the story is always: have faith and you will be rewarded for it. Who believes like that these days? When something doesn't go as you hoped (and prayed for), it's probably not God's will and who are we to presume to tell him what to do? That or, you didn't have enough faith. But that sort of faith also requires faith in your own judgment of how things should be, and most people don't have that, rightly so.

Maybe impure motives get in the way. What's a pure motive then? When does something you hope for not benefit you, and how can you ever be unbiased under those circumstances? I suppose it's all smoothed over if you stick to a vague sort of faith that he'll make sure everything turns out for the best after all (even if you don't agree), but it seems like such a far cry from the days of the woman who touched Jesus's garments wholly believing it would heal her, and it did.

green bookcoverporn

2011-09-29T19:50:00.001+08:00

I've always loved the colour green, so it's no surprise that my eyes are naturally drawn to green book cover art. Specifically, the ones in my favourite shades (emerald, persian, teal). Since I was bored, I decided to compile a bunch of such covers yay! :D

The following collage is limited, obviously, to books I know or have stumbled across. Also because they have to meet the very subjective criterion of having caught my eye, I'm not going to include every single green cover I've seen -- only the ones I like. On the flipside, some of the covers are there just because they appeal to me/I am nostalgic about the book for whatever reason, and not necessarily because the green caught my eye (though of course it still has to have some green).

I will add to it from time to time as I come across more books. Click ahead for the coverporn!

whitewashing heroes

2011-09-22T12:57:00.000+08:00

In some ways, the romance genre is pretty narrow-minded in its idea of acceptable heroes and heroines, but I can usually still find something to enjoy in its conventionality. Certainly I've always felt that the genre is easier on male characters than on female ones when it comes to likeability as a requirement. They're given much more leeway to be less than perfect and still deserve a happy ending (e.g. Reformed Rakes or the Bad Boy who is an asshole/misogynist to everyone until he meets the heroine). It's a worthy enough message when done right – that is, if the hero manages to grow from where he was when he started out at the beginning of the book.

There are times though, when authors take the popularity of those tropes for granted and use them as shorthand in the transformation of the decidedly less than heroic character to someone deserving of the heroine. It occurred to me how much this annoys me when I finished Wicked Games by Jill Myles the other day (it's free!). I thought it was a fun read. The survival game reality show set-up (I groaned at first, but the absurdity of the whole thing turned out kind of hilarious) with its highly competitive atmosphere provided a believable foundation for the h/h's Hate at First Sight as well as catalyst for changing their impressions of each other (they're paired and forced to spend copious amounts of time together alone).

In keeping with the unlikeable character theme, the hero Dean is shown to us as this arrogant, competitive jerk who is quite clearly willing to do whatever it takes to win. Fair enough, they're in an environment that's been calculated to bring out the worst in everybody. When their romance inevitably develops, the heroine Abby wonders about his sincerity, reasonably so, but things go swimmingly well anyway until she is eventually out of the game.

This event (at about 85% of the novella) triggers a whole new host of suspicions regarding Dean's possible betrayal and use of her, which is backed up by the accounts of the other candidates, as well as a set of pre-game video interviews Dean himself did. Cue the Big Misunderstanding. OK, I understand that continued smooth sailing from there on would've been boring and so it was time for some conflict, but I really felt it could've done without the pre-game interviews. Or they could've made it more open to interpretation.

Because quite frankly, they portrayed him as an unequivocally cruel douchebag. He is recorded talking about his planned strategy for the game – to hook up with whichever girl partner he has, get her wrapped around his finger, and discard her when he no longer needs her vote. He says, and I quote, "It’s all about me in this game…but of course, the girls don’t have to know that." It's kind of hard to try to redeem a cruel douchebag with only 15% of the book left to go. At this point, I think OK, maybe Myles can pull it off, because I did spend most of the book thinking the hero was a decent enough guy, so the groundwork has already been laid.

...What happens next? They completely and conveniently ignore that he ever said all those things. There's no admission of guilt, maybe wrapped up with a quick apology and a promise to reform. They don't even try to deny it, or claim it was just a joke. It's not brought up at all. Which brings me to my next question: why bother including the damning evidence of those video clips? Just so Abby could have a believable reason to distrust him? Well that part worked.

It didn't work when Abby finally reconciles with Dean (thanks to another set of interviews during the game after he met her), yet fails to say, "Well dude, you did say you were planning to use a girl, then proceed to do with me the very things you outlined, so what was I expected to think? And hello, are we supposed to gloss over just how much of an asshole you would've been if you hadn't, I don't know, fallen in love in me? But you really do love me, so suddenly that makes it all OK?".

I still say Abby should've slapped him on behalf of every woman out there he didn't love and thus would likely have no problems treating like trash. But no, she spends the emotional reveal scene guilt-tripping herself over her lack of trust and costing Dean his two-million-dollar-prize.

It's frustrating because it could've been smoothed over so easily. The author could've made him seem less unambiguously mean in the videos, have a simple acknowledgement of wrongdoing, or even just claim he didn't mean it (this would've been supported by how unexpected he found the direction his relationship with Abby was taking, but since it is never put out there, it just seems like he didn't expect to fall in love with her). Hell, I was all set to like him again; he seemed sweet enough apart from the videos, so we were already halfway there.

And therein lies the problem: the disconnect between the character I read about and got to know within the confines of the story, and the persona that was presented to the fictional public in bits and pieces. Never resolved. On a side note, I also mentioned having a similar problem with Julie James' Just the Sexiest Man Alive.

Sigh. Still, the authors probably have something there in their reliance on the popularity of those tropes. After all, I did end up giving Wicked Games 4/5 stars and Just the Sexiest Man Alive 5/5 stars. But those two worked for me despite myself, because I only personally got to know the good side of the hero. Meanwhile, I'm not even going to touch on the Harlequin Presents line's alpha-assholes-for-heroes (alpholes?). Too much WTF there.

rape and liability

2011-06-06T00:24:00.007+08:00

Couple of scattered thoughts I've been having on the subject.

People mostly moralize through their sense of empathy (when they're not being hypocrites). We judge and intuit what we believe to be right and wrong through the simple process of imagining ourselves in others' shoes and determining what might be done best for us then. It occurs to me that if that were so, there is nothing very objective about morality.

It shouldn't surprise me then that whenever I come across a discussion about rape among guys on the internet, there will suddenly be all these 'grey' areas that seem to revolve around the worry that "that can't be rape, it's something that most guys might very well do in blissful ignorance!". The idea behind that is, surely if one does not intend to be a rapist, one cannot possibly rape. I don't know. I'm not a guy, so I will likely never be at risk of being accused of rape, or 'accidentally' raping someone. But I can't sympathize with that worry when their token response to that so often calls for a narrower definition of rape.

Consequences trump intentions. Is it really so difficult to not initiate sex with a drunk person? If you are drunk as well, then that doesn't really count I guess, but I'm talking about relatively sober people who would much rather blind themselves to how alcohol distorts true consent and accept any sexual situation arising from it at face value. Because it's 'freely' offered sex. Because the other person got themselves drunk, didn't they? No one's forcing anyone, we're just going with the flow. Or something.

Similarly, you'll have people who think that initiating sex while someone is asleep is not rape, if both parties have had previous sexual relations. Without navigating the minefield of contextual relationships and implied and/or prior consent, I think we should be able to safely say, objectively, that it can be. But with context, where do we draw the line? Where does it cross over from playful foreplay to invasive violation?

For the Julian Assange sexual assault allegations, in my opinion, it was the forgoing of the condom despite the alleged victim's insistence on it in all previous sexual interactions with Assange. In the absence of a clear indicator like that though, what makes it rape? When the alleged victim doesn't want it, or when the alleged rapist is aware the victim doesn't want it? As we all know, two separate individuals' versions of reality won't always line up, but in this case, shouldn't the alleged victim's reality trump the perpetrator's – after all, who's dealing with the feelings of violation here?

So, liability. Haven't we come far enough to admit that rape begins with the rapist? (Most) people accept it at face value, condemn victim-blaming as a matter of fact, even if they don't always recognize when it's happening, but what does it really mean? It means each and every one of us is accountable for what we sexually do to another person. We're not born rapists or non-rapists. Just like drivers are potential killers waiting to happen, can we say we're potential rapists* waiting to happen?

(*Just as drivers who caused someone else's death is on a different level from premeditated murder, the rape I talk about here is arguably not in the same league in terms of reprehensibility, as with someone who actively sets out to render someone powerless by means of drugs/alcohol or physical force or maybe even knowingly taking advantage of someone's vulnerability i.e. they were already drunk. But the outcome is still the same for the victim, they're dead/have to deal with equally powerful feelings of violation and/or shame.)

It means that our liability should go beyond accepting a 'No' to ensuring a truly, freely-given 'Yes' in any sexual situation. It means all the hypothetical situations I outlined above can and sometimes do result in a rape.

Rape can come from more than the mere intention to forcibly render someone powerless. It is often power play, but it can also come from disrespect and the subsequent dehumanizing of people considered inferior and thus already powerless ('sluts', prostitutes, homosexuals, etc.) or sometimes it's just pure self-centeredness and a dollop of ignorance. Lots of people would never imagine themselves becoming rapists, and sometimes to them that means nothing they do could ever be rape. It's a dangerous line of thought.

Note: I'm not suggesting that any of what I say here should be legally enforced. I just thought we could maybe start trying to adjust the ways we think about rape.

out

2011-05-15T16:07:00.000+08:00

theology makes no sense to me. I quit.

true love

2011-05-11T16:14:00.004+08:00

It strikes me that 'true love', or true romantic love anyway, is often defined by one's actions. 'If he really loved you, he would...', 'She did XXX; that's not true love'. I'm not about to disagree with the standards of what love should be, but I've been thinking about the implicit reasonings behind that line of thought, and it seems to me that it puts undue emphasis on love as a catalyst.

Here's my theory: most people who love, love to the best of their ability. In that case, 'true love' cannot be distinguished through the depth of its sincerity, because it is ultimately the individual's world views and personal values that determines how he or she acts on that love. Simply put, how you love comes down to who you are as a person. Following that vein, people who act like assholes to professed loved ones aren't doing so because they don't truly love them – they're just assholes.

It means that someone loving you won't mean jack shit if you're miserable around them, so there's no point thinking love will change things since they already 'love' you. It also means people who are in love should worry more about what they do with it than what they're feeling.

All men are potential rapists?

2011-05-06T00:08:00.007+08:00

It's time for our controversial feminist topic of the day! :D

Let's have a look at a statement oft-associated with feminism and all the 'extremism' it stands for. You might have seen it on a poster on campus, or on the internet, or had it quoted to you -- that all men are potential rapists. First, the statement is clearly a shock tactic, which doesn't always work the way you want them to, so I understand when people react unfavourably to what is admittedly a deliberately incendiary statement.

But this is where I have to ask everyone to put aside their gut reactions and try to see the point of that statement. It's not about the men. I don't think I can stress that enough. People often seem to interpret it as a preemptory accusation of all men, a confirmation of feminism's entrenched misandry, and they immediately protest, There are plenty of decent, good-hearted guys out there! I know men who would never! etc, etc.

Well, it's not about the men. Now flip that viewpoint around: it's about the women who are told they have to live with that statement's 'reality'.

For one, it is the truth. Fact of the matter is, every time a girl turns down a much-needed offer of a ride late at night from a guy, she's treating him as a potential rapist. When a woman makes sure not to go to the bathroom alone, she's treating every man in the vicinity as a potential rapist. She takes care not to be alone with a man unnecessarily, potential rapist. You get the pattern. And every girl out there has, at some point, done something along those lines. It's what the world tells them. I'm not saying that every man out there is a hair-trigger away from turning into a ravening beast of lust and ravishing their way through towns, but that women are expected to live their lives as if that is the case.

'All men are potential rapists' is the essential breakdown of all the rules that have been taught to women, and if they break even a single one, they are often blamed when something happens to them. I don't think you need me to point out to you how impossible it is to follow absolutely the rules of the beware-all-men tenet, but that is the paradox women have to live with, everyday.

Men are privileged in this area -- they don't have to live as if all men (or women) are potential rapists. They don't have to and aren't expected to plan their excursions and social life and daily commute around that rule. I know it's hard to get over first impressions and initial emotional reactions so from a diplomatic viewpoint, the statement could be put in a better way (or explained in a drawn-out blog post cough). But honestly, 'all men are potential rapists' really quite succinctly depicts how women have to live, and that's the meat of it.

To any of you, male and female, who have ever been offended by that statement: If a girl you just met turned your offer of a ride down, you'd understand she was concerned for her safety. You'd understand it wasn't about you, but about her. So apply that understanding right now, and get angry with the reality that women are callously expected to 'deal' with instead of the statement that merely pointed it out.

Just the Sexiest Man Alive

2011-04-30T17:10:00.003+08:00

Book: Just the Sexiest Man Alive by Julie James

Taylor Donovan is a lawyer working towards partner in an illustrious law firm, and she's well on the track to it. When she is given an opportunity to further prove herself in a highly-publicized class-action sexual harassment suit, she jumps at it, even though the case requires her to leave her Chicago office for the Los Angeles branch and stay there for the duration of the case. After all, a couple of months in sunny, celebrity-town L.A. is no hardship at all, is it?

We are introduced to Taylor in the opening pages, where she's annihilating her opposing counsel's arguments for settlement. And it. is. awesome. I have a soft spot for competent, no-nonsense, career-minded heroines in romance novels. This is partly to make up for all those times they were cast as The Other Woman in contrast with the virginal homemaker heroine and mostly to shout: Yeah world, romance and careers CAN mix! Ahem. Moving on.

Poor Taylor gets her first taste of how celebrity-driven L.A. works, when her boss sets her a side assignment to give pointers to actor Jason Andrews on his upcoming role as an attorney in a legal thriller. Who is Jason Andrews, you ask? Why, he's Just the Sexiest Man Alive. According to People magazine, anyway. Though galled by the thought of having to kowtow to some frat boy, Taylor is still intrigued because hey, even she who's been living under a rock has watched Jason Andrews' movies. Any goodwill she may have mustered for the job is dashed, however, when the actor stands her up twice in a row. Needless to say, when he finally does come around to meet her, Taylor is less than impressed.

Jason Andrews may be larger than life, but Taylor has been going head-to-head with men all her life, and she's more than a match for his ego. Sparks fly, and hijinks ensue.

I was a bit leery about the set-up at first, because I'm kind of pessimistic about Hollywood romances in general, and wasn't sure I'd find myself believing in the eventual HEA. It didn't help when the hero Jason initially started out proving every celebrity stereotype true. But Ms James has a gift with turning her spoiled, arrogant heroes into likeable, sometimes-vulnerable and basically decent guys.

