Currently addicted to this blog, and very tempted to document my own meals. It'll be a good idea to see the amount of junk I injest (yikes) - maybe I'll finally be shocked into taking better care of my body (which is now so fat that rolls of fats are preventing me from getting deeper stretches - I know: that's disgusting and TMI).

Other stuff: I found the letter from INZ in my letterbox this morning. C said she'll go with me to the police to get fingerprinted on Tue after her class, but I'll need to hand in my signed contract (for 20 hours' work?!) to the administrator for the Psych department with a copy of my student permit next Mon. I started doing some of the work on Friday itself, looking for articles on Semiotica, and sorting through the existing articles on EndNote. (EndNote is an OCD wet-dream, by the way.) I actually can't wait to continue next Monday! Will try to go through all the journals on my list with the shortlist of names, rather than reading abstracts of articles with titles that look like they may be what I should be including in my cache of articles.

Also hauled some books home from the school library on Friday, borrowed under C's staff card since my student one doesn't work no more ... =(

You know, I bet it's only when I'm here that I feel like I'm missing out on so much back home.

But, honest-to-goddess, whatever I feel like I'm missing out on (by not being back home, and thus being able to attend/be involved in those events), I prolly would've skipped if I were back home anyway.

Feels like Purgatory where I am now, just a whole load of waiting, waiting, and waiting.

The Singapore High Comm. was efficient, and I received what I asked for the day after I called. Immigration NZ, on the other hand ... well, I made a call yesterday, and thankfully it was a friendly chap named James who answered. He put in my request for me and told me it would take a couple of days to process, but since the letter is to be sent from the AKL office, I would receive it next week - "but give us a call if you still haven't received it next week".

It's so tedious. I hate forms. I hate not understanding what I'm reading.

I feel so tired these days, doing nothing. Not quite sure if it beats being wired on adrenaline though ...

This is my last day as a student (being officially enrolled, that is). It's a wee bit scary, and I don't know what to do with myself.

In the short term, though, there are dishes I want to try make, and I've gotta tidy up the flat. Keep busy, I suppose.

I hate job hunting though. There're prolly few things on earth that would make you feel as worthless. And desperate.

And things I love doing that aren't job options (for me): pole, dance, and papercutting.

I was chatting with Mandy (my dance teacher) after class on Thu, and she asked what I was doing in school (strangely enough, that was the second such question I was asked within a span of two hours that day), and I said, "My honors in English. It's completely useless."

Mandy said, "Don't be so hard on yourself! It's not useless!"

But, it is. I spent my undergraduate years doing mostly medieval papers:

• ENGL214 The Chivalric Quest
  
• ENGL215 Old English Literature
  
• ENGL224 Literary History of English Language
  
• ENGL307 Troy and Troilus
  
• ENGL315 Restoration and 18^th Century Literature
  
• ENGL320 Beowulf
  
• ENGL321 Old English

And my honors papers are:

• ENGL402 Medieval Studies: Old Icelandic
  
• ENGL406 Medieval Studies: Middle English Language to Early Modern English Language
  
• ENGL489 Research Essay (Manuscript Use of Anglo-Saxon Runes)
  
• LING410 Literary Linguistics

I'm gonna come right out to say that as much as I love these papers, especially Old English and Old Icelandic, my degree is completely useless. Were I to pursue it to Ph.D. level, it would still be useless.

For one thing, my school has more or less abolished the medieval studies department because so far there has been no hiring of any lecturer(s) to replace my lecturers who retired. Christine and Robert were the medieval studies department. As a result of their retirement, medieval studies papers aren't offered this year at all. (Well, actually there will be one girl who will be taking Beowulf, but it's more like supervised self-study, with an ex-student of Christine's guiding the study.)

Since the school doesn't see fit (yeah, yeah, it's always about the bottom-line, I know, and so C says) to keep medieval studies running, I can only infer from that the uselessness of what I'm doing.

And then I read this thread.

Cut. Cut. Cut.

I guess I should move all the graphic stuff to Tumblr.

I finally have my Defying Gravity playlist!
1) Original Broadway Cast (Idina Menzel & Kristin Chenoweth duet)
2) Glee Cast (Chris Colfer and Lea Michele duet)
3) Chris Colfer solo
4) Lea Michele solo

That last one is just crying out for a choreo (on the spinny pole). And I can already see bits of it ...

Have been thinking about how Kurt was talking about how he has a playlist based on 'Defying Gravity', and I think I need one too ('ये होंसला' is definitely gonna be on that playlist).

It's all about keeping your spirits up.

Because, sometimes, a little down is way deeper down than you realize.

.
.
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(Damnit. Focalization. Narration. Homo-intra-diegetic narrating agent. Character-bound focalizer. I'm just blogging, for fuck's sakes. You stupid terms and typology keep the fuck outta my head when I'm doing private stuff!)

Have been meaning to post this because I found it just Fucking Hilarious, but I kept forgetting to snap the picture. And when I finally did remember to (one evening on our way to pick up our order from Hell's), it was dark and my cellphone's camera takes shitty shots at night.

