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hello
I have a new category for my blog, It will be of random entries that I put into my journal. Once I bother learning how to have categories oh lol. This is a random entry around 11:30 at night, I think…
Gosh, I feel a bit dizzy after covering everything in vix I think… either that or it’s just the school work driving me crazy. Listening to Jeff Buckley ‘Lover You Should Have Come Over’ making me all melodramatic. All I can smell is Vix, all i can taste is Vix, I’ll start seeing vix everywhere, I’ll have deranged dreams about drowning in a pot of Vix, that intense smell swallowing me whole. I need a plumber for my head-Am I even writing on the lines?! I don’t know, I’m writing by moonlight lol, sounds so romantic, well tbh it SUX (yes, thats right, i spelt it ’sux’) [insert indecipherable word] this Vix is getting to my head. I want to have fun. Want to go to Jungle Mountain. Want to be a kid, have another childhood, with friends. Maybe this time I’ll conform and not be so weird. HA! Never! I’ll never conform. Lol, I was getting so frustrated with my nose today and this perpetual sniffing. NB: before lunch Lauren and I had been having a discussion about blowing noses and how disgusting hankies were and how It should be socially acceptable to just randomly blow your nose out onto the grass, it’s not that much worse than smoking… and they should have bins especially for spit… Terri was like
“Just blow your nose damnit”
and so i just snorted out onto the pavement, so vulgar… Lauren laughed, but she was secretly disgusted (thankyou Lauren…)
well, now that you’ve read that… you’ll know how disgusting and delirious I get when i have a cold and can’t sleep late at night.
NICE
I sat beneath a shady tree,
And fearing it would fall on me,
I cut it down (pre-emptively).
I saw a little honey-bee,
And fearing it would poison me,
I murdered it. (pre-emptively)
I sensed a dark futility,
And fearing that it could be me,
I dealt with it. (pre-emptively)
-LEUNIG
I heart Floreat
house to my self
wooden walls
Triple J
Art
Shadows
Light
Books
Musty smell
Heater
Long Weekend
bus
60’s furniture
harmony
apple cider
paper bark tree
damnit, it’s now raining, i was going to go to the city, i even got dressed, but now the idea seems much less appealing.
Stop saying ‘haha’
I am thinking it’s a sign
That the freckles in our eyes
Are mirror images and
When we kiss they’re perfectly aligned
And I have to speculate
That God himself did make us into
Corresponding shapes like puzzles pieces
From the clay
True, it may seem like a stretch
But it’s thoughts like this
That catch my troubled head
When you’re away, when I am missing you to death
When you were out there on the road
For several weeks of shows
And when you scan the radio
I hope this song will guide you home
They will see us waving from such great heights
“Come down now,” they’ll say
But everything looks perfect from far away
“Come down now,” but we’ll stay
I’ve tried my best to leave
This all on your machine
But the persistent beat
Sounded thin upon listening
That frankly will not fly
You will hear the shrillest highs
And lowest lows with the windows down
When this is guiding you home
They will see us waving from such great heights
“Come down now,” they’ll say
But everything looks perfect from far away
“Come down now,” but we’ll say…
alrighty, time for some nutshell statements. I love that word, reminds me of squirrels (i’m a bit delirious after my art exam, three 4 page essays all about art, zomg)
Jared tried to get questions for the music exam from me, by saying that he’d already done it. What a scumbag.
So i’m going to write summaries about a few texts and films i’ve seen so far.
Transamerica
Transamerica, the film directed by Duncan Tucker (2005), is about woman about to finalize her sex change (from man to woman) who embarks on a journey with her newly discovered son, after her councilor refuses to sign her sex change forms before she sorts things out between her son. The story line follows Bree and her son Toby as they discover themselves through obstacles along the journey. Film conventions and devices are used to position the viewers in a certain way. The use of props is evident as the car in which Toby and Bree travel in, is seen almost as another character, symbolizing the unifying effect that this journey has had on the father and her son.
Cloudstreet.
The novel written by Tim Winton is about two families brought together through their own tragedies. Both families live in one large house at number one Cloudstreet, in Perth. The story follows two working class families with the backdrop of World War Two and the Nedland Murders. This story is predominantly about family and people’s sense of place and reason.
‘Bad Mommy’ the extract from Little Children the novel, written by Tom Perrotta
This text explores how gender roles are enforced within a group of housemothers. Perotta uses various techniques to portray the high standards that mothers must conform to. Such techniques include characterization; the way in which he describes Mary Ann, the antagonist as a ’super mum’, setting; the playground, symbolizing the childish politics that still take place in house mother cliques and the fairly limited point of view and narrator’s voice which gives, what some might criticize as being a fairly biased take on the events. (holy mackerel, that sentence was way too long lol)
H.E Bates’ The Good Corn
This short story is about a couple living on a farm who face the problem of the