...I hesitated a little with that last bit though. Jason, the hero, IS portrayed as decent at heart most of the time, even though I felt that his past womanizing actions said otherwise. Plus those actions were only alluded to and so felt even more removed from the Jason that was presented to the reader, I guess. In the end, the only reason I could gauge why Jason was so horrible to the women in his life was because they were all attention-seeking sluts who only cared for his fame anyway. Sometimes I wonder, why do these men get so bitter about meeting exactly the type of women they were looking for?

But all that's just a minor quibble, because the author managed to convince me that yeah, he was probably just looking in the wrong places this whole time (I know, I cringed a bit at that sentence too, but Ms James honestly did a good job of it!). Once you're convinced of that, the rest of the journey is a delightful romp that makes you laugh and sigh and fall for all the characters involved (Ms James does friendships with secondary characters beautifully). The chemistry and dialogue between the characters were amazing. I think I would love Julie James for her dialogue alone.

I liked that the ultimate issue in the end wasn't Jason's past, but Taylor's trust (or lack thereof) in him. That with Jason having done his best to prove himself, there was nothing more he could do or say to convince her -- the ball was in Taylor's court. And boy, did she pick it up.

So I started out this book with two marks against it: one, it was a Hollywood romance, and two, it was a contemporary. The latter because I've always thought contemporary settings unmemorable and indeed, up until Julie James, that had always been the case for me. And despite the less than auspicious start, this book still managed to win me over with a 5-star rating. I can't wait to try out her other books. 5/5 on goodreads.

CryoBurn

2011-04-23T16:04:00.004+08:00

Book: Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold

Bookrant time. I've just stayed up all night to finish Cryoburn, the latest (last?) book in the Vorkosigan Saga. Got in only 5 hours of sleep since so I'm still a little bleary-eyed and will likely be a miiiite incoherent. The Vorkosigan Saga is a series I highly, highly, recommend to anyone who likes reading for pleasure by the way, and since this is one of the later books my thoughts on it are bound to be full of spoilers, so I'll put those parts below the cut.

Cryoburn follows the latest adventure of Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, who was 16 when we first met him in The Warrior's Apprentice and is now 38 and (mostly) settled with a family of his own. As Imperial Auditor of the Barrayaran empire, Miles is sent by Emperor Gregor to investigate an off-worlder cryocorps' plans for expansion onto one of their own planets. The cryocorps (cryonics corporation) in question is one of many that effectively rule the planet Kibou-daini, a planet obsessed with cheating death by freezing their dead by the millions.

Kibou-daini is the first nod I've ever seen given to an Asian culture in this series (a Japanese one, in this case). Don't worry, I'm not going to devolve into a rant about diversity and multiculturalism here, because 1) I don't feel that strongly about it, and 2) my thoughts are rather preoccupied with other things. Still, I thought I'd just mention this because I overlook things like this in fiction all the time, but the extent of globalisation (universalization?) in the future written in these books have led even me to wonder about the absence of Asian characters. You'd think China having the biggest population on old Earth would mean at least a significant, if not strong, presence in the galactic world many centuries later. Oh well.

I've read some reviews that seem to be of the opinion that this book isn't one of her best. That it hasn't got any memorable characters, aside from Miles himself, who is rather diminished as well. I think I have to agree. Bujold can write yes, but I've always felt that it was her characters who made the book, and all the interesting new ones promised in the summary,

"...a young boy with a passion for pets and a dangerous secret, a Snow White trapped in an icy coffin who burns to re-write her own tale, and a mysterious crone who is the very embodiment of the warning Don't mess with the secretary."

just didn't seem to live up to their potential. Everyone felt a little flat, smaller somehow and faded into the background, even the villains, who aren't even on-page at all. This book sounds like a dud right, so why am I still talking so much about it? Well, then there was the epilogue. Which was so bittersweet and beautifully written and in keeping with what the author has effectively set up for the whole novel, that I can't believe I didn't see it coming. In fact I feel like the entire adventure in Cryoburn was really a prelude to the epilogue, a thought experiment before the actual deed -- which may be why it seems so faded as a standalone? Because it's not meant to overshadow the ending?

I'm venturing into spoiler territory here; click for more.

* * * * * *

Count Aral Vorkosigan, the great man behind Miles's 'Great Man's Son Syndrome', has been a huge driving force in Miles' life and story (12 books worth of them), directly and indirectly. He's one of The main characters, even if he's not actually a main character, so I suppose it's fitting that Bujold pretty much takes an entire book to send him off to the afterlife. Tribute to the great man? It worked anyway, because I'm all teared up. :'(

I love books like this, books that manage to turn my thoughts and judgments and ignorance on themselves. In case it isn't obvious enough already, death and mortality is the theme that runs throughout Cryoburn. Cryonics is so prevalent on Kibou-daini that activists lobby for inclusion of the poor, for basic human rights to encompass the chance to be frozen and have your life extended. Mention is made of the planet Jackson Whole's ethics-free clone-brain-transplant operations, and the story crosses paths with Miles's brother Lord Mark's lifelong goal to put them out of business by developing better life extension methods.

At one point, Miles observes that with mortality being absolute, so it might be as well for people's obsession with avoiding it.

"I'm not so sure of that," said Miles thoughtfully. "If people start getting frozen at eight hundred instead of eighty, the game will still go on, just set to a new equilibrium."

It was just this sort of intellectual detachment from the idea of death that I maintained throughout the novel. I wondered at people's obsession with staying alive indefinitely. I agreed with Miles' casual judgment that these people were more concerned about not dying than living. When Sergeant Taura refused to be cryonically frozen on the grounds that life would be just as difficult after, and that she wouldn't want to wake up in a world with no friends, I nodded along with her.

I viewed mortality through the lens of an outsider much like Miles did most of the book. Then BAM! the epilogue comes packing a huge emotional punch, and I am knocked on my back. My immediate reactions, as expected, were along the lines of don'tdiedon'tdiedon'tdie. I don't care what state Count Aral would be in otherwise just not something so final as death please. I cried.

I'm not discounting either of the reactions I had to dying, logical and emotional. I feel that it is precisely because I held two such (naturally) conflicting views in that short span of time that I can examine them in tandem and reconcile them to each other. Miles kind of goes through a similar journey (though fundamentally different I guess, real grief is nothing like fiction-induced grief, and I've not had any deaths in my immediate family whose memory would be triggered by this). He makes those pithy observations on death to himself, then struggles with letting go when it comes to the people he loves (Sergeant Taura and his father). I felt his pain even as I tried to remove myself from it. It is a testament to Bujold's skill that she has managed to engender in me so much love and subsequently grief for a character who mainly exists through Miles's eyes within the context of these books.

And thus, wallowing through the murky sentiments of the aftermath, I come to these thoughts. Death is for the living. True enough, whether we manage to live to 80 or 800, death ultimately hurts most for the people you leave behind. People will still love you at 800, and your passing will not be any less painful for them. If there isn't anyone left who loves you by then, I imagine the bulk of the pain is for you in the years leading up to it.

"Nobody," muttered Roic, "should die of old age at thirty-standard." Certainly not such a blazing spirit as Taura's had been.
M'lord looked meditative. "If the Duronas' or anybody else's anti-aging research ever succeeds, I wonder if death at three hundred or five hundred will come to seem as outrageous?"

Well, there's no need to wonder so far ahead. Count Aral was at least 82 when he died, old for Barrayaran standards, and one would say he lived a full life. None of that detracted from the grief, as I full well know. I wondered about the title of this book, CryoBurn. I'd thought it meant freezer burn or something, but it's apparent to me now that it's a juxtaposition of freezing and burning. Or more specifically, of limbo and closure. Stretching out the inevitable, but ultimately losing out on those years spent in stasis. Or cauterizing and letting the past make way for the future.

Don't get me wrong though, the novel isn't trying to moralize over humans' futile attempts to thwart death or anything like that. It's really about letting go. And I'm learning to let go, just as Miles had to. 4/5 on goodreads.

a glut of everything

2011-04-21T17:09:00.004+08:00

Maybe it's just due to the sheer volume of them, but I've come to doubt the happily-ever-after of every Harlequin Presents novel I read. There's always such a large disconnect between what the characters know of each other and who they really are. I grant that this is probably a necessary set-up for 99% of the conflicts out there, but I really don't think that bodes well for their future together, since the HP world is so fraught with malicious, conniving evil-doers bent on splitting couples up. Most of the inflammatory evidence that usually accompany such misunderstandings can be defused with a simple knowledge of someone's character, long enough for a logical, reasonable person to seek further explanations anyway.

But really, I have a lot of issues with HP novels, this being the least of it. The problem with category novels, in this scenario, is that they're like a formula within an already formulaic genre. What might work as a character study confined to a single story, when multiplied by the thousands of books you have in the same line, just seems like a glorification of the alpha-asshole behaviour (and various other stereotypes and double standards) so prevalent in them. Because of that, when I read a HP novel, its similarities (or rather, identifiers) with the other HPs I've read makes it hard for me to isolate my experiences with them from my experience with this single individual work. So yeah, my probability of enjoying a HP novel progressively declines with each successive HP I read. I guess that means I should only take them in small, spaced-out doses : /

"chivalry": because it really does need scare quotes

2011-03-26T22:54:00.013+08:00

I think feminism gets asked this question a lot: where does chivalry fit into your idea of equal rights? This is my two cents; not so much from a feminist angle, although it's my personal take on it and I am undeniably feminist.

If you read the chivalry article on Wikipedia, you'll see that the origins of chivalry are 'usually associated with ideals of knightly virtues, honor and courtly love', of which duties to ladies are only one aspect of it. Chivalry started out more as a means of identity for men, and despite the shifting focus to courtesy towards women that defines chivalry today, I think it still reflects its origins. Because, let's not kid ourselves -- anyone who has to put a label on good manners towards specific members of the human race is more concerned about how what he's doing defines him than anything else.

Call me judgmental, but if you think holding doors open (only for women, because how else can the chivalrous you be distinguished from the merely good-mannered who hold doors open for men and women alike?) means you're 'chivalrous', if you think that means something...I think less of you.

Yes, I have a thing against people who brag about chivalry or upholding it. To my mind, it has the same effect as the annual breast cancer awareness meme that goes around social networks (tell us where you like your handphone!) -- it makes people feel good about themselves by thinking they're doing something to 'support' a cause, when in fact they've not made any meaningful contribution. It's harmful in that it lulls people into imagining they've done their bit for charity and they need not do any more. That's what chivalry, or at least people who think they're being 'chivalrous' for these little bits of courtesy, does. They think they're pro-women, and they think doing it elevates them somehow, even if just a little bit, and it shows in their 'Well I hold doors open for girls! So I'm nice to girls' or something. Few of them think beyond holding doors open.

Let's not even go into the classist origins of chivalry (you didn't think chivalry was reserved for anyone but ladies, did you?), because 'chivalry' in our modern enlightened times today is just as discriminating. Remember these two videos? Heartwarming in one beat, disgusting the next.

My point, to you 'chivalrous' men out there, is this: do you really care about women? Then stand up for the drunk girl at the party who is clearly in no position to consent to your friend's advances, regardless of what she's wearing, how she's responding to those advances, what her reputation is, whether your friend will ever talk to you again. Make a stand against physical and emotional abuse, especially if it's a display in front of you, if only just to show that no, people are not okay with this, you are not okay with this. Even if you think she's a prostitute. Even if you're not physically intimidating enough and all you can do is call the cops or make a public scene. I can't promise you your help will always amount to something. I can't promise you that the women you help will always be grateful. But if you care, that shouldn't matter.

Most importantly, perhaps you should start by examining your own possible prejudices and double standards where women are concerned. Because that's what really stops men from being a help: thinking she might've deserved it, thinking she could've prevented it if she really wanted to, justifying, justifying, ad nauseam.

There is no doubt that there are men out there who stand up for women, but see, these men don't usually define what they do as chivalry. For good reason, because it's so far removed from the original applications of it. Plus, I often hear guys talk about chivalry in response to oh noes feminism! or expressing disgruntlement at the lack of 'proper appreciation' (i.e. accepting his gestures). Talk about a sense of entitlement. Even then they keep harping on the ridiculously minor acts of holding doors open, offering a coat, etc. Is it any wonder that I have such a poor opinion of chivalry and those who espouse it?

And maybe some of you would like to be honest -- that you've never thought about chivalry in terms of helping women, just being preferentially good-mannered to them. To that, I really have nothing much to say, except that why you would imagine it is something to be proud of is quite beyond me, since I cannot see it taking much strength of integrity and values to be polite to only half the human race.

tl;dr Chivalry is obsolete. Universally good manners is king. If you really love women, help them where it counts.

Further readings for the interested:-
On Chivalry : A feminist analysis of chivalry.
Stuff What Boys Can Do : Encouraging anecdotes of men helping women. Kind of like a givesmehope of men and feminism.

Daughter of the Forest

2011-03-24T02:08:00.008+08:00

Book: Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

Sorcha is the seventh child of an Irish lord, after her six brothers. When her father remarries, her new stepmother, the Lady Oonagh turns out to be a beautiful and malicious sorceress. After several engineered mishaps befall Sorcha and her brothers, they convene and attempt to do something about the enchantment holding their father in thrall. Instead, they are interrupted by Lady Oonagh, who casts a spell to turn them into swans. Sorcha however manages to run away and thus escapes the curse. Wrought with despair over her brothers' fates, she accepts the only solution given by the Fair Folk of the forest: to weave six shirts of starwort (a plant with barbed and poisonous stems) for her brothers, while keeping absolute silence. But love comes and complicates her mission.

This is a retelling of the fairy tale 'The Six Swans', and it stays pretty faithful to the Grimms' telling. It's a historical fantasy set in 9th century Ireland and incorporates the Celtic myths of its day. There are some mentions of early medieval Christianity, but the pagan lores are what drives the story, what with all the capricious Fair Folk running around messing with ordinary people's lives. I'd heard many good things about this book and I love fairy tales, so I really wanted to like it, but...it was a bit of a letdown, thanks to several things that lowered my overall enjoyment of it.

First off, there is a somewhat graphic rape scene in this book. Sorcha goes to hell and back in her quest to save her brothers. Now, I'm not against bad things happening to characters in general, but there's no denying that rape is a sensitive issue. I hadn't noticed any mention of it in the reviews I skimmed, so it came as quite a shock to me when it happened, and that probably cost me. It was all the more viscerally upsetting because I'd gotten quite emotionally invested in the character by then, and I had to put away the book for a day or so before I could pick it up again.

I don't think that the disclosure of this will in any way 'spoil' the book for anyone, so I believe it might be better if readers are given a trigger warning beforehand. Some may believe the 'shock value' of it might induce more empathy on the part of the reader, but sorry, I just can't see rape being used cavalierly as a 'plot twist'. There is no doubt that I would've enjoyed this book better if I'd been warned and knew to gird my loins (horrible pun not intended). So. If you're reading this, you have been warned.

