Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Knowing grateful.

If anyone has been noticing at all, over the last few weeks, I've been reducing the content of this blog to pure cynical angry mutter. Yeah..I was just PMSin, cmmon' even us guys do get our off periods.

But today, I am grateful and thankful, even as I'm sitting here at 1am in the morning rummaging through what is my second essay in a week. Although I must admit the history grades sure did help a lot.

I am grateful firstly for turning 24. I never quite gotten to the extend of really savoring how stable my life has been. It was never a bed of roses, but somehow or rather there was always a way out and by some strange divination? I always got out of fixes unscaved.

I also possessed great and wonder parents that had brought me into this world, something which I always took for granted.

I am grateful for my brother, for even as I am writing my essay, he was sitting right beside me on his com, playing some silly MMORTS game online which I think is completely ridiculous.But I felt a little nostalgic when I realized for a moment that it felt like A levels all over again, where he would sneak into my room to play computer in the wee hours of the morning even though we had school the next day He was in primary school then, but he is all grown up now.

I have, as well, somehow grown out of my A level days, I hope. But I do know if I could hold on to this optimism in the midst of all this exams..all the struggles to come (although exams seem to be too trivial to be categorized as life's struggles) , I guess I wouldn't be too far off saying that somehow or rather from here on now, everything is going to be all right, everything will be just fine.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

I've tried

Yearn I have, try I must, fail I may, tried I had.
When all comes to light, when push comes to shaft
I can just take a walk away, without a tinge of remorse
or a void of emptiness.
I can say at the end of it I did try
I will pay no heed to callous calls,or the proverbial coronation
of the archetypal loser.
I will not watch in disgust the sweet sucklings ennobled
to the other
I will not be feel the need for self-comforting, or the concoction
which might take my cares away
Or that callous self pity so many availed themselves to
Or that mortal distress that shimmers from the nether vaults
of our existence
I will instead stand tall and proud, and curse away the bitter gripes
the mar my trembling lips
And patronize that arrogant brute who holds in his hand the sweet
price of victory
And toasts the musings of all the bystanders and onlookers whose
has made one’s misery their soaring commercial
For yet again I told myself I’ve tried.
Even if I feel ill or empty, solemn or sorry
Or meet with periodical distress, for a part of myself has been
taken from me
Or infused with deep resentment and anger towards the jurisprudence, fate
has meted upon me

I’ll tell myself I’ve tried
They have all tried
Everyday of their lives
Everyday, the struggle.
Now they are dead and
I’ve tried and I have had enough.
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 - J.S Bach

{Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G BWV 1048} Allegro - Johann Sebatian Bach

I'm addicted to this piece, I've been replaying it over and over again, while slugging through my classics paper. It's just what the baroque is all about - control, grace, style, pomp and precision.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Does anyone remember those early formative years, where we yearn for almost anything that bears or conjures any fascination. It seems so long away, but I remembered in spite of my petulant insistence, I did not get what I want all the time. But why did we want those little animate objects - those toys and figurines, what could it possible give us? What joy? What elation? A certain possession? That is what we ask, now that we have grown. For we have grown out of those toys, those figurines, but have we grown out of ourselves - our wants, our desires?

Or has it just metamorphosized into something that is now beyond the scope of conscience, of control, of curtailment?

Like a child who plots to portray a semblance of good behavior, he wants the toy, and for the toy he behaves. Now that he has grown, he plots as well, he get what she desires, he gets what he wants irregardless of what it takes. For it is the toy he wants.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Family

I was speaking to Greg on MSN a couple of days ago and something sort of struck me abt the different characteristics each member of my family possessed and all you needed to do was to look at each of their personal messages

ME - Liberty lies in the mind, divorced of the soul, befallen in life (Life sucks, I know)
Mum - GOD is GREAT! (Yes mum, praise the lord..)
Lil Greg - I'm starting at perfection! (Please Greg, I know its gonna be 6 pts, but enough already)
Cousin Maurtiz - Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of education (Like you were even in school..)
BIG Cousin Matthias - Because it is Love.. (Err...dun tell me its that ridiculous gal I saw at Cine)

Well, dad doesn't do MSN - but I bet if he had a personal message it'll be - What a great family we have.. now lets grab some beer and talk politics.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

A misanthropist heaven

We've found this quiet little corner at the library to study in between lessons, I would say as Emily Bronte did - that it is the perfect misanthropist heaven, at least so for a imperfect misanthropist like myself. But it is funny that in this silence which was suppose to facilitate actual studying, we've come across some odd features around us that we would never have had realized if not for the situation we have put ourselves under.

From that odd man who brings along a sleeping bag, and places himself between shelves DS231 - DS280 without fail every single day, he would just lay on his 'bed' and simply read his day away. It seems like the shelves provides the walls of his habitat and books the fodder for his existence.

Then there is another, an elderly man, who I gather to be in his late seventies or early eighties. He dresses well, in his well pressed coat, he seems to be around all the time, punching the keys to the keyboard and screeching his eyes through those dark rimmed glasses. He is also a regular feature, I glanced at him once, he looked back and nodded his head in recognition, as if he knew I was wondering what was he doing there everyday.

Then we have the students like ourselves, who somehow have found fondness for this part of the library. They come and they go, but then over time, you somehow know who is who. Not that I knew them, we've hardly spoken a word, but their mere presence somehow assured me that I was not on the wrong set, and life just goes on.

So is it with the odd old man or that odd man slumped in his odd sleeping bag. I look for them everyday to be there, if they weren't for some reason one day, I guess I would then become the perfect misanthropist in a perfect misanthropist heaven.

Monday, November 10, 2008

J.S Bach: Unfinished Fugue (Contrapunctus XIV) 




Bach's final piece, it is unfinished because he died, but what a beautiful piece he left us all with, even though unfinished, the sudden abruptness of the ending brought meaning to it all - that Bach would rather meet his end upon a unfinished work than a complete masterpiece. He wanted to have the rest of the piece written for him, by us, to make sense of it all, for ourselves - the living.