Then, I found it online:

I've just noticed I turn to Hindi (especially filmi) music for solace.

Found myself craving a listen of Kunal Ganjawalla's 'छोड़ो न मुझे' which had somehow starting playing in my head a couple of days ago. Only last night did I realize my subconscious prolly picked this song from my mental music library on the basis of its title and lyrics (as Hindi is still a foreign language to me, I'm perfectly capable of just listening to songs without full or even partial comprehension). The melody prolly played a part too, since my subconsious picked the slow version over the perky one and insisted specifically that the track should be the one from My Brother Nikhil rather than the one from Rules (though it's basically the same track).



Am also listening to Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan's 'ये होंसला' (from Dor) in an effort to keep my spirits up. The lyrics are wonderfully encouraging.

यह हौन्सला कैसे झुके,
How can this courage bend
यह आरज़ू कैसे रुके
How can this desire stop

मंजिल मुश्किल तो क्या,
So what if the goal is difficult
धुन्धला साहिल तो क्या,
So what if the shore is hazy
तनहा ये दिल तो क्या
So what if this heart is lonely

राह पे कांटे बिखरे अगर,
Even if the paths are strewn with thorns
उसपे तो फिर भी चलना ही है,
Even then you must walk on them
शाम छुपाले सूरज मगर,
The evening hides the sun but
रात को एक दिन ढलना ही है
The night must dim into day

रुत ये टल जायेगी,
This season will end
हिम्मत रंग लाएगी,
Courage will bring color
सुबह फिर आएगी
A new day will then come

यह हौन्सला कैसे झुके,
How can this courage bend
यह आरज़ू कैसे रुके
How can this desire stop

होगी हमें जो रहमत अदा,
If goodwill is granted to us
धूप कटेगी साए तले,
Sunlight will remove the shadows below
अपनी खुदा से है ये दुआ,
I have this prayer of my god
मंज़िल लगाले हमको गले
May our goals embrace us

जुर्रत सौ बार रहे,
Let courage remain a hundred time
ऊँचा इकरार रहे,
Let promises remain sublime
जिंदा हर प्यार रहे
Let every love remain alive

यह हौन्सला कैसे झुके,
How can this courage bend
यह आरज़ू कैसे रुके
How can this desire stop

(This translation is a mixture of what I've found online and my own clunky - literal - translation.)

I've been schlepping to and from the dungeon - that's what I call level 0 of the school library (and it's a creepy place) - and today I finally stopped and saw and shot:











It is a little pretty.

This installation was put in some time in the four years I was away. C told me it was there to prevent further suicide attempts after some poor soul jumped down (the library has levels 0 to 9) and died.

Moral of the story: well, you never know when prettiness has its roots in the morbid.

The next are all shots of the girls' room:

a sticker above the mirror, L1 Rankine Brown

These are all from the inside of the doors of all three cubicles in the Old Kirk ground-level girls' room:



























There used to be so much more of these scribbling in the girls' rooms of Kirk and Cotton, but when I used them this year, I was disappointed to find everything scrubbed away. The cubicles in Kirk level 2 (I think) were especially awesome. I could sit in them forever just reading. It's a regular little forum, web 1.0.

I hate to feel so stressed first thing in the morning when I'm alone. It's nearly 09:00 here but, elsewhere in the world, everybody is still slumbering hard, trying to get rested before their day begins.



And, oh boy, you never never feel so quite alone.

Didn't sleep well at all last night; was feeling too anxious about C's trip to MEL today - for which she left at about 04:00 this morning.

Must be the stress of my stupid (stupid because I'M stupid and fail to comprehend the slightest thing I read and am meant to do) LING research project. Am due to see my lecturer about it later at 09:15 before our 10:00 class. I have a feeling she won't be of much help.

So ... my chest feels weird, and my heart feels like it's just pumpingpumpingpumping way too fast. And this is before even my first cuppa.

=(

This will be a terrible day. And when I freak out, I don't have C to calm me down.

=((

Therefore, I must CALM. DOWN.

=(((

Sigh.

Not so much the end of the year as the end of the holidays, I say: back to school on Tues. Sigh.

This year-end break just flew by, but then it was just two weeks long, wasn't it? Most of the first week was spent in the upper north and west of the North Island (C documented our road trip from Auckland to Waiheke Island to Hamilton to Rotorua and, finally, to New Plymouth); the second week was spent in recuperation. It was honestly tiring, and prolly more so for C (who drove) than for me (the passenger).

So. Next week onwards: I've got 1 presentation, 1 abstract, and 2 research essays. I can't wait to STOP STUDYING.

How will 2010 bode?

Have been waking up disoriented since last week; it's the dreams I've been having, I think. They're mostly about dance and pole and dance studios and pole-mates.

I hope doing the exercises my physiotherapist recommends will translate to a more flexible back. I'd love to be able to touch my toes to my ears when I do a bird-nest.

But I'm having a rather bad relationship with my body right now: I don't like the way it looks. Something's gotta give; or something's gotta change.