Glass

Therein lies a sliver of glass

Amongst the moon-coloured grass

Translucent, luminous, deadly.

Why, do you remember

The tales of yesternight?

Of quiet screams and loud silence?

Swathed in their purple robes of moonlight

The silvery wisps of grass remain tranquil

Bearing rust-stained crowns upon their heads

An elegance rivalled only by kings and queens.

And the tiny piece of glass

Grinned as radiantly

As only glass can.

冰淇淋

冰冷的冰淇淋，滋润人的心田，甜入烘热的心窝。

Eighteen year old Literature Nazi

Disclaimer: I do not intend to be elitist. I understand that everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and if language/ literature isn’t your thing, I’m perfectly fine with that. The Literature Nazi in me only arises where so-called professionals are concerned.

It is, in my humble opinion, exceedingly perplexing the way R. K. Narayan was hailed as one of the greatest literary sensations India ever set its eyes upon. It further confuses me when they go as far as to consider him India’s answer to Jane Austen.

One could give him some credit for being an engaging storyteller, perhaps. People claim that he is able to weave yarns in a grandmotherly fashion reminiscent of one’s childhood. The strong Indian overtones and simplicity of words enables the reader to reach out beyond the word barrier and touch the emotions of the characters…or rather, poke them with a stick as I am inclined to do so with the main character of The English Teacher.

However, one would hardly be able to compare his childish scribbling with Austen’s prose. The language is pathetically plebeian, without the hints of delight you’d expect in a decent piece of literature. With all due respect to R. K. Narayan, his work is unfit to be considered sufficiently “rich” in literature to be listed among the literary works to be studied for the Cambridge A-Levels, English Literature subject.

It is of course, not the poor old man’s fault that his book is in the list. He wrote the books for himself, as every true writer does. I blame the superfluous, extravagant, perhaps slightly exaggerated praises the public lavished upon his works. Appreciation of a writer is encouraging, yet, one should never go as far as to blasphemously compare a simple tale (though undoubtedly enchanting) with the brilliance of, say, Terry Pratchett. Good stories do not necessarily make for good literary material. But I digress.

Shashi Tharoor appears to be one of the few men that actually see sense.

“But I felt that they also pointed to the banality of Narayan's concerns, the narrowness of his vision, the predictability of his prose, and the shallowness of the pool of experience and vocabulary from which he drew. Like Austen, his fiction was restricted to the concerns of a small society portrayed with precision and empathy; unlike Austen, his prose could not elevate those concerns beyond the ordinariness of its subjects. Narayan wrote of, and from, the mindset of the small-town South Indian Brahmin, and did not seem capable of a greater range. His metronomic style was frequently not equal to the demands of his situations. Intense and potentially charged scenes were rendered pathetic by the inadequacy of the language used to describe them. In much of his writing, stories with extraordinary possibilities unfolded in flat, monotonous sentences that frustrated rather than convinced me, and in a tone that ranged from the cliched to the flippant. At its worst, Narayan's prose was like the bullock- cart: a vehicle that can move only in one gear, is unable to turn, accelerate or reverse, and remains yoked to traditional creatures who have long since been overtaken but know no better.

I was, I must admit, particularly frustrated to find that Narayan was indifferent to the wider canon of English fiction and to the use of the English language by other writers, Western or Indian. Worse, his indifference was something of which he was inordinately proud. He told interviewers that he avoided reading: "I do not admit influences." This showed in his writing, but he was defiant: "What is style?" he asked one interviewer. "Please ask these critics to first define it .... Style is a fad." The result was that he used words as if unconscious of their nuances: every other sentence included a wrong inappropriately or wrongly used; the ABC of bad writing - archaisms, banalities and cliches - abounded, as if the author had learned them in a school textbook and was unaware that they have been hollowed by repetition. Narayan's words were just what they seemed; there was no hint of meanings lurking behind the surface syllables, no shadow of worlds beyond the words. Indeed, much of Narayan's prose reads like a translation.

Some of my friends felt I was wrong to focus on language - a writerly concern, as they saw it - and lose sight of the stories, which in many ways had an appeal that transcended language. But my point was that such pedestrian writing diminished Narayan's stories, undermined the characters, trivialised their concerns. Other serious readers of Narayan disagree with me, and so many of them cannot be wrong. I was perhaps particularly unfair in suggesting that Narayan was merely a chronicler of the ordinary who reflected faithfully the world view of a self-obsessed and complacent upper caste (and middle-class). "I write primarily for myself," Narayan had said. "And I write about what interests me, human beings and human relationships .... Only the story matters; that is all." Fair enough: one should not expect Austen to be Orwell. But one does expect an Austen to enrich the possibilities of the language she uses, to illuminate her tools as well as her craft. Narayan's was an impoverished English, limited and conventional, its potential unexplored, its bones bare.”