Secondly, I found the change in tone, or rather, the shift in focus, hard to follow. The brief summary I gave above is actually quite misleading about its pacing. The events that set the tale in motion don't happen until about 100 pages into the book. It didn't start out as a romance (the love interest only turns up around the halfway mark), but it ended as a romance. Ironically, the half without the romance was my favourite, despite me picking up this book for its promised romantic elements.

I have always said that I'm not much of a prose person, and that I'm a very reactionary reader -- what I left out is that I find it much easier to articulate what went wrong than what I liked. For the latter, I'm not sure what to say beyond readthisreadthisreadthis! So this next part is kind of hard for me to write. I have to say, as little as the attention I pay to prose, that I like Marillier's. Daughter of the Forest is written in omniscient first person, almost like a memoir, and it worked for me. I cared about the world she introduced to me, I cared about what happened, and I cared, period.

It's precisely because I liked it so much in the first half that I cared much more about the characters introduced to me then, and the romance took second place. All I felt was a strong sense of urgency for Sorcha to complete her task so she and her brothers would be saved, and everything else, especially the romance, just got in the way. Well okay, that's not fair -- it didn't get in the way, I just wasn't very invested in it. I was much more invested in the completion of her task, and thus I didn't empathize with the love/family dilemma. The hero's confession at the end was romantic, or at least I know I would've thought so in another book, but I'd stopped seeing this book as a romance by page 202, and really didn't care so much about that aspect.

My apathy towards the lovers' fate carried over to the ending, and all the loose ends made it extremely dissatisfying. In fact, the only thing that's resolved is the love story, which is why I said the book ended like a romance -- since it was as if the only thing that should matter at that point was that the hero and heroine lived happily ever after. Unfortunately, as I've explained, that obviously wouldn't be enough for me. I felt like I was left hanging. I know that this is part of a series, but I just don't feel like I got any emotional payoff after sticking with Sorcha's story for so long (it felt really long, okay) and I'm a bit leery about trying the sequels because of that. Plus, they deal with a different set of protagonists.

Some minor caveats: I had a bit of a problem with the heroine being in a completely helpless and vulnerable situation for majority of the book, but since that's how the original fairy tale goes anyway, I was willing to overlook it. The heroine starts out 13 in this book and finishes it aged 16. Some people might be creeped out by that, but I considered it largely in keeping with the mores of her time, and also she sounded way older than a 13 year-old.

There is a twist on the old romance rule of the first strange man the heroine encounters being the love interest, and I found that bit intriguing. Kudos to Marillier for that.

Final thoughts: I'm a bit traditional in what I expect in my reading, which is probably why I like genre fiction so much. So despite the many things I enjoyed in this book, the experience is dampened by the things I didn't. 3/5 on goodreads for me.

I have plenty of other authors I want to try before I'll think about getting back on board with this one. (but I'll be checking reviews for any possibility of sexual violence when I dip my toe in again.)

mirroring

2011-03-19T01:24:00.000+08:00

I dreamed that I was trying to get to somewhere by bus, but wherever I ended up, I couldn't recognize the area at all, and I couldn't ask anyone for help.

Get a fucking map.

Nicholas Sparks

2011-03-18T11:31:00.009+08:00

"(Romances) are all essentially the same story: You've got a woman, she's down on her luck, she meets the handsome stranger who falls desperately in love with her, but he's got these quirks, she must change him, and they have their conflicts, and then they end up happily ever after. ... (t)he themes in love stories are different. In mine, you never know if it's going to be a happy ending, sad ending, bittersweet or tragic. You read a romance because you know what to expect. You read a love story because you don't know what to expect."

--Nicholas Sparks via USA TODAY

Hmmm. Let me put it this way: if romance novels are guaranteed happy endings, then Nicholas Sparks guarantees tragic, bittersweet endings. So I honestly don't see how one formula is superior to the other. If I'm going to have to choose between two equally predictable and formulaic genres (yes Nicholas Sparks, you are predictable), then I'm going for the one more likely to leave me smiling (guaranteed emotional payoff, okay!). Also,

Sparks says: "I'm going to interrupt you there. There's a difference between drama and melodrama; evoking genuine emotion, or manipulating emotion. It's a very fine eye-of-the-needle to thread. And it's very rare that it works. That's why I tend to dominate this particular genre. There is this fine line. And I do not verge into melodrama. It's all drama. I try to generate authentic emotional power."

Really? Systematically killing off one main character in every book kind of screams emotional manipulation to me. In my opinion, fiction is supposed to try to tug on your heartstrings. The difference in whether it works, is when the reader realizes they're being manipulated and feels swindled. That's when it doesn't work, and that is precisely why I haven't bothered to read his other books and watch his other movies after A Walk to Remember and The Notebook. 'Genuine' or 'manipulated' emotion on the part of the reader, of all people, is not the distinction. All emotions from reading fiction are manipulated, somehow. It's all in the story, and whether or not the reader can be strung along thinking that the events happening are a natural progression of what they're reading.

Of course, it is a fine line to tread, and you can't please everyone. Even though I don't adore Nicholas Sparks, I know many people who do. That being said, I have nothing against 'Greek tragedies' or Romeo and Juliet. Having a preference for happy endings is just that, a preference. If bittersweet tearjerkers are up your alley, by all means grab a Sparks novel.

And, odd -- I noticed he has Jane Austen on his shortlist of people who are 'doing what he does' (mind, it is a very short list). If love stories are spotted by their unpredictably tragic endings, how the heck did Austen make the cut?

But what especially amuses me is how Sparks tries to distinguish his works from romances (a genre he is often tagged with for obvious reasons) by linking himself exclusively with big literary names (cue: Austen despite her decidedly untragic endings) while playing down the romance genre as frivolous and adult versions of fairy tales. Because we all know only sad and tragic things ever happen in real life.

ticking time-bomb

2011-03-17T02:50:00.000+08:00

Some days (every day) I feel like I'm brimming with potential for failure. That I will spend the rest of my life defining its moments by how closely I skirt the edge of it.

And then on even rarer days, there is a fatalistic urge to jump (fall) anyway and see what I can do with all the pieces left after. (answer: nothing)

ache

2011-02-11T18:20:00.001+08:00

I'm not one to indulge in could-have-been's, but on days like these I think maybe I ought to. If only just to force me to acknowledge the depth of my own cowardice and how much I've managed to let slip by me, and maybe, just maybe, the intensity of my regrets will carry through to the next crossroads and remind me to tread bravely.

Keep heart.

mini updates

2011-02-10T15:07:00.004+08:00

Flu. Sick meh. Only after the major new year celebrations, thankfully; I'm not missing out on much now. Contracted it from my dear visiting brother who I'd been cooped up in the same room with for a week, I bet >_>

Dance. Even brief hiatuses do me in completely :( as evidenced by my post-CNY break noobness. My resolution for this year is to get a bit more involved in the social dance scene in Perth (among other Things roar). Somehow.

Wait. This summer break is getting to be too long. Maybe it's because everyone's leaving/left and so I have nothing to distract me from my growing anxiety for the coming semester. Maybe I shouldn't have quit my job, but I felt like I really needed a breather before I jumped back into the academic grind. I hate waiting, but this wait is probably necessary :/

Jaran. It's not science fiction, disappointingly. But it was an intriguing enough story to keep me going. I loved the worldbuilding (on the micro-culture scale anyway, there is barely anything on its sci-fi outline), even if the society the author created sounds a mite too utopian for me. Would twisting gender dynamics by making women the sexual initiators and men the recipients remove sexual violence from the picture completely? I find that curious. I don't know if the author meant to suggest that, or if she simply didn't bother to examine the implications of it.

Additionally, it seemed that 'sexual aggressiveness' was really limited to issuing invitations (that is up to the man to accept), which is kind of already done in our male-aggressor culture even among females, albeit with negative labels. I wonder that women, given the power and encouraged to openly solicit men in society, would not take advantage of it, as imbalanced power structures often tempt people to. I wonder that the issue of sexual violence is never raised, as if it would never occur, by dint of men's generally superior physical strength (despite the fact that in this society they are prohibited from using violence on women, thereby conferring some sort of immunity on them?). The author tries to balance the stakes by giving men the absolute choice in marriage, which also gives them the right to act similarly to our own earthly gender dynamics, but I never felt it was much of a fair trade.

Also, human nature? I find it unbelievable that a society that condones casual pre-(and post-) marital sex would not have any venereal diseases or illegitimacy issues to deal with, even with contraception being practised regularly. Accidents happen. And the taboo with orphans was never really explained; I can only assume it comes from an aversion to tragedy.

Maybe I'm being too egalitarian for my own good, because I actually quite liked the book, so long as one does not expect too much from the romance. I'm feeling torn about continuing the series. On one hand, I would like to know what happens next, on the other, I'm not sure I want to invest more time and emotion in a hanging, incomplete story that likely won't ever be finished.

Er okay so my mini update post somehow led to impromptu book musings. These things happen :D

dear fellow feminist on the dance floor,

2011-01-28T02:40:00.001+08:00

please don't take out your feelings of frustration and helplessness on other women. Saying 'why didn't you say something? you should've screamed! I just needed a reason to beat him up' harshly in response to our talks of discomfort, then proceeding to lecture us on what rape is (i.e. touching without consent) in the same breath, acting for the world like you're on our side (maybe you are, but I don't see it), is a big NO-NO.

you mean well, I'm sure. But when you come at us like that, and make me wonder for a long moment if maybe you're defending him, you fail. Quite epically.

that thing girlfriends do

2010-12-30T02:41:00.000+08:00

Forgive the crappy resolution/quality; am inexperienced at camwhoring solo.

Li May knows how to build me up again...

wrap me warm when I'm down

cosy up my ups

gimme lots of words <3 can't get enough

okay just one more faux poser photo with my big nose and big grins

...And Su Ping knows what I like ;)

hey the roses tinkle!

a spot of sunshine

2010-12-19T20:33:00.009+08:00

I'm starting to retreat into my usual break-hiatus again. But since it was my birthday yesterday, I figure this little space of mine could do with something on it.

I...don't know what to say. I wish I could make this a happy post. I had a fabulous time with friends :D and it was lovely. A whole bunch of new books (most of them from myself lol; but thank you for the ones that aren't). Reminders from absent beloved friends of how beloved I still am. But I don't think those are the biggest things I'll be taking away from today, and even if it's not my birthday anymore, today was pretty much yesterday and I will probably forever behold my 20th in a sober light. I'm not down or sad (not much, anyway), but it's been...sobering. Ironic choice of words considering what I was doing the night before ;)

Yeah, if only I read books as fast as I got them.

I started this post earlier yesterday and was going to say something relentlessly optimistic about how good times could be had anytime and birthdays are just an excuse for one. How I was going to take that excuse and run away with it, that bad times don't have to mean the end of it. Well, it's today already, so the persistent cheer is quite unnecessary. I had a good time, despite everything, and because of everything, I can pick up the pieces of my shattered confidence and continue on. (the alternative does not bear considering)

Mmmm all in all, it was a decently awesome birthday :) Thank you again to all the people who made it so.

"I'll send her a spot of sunshine," he said. "Sometimes a spot of sunshine will show people how dusty and dirty things are, when nothing else will."

-- 'Dame Crabby's Surprise Packet' in The Enchanted Bellows and Other Stories, Enid Blyton

the nights are lonely here,

2010-12-06T02:53:00.002+08:00

everywhere. There's something about the quiet the world around you goes into in the hours after midnight, and it tastes a little like being...left behind. Straggling as everyone else joins the world of slumber; the half of a new day begun for them, and you a day behind. The nights accumulate, and you accumulate days.

(scared of ineffectiveness but you're even more terrified you won't be and still, nothing. is it rock bottom yet?)

The whirring of the fan in the dark, humid hallway. Mechanical, like you. For tomorrows, disappointment like a bad taste in your mouth, in their eyes, in the mirror as you try to brushbrushbrush it away. Summer nights are just as bad as winter nights, wherever you are.

the nights are so lonely everywhere.

The Hunger Games

2010-12-03T05:28:00.010+08:00

Book(s): The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

When I finished Mockingjay, the final book in the Hunger Games trilogy (thank you, Su Ping!), my first thought was: it's not a romance. I suppose you can say it's not meant to be anyway, what with it being dystopian YA and people concentrating on staying alive and everything. But adventure fiction often incorporates romantic elements into its plot (there's nothing more universal for readers than love and sex and the pursuit thereof after all), so it's not impossible, and they always do it when there's a female lead. Plus, it's YA. How can you not have romance in YA, where you have hormone-riddled teenagers for your characters AND your target audience? So whether it's realistic is debatable, but it's been done.

Decades ago, the thirteen Districts of Panem rose up in rebellion against the Capitol and lost, with the Capitol completely obliterating one of them. The Hunger Games were then created. The Hunger Games is an entertainment held by the Capitol each year, in which every District has to send two tributes aged 12-18 to battle it out in an arena on a nation-wide broadcast. The prize is untold glory and wealth, and the winner is the last person alive. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen from District 12 sees her younger, gentle sister get picked out of a lottery of names to participate in the Hunger Games, the logical thing to do, the only thing to do, is to volunteer to take her place. That's the basic premise. Aren't you feeling all warm and fuzzy already?

Back to the not-romance in the series. Featuring a love triangle notwithstanding -- an actual one, not a faux one that only serves to divide up its fanbase (looking at you Twilight), Katniss goes through much of the books being pretty much romantically indifferent to both of the guys, and I was half-convinced she would end up not picking anyone at all (now wouldn't that be one hell of a subversion). Of course this being YA, she has to. But when she does, her final decision is just as rooted in practicality as all her dealings with the two love interests in the past three books have been. I thought that was actually quite in character for her, as Katniss has never been sentimental. It's not that she doesn't care, because she does. She just doesn't love passionately or irrationally, which is the stuff starry-eyed romances are made of.

In a lot of romance in fiction, there needs to be conflict for there to be a story, so you often see heroes and heroines falling for each other despite the occasionally frequent hostile reception they get. Katniss just doesn't deal with that sort of drama. If someone (a guy) dislikes her, then she's just not going to like him either. I personally think that's more realistic. After all, we associate people with how they make us feel. But of course, I haven't factored in sexual attraction, which was barely examined in the Hunger Games. I also wondered if maybe Katniss isn't the victim of an attempt to create a 'strong' female, to the point of burying her emotions (in addition to being stupidly reckless, but let's stick to the topic at hand) -- the same pitfalls that face so many Urban Fantasy heroines. But despite being part of a common character archetype, Katniss came off as a genuine enough personality and she never made me roll my eyes, so I guess it worked.