I do not see much of the story to “lose sight” of however, even without focusing on the utterly commonplace language in The English Teacher. The reason for this lies with the main character of the book, Krishna. A first person perspective, though vital in creating the impression of an “autobiography”, draws a thin line between one who is in touch with his emotions and one who is a self-centered emotional wreck. From the very beginning of the book, Krishna was portrayed as someone who indulged in self-criticism and did not bother to do anything constructive, choosing to behave like a whiny child instead. As my Source put it, the writer attempted to be introspective in the very first sentence of the book, but failed big time, as “any decent Literature student ought to have noticed”.

Krishna is a living oxymoron. He always felt that he was destined for greater things. It is almost amusing the way Krishna attempts to cover reality with illusions, yet he is ironically not at all as creative as he makes himself out to be. Krishna aspires to be a writer or a poet, yet he does not bother to pay the language simple courtesy and instead, blasphemously insists that a spelling error does not make much of a difference. However, if one truly cared to pause and think about this, the world would be filled with utter chaos and confusion if every individual spelled things as they pleased with no apparent regard for form and structure.

The first mentioned poem written by Krishna was entitled “Nature”. Nevertheless, Krishna appeared to find it necessary to include that it consisted of fifty lines of verse. One would perhaps endeavor to say that he was proud of the length, rather than the content, that he does not even bother to mention. To quote Terry Pratchett,

“People could like daffodils if they wanted to. They just, should not, in my very definite and precise opinion, be allowed to take up more than a page to say so.”

A true poet would not emphasise on the fact that fifty lines of verse were written. Take for instance, the four-line poem written by the famous poet, Margaret Atwood:

“You fit into me,
Like a hook into an eye;
A fish hook,
An open eye.”

The sheer impact of four lines were able to capture the attention of the readers more effectively than a monotonous fifty-line one probably would, especially as the fifty-lined poem was written by a man as unimaginative as Krishna.

One would be inclined to think that Krishna was an embodiment of self-indulgence, and perhaps, consider the irony of how the diverse layers of humanity created such complications in one’s sea of emotions. Krishna later attempted to write a poem about his wife by imitating the style of Wordsworth in “Golden Treasury”, whereby his wife chided him saying, “Aren’t you ashamed to copy?” In the final chapter of the novel, or perhaps, the final chapter of his life, as one would say, Krishna, decided to quit his job. Perchance he felt it hampered his own inspirations and aspirations (Ooh, notice the sacarsm-o level). Krishna then attempted to pen down his reasons, but failed as he was unable to adequately phrase his actual feelings on the matter. The inability to pen one’s thoughts is the greatest downfall of a writer and it could be said that Krishna is an insult to the term.

A conventional man like Krishna would never be able to do well in creative writing unless it was an autobiography. There are many more instances of his self-indulgence and incessant whining as he neglects his daughter while pining for his dead wife that he did not fully appreciate before. He does not appreciate his own health, his precious daughter, and his wonderful parents, for the beauties of life are wasted upon the likes of him.

Krishna is the first character I have ever held a personal grudge against. Most of the despicable characters are written the way they are and I merely read them as flavours of a book. However, it is the precise style in which Krishna was written that annoys me till no end. Narayan has failed to make Krishna a sensitive man as was probably his intention; instead, the main character of The English Teacher comes across as an utterly annoying pompous, presumptuous, and pretentious egghead. I personally detest the blasphemous implication that he can actually write when a kindergartener would have been able to run around him in circles where his imagination was concerned. His ignorance is glorified under the world’s largest lie.

It has been said that R. K. Narayan wrote Krishna based upon himself. If that is the case, with all due respect, I believe R. K. Narayan has succeeded in his autobiography.

“Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?” – Garth Nix

Disclaimer (again): Narayan’s intention may have been to write stories for himself, which works very well. I am only criticizing the lack of possibilities (and revulsion!) this story provides me with as a literary text.

Going once, going twice...

My mother recently received a very interesting traffic summons for parking in a non-authorised area. The postmark on the envelope provides us with an accurate idea of the date...


But in the middle of my mother's complaints about how she had not been near that road in years, I noticed...

She was right.


The date and time of the offence was ten years ago.
Then I took a closer look and found that the date the notice was issued happened to be...


Wow, I had no idea it was March already.

1) Delay defeats equity. See the case of Leaf v International Gallaries.
According to Malaysian law, the validity's seven years.
2) Anyway, we already paid for it ten years ago.
You aren't allowed to renew your road tax if you don't pay up.
My mother distinctly remembers paying for this.
If they expect people to keep proof of payment after ten years, they're nuts.

Perhaps I should put up the "Retrospective summons ticket from the future, get yours now before they mail it" on E-Bay.

My Library is Non-Existent because that's My Room

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.
What Kind of Reader Are You? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

50th Post. =D

Tag: 16 Random Things About Me

1) My pet peeves include wastage (of time, money, etc) and hypocrisy/ backstabbing. Will throw punches if sufficiently provoked.

2) I’m terribly meticulous. I must…be…precise. You probably have been on the receiving end of my infamous, “I will be arriving in approximately six minutes.” I understand that it’s annoying when I correct a throwaway remark of “Ten minutes” to “Twelve minutes” and I certainly don’t blame people for losing their temper when that happens. Nevertheless, I can’t seem to help it.

3) I’m an arrogant little self-centered damsel attempting to rid myself of this attitude and trying to focus on others. I certainly need to be taken down a couple of pegs. Please feel free to do so. Anytime, anywhere, anyway. It serves me right.

4) I appreciate honesty. I won’t hold a grudge against you for saying I look like “A dirt bag that just crawled out of the drains with maggots on your head” Etc. I may feel hurt, but I’ll try to improve circumstances and I certainly would not hold it against you. I love criticism. It makes me a better person.

5) I like being a girl, even if I am half a tomboy. I like being the girl gamer that throws punches instead of slapping people, the individual that dislikes aimless shopping and looks at fashion crazes with a bemused eye.

6) I type/ write formally. Yes, even my text messages are typed in full. I have nothing against people “hu ryte lyk this” because I understand that it’s convenient but I’m mildly annoyed by people “hU rYte LyK tHis” as it’s certainly not convenient and it probably takes less time to type in full. Caps are annoying too. I speak…according to the people I’m with at the moment, and the circumstances. I find “Oh, good evening, would you care to join me for a cup of tea, my lady” pretentious, especially if the aforementioned sentence is uttered in a mamak, with Chinese-y people around. I prefer to blend into the environment with an “Oi! Long time no see wei. Come, we yum cha. Faster order la.” The English-y people would be treated with “Hey, come on, let’s have a drink. Hurryup and order.”

7) I’m a crybaby and I’ll cry at almost anything. ^^;

8) I love reading. I’ll read the nutritional values on the backs of cereal boxes if I happen to be having cereal and have no reading material available. I occasionally read when I’m having a bath. Seriously. And no, the books weren’t ruined. I love my books. If you crease my books, I would suffer from acute heartache.

9) I have a permanent vendetta against roaches. I can smell the genetic makeup of roaches from afar, however remote or vague it may be. Off the top of my head, I can name five different ways to kill a roach, leaving it a reasonably preserved corpse.

10) I am precise, realistic, or morbid, depending on your point of view. My arrangements to meet up with friends often end in “I’ll see you on Thursday then, if I don’t die in my sleep, get knocked over by a car, or something.” The world is made of candy floss with the occasional well-sheathed shard of glass.

11) I love languages. I don’t hate Mathematics – I just can’t deal with it at the moment. ‘Nuff said.

12) My joints ache occasionally when it rains and I whack my kneecaps with some Jade-Stone-Knocker-Whatchumacallit-With-A-Springy-Handle (JSKWWASH). I whack my arms on the rebound too. It strengthens my arms and kneecaps. Good for fighting…and kneeing stalkers in the privates (Though heels might be more effective in this case). ‘Tis Chinese martial arts.

13) I have a tendency to worry about everything. I know that if you can do something about it, you should go do it and if you can’t do something about it, no amount of worrying will fix it. Nevertheless, I worry.

14) I don’t pay attention to celebrities. Why should I? They’re no kin/ mate of mine. I only know the names of the really famous celebrities like, say, Brad Pitt. I still don’t know how he looks like. I mean, I Googled him as I was curious since everyone was harping on about how gorgeous he was. I thought he looked like an old geezer at that time. I don’t remember how he looks like though, and I don’t really care.

15) I don’t read super-famous, hyped-up contemporary fiction. I read Harry Potter because I read it before it became famous. I don’t like “jumping on the bandwagon” and becoming a groupie amongst the already established throng of fans. I never read Lord of the Rings (Contemporary? O_o Hmm.) or Twilight. I have no idea why.