I had my reservations about this series after the first book, because I didn't think it delivered on the angst and psychological ramifications its premise offered, and I wasn't too enchanted with Katniss (although I really liked Peeta). I wasn't a fan of Katniss's voice, but the characters were engaging enough and Katniss grew on me. That kind of sums up my reaction to the entire series -- it grew on me. As for the angst, boy, the last book more than makes up for it. There are so many things in these books I could talk about; this rambling is really just a small offshoot at the forefront of my mind, and even then I couldn't do it justice because the problem with delay between books is that I forget a lot of the smaller details and miss out on subsequent ones. Ah well, that's what re-reads are for.

Still not very partial to the world-building though. It's not that there wasn't any, because there was plenty, but I just didn't fall in love with it (I attribute this to the author's voice). It didn't engender any sense of fascination in me like 1984 or Bujold does. I'm not sure if that's a question of ideas or execution, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt. Of course, while I didn't love it, it was entertaining and I liked it a lot. I liked Katniss eventually. Hence, if you're looking for nothing too psychologically thrilling or littered with he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not angst, you might like this one.

today I talk about Twilight

2010-12-02T23:53:00.007+08:00

Twilight, oh Twilight. You either love it or hate it, right? At least, that's what most people seem to think they have to do, even if they haven't read the books (the default reaction is then hatehatehate! even if I haven't read it! but I've read snippets! so I must unleash all the distaste at my disposal for the five minutes it forced out of me to decide I hated it! or my friend told me what happened! so I must hate it because shehe seems to have good reason to and even though it hasn't affected my time in any way except to hear it from my friend -- but okay that's hisher fault -- MUST. HAVE. OPINION.)

It's a bandwagon thing. I own three of the four books in the series, so go figure. I did have the luxury of reading the first three before the frenzy of opinions abounded, but I read the fourth in the midst of it. Here's my reaction to the first book: mmm. Meh. Here girls, try this. Second book: whatthehell why is she so spiritless and silly I don't like this book. Third book: er...what happened again?

Then BAM the circus started. Fourth book: OMG so campy and ridiculous! Did she just XXX?? (but honestly it was reminiscent of some of the worser fanfiction I've read -- I think Meyer went a little over the top after the success got to her head). So apart from the fourth (where I was possibly and probably biased) and maybe the second, I didn't love them, but I didn't hate them either. Here's the question: would most of you have, before the circus?

P.S. Not saying that Twilight doesn't deserve its negative publicity, but I really think it's mostly a reaction to the positive publicity. The karmic balance of opinions, or something, idk.

P.P.S. If you're wondering why I continue to buy books I am merely 'meh' with, I am a completist. I finish series. That explains why I own six books of Trudi Canavan's even though I didn't much like any of it. Yes, it took me six books to finally decide. Shut up.

EDIT: I fleshed this post out a little more in the comments section.

longing

2010-11-14T05:24:00.002+08:00

On Persephone's pomegranates, and seeing each other again:

"I got to one thousand and forty-three seeds last night," she said. "In the bath. So it's absolutely all right."

A Company of Swans, Eva Ibbotson

restart

2010-11-12T17:22:00.004+08:00

Sometimes I think I let myself sink because I'm looking for rock bottom to give me that extra boost when I (finally) push myself up again.

Home in five days :) can't wait.

Conversations with the bff/mpf :-
Me: It's kind of like a 'screw you, world! I don't care what you think', you know?
Sara: Well, that explains some of your clothes.
Me: ...

Sara: At the interview, they asked who was the one person I'd bring to a party. Everyone else mentioned a celebrity I think, but I said 'my best friend'.
Me: Awww.
Sara: Yeah I didn't get it.
Me: Ouch.

this is a post about a skirt

2010-11-01T18:50:00.009+08:00

I have a skirt. It isn't a very nice skirt. I'm fairly certain Sara would hate it when she sees it, actually. It's a bit long, in an odd shade of green with a flower print, and hemmed with black lace. I don't like it, and in fact positively detested it when I first bought it (don't ask why I got it in the first place), but...it's grown on me.

I still don't like it. Thought I wouldn't wear it at all after the first blush from my retail high faded (quickly), but I've worn it pretty often since, more so than other skirts in my acquaintance. I'd never wear it for anyone I wanted to impress (ahem) but as there's no one I care to impress right now anyway, that's fine. This skirt is like a mood ring. Not that it changes colours (although that would be neat! or not.), but it appears to be a gauge of my self-esteem through its appearance. Succinctly put, the better I feel about myself, the more often you see it on me.

It's an odd relationship, to say the least, but there you have it. It's my happy skirt.

I haven't worn it very much lately.

I love you one thousand times, li may!

2010-10-29T11:37:00.003+08:00

Yes, VERY!

I swear this postcard made me laugh and want to cry at the same time. You and your ineffable sense of timing had this meet me at one of the lowest points of my year...I really do love you, you know? :') Good ol' li may. It's amazing how we've lasted through the years and miles and timezones -- except it didn't feel amazing, it just felt like the way things should be. Of course special friends have that special immediate connection upon meeting! Of course friendships hold strong no matter the obstacles! You've spoiled me for life, I say.

Thank you for reminding me that people care; that you care. Thank you for sticking around when I'm being difficult (form 1 days, anyone?). Thank you for letting me be who I am in front of you, flaws and weaknesses and all, without feeling lesser, somehow. Thank you for being in my life.

Sniffles. And I was trying not to get too sappy. Just this once then, 'kay?

P.S. I tried belly dancing once too, and YES the shimmy is bloody difficult. I commiserate with "How come they look so hot and we look...like this?" HAHAHAHAH

P.P.S. This is also a <3 shoutout to some unnamed persons who have stuck around, so to speak :) you know who you are.

On rakish heroes and faithful heroines

2010-10-27T00:02:00.014+08:00

Something that might be jarring in romance novels (and this is purely preferential) - sex scenes, or at least sexually-charged ones, between the hero and another woman. This is usually to showcase the hero's rakishness, or if he isn't a rake, his sexual prowess and desirability as a mate, or something. I don't know. I also think it's an acknowledgement of the fact that lust is not love. That's alright, it's not, and showing just why things are different with the heroine is part of the journey.

And then it hit me. I have never seen a heroine portrayed the same way.* And by that I mean, in a sexually-charged scene with a man other than the hero. You might say it is because I read mostly historicals, and (unmarried) women of times past are understandably constrained in their sexuality. But I'm not even talking about acting on it, I'm talking about sexual attraction, straight up. I find it unrealistic that these women with (almost always) repressed/unawakened passionate natures have some sort of lock to said nature, for which only The One (hero) has the key, and that all previous attempts to pick it by Not The One's have been bungled because...well, they are not the ones.

But it's romaaantic that way! Really? I didn't think it romantic to depict the hero with some other woman mere pages away from his meet-cute with the heroine, but I understood that these things happened. Also, sexual attraction is not love. I find it incredible that we can recognize that in the hero, but not in the heroine. If a heroine, on the first page, walks into a roomful of strangers and her sensual senses alight on a particular man, then the reader knows he is to be our hero, no question. Apparently the heroine's sex-o-meter is also a love compass. Every other man, even when observed to be attractive, is usually tagged with a but-in-an-aesthetic-way! qualification, thus stripping him of his sexuality (in the heroine's eyes anyway).

I honestly don't get the reluctance to allow romance heroines to fall in lust (however briefly) with men other than the hero. It happens, yo. This brings me back to the theory of the heroine's love-sex compass (with North pointing to Love of My Life and South to Sex Me Up Now). What bothers me, is that it is built on the assumption of the tired old stereotype that women are incapable of separating love from lust but men do it all the time. Which is complete and utter bullshit.

So blahblahblah deeply entrenched double standards in romance genre blahblah okay this post seemed more well thought-out in my head. And more coherent too. My apologies. Blame it on the time of the year.

I need to find some new authors.

*Edit: Upon reflection, I can think of a few, but probably on one hand.

finnikin of the rock

2010-08-31T19:43:00.009+08:00

Last Read: Finnikin of the Rock, Melina Marchetta

I've heard about Melina Marchetta for awhile now, so when I saw two of her books on the Dymocks shelf for the 3-for-2 sale, I grabbed them. Marchetta writes Young Adult, which I don't read much of. That probably accounts for my hesitation with her contemporary YA On the Jellicoe Road; I was much more willing to try Finnikin of the Rock because of its fantasy setting. So it's a bit ironic that I ended up liking the former more than the latter.

This is not a proper book review. If you want to know more about the book, I've linked to the author's webpage at the start of this entry. Moving on...

There's a lot to like about Finnikin. Evanjalin -- a main character whose POV we never get in the book -- is one of the more kickass women I've read, and we all know how much I love a strong female lead. There aren't any overtly Crowning Moments of Awesome (not like a certain Cordelia Naismith I've also read recently - oh my, so much to fangirl over <3), but the way she's manipulated people and events into falling into place around her throughout the book (with a little divine assistance), leaves no doubt as to who is really in charge -- titular Finnikin's character arc notwithstanding.

I suppose I like the characters in Finnikin, but not as much I'd liked them in Jellicoe Road. Maybe having an overarching plot inevitably detracts away from character development, as opposed to a book in which nothing happens much of the time. If so, Finnikin should make up for it with its setting. But it doesn't. The worldbuilding in it is nothing spectacular. In fact, the kingdom of Lumatere initially reads like a classic fairy tale with its black-and-white morality and its perfect rulers and perfect inhabitants. It's as if Marchetta then came along with this thought experiment: 'What is the worst possible thing I could have happen to these people?' And thus Finnikin was born.

So the world of Finnikin came off to me reminiscent of the Grimm tales in its setting and atmosphere, except it's...well, grimmer. I feel that Marchetta only really used the fantasy setting as a backdrop, to spur her what-if scenario. Hence, while it was a pretty good read, I cannot commend Finnikin of the Rock as a fantasy novel. I definitely think it better than a lot of the (admittedly little) YA I've read, but even then it loses out to her other books.

omphaloskepsis

2010-08-24T23:25:00.019+08:00

WARNING: Uninteresting shit ahead. More navel-gazing yay.

(Personal) reasons I stopped with the Mercy Thompson series after Moon Called

1. I don't like love triangles. Positively detest them, in fact. This is completely a question of preference for me. But I've heard that the triangle is resolved a few books into the series, so I might not have to worry about this anymore.

2. The lack of a female community. There are very few decently fleshed-out female characters aside from Mercy. I'm sure there must be ways to emphasize Mercy's sheer awesomeness without having to take other females out of the picture completely (I suspect this is the main reason for her isolation. The other secondary-main female role is a love interest's daughter and so is not a potential threat to Mercy's desirability.) The isolation and overwhelming testosterone, it burns.

3. The status of women in the story. All the lip-service paid to feminism in the form of offhand comments that the wolves 'aren't very enlightened' isn't enough for me. I'd have liked to see a little more awareness about it. Considering that the wolves live among humans who view gender equality differently, how do they reconcile it with their own culture and justify it? Also, Briggs has made it so that female wolves derive their powers and status from their mates directly (there's no fighting biology yo). I don't even-- why would she do that? Why would she base the gender inequality issue in her world on something so irrevocable as, as...having to literally rely on a man for power? D:

I know, I know, it's her world and it's not perfect. But I don't have to like it.

2+3. It's not even the lack of options presented to females that bothers me. It's the lack of females who assert their own fate and come out strong despite the obstacles Briggs has given them. Mercy may be cool, but she's so utterly alienated and alone in this, I'm left wondering what happened to all the other decent women. I mean, come on, Briggs has all the female werewolves resenting and ostracizing Mercy because of her ability to carry a baby to term. Seriously? Not a single woman among them with enough fortitude of character or self-awareness to think gee, maybe my life doesn't have to revolve around having babies and snagging an eligible wolf for his hierarchy status and power, so maybe just maybe we shouldn't torment that poor girl out of petty jealousy?

No. In Mercy Thompson's world, female werewolves are jealous, immature, backstabbing bitches who are arguably the product of the myth constraints that Briggs put them in, and they can't seem to grow out of it. Unless they're in spin-off novels of which they are heroines. Then they are awesome.
______________________________________________________

Sigh, but despite my misgivings, I did like her writing, and I liked Mercy a lot. I'm not sure why these points bothered me enough to stop reading. And, well, it was only one book. Maybe all those issues get ironed out in later volumes. It's definitely a series I might go back to one day, but for now I offer these hang-ups as excuses.

On victim-blaming

2010-08-06T17:38:00.009+08:00

The other day, a friend Zoey shared a link on facebook to an article about people's tendency to find a relationship between rape victims and how they dress. This got me talking to Young about the oft-cited pedestrian analogy that people bandy about to justify their victim-blaming and/or give themselves a sense of security against the idea of it happening close to home.

You've probably heard it all before - that women should watch how they dress to avoid getting raped. That it's a sensible precaution, being realistic; same as how pedestrians should look both ways before crossing the road, whether or not there's a zebra crossing.

This is a stupid analogy. It's stupid because it's not even representative of how rape occurs. What would be more apt is this: You want to cross the road. There's an overhead bridge a mile down the road but you figure it's not worth the extra walk. There aren't many cars on the road anyway. Before you step out, you look both ways. No cars. Or maybe you're a little careless and don't look both ways, because you didn't glimpse any headlights from your peripheral vision. You walk. And as you're in the middle of the road, a car zips out from around the corner where it has presumably been lying in wait, guns the accelerator and - this is important - does everything they can to run you down.

Oh, and most of the time, you know the driver. Hell, there might even be a split second where you wave and smile in recognition before you realize they want to hit you.

The victim-blamers ask, Why didn't you pay attention to your surroundings - you might've heard the low hum of an engine in wait. Why didn't you go for the overhead bridge? Why cross the road at all?

I suppose we should treat all cars on the road as potential maniacs who want to run down pedestrians. Or never ever cross roads.

There is nothing wrong with wanting someone you love to be careful, but people should realize that saying things like these, especially after a rape has happened, reinforces all those views that have been expressed in the article I linked above, and really, do you not find that harmful? Everyone who's crossed roads in Australia and Malaysia should know the difference that putting the onus of prevention on a pedestrian/victim makes.

Here's to demonstrate how pervasive this idea of 'what you wear causes you to get raped' is. My parents were telling me about a friend whose house got robbed one night, when everyone except the niece was out. The niece was in the shower when she heard something, and stepped out to investigate. She came downstairs wrapped in only a towel to find five Malay men in the midst of burgling the place. What do you think happened next?

Okay before your cynicism consumes you, this is what happened: They tied her up, finished burgling the place, and left.

Now, I am just as grateful as the next person that nothing happened to her, but what puzzled me was how everyone, my parents and their friends included, kept emphasizing on her lack of dress. Of how amazingly ethical the robbers must've been to refrain. I thought it should have been apparent to anyone then, that what she wore didn't mean anything. Clearly, they were men who'd decided not to rape, and the only effect of her being wrapped in a wet towel should have on the situation was that it probably made her feel horribly vulnerable (I'd hate to be her). She could've been wearing a burqa and they, outnumbering her five to one in an empty house in the middle of the night, would still rape her if they had a mind to. What is cloth to a sharp knife?