16) I think the ice-skating rink is a rather interesting/ amusing place, given the number of girls that don’t know how to skate but insist on wearing mini skirts and thin white blouses. And I’m perfectly straight, thank you! I am only interested in being romantically involved with males (Even so, it depends on the type and all that, but you know what I mean... ^^; And no, I'm not interested in would-be-paramours/ stalkers at the moment, even if you do have the correct gender. ). Fin.

If things don't change, I'm officially dropping English Literature in favour of Mathematics.

I have a Literature exam on Monday:

This is probably one of the few rant posts you’ll ever find in my blog. And you know what? If the person in question happens to be reading this:

Defamation (from Wikipedia):
In law, defamation (also called calumny, libel, slander, and vilification) is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government or nation a negative image. Slander refers to a malicious, false, and defamatory spoken statement or report, while libel refers to any other form of communication such as written words or images. Most jurisdictions allow legal actions, civil and/or criminal, to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against groundless criticism.

My defences:
- Truth
- Opinion
- Fair comment on a matter of public interest
- Statements made in good faith and reasonable belief that they were true

Points to note:
I don’t care if you hate me. I do not play the double-faced game. While I may bitch about people behind their backs, I will definitely do the same in front of them too. I'm a girl with nothing to hide and if I hate you, I do. So unless your sarcasm-o-meter is broken, I’m sure you must have realized that I disregard you by now anyway.
I am impertinent to people who do not show me respect. Reading the newspapers in class and drifting around the hallways like a nomadic fool is a tort of negligence, as you owe us a duty of care to educate us. Your inadequacies aren’t even the main point here, I just thought I’d point them out to highlight your hypocritical and obnoxious attitude.

My lecturer’s inadequacies include:
- Not knowing half the words in every poem / play/ novel we study.

> Example: He thinks a ‘buttonhole’ is a dish. To quote,
“Dis buttonhole is eatable, you see.”
Yes, ‘eatable’. It’s not even ‘edible’, it’s ‘eatable’.

- Not knowing the proper name of the main character in the play we’re studying.
- Not recognizing a direct quote from the text.

> Example:
“Snow, whose house does this take place in?”
“Mr. John Worthing’s house.”
“No! It’s Jack Worthing!”
“Sir… *Quotes directly from text* Jack is a notorious domesticity for John!”
“Not in this book.”
“….YES in this book.”
“Really arrrh?”

Two minutes into the play, the manservant announces the imminent arrival of “Mr. John Worthing.”

- Atrocious pronunciation in addition to bad grammar/ vocabulary.

> Example: Othello is pronounced as "Order-loh" instead of "Otfe-lo".

- Look, I don’t claim to know the entire dictionary, nor do I expect him to, even though he’s an English Literature Lecturer and you’d think he’d have a better vocabulary/ understanding of the texts. But wait a moment, didn’t he just give us those poems / texts himself? We didn’t ambush him with foreign material, did we? Have the decency to prepare before class, SIR.
- Giving me top marks for my first Literature assessment

> No, seriously
> Due to his inability to make himself coherent, we were say, hypothetically under the impression that we were being given two hours to write two essays.
> He informed us that we had fifteen minutes left after the first hour.
> So I had fifteen minutes for the second essay and I totally winged it. Trust me, I spewed pure rubbish.
> My first essay was a page and a half long, my second was three quarters of the page. My second essay had totally no substance and it was basically crap.
> I got the same marks for the first and the second essay, giving me top marks.
> Trust me, if I were grading my own paper, and if it were based on the standards of the first essay… I won’t have given myself more than three quarters the marks I received on the first essay for the second one. It was utter trash.

His misdemeanors include:
- It’s an everlasting cycle:

>Enter the class -> Sit in the class -> Mumble something about a book or whatever nonsense -> Walks out of the class to look for said nonsense, wandering around the corridors like a lost soul -> Returns half an hour later -> Announces a fifteen minute break -> Leaves the class again -> Goes out for an hour -> Returns -> Cycle is repeated

- Approximately 95% of the time he actually spends in the class consists of asking us to read our notes while he reads the newspapers, and perhaps ramble on a little about politics (completely unrelated to Literature, might I add).
- Telling my…less linguistically-inclined classmates that they have “lousy Engerlish” and need to improve on their command of the language when they ask him the meaning of a word they do not understand.

> Hypocrite, much?
> We have a right to not know. We’re called students, for a reason.
> I think he probably doesn’t know either and is just trying to cover his ass and act cool.

- Claiming that the usage of the word “poet” is disallowed.