Note that this is not a victim-blaming situation. I'm just pointing out that people are so ridiculously hung-up on what (potential) victims wear when they should be focusing on what the (potential) rapist did (or didn't do).

tl;dr Rapists don't fucking care what you do or do not wear.

Five Stages of Grief

2010-07-29T20:52:00.004+08:00

The five stages of grief by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, as experienced by me (upon finding out about the launch of kindle 3, after a mere three weeks with my beloved new kindle 2):

Denial –
"wtf this can't be happening"
"I would've read about this when I did my research on the kindle!"
"EVERYONE SAID CHRISTMAS"

Anger –
"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUWATBLAGHTEMPURAMOTHERFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU"

Bargaining –

"Maybe there's some exchange policy in place for recent purchases..." [Nope there isn't]
"Return this one since it's within the 30-day period? :D" [Shipping costs, friend.]

Depression –
"Now I feel so dumb. I would've found out about this if I'd thought to look for it, or if I'd waited until I came back to Perth first I might've..."
STUPID :(

Acceptance –
"It's okay, I still love my kindle 2."
"I was already prepared for this. It just came...a lot sooner than expected"
"Nothing special about kindle 3 anyway, other than minor improvements."

I have thus come to terms with the mortality of my retail (therapy) high.

News from Sydney: Impulse Buys

2010-07-07T03:15:00.006+08:00

First things first I GOT A KINDLE I GOT A KINDLE I'M GETTING A KIIIIIINDLEEEE

Honestly, Sara brings out the shopaholic in me. I swore I wouldn't shop while I was in Sydney (except for boots. boots and nothing else) and despite having no problems refraining in Perth, I shopped. For more than just boots.

Aaand I bought a kindle. Online. It isn't even on retail here so I have no real excuse, except that being in proximity with Sara apparently short-circuits my frugal switch. Also, I was so gung-ho about my new purchase that I'm having it shipped right here, to Sydney. Yes, I don't have it yet. Yes, I am banking on Amazon's potentially-unreliable delivery date estimates. Yes, I am leaving in two weeks. Yes, I am aware that if it arrives after I leave I will have to rely on Sara to send it to me and that it probably won't come to me unopened. On the bright side, Sara will pay for postage since she's the one who convinced me not to wait anyway.

...I don't know why I listen to her.

STILL. KINDLE. I'M GETTING IT :D In other news, Sydney is awesome. Food is awesome. I've been having lots of that. Busting my budget on it, actually : / and I'm only halfway through my vacation. George is currently here, though he's itching to leave in a day or so. Methinks the boy has had his annual dose of us. Too much oestrogen, perhaps?

Been doing some...other stuff too, but I'll save that for more intimate environments ;)

murphy's law is the drama tv series law, only catchier.

2010-06-03T14:44:00.004+08:00

...Turns out frequent update is not frequent at all :D I have set a low bar for myself. Oh well, a post today read six months later will give no less indication of what my life has been like than if it were read today anyway (i.e. none at all).

So about a week ago, when I read Lisa Kleypas's Married By Morning, I came across this passage and LOLed:

“Good God,” Leo growled, tossing the folded paper to the table, “the drama in this household is more than a man can tolerate. I would have assumed that we could have had a reasonable discussion in the comfort of Ramsay House, but instead she flees in the dark of night and leaves a letter filled with sentimental twaddle.”

This. This completely sums up my reaction to most situations contrived solely for the purpose of extending The Angst. I had to laugh at this small bit of self-awareness in a romance novel character. Granted, when it's done well, it's more than fine, but when it's not...head-banging ensues. This is why I have problems keeping with tv drama series that span several seasons of unresolved sexual tension and angst and good god they just go on FOREVER. At least with romance novels you know it'll be resolved (happily) by the last page. So I stay away from the likes of One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl (but I make an exception for Grey's Anatomy, simply because they have beautiful lines. Even then, I don't care for the characters as much if only so I can bring myself to watch them being put through the wringers again and again. Damn our cultural obsession with schadenfreude).

In any case, this book isn't a head-banger. I have a few opinions that are largely unrelated to my mini ramble above on unnecessary angst, but since I've already mentioned the book here I'll just go on.

NOTE: INDIFFERENT PERSONS CAN STOP READING RIGHT ABOUT NOW. I've generally liked Kleypas's work, but this isn't one of her best. This is part of a series on a family and its members, and the characters in this novel were already introduced at least two books before, yet their story in this one seemed to run at a pace too fast for me. I'm not sure if it is because of the contrast between the slow development of their character introductions (over two books) and the rate at which their relationship moved forward, since it might seem fast only in comparison but in actual reality be your standard romance fare. I might feel differently if I'd read this without any prior knowledge of the series.

As it is now though, so much attention has been paid to the development of their less-than-pleasant relationship and interactions (again, TWO books), that coming to this one and having them have a sudden turnabout in their personal regard for each other gave me whiplash. Admittedly, they were only secondary characters in the previous books, but if I were to read this as a series (which I did), I'd have preferred that their relationship turn for the positive in equal pacing with their premise (i.e. start developing it before this novel). But then novels like this need to be stand-alone, so people can just jump into it. So. I don't know. I can only say I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd like.

P.S. YES I know my exams are in less than a week and omg what am I doing reading romance novels and did I have to update NOW of all times and I am lacking in Vitamin D and...all the other letters too actually but this is what I like to call PRODUCTIVE PROCRASTINATION.

Fishing...

2010-03-02T18:16:00.002+08:00

I'm a sucker for compliments. My mind simply cannot wrap itself around the idea that anyone who would like me - any part of me - could possibly be less than awesome. As you can imagine, this tends to impair my judgement. Which is not to say you guys aren't also truly awesome, please don't stop loving me D:

Anyway, been a long hiatus, which is a good thing. A lack of online presence indicates a social life. Which I had, for 3 months :D am now rejuvenated again for the semester. I really needed that.

You can be expecting more frequent updates now (: Well, as frequent as they were before, at any rate.

there's no place like

2009-11-20T23:29:00.007+08:00

home. 9 months later, I come back to:

1. the same old antique living room set I've lived with for more than a decade PLEASE can we have something soft and squishy D:
2. my bathroom door missing a doorknob. There is now a piece of cardboard covering up the gaping hole where it used to be and a piece of string looped through it to act as a substitute*. Resourcefulness, thy family name is Chan.
3. the post-it note I stuck to the bathroom mirror saying 'put the toothpaste cap back on!' still there :)
4. barely-there shower sprays and no hot water yay
5. a leaking sink that splashes your feet with the contents of your gargling.

...glad to be home, really. Still, as tired as I am of moving, it's probably a good thing that we are, soon. SQUISHY SOFAS MOOOM

*This is the third doorknob my family has destroyed.

male bashing ≠ female empowerment

2009-11-14T08:37:00.000+08:00

Posted: 14/11/09

I bought this shirt last year thinking it was cute. I'm not so sure now. Bryan was a little offended back when I got it, and I remember brushing it off thinking 'he's just being sensitive' (sorry Bryan). But I imagine if it said GIRLS MAKE GREAT ACCESSORIES instead I would've totally flipped my lid.

I'm not going to justify my double standard, but I think most people would have reacted the way I did. Not to say it's right. But then, women have had a long, long history of being treated exactly just like that, so much so that the idea of someone taking a statement like GIRLS MAKE GREAT ACCESSORIES seriously is actually quite plausible, and hence a hot button. Of course, some women can be and have been guilty of the same - namely treating men as objects, but it isn't at all the same as the systematic oppression of women through the ages. Men have never been at risk of having their entire sex treated (in every way that counts) as less than human by the fairer sex, and really, in their position of privilege and power and all, the idea of men being mere accessories is, well, ludicrous.

I just realized I'm trying to explain a stupid t-shirt. Who the hell analyzes the shit out of a joke?

My point is, I worried it was sexist, but it isn't. It's not the same because it isn't even an existing male stereotype of guys=accessories. If anything it's a tongue-in-cheek twist on the girls=accessories stereotype (which diddoes exist). But I honestly doubt it's seen as that. More likely it's just a form of retaliation along the lines of 'objectify me, will you? back atcha!', which doesn't get us anywhere if we're talking about combating sexism seriously.

So...title subject. Men are friends, not food. Guys, I don't think of you as accessories. Really. Out of deference to the amazing guys in my life, good bye t-shirt.

Blah blah blah zzzsexism zzzcourtesy zz...fuck it. It's too earlylate for sleep-deprived me to do this better. Any t-shirt joke that needs a whole blogpost to clarify it isn't worth it and/or very funny anyway.

Origins

2009-09-29T21:40:00.014+08:00

As far back as I can remember, there have always been romance novels around me. A whole bookshelf of them. On a coffee table, by the phone, the bathroom counter. Behind sliding glass panels, set on the higher shelves, and ostensibly “not for you, girl”, but on the whole, still accessible. I know, awesome parenting. They belonged to my mom, and naturally, being an avid reader, it was inevitable that I picked them up one day. (I doubt I was the only one of my siblings to succumb to curiosity. Mom, seriously, how could you not see that coming?)

Now my mom is a product of her upbringing and the conservative mindset of her generation (i.e. sex = taboo subject). Sex is not something we’ve discussed openly. But from the sheer number of those books in my house and after knowing first-hand how racy they can get, I kind of deduced that she must like reading them, and by extension, the sex too.

My mom, the sexually conservative by day, kinky liberal by…er, the reading nightlight! Very cool.

I didn’t like romance much, because I hadn’t read very many good ones (hatefuck is not a good way to introduce sex to a young girl). It’s only recently that I’ve come to terms with my guilty pleasure (finding a lot of pretty good ones helped), and I thought, well, at least that’s one thing we have in common.

So the other day, I was on Skype with my dear mother, who excitedly told me about some new books she bought – Sidney Sheldon and Nora Roberts. I was excited too, because she hadn’t been reading for years (coincidentally, since the onset of my adolescence), and this was the woman from whom I learned to read. We could get back on the same wavelength! Plus, sex and romance novels didn’t embarrass me anymore! Yeah okay, thriller/suspense is not my preference, but who cares, she was reading! And then,

‘I really, really like Sidney Sheldon! Not like Nora Roberts, with all the seXxx’ (Yes emphasis on the X, she says it funny)

:O :O :O

‘They’re not the same genre mom, you can’t compare them like that! …and you don’t like the sex scenes? Really?’ (Mind you, Nora Roberts is nowhere near explicit in Romancelandia)

‘Well no, not really’

‘But but but you’ve been reading them all these years! What do you do, skip them?’

‘Yeah, kind of’

...MY MOM ~~THE CLOSET SEX LIBERAL~~ THE SEX SCENE SKIMMER DD:
(See, that has a distinctly less appealing ring to it. Though the acronym is alright I suppose. SSS!)

Don't ask me why she read so many of something she apparently dislikes. I'm still convinced decades of reading romance will inure anyone to it. She could be fibbing. IT'S OKAY MOM YOU CAN TELL ME

highlights of my semester

2009-08-28T23:27:00.005+08:00

Amidst a backdrop of a cesspit of uni backlog, the flus & the blues, brief happy interludes like waking up hungry at 4am to a box of krispy kreme, flown over from melbourne to my kitchen table <3 puts the world to rights again.

Yay for series of coincidences leading up to such perfect timing. I feel almost ready to jump back into said cesspit again :)

more snark

2009-08-23T01:10:00.001+08:00

on gender roles

2009-08-12T17:43:00.003+08:00

In other news, am mentally dried up. Blame uni, blame me, blame the internet.

a little distraction never hurt

2009-08-04T18:45:00.006+08:00

old laughs forgotten:

Oh, and for all pride & prejudice and/or twitter aficionados.

heartbeat

2009-07-31T03:03:00.005+08:00

This is supposedly a life-reaffirming act – listening to the heart beat; feeling for the steady, staccato rhythm of one's pulse that announces I am alive. It is supposed to be reassuring. But I listen to this tiny, fist-sized organ pump once, and I cannot bring myself to appreciate it. One beat isn't enough; I have to anticipate the next, and the next after that. It is the next beat that keeps us going after all, the next that heralds a continuation, the next that means I am not done yet–

One day there won't be a next. Listening, feeling, waiting in that split second between heartbeats doesn't reaffirm life for me. I'm too busy being reminded of our mortality, of the next that won't come, and it scares the living daylights out of me.

Our Not So Secret Lives

2009-06-11T22:30:00.024+08:00

The post-exam glow has resulted in this protracted opinion on something most of you will not care about. Read on anyway.

Our Not So Secret Lives is a semi-fictional (I think) blog, whose link I got from Sara, about four teenagers(?) on life, love and sex. The site has a disclaimer saying the 'characters and events have been dramatised, but the issues are real'. As far as I can see, that could mean anything from artistic license on the storytelling to a complete fabrication of details. The entries cover only the month of February in which drama unfolds, following which they hold a blogging contest for people to draft the 'ending' of the story. Forgive me if I highly doubt the authenticity of everything in it after that O.o

But I don't care about that. The posts are witty; the layout and the graphics pretty and pleasing to the eye. All said and done, it was an entertaining read.

On the whole however, some things grated on me. Spoilers below, don't go further if you want to read the blog for yourself.

I think it's safe to say, taking into account the semi-fiction and dramatisation, that this blog means to tell a story. A story with moral lessons. Jesse and Ellie are best friends even though they are polar opposites. It doesn't take a genius to realize that they have been paralleled with each other for their differing views on sex and life in general: conservative and liberal. The issue addressed being repercussions in the form of HIV.

So one day, Ellie with the active sex life receives a phone call telling her that her ex is HIV-positive. She then has to wait out a whole month to get tested, and her fate is at the whims of the contestant blogging the 'ending'. Cue the agony and pseudo-philosophical reflections, courtesy of Jesse. Only two of the four blog - the two being the chaste couple Jesse and Trey - although it also chronicles Ellie's HIV ordeal and her rocky relationship with Cameron (the fourth dude).

Okay, I get that HIV is very real and very serious. I know it is The issue the creators of the blog were trying to introduce, but I just didn't like the way it was presented. Call them pet peeves if you will, but it ruined the whole thing for me.

1. Ellie, in her video profile, shamelessly and haughtily proclaims to have liberal views about sex. And really, they're not even all that radical. Sex is fun. Girls can enjoy sex. Guys talk about it all the time, girls can too. It all sounds good and pretty vanilla to me. So how the hell does all that translate to promiscuity? Because that was definitely what Trey's (and possibly even Jesse's) thoughts hinted at. From what I can gauge, she was sexually active yes, but she had regular boyfriends, which probably meant she had sex with her boyfriends (only?). Far from the casual hook-up with strangers her behaviour was being amounted to. Moral panic much?

2. When she finds out she might have gotten HIV from her ex , her boyfriend Cameron rages at her, seemingly not because she might have transmitted it to him, but because she had the nerve to get it (I assume he's well-aware of her views on sex). He calls slut. I call wtf? Cameron's response to the news was nothing short of hypocritical (assuming he was sexually active as well) and callous, yet it was all taken in stride, as if he had the right of it. Talk about condoning slut-shaming.

3. Trey admits to having less-than-forgiving thoughts about Ellie's predicament, hinting that she may have deserved it for all her 'Beverley Hills lifestyle'. Harsh and possibly true, but this just takes the cake. It puts his prejudiced views into perspective, and it's really jarring how it appears that Ellie is the only one being blamed here (and in all his posts). No mention of her irresponsible ex. No mention of Cameron's presumably equally active sex life. Way to prove a double standard.

All those underlying stereotypes and double standards are only hinted at, but they are confirmed in the blog's choice of 'ending' to the story. In fact, the direction that Our Not So Secret Lives was intending to take couldn't be clearer from it. The winning blog entry completely sums up what they were trying to say, in less witty prose: No Ellie doesn't have HIV, but she reforms - no more 'casual unprotected sex' and 'wild sexcapades' she says!

Funny how I haven't seen any reference to said sexcapades in the previous entries, but since they did pick the entry, I suppose it must be congruent with their own idea of Ellie The Slut. The blog has managed to shy away from calling her one outright so far, but they don't deny the impression it has given readers, because it's evidently what they meant all along. Meanwhile Jesse says, 'I am a virgin and proud of it! Not many people can say that nowadays.' Because yknow, virginity is a commodity.

4. They appear to advocate safe sex in words, but there is no discussion or mention whatsoever of Ellie's sexual practices. We are not privy to whether she has been safe, or even if she has been indiscriminate in her choice of partners, only that she is having sex. That pretty much rounds up what the issue here is, doesn't it? She's having sex, that's obviously the problem.

There's no question that the real message here is abstinence. Oh come on, juxtaposing sweet, virginal Jesse who gets her guy with highly-sexual Ellie who risks HIV and loses her guy (in the chosen ending)? Rather akin to hitting me over the head with a sledgehammer, I think. The whole pleasure-has-consequences and HIV issues examined here are directed to girls, and it shows. Isn't it interesting how abstinence is always associated with girls? That the views being examined here are female-centric? What I would give for a male perspective...

I'm not even saying 'save yourself for marriage' because there's no mention about that here, only an overwhelming feeling of Sex Can't Result In Anything Good. It's good that they're bringing up the issue of HIV and how it may very well pervade our normal, it-won't-happen-to-me lives. I just think they could've handled it better than plain ol' 'Girls, don't have sex'.

Edit: There was quite a bit of a lag between my reading the blog and my writing this post (which I did off the top of my head), so it is possible that I may have gotten some facts wrong. If you've read it and noticed any, do comment and let me know :)

Firsts

2009-06-07T15:52:00.003+08:00

I have come to a tentative conclusion about sex and girls.

The first time for a girl will probably not be all that pleasant; highly unlikely in fact. I just don't see any way around it, unless the guy's like...the lover of all lovers or something (sex slave! rawr). So you ask, what's in it for us? My answer: the sense of deep connection and intimacy inherent in the act itself. In other words, the girl will need to at least have some degree of affection for the guy (or have a damned good lover) to make it palatable. Admittedly good firsts are not necessary for her to eventually come to enjoy sex, but they're still a wall to punch through.

What I mean is, everyone knows sex doesn't equate to love. Still, it's easier for guys to indulge in that philosophy, because it's easier for them to enjoy it. Oh I imagine foreplay will be lots of fun, but the actual penetration... Unless it feels good, or the guy is caring or cared for, I can't see how she'll come out of it feeling it was worthwhile (in more ways than one).You can see where I'm going here. I'm not saying all girls should do it with someone they love, just rationalizing away one of the reasons why it might seem that girls tend to be touchy-feely about sex.

And when I put it that way, it seems more practical than foolish sentiment, no?

But then I realize I know very little on this subject anyway. Perhaps the girl experiments and knows her own body well enough to achieve orgasm without significant help from said guy (for their first time). Then it's a different matter from there.

owh

2009-05-29T16:23:00.004+08:00

I'm having a dry spell. Exams and assignment deadline to look forward to, so I am excused.

follow-up

2009-05-12T00:56:00.014+08:00

It's no coincidence that all my feminist posts come after a conversation with Li May. That's what I like about discussions - they get me thinking, and I come up with stuff better than if I had tried to do so on my own :) so here's to you li may! (Young too, for being so open-minded and genuinely interested :D)

I'm just rearranging my thoughts (and conversations) into a readable format. This will probably make for dry reading, so pardon in advance :p

point to clarify:
1. I consider myself a feminist. Sorry if that was vague in the previous post. I realize I come off as reluctant to admit that sometimes. That is not due to shame of being one, but the shame of feeling like I don't do enough to deserve being called one. But like Young said, it's a principle, and I may not be an activist or doing anything significant to help women, but I am still a feminist.

On to misconceptions.
I don't know if most of you admit to this, but the general idea I get from your dismissive responses is that:
feminists = man-hating female supremacist

Okay...I wonder what that says about what you people think of me =.= But in the interest of maintaining cordial relations *ahem* I shall assume that you do not have that impression of me. Logically, from that you should realize then that it is not true. That if I contest that image, surely there's something wrong with it. I'm not likely to contest it just for the heck of it. Hell, the whole definition of the ideology itself doesn't advocate female superiority. Anyone who tells you that it does is wrong. That there may be people like that who call themselves feminists, doesn't make it feminism.

It's not "extreme feminism". It's not feminism, period.

Next: feminism isn't needed anymore.
Men and women are equals. Women should be entitled to the same opportunities as men. Those are pretty much the basic tenets. So when it's said that feminism isn't needed, it can be one of two things:
1. women shouldn't need to be entitled to the same opportunities.
2. women already have the same opportunities.

I'll go with 2, since 'anymore' should mean 1 isn't what you guys have in mind (hopefully).

So women are considered equal to men already? Really? Then why is there still gender discrimination in the workplace? Why aren't men and women getting equal pay? Why do women face more hassle/obstacles/stigma trying to acquire contraception? Why have I grown up being told not to swear, to smile (seriously when my brothers don't smile they're just being guys, when I don't I'm being sullen), not to xxx because I'm a girl? Don't bother telling me none of these stuff are true. And don't bother saying double standards are intrinsically human; we're better than that. We've gotten this far, we can go further.

Also, check out the male privilege checklist compiled by Ampersand. I'm not entirely sure about all of them, but most of it hits the spot. Andrea Rubenstein has external links to the issues. Ampersand:

Pointing out that men are privileged in no way denies that bad things happen to men. Being privileged does not mean men are given everything in life for free; being privileged does not mean that men do not work hard, do not suffer. In many cases - from a boy being bullied in school, to a soldier dying in war - the sexist society that maintains male privilege also does great harm to boys and men.
In the end, however, it is men and not women who make the most money; men and not women who dominate the government and the corporate boards; men and not women who dominate virtually all of the most powerful positions of society. And it is women and not men who suffer the most from intimate violence and rape; who are the most likely to be poor; who are, on the whole, given the short end of patriarchy’s stick.

I also quote Ampersand's reference to an essay by Peggy McIntosh:

McIntosh observes that whites in the U.S. are “taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group.”

I believe it's the same thing with the denigration of women. Feminists don't only stand up to physically substantial threats (the abusive husband, the sexual harrasser at the workplace), they stand up to harmful ideas that society and the media perpetuate. It's about bringing light to issues that we would otherwise gloss over, them being so ingrained in society. But anyway, these people explain it better than I do. Andrea Rubenstein again, in case you missed it up there ;)

Further thoughts:
- Why do rapists use the excuse 'she led me on'? People are entitled to change their mind. Thinking it justifies rape suggests that they think those women owe them something. See the problem with that line of thought?

- Statistics vary from country to country, but generally more than 50% of rapists are known to their victims. For Australia, the stats given in my criminal law lectures show that only 17% of the rape cases were perpetrated by complete strangers. And those are only the ones that are reported. How much more likely are you to not report someone you know compared to a total stranger?

- There's something wrong here. Most of these cases aren't about strangers in dirty alleys treating a random unfortunate passerby as a sex object. A lot of them are men who know their victims as a person, have probably even conversed with them like a friend, sometimes in a position of trust...and these men have apparently given no thought to how they hurt them. Why is this? I don't really think it's such a stretch to suggest a relationship between violence against women (sexual or otherwise) and a perceived inferiority of the sex.

...wow it feels good letting all that out. When I should be doing my microecons. Shit. Anyway, this is messy and unedited at best, but I think it comes off best that way? Screw eloquence, this is how I feel: raw and passion and not without reason. Still, don't take the things I say here for granted. Go do a little googling of your own. I only hope I've managed to better explain why I am a feminist, in conjunction with the previous post.

Edit: random question - What would you think of a father who says he loves his wife more than his kids? Following that, what would you think of a mother who says she loves her husband more than her kids?

Feminism, what?

2009-05-06T15:28:00.010+08:00

random fleeting thoughts on it -

I am woefully ignorant, but I do try. I scour feminist blogs and I read and read and read and my head spins and sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. But on the whole, this is what feminism screams to me: that you can be whatever you want to be. Screw gender roles, screw societal/media ideals; hell, screw other 'feminists' telling you what to do. Contrary to popular opinion, it isn't so self-absorbed as to completely ignore men either (but yes, most focus on females because well, there are a lot more issues for us). So guys, if you somewhat fit within the acceptable idea of male, good for you; if you don't...join the club. Not that you have to be a misfit to be a feminist, of course.

I think feminists approach issues that impede us in reaching that goal i.e. being whatever what we want to be. Most of us gloss over them in everyday life, the media, (I know I do) as an inevitable nuisance, and a lot think feminism isn't needed anymore (you've already got your vote, place in the workforce, and your liberal sex life - what more do you want?). In a lot of small ways and quite some big ones, it still is. I'll say this first, I can't answer why well enough; did try but I'm not so well-read or great in stringing my for-now-incoherent thoughts together. Will try again in the future ahaha. But if you are curious about what feminists gather to talk about other than plot Ze Downfall of Men, here. Or google; I'm sure you'll find something.

By the way, writing off feminism as a whole as two-faced is akin to assuming the whole organized religion represents the individual church/believer/whatever. I'm sure any of you who are believers of a particular faith have once upon a time writhed in agony over the antics of a supposed fellow believer. It shouldn't be too difficult to comprehend it might be the same for feminists too. Feminism is an ideology and duh, it's bound to have dissenting factions. The basic tenets are...arguably the same, but the different ways people go about putting it in action still invite criticisms from within and without. So don't be too quick to dismiss it. There is thinking and evolving and debating and people putting up with all the stigma because they believe that it's a worthy cause; that yes, you can be all you want to be.

I can certainly get behind something like that.

brainrot

2009-04-27T23:46:00.005+08:00

I just whiled away my three-day weekend (well okay four, but friday doesn't count because I had a test) on romance novels and Gossip Girl. Which is exactly what I had planned to do ahaha :D Three things:

Julia Quinn: didn't like her as much as I expected to. Which is odd because I like her style, but I am just not engaging with her characters.

Loretta Chase: her I adore. And highly recommend for anyone who thinks to dip his/her toe in the pool of romance. She'll pull you under.

Gossip Girl: I seem to only be watching this for Chuck and Blair. Not Chuck or Blair mind, but Chuckandblair. Chuck is but a mere asshole by himself anyway.

That said, I must now venture back into reality before I go mad. Excessive high-strung melodrama eats my brain. But before that, more Sarah Haskins!

My gentle alpaca!

2009-04-21T22:41:00.006+08:00

I have Twitter, people. And yes, some of you missed the huge slab of random letterings and characters at the side bar there ---> you know who you are lol. Those are basically my mini-updates, because I'm not going to always be all gung-ho about blogging (like now).

Now...a couple of links I want to share :D

Hilzoy on Why do they stay? gakked from Feministing.com
I'm not particularly passionate or mindful on the issue of abuse, just as I doubt most of you are. But this was just so well-written that it left me feeling a little more thoughtful about it. The article gives insight into why some women (and men. it's rather gender-neutral) might stay on in such situations. And as they say, forewarned is forearmed.

Candy Tan on the romance ghetto, gakked from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

'What gets to me is how pervasive the genre shame is, and how strong the assumption that if you read romance, you have to be one dumb broad. ... I used to think you'd have to be a moron to read and enjoy romance novels. I used to be the one who wanted to say to my sister "But you seem way too smart for these books." And god knows I still feel embarrassment squick for a lot of the covers.'

That's generally how I've been feeling XD For the last couple of years I've swung from ugh to hearts for this genre. Really, it's just a matter of sorting out the good from the bad.

And by the same author, for those who think it's stupid.

Happy reading!

Profanity

2009-04-20T20:37:00.030+08:00

Warning: Lengthy, annoyed rant ahead.

Fuck. I know there are exceptions, and I'm really just generalizing but... Everyone's using it. It's just been ingrained so deeply into the fabric of pop culture that we've internalized it as a form of expression, whether we like it or not. Some do, some don't; from people who have no problem throwing it around in everyday conversation ('the mother fucker shortchanged me!'), people on middle ground (for use under stress only please), to people who believe it shouldn't be used at all (it's just too vulgar).

I respect that. If you consider it offensive, and if I'm aware of that, I'll try not to use it around you. I might even listen to you as you tell me why it's wrong. But if a guy you know walks by and says 'fuck', and you don't bat an eyelid while going on to preach to me....well, fuck that. I don't care how difficult it is to say 'guys shouldn't swear' without coming off as a wuss, and I don't care if it's pointless to try to change the average guy's mind - it's still nothing less than hypocritical.

People do sometimes think that no one should swear regardless of gender, but for a lot of the time they only pick on girls because...well, it's easier. That is just plain cowardly, and completely wipes out any semblance of regard I might have for you. It's not fair to push your sermons on only females just because you think we're more susceptible to advice. You either say 'guys and girls shouldn't swear' (and mean it, mind you), or don't say anything at all.

And when you start implying that it's acceptable for guys but nix the girls, you're not even worth listening to. Because there is no good reason, none whatsoever, for such a blatant double standard. Girls who curse are unappealing? Boohoo. Date girls who don't. That's what we do if we don't like you crying/wearing pink/using facial products.

Yes, Girls swear too. We might not say it, but we think it, or couch it in very bad euphemisms (fudging fishsticks!). It doesn't take a stretch of imagination to see that after decades of growing up in a fuckfull-language environment (with men, no less!), we might fall into fuck-worthy situations and think: 'Now, what word would encapsulate how I feel right now more succintly than anything? Oh yes - FUCK.'

The same goes for those who say 'I don't know why girls use their middle fingers. They don't even have penises.' Hello, the last time I checked, guys don't point their own penises at someone else. As to why girls use it? I can't believe you even have to ask. Unless you've been living in a hole your whole life and only started sticking out your middle finger because that's what the first person who saw you crawl out of that hole did. Since when did middle-finger-pointing become a male privilege anyway? Yes I know the origins are male, but the gesture has never been taken literally (has it O.o), so it's a ridiculous point. All it basically amounts to is a general, angry...fuck you.

And sometimes that's just what girls want to say.

Midsem break is several days of this

2009-04-20T16:26:00.015+08:00

Night/morning before Crim Law I's 12pm deadline....

12.30am: Oli: what page are you on now? Me: one :D AHAHAHA

2.21am: wtf am I doing on the onemanga site? NO BAD GIRL CLOSE NOW

2.30am: Chin is finished! >_>

3.15am: Oli is finished! >_>

6.30am: Uaaaagh only one more point to go! Oh shit I'm feeling nauseous, better go lie down for awhile...

6.32am:

9.30am: Hmm *yawn* I wonder what time ARGH OH SHIT so much for legal process (9-11am lecture) Why didn't Oli call me! Oh right phone is on silent mode.

11.00am: I am done! With an hour to spare! I'll just print it and go take a shower whee life is good. Dum deee duuum daaah~

11.20am: ....hey where's my assignment? NOOO WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PRINTER DD: *fiddles*

11.30am: !@#$%^&&^%$# PRINTER WHY ARE YOU NOT WORKING ahhhh I'm sorry printer I didn't mean it T.T please please please work.

11.40am: To hell with dignity and sprint for the law library.

11.50am: The computer takes forever to log in! There are other law students around cursing! [Guy behind me at the printers, fidgeting: Sorry, my assignment's due at 12. Me: So is mine] Ahhh stapler, why dost thou conspireth against me!

11.56am: Assignment goes into box. My entire life seems to have culminated to this point. And yes, the past 12 hours warranted multiple exclamation marks.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T19:44:00.002+08:00

So I sang in the church choir today :D

During the tenor/soprano duet, while I was walking down the aisle with the other ooh-aah-ers, Vanessa stepped on the back of my choir gown and...yeah. I choked up. On laughter. I laughed so hard after that I couldn't sing D:

But when I told Kim this, she said "Oh really? I just thought you were really, really happy to be singing."

...well I guess that works too.

big bubbles for big brenda

2009-04-07T22:46:00.005+08:00

It's Fringe Week in UWA! ...I have no idea what that is, but we had giant bubbles today :D I want a set of giant-bubble-making equipment at home too.

This is how Oliver and I wasted our break away:

"It looks like a plastic bag!"

Oooh.

Ahh.

Ollie has the funniest expressions xD

Bubble world-view!

Oh, bubble coming!

So fun.

"I wanna try too!" *hands phone over"

Fail.

Fail again.

AHAH! There's one - do you see it?

This...reminds me of a condom.

Whee. I was surprised there weren't more people clamouring to play with it. Not that I'm complaining xD

Bubble overhead!

Wheee.

Go Oliver!

I swear I made a fair amount of decent bubbles, just not on camera.
Oliver >_>

Of late...

2009-04-06T15:30:00.010+08:00

I'm a walking biological weapon rawr. To those who haven't gotten the virus yet, that is. Watch out Oliver (/>_>)/

On my current predicament:

Me: ...I've never even heard of cold sores! No one in Malaysia gets them!

Chin: Yes they do!

Me: O.O What?

Chin: There's KFC!

Me: Huh?!

Chin: We do have coleslaw!

Me: COLD SORES NOT COLESLAW

Chin: Wth is that?

Me: *points* btw it's contagious.

Chin: *spends rest of the lecture holding notes up between us*

Me: T.T

p.s. If anyone is so curious as to google up pictures, let me make it clear that I look nothing like them. Yet.

floating happily in a sea of waffy goodness

2009-04-03T16:17:00.011+08:00

I just stayed up all night to finish my assignment...and whenever I try too hard to think when I'm tired, I get very nauseous.

This is what got me through the night:

Nodame Cantabile :D

...and made me stay up even after I finished my assignment, way into the afternoon after which I couldn't wait to blog about it.

I heart Chiaki/Nodame relationship dynamics. What I absolutely adored, was how their relationship grew on me just as it grew on both of them (or maybe just Chiaki), rather than me having reader's omniscience. Because I went into this not really expecting much romance, or the kind I could appreciate anyway (Nodame was quite a presence to get used to), the fact that I did get it made it ten times better :DD

When I'm actually looking out for romance I tend to get very impatient with slow relationship progress (and a shortage of waffy scenes!), but this...this made me go aww over a hug. I do not normally get hyped up over hugs. I can get really picky with romance, so I love how their stories and interactions with each other drew me in enough to look past all that.

Still, a good romance on the side is not enough by itself to commend a show! The plot was nice (it certainly wasn't blah), and the secondary characters are well-developed enough for your pick of favourites xD I'm in love with the whole show.

I read a little of the manga awhile back but didn't get very far, though it did interest me enough to watch the live-action drama version. Now I'm wondering how different it is, and am thinking of going back to the manga (to draw comparisons maybe?). Whee. Hearts hearts hearts.

p.s. I am never going to start my assignment so late again.

This is where I advertise the links already on my blog

2009-03-28T19:34:00.010+09:00

Good, Evil, and Sexual Assault...

The article itself doesn't go into it very deeply, but the debate is pretty fleshed-out in the comments (200++ of them! don't need to read Everything lol). Everyone's being really civil in their reponses xD

One of the (many) comments that struck me, by an alixana:

"The problem is, defining someone as "evil" is an othering action. It separates them from us. They're not part of the human race, they're not part of our society, they're EVIL and therefore their actions aren't anything worth analyzing in the context of our society. 'Cause if someone's evil, and is operating out of evilness, well, that's all the explanation there is for it, right? It's just something in them that we can't help. 'Cause it's scary to even admit for a second that we share something in common with these people.

But that's dangerous. Once you've cast them out, you do society a huge disservice. This is the chance to ask, "Why did they do this terrible thing? What about our world allowed this to happen? What can we do in the future to prevent it?" It's far safer to claim the Hitlers and the rapists and everyone else we'd rather push away so that we can understand them and understand how to stop others from becoming like them. "They're a bad person" might be comforting, but it just does not cut it if we want to make this world a better place."

One of the things I take issue with in christian self-help literature (heck, the bible too) is the tendency to pigeonhole everything into black and white. Note that this is not necessarily related to the debate mentioned above (or my personal opinion about it, for that matter); it just reminded me of this. "Good" and "Evil" (or "Bad") are so simplistic they can't even begin to describe the immensity and complexity of what we're capable of. So yes, I do take exception to sayings like 'Selfish plans are made by selfish people. Good plans are made by good people.' What if I've done both?

Edit: The idea that christian values are just that - exclusively christian; that you have to be a christian to have those values. That's just so wrong, because I've met so many wonderful people who are non-christians and hold those values all the same. Maybe that isn't what was meant in the first place, fine; just be more careful with 'othering' gestures.

yay doctrine of precedent

2009-03-26T19:59:00.003+09:00

We've been paying attention in class :D (==")

Ver` - and there, a way was opened in the red sea. says:
i'm like so lazy to go to school tomorrow ><

brendaaah (the big) says:
lol you don't have to

Ver` - and there, a way was opened in the red sea. says:
but Brenda's going
haiya ><

brendaaah (the big) says:
is that persuasive or binding

Ver` - and there, a way was opened in the red sea. says:
very very persuasive
and binding if everyone else is going except me

brendaaah (the big) says:
zomg law geekery

have fun imagining where that came from

2009-03-24T21:25:00.006+09:00

brendaaah (the big) says:
YOU MIXED UP SAMPAN AND SEX

MSN conversations with Crays = stress relief

Cooler Than Fiction

2009-03-18T21:25:00.005+09:00

When I first saw the title of this book, I thought it was fiction. I can't believe I didn't know this - that women dressed up as men to fight in the civil war. Not just one, but many, and they almost always got away with it. Some even got promotions! That is so Mulan and even more awesome because it's more contemporary and believable.

I've always been in love with the idea of cross-dressing women who did it to shuck the gender roles of their day. This, it not being an idea anymore, is ten times better! :D Google if you want to know more.

This brings back memories :D

2009-03-17T21:56:00.005+09:00

I admit it, I was a Barbie girl. Not the song. Screw going against gender stereotypes, Barbie was fun :D (==")

Anyway, Sarah Haskins is hilarious xD for more of her, go here. Or just search for her on youtube.

Dear Mom

2009-03-16T21:13:00.005+09:00

Please do not call me just to try to get to your son. I will relay your messages, and even make sure he knows you're wanting to talk to him, but when he says no, repeatedly, TAKE THE HINT. Or employ other means to get to him. Preferably not through me. I am really tired of being the sounding board and would appreciate it if you do not just sulk and hang up on me and instead try resolving whatever (I don't care how) without using me as an in-between ROAR kthxbai.

p.s. I still love you, don't forget to transfer money to my account :O

because li may asked very nicely

2009-03-07T13:12:00.003+09:00

I did this a few days ago as well, and the results were different from this one *shrug*.

Try it if you must

Name: Brenda
Date: 3/6/2009
Colorgenics Number: 42537160

You are always alert and keenly observant. You are not truly satisfied with your everyday status and you are seeking fresh avenues which can give you the opportunity to prove your worth. You feel that there are still many barriers that stand between you and recognition - but one by one you will overcome them. Your tenacity is your one good point - like an English Bulldog, once you take the bite, you will seldom let go.

You are looking for excitement and stimulation and you are ready to try anything - but be careful not to take too many risks.

For some time now it would seem that you have been frustrated and emotionally inhibited. The circumstances which appear to be beyond your control are making it very difficult for you to develop the detached emotional attitude that you seek.

As of late, you have been experiencing untold stress and this is a result of continuous frustration. You haven't been taking care of all your physical needs and it's beginning to show. It would seem that you have a need to find someone to whom you can really relate - someone perhaps whose standards are as high as your own. You want to be different - to be individualistic - to stand out from the common herd. Your inherent control of your sensual instincts is restricting your ability to give yourself to open up freely but this being on your own, being lonely, often makes you feel the need to give up some of your strict standards to surrender to the general flow - to be like everyone else; a part of the herd. Deep down you regard such instincts as weaknesses to be overcome. You would like to be loved or admired for yourself alone. You demand recognition and tender loving care.

Being afraid that you may be prevented from achieving your hopes and dreams is making you anxious and nervous. As a dreamer your ideas can at times move into the realm of fantasy and you could be following that so called illusive dream.

Watchmen

2009-03-07T01:49:00.006+09:00

Watch it, people! :D If only just for Rorschach. Amazing stuff. Wonder where I can get hold of the comic.

building up a strong stomach

2009-02-22T21:14:00.004+09:00

This is my brother's microwave.

Again, the microwave.

I don't know how I mustered the guts to eat anything that came out of it, but I did. Twice. Once with the food uncovered.

i don't like admitting this

2009-02-12T08:20:00.001+09:00

but I'm a little homesick :(

Well I don't want to sound all emo here, it's only been three days after all. I'm kind of missing my brother (will regret saying this) too. Guess you can't substitute one brother for another. Funny thing is, I thought I'd be over this monthly depression phase (yes I thought it was a phase ) now that other things are out of the way. Evidently I was wrong. This sucks.

But all is mostly good :D I have family to buffer me from outright loneliness and lovely friends who come online and a lack of significant difference in time zones to get in the way. Yay for the internet.

In other news, it is freaking Hot during the day here. I walk to uni and back and there is barely any shade in between T.T Just yesterday I forgot to bring out my key, and when I arrived home, no one was in. For a moment there, the thought that I'd have to wait in the heat for my brother to come back almost made me burst into tears. Thank god for unlocked side doors.

It's dry here; so dry my lips crack. But at the same time it's so hot I sweat anyway. And I don't sweat easily. At night, we switch on the air-conditioning because it doesn't get cool until way after midnight. Nevertheless my brother has somehow developed a sixth sense for when that happens (Scrooge instincts), and he never fails to get up at night to switch it off and open all the windows.

Really, there is nothing to talk about but the weather.

To end this on a mysterious note :P , today's the day I put my anxieties to rest. I hope.

only for you, jaq

2009-02-10T07:36:00.002+09:00

I make use of my blog! No way. Well, no new comp (yet >.>), this comp lags so I'll make this short.

NEVER TAKE AIR ASIA FOR NIGHT FLIGHTS. So yes, I didn't sleep and stupid me being so gung-ho when I arrived in Perth, I said YES to shopping with my bro when I should've been sleeping. Busy day. My new place is...really nice actually :D yay and there's air-conditioning (though my bro's too stingy to use it).

And...boy I really suck at this. I'm tired and it's morning and cold and there's no hot water (wth) and so I will go distract myself with something else until it gets hot.

i have no blogging material, is that obvious?

2009-02-07T12:41:00.004+09:00

DIRECTIONS:
Once you've been tagged, you have to list down 16 random things, habits or goals about you. Lastly, choose five people to be tagged, listing their names, and why you chose them.

1. I am warmed by the idea that I have been tagged along with people who have deader blogs than mine.

2. I'm leaving for aussieland! Tomorrow night! Am quite unready.

3. I like myself better in short hair. Everyone agrees.

4. My phone is so ulu I have had a middle-aged auntie comment on it. I fail at being young.

5. The only thing that could absolutely crush me right now is finding out I'll be sharing a computer with my (other) brother in Perth, after having shared with my brother (i.e. fought tooth and nail to get an hour in) here in Malaysia for the past...oh, life maybe and so yeah, having one of my own would really, really help with maintaining harmonious relations with either sibling and I HOPE YOU'RE READING THIS MOM.

6. I like green. Red too. Purple and grey. A little tired of brown at the moment. Orange is nice. I like colours.

7. I...own a pair of sunnies now! :D

8. My mom made me repack my clothes into her Tupperware™ containers. My luggage is now full of Tupperware™ full of clothes.

9. I'ma gonna miss my friends here :'(

10. I feel more than I think. Unfortunately.

11. My weight and height has remained unchanged since form 1, according to my high school PJK card. Well no actually according to my PJK card I have shrunk since form 1, but we all know how accurate those things are. I'm going with unchanging.

12. I have no idea what I'm getting myself into. I refuse to regret.

13. I feel an affinity with the guy who died first in The Mummy. The guy who dropped his glasses and stumbled around waiting to get his eyes gouged out by Imhotep. That scene haunts me. Bad eyesight is not something to be had in a horror movie.

14. I think it is very weird to describe someone's breath as delicious, vampire book or not. '...I smelled his cool breath in my face. Sweet, delicious, the scent made my mouth water.'

15. I believe in learning from past mistakes, and improving.

16. I currently have about 20 books lying around unwrapped and unread. Wonder if I'll manage to bring them with me. Darn bibliomanic tendencies.

I tag:

Nobody. Or anybody who chances upon this. Because most people have already been tagged or have done it or don't read my blog. See, I even explain why.

How Girls Chat

2007-04-07T11:35:00.000+08:00

·brrrrenda-chan· (BC)² - lol

·brrrrenda-chan· (BC)² - i was thinking one day

·brrrrenda-chan· (BC)² - that one day, in the future

·brrrrenda-chan· (BC)² - i wouldnt like to work all my life only and think career career career right

·brrrrenda-chan· (BC)² - so i know i would like to have kids

Mäy 媚 - uhhuh

Mäy 媚 - i want kids

·brrrrenda-chan· (BC)² - because it seems nice

Mäy 媚 - =D

Mäy 媚 - i want KIDS

Mäy 媚 - KIDS KIDS KIDS

Mäy 媚 - 1 or 2

Mäy 媚 - will be enough

Mäy 媚 - dont want 3

Mäy 媚 - =D

·brrrrenda-chan· (BC)² - to know to have someone that you'll love for sure

Mäy 媚 - thats mah goal 1 or 2

Mäy 媚 - someone to love ME ME ME

·brrrrenda-chan· (BC)² - so when you love someone, life actually seems more meaningful

Mäy 媚 - and mah sexy self

Mäy 媚 - yeah

·brrrrenda-chan· (BC)² - not like in the case of a guy

Mäy 媚 - and i'd do things for HIM HIM HIM

·brrrrenda-chan· (BC)² - love comes and go

Mäy 媚 - cuz hez so damn sexy

Mäy 媚 - =D

·brrrrenda-chan· (BC)² - but kids are like. love FOREVER

Mäy 媚 - yeaaaah

Mäy 媚 - i want a lil girl

Mäy 媚 - and a lil boy

Mäy 媚 - =')

·brrrrenda-chan· (BC)² - i have a feeling we're talking on different wavelengths here.

Missing Her

2006-08-19T01:28:00.001+08:00

It wasn't a very bright idea, her leaving her things behind to reduce her luggage weight. The sight of her geta as she always leaves them on my doorstep bombarded me with a rush of emotions. That she's there, but she's not; that she was there, or had been there, but isn't anymore. It doesn't become any better when I enter my room and see the clothes she left behind strewn over my bed (like she's still there), the notepad she used to do her homework in on my table along with all the origami papers (she's not usually so messy and thus gives you the impression she might intend to come back later and straighten things out).

It wasn't a very bright idea. I feel her absence so strongly now that the first thing I'm going to do when I wake up tomorrow is to arrange all the things in my room so that it would be as if she were never there.

Untitled

2006-03-31T23:01:00.001+08:00

You retaliate when you're hurt. You want to inflict as much pain on the person as he or she did on you. It goes on, repetitively; becomes a horrible joke.

Gives you insight on what people you care (or not) think of you. What runs through their mind at every gesture you make, every glance, every syllable falling off from your tongue. Maybe buried deep, but shallow enough to be lashed out when probed. And here's some old news: it hurts. A little less for some, maybe. You can brush it off now, but the next time you think you're all alone, wallowing in an abyss as tendrils of self-loathing and pity entwine themselves around you, it all comes back, magnified. Restraining, suppressing.

Lies. Thinking you're not good enough, knowing someone thinks you're not good enough. Sour. Turning vindictive, resentful and spiteful because you think the world's turned its back on you and who knows? Maybe the world's not as small as you think. Bitterness, and you're trying to swallow it down; you choke on it, you gag on it until black dots appear in your vision, bile rises in your throat, and you bite on your lip, your tongue (a metallic scent invades), as it stifles your mind, smothers your thoughts, grips you in its hold, and the spaces close in on you.

Still it refuses to go down.

Or maybe...

Maybe you don't care as much as you think you do. Maybe it's all a joke to you. Maybe the agony's been going on for so long it's no longer clear what it's all about. Maybe...maybe it was you all along.

Laugh out loud. You can snort at the absurdity of it all and kick yourself. You can go out, make amends, give love, but you can't take it back. As fleeting as feathers in the wind. They get away from you, and takes bits and pieces of you with them. And they get stuck on other people. With that, you either drown them with your weight, or you get brushed off, to tail them and maybe, drown someone else.

And the cycle starts all over again.

The Chronicles Of The Clowns

2006-01-07T15:41:00.000+08:00

Here's a little treat for you guys; something Li May and I cooked up back in form 2:

In the far, far away land of Stand- Upness lived a stupid, bloody, boy named He-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Otherwise, known as HSNBN. He together with all the citizens in the land lived to stand people up, and but of course, people of their own kind were not spared. They would set up a date, a meeting or a rendezvous, and no one would show up. Of course, doing that with people of their own kind would bring about no pleasure, for they would have had the same intent, and thus, they all sought citizens from another kingdom. So it was pure stupidity, really. This HSNBN was the king of Stand-Upness by title only, but he held no power, for all his royal subjects would always stand him up, and therefore, his will could not be done.

One fateful day, he unluckily enraged the princess from the Land of Clowns by standing her up -of course -, unwittingly sparking off a chain of events. The Princess threw a fit, and swore revenge. She was pissed! Humiliated! By God! She was a princess after all. Feeling rather pathetic for being stood up by HSNBN, she turned to her clown friend a.k.a. Clown #2 for advice.

Clown #2 was mad as well, and called for reinforcements in the form of - Clown #3. Together they hatched a plan for revenge. An act of vengeance that would be so awfully vengeful, that in many years from now, it would be dubbed as 'The Battle For [soon-to-be-thought-of]"... And so the wheels of fate began to turn, as the plan was set in motion...

But every great event has its inconsequential events that leads up this very big event, and thus, making it not so inconsequential after all. These events are often not mentioned, but we think that the future generation deserves to know the back-breaking work and mind-numbing hours of brainstorming that Clown #2 and #3 went through in order to bring justice to their dear princess's offender.

...In the meantime, Princess Clown couldn't stop using the word 'bloody'. Her anger seemed to have triggered the bloody button in her head. Her daily conversations consisted of the following:

"Bloody hell! I was like sooo bloody pissed because he bloody stood me up. I bloody hate him. Him and that bloody face of his. That bloody piece of bloody shit! What's his bloody problem? Who does he bloody think he bloody is?! He thinks he's so bloody important?! Bloody shit!"

Hiding away in one of the palace's storerooms trying to avoid being in hearing range of the princess, Clown #2 and #3 plotted to take away HSNBN's title of King by making him do what he hated most - showing up for a date. After years of late nights and missed meals (oh the horror!), the plan was complete. It was perfect! Nothing would go wrong. Clown #2 and #3 cackled like old hag-witches. And under the moonlight, they really DID look like one. Birds flew away from a nearby tree in fright.

Meanwhile, the Princess was having counseling sessions to renounce her use of the word 'bloody'. After one session, she beheaded the counselor - Clown #896. She would use any bloody word she wanted! Bloody! BLOODY BLOODY BLOODY!!! Soon, all her royal subjects were using the word. Yes, even Clown #2, #3, #17 and #42. The Princess's condition got worse after she watched Alice in Wonderland. She had the sudden urge to kill everyone off. After all, the Queen of Hearts was a friend of her father's. She went all over the palace shouting "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!". Only Clown #2 and #3 were spared.

As tragic as it was, this is not about the Princess's psychotic and homicidal urges. It is the plan, you see, that is what this tale is all about...

The plan was simple. Get a jar of peanut butter, put it on the table and HSNBN would show up. 'It was foolproof!', thought Clown #2 and #3. After all, everyone LOVES peanut butter. Well, all, except the Princess, but they were not aware of that. On the night of the plan, the table was set. The candles were lit, and the peanut butter was not too sticky, and not too watered down. Everything was just perfect. Soon, the time which they had set for the date, passed. Clown #3 opened the jar of peanut butter, and the rich aroma of peanut butter filled the air. The both of them stood stunned as they tried in vain to resist the pull of the peanut butter. It was just sitting there, opened and begging to be eaten. 'To hell with it,' they decided and proceeded to lick the jar clean. Hence, the plan was ruined. How were they going to get revenge on HSNBN now?

Running around like chickens with their heads chopped off (which would come true if they didn't do something quick), they sputtered and sweated profusely until a logical solution came to them. They would just buy more peanut butter! Alas, it was futile, for a jar of peanut butter cost $8621,3045,00 in the Land of Clowns (for that was where it was highly appreciated by everyone, excluding their ruler, which was rather ironic). Being too cowardly to venture outside their borders, Clown #2 and #3 decided to brave the beast - I mean, the Princess. Timidly, they approached her - but to no avail. The Princess literally blew up at them. Smoke was coming out of her ears and she yelled at them:

"How in the bloody hell did you bloody fools think that was going to bloody work?!"

Dumbly, they replied: "Uh...peanut butter - good?"

"I BLOODY HATE BLOODY PEANUT BUTTER YOU BLOODY IDIOTS!!" she screamed, causing a nearby cottage to crumble and collapse, killing Clown #136 and his offspring - Clown #560, #562 and #640.

Clown #2 and #3 were petrified. They did not know what to say or do. They honestly had thought that EVERYBODY LOVED -bloody- peanut butter. The Princess was still throwing her temper, so she marched outside into the garden, and made her bodyguard - Clown #24 slash butterflies.

Discouraged, Clown #2 and #3 retreated to lick their wounds. They decided to set up a date for HSNBN and Clown #2. HSNBN agreed, of course, but he stood her up too. That -bloody- fool. That was really a stupid plan that Clown #2 and #3 came up with. How would Clown #2 going on a date with HSNBN help the Princess get her revenge anyway? But their idiocy was perfectly explainable, considering the mind-blowing trauma they went through during their session with the Princess.

Not daring to inform her of their failure, they conspired to hatch yet another ingenious plan. With no peanut butter involved this time. And this plan will be the one that will cause a great ripple of events, eventually bringing about what is to be known as The Battle For [soon-to-be-thought-of]...

NOT TO BE CONTINUED
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© Copyright 2006 Brenda Chan & Ng Li May. All rights reserved. Distribution of any kind is prohibited without the written consent of Brenda Chan & Ng Li May.
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It's too bad we lost interest after that. And some of you in the gang are in there, if you squint hard enough. So yeah, the title's a rip-off from Narnia.

When Plot Bunnies (Or Turtles) Attack...

2005-06-21T15:40:00.000+08:00

*This is a turtle :8: . Use your imagination =.=*

B: *cradles a book and coos to it* You’re a cute lil’ fella, yes you are. Oh yes you are...

S: Hi, Bren! *B continues with her antics* ...uh, what are you doing?

B: Playing with my turtle! Look! Isn't it the most adorable thing you've ever seen?

S: *stares* That's a book, Brenda.

B: Shut up. I've always wanted a turtle and now I've finally got one. You're supposed to be happy for me. Aww...poor little turtle...she didn't mean it. Sara doesn't know what she's saying. She's just being stupid. She thinks she's so smart. *mockingly* Oh look at me! I don't see no turtle coz I'm so smaaaaart...

S: ...That's not a turtle.

B: Yes, it is!

S: No, it isn't.

B: YES, IT IS! You don't want those nude baby pictures of yours to magically appear on the net, do you?

S: ..................... *glares*

B: It's a turtle. *conclusively* Say it with me. It's a tuuuuuurtle....

S: ........it's.....a..............turtle. *eye twitches*

B: *beams* So do you want to hold it? Do you wanna? Here!

S: Uh... *backs away* no thanks. So...um.. *shuffles feet*....what's its name? *eye twitches*

B: Turtle! *beams*

S: .....That's a dumb name.

B: *expression changes immediately* No, it isn't! It's a perfectly good name.

S: It's a dumb name! You don't name pets by their species! That would be ridiculous!

B: It's a good name! Giving people-names to animals are stupid, coz they're animals, not people. ...Unless you want me to name it Sara. Hey Sara~ *coos to book*

S: ..... *eye twitches* All right. Turtle. You can name it Peter Pan or Mary Poppins for all I care.

B: *grins*

S: *glares* Anyway, who emptied the huge bag of jellybeans I bought the other day? *holds up an empty plastic container*

B: Turtle did. Baaaad Turtle! *smacks book* I told you not to do it, didn't I? But did you listen to me? Nooo....you just couldn't resist, could you? No more jellybeans for the rest of the week!

S: .....turtles don't eat jellybeans. You do.

B: You have no proof that I ate them! NONE AT ALL! *maniacal laughter*

S: Well, Turtle must've seen you.

B: *looks around wide-eyed* Turtle? What turtle?

S: Turtle. The one you were talking about.

B: What turtle? I don't see any turtle. *looks at audience* Do you see any turtle? *random guy shouts no*

S: TURTLE!! The one you kept insisting was a turtle! *points at book* That turtle.

B: Don't be stupid, Sara. That's a book.

S: That's what I said! But you kept insisting it was a turtle which you named
Turtle!

B: That's a dumb name.

S: Well, that's what you named it. AND you claimed it ate all the jellybeans! And I said NO! and you were like YES! BAD turtle and I didn’t believe you.. and.. and..... ARRGH!!

B: Don't be ridiculous, my friend. *puts hand on S's shoulder* There is no turtle named Turtle here. Even if there was a turtle, I'd probably name it Sara or something.

S: *splutters incredulously* You......you.........YOU ATE THE JELLYBEANS DIDN'T YOU?!

B: *snorts* Trying to change the subject now, are you? It's not working. I don't blame you, Sara dear. This heat is making us all crazy. *pats Sara on the shoulder* There, there, just go get some rest now.... You'll feel better by tomorrow.

*leads a speechless S away*

B: And hey! You might just stop thinking the book's a turtle, too!

S: Shut up, Brenda. Just shut up.

B: *chuckles* Oh you really crack me up at times, Sara. Honestly! Book-turtles! What next? Dustbins taking over the world? *trails off*

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© Copyright 2005 Brenda Chan & Ng Li May. All rights reserved. Distribution of any kind is prohibited without the written consent of Brenda Chan & Ng Li May.
_________________________________________________________________
I would like to thank God, my family, and my source of inspiration, Li May for their unconditional love and support. I couldn't have done it without them *sniff*. No thanks to Kah Kiat who rejected it just because there were no parts for him. Hmph.