> Oh really, what was the word invented for in the first place, then?
> So we call them “the person who wrote the poem”?
> "A Different History was written by the well-renowned person who wrote the poem, Sujatta Bhatt…” Oh yes, that sounds beautiful. Simply…poetic.
> Cambridge used The Forbidden Word in at least one of their past year papers.
> He claims Cambridge is wrong.
> Dude, if Cambridge is wrong and you’re right…
> Why aren’t you the principal of Cambridge, ya’ know?
> Too bad we're taking the Cambridge paper instead of your paper, eh?

- The list could continue forever, but I guess I'll just pen off here lest I burst an artery.

The Skill I Learnt in Two Years of College

It’s the end of my second year of college (almost) – what have I learned thus far?


Physics? Chemistry? Law? Business?


Uh-uh.


I learnt how to bind notes like a pro.


No, seriously.





Maybe I should forget my Degree and set up a professional note-binding business?

I'm a warped, warped girl, in a warped, warped world

I’ve been thinking how much more beneficial it would have been if I’d dropped out of high school instead of continuing with my tertiary.
(Disclaimer: The worksheet below is purely theoretical and is only adapted to suit me. )
~~~
Teaching rates:
Primary English / hour = RM 25
SPM @ O Level English Literature / hour = RM 45

Assumptions:
- Primary English only
- 4 hours a day only
- Mondays to Fridays only

Per month:
RM 25 X 4 (hours) = RM100 X 5 (days a week)
= RM 500 X 4 (weeks a month) = RM 2000

Per year:
RM2000 X 12 (months) = RM 24000

An average fresh degree graduate these days get a monthly salary of RM 1500 by working from 9am – 5pm (8 hours) on Mondays to Fridays as well as a half day on Saturday.
Your average degree holder requires six years between SPM and graduation.

If I’d started teaching since I finished SPM:
RM 24000 X 6 (years) = RM 144,000

Conclusion:
- I can buy a nice Semi-D with RM 144,000
- The minimum amount required for tertiary these days = RM 40,000, which I can use to buy furniture for my Semi-D and / or a car, as I’m not doing my tertiary.
- My parents can provide me with food a shelter for these six years, as they would have had to do anyway, if I did my tertiary
- I’ll have six years’ more experience than a fresh graduate. Tell me, would you employ a youngin’ fresh out of university to teach your son, or someone with six years experience?
- All of these, by merely teaching Primary English, 4 hours a day, Mondays to Fridays.
~~~

I’ve managed to get several teaching jobs at my own leisure, including teaching Form 2 Chinese for RM 50 an hour. O_o I turned many of them down of course, as I had to concentrate on my studies. The stories of job insecurity aren’t that bad now, are they, like the stories of the boogey men getting you after dark?

Nevertheless, why am I not dropping out of college now, if the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages?
Society. I, like all the other denizens of the world, am forced to conform to society’s standards. Those who drop out after high school are considered to be “slower” than the rest, politely speaking. It is a highly discriminatory view and rather inaccurate, but what can I do to change the attitude of the world? Basically, I’m getting my degree not for myself, nor for my loved ones, but for society. That is all. The education system is warped.

I need comments, please. Counter-arguments. There must be a catch somewhere – my theoretical worksheet above seems too good to be true and 80% of the world won’t be in college if it worked. Yet try as I might, from my painfully limited perspective, I cannot see why I’d need to do my tertiary. Well, apart from conforming to the society’s standards of course.

People should go to college / university because they have a thirst for knowledge. Not so they can slave away for a piece of paper that the society will judge them by. But who am I kidding? The world’s an oxymoron in itself. Our society is comparable to the idiosyncrasies of Victorian values in The Importance of Being Earnest (IOBE).
Change is not the only thing that doesn’t change – the foolishness of humanity will never change.

Note: Will try to post an essay on “Compare the Victorian society as depicted by Oscar Wilde in IOBE and the society of today”, the evolutionary version with unvarnished insights from yours sincerely and the fake but exam-accepted version. It’s quite a plausible GCE A-Level examination question – highly examinable, in fact. I would certainly be making my students write essays on that if I hadn’t stopped teaching part-time.

画心

看不穿 是你失落的魂魄
猜不透 是你瞳孔的颜色
一阵风 一场梦
爱如（是）生命般（的）莫测
你的心 到底被什么蛊惑

你的轮廓在黑夜之中淹没
看桃花 开出怎样的结果
看着你抱着我 目光似（比）月色寂寞
就让你 在别人怀里快乐

爱着你 像心跳难触摸
画着你 画不出你的骨骼
记着你的脸色 是我等你的执着

你是我 一首唱不完的歌
（我的心 只愿为你而割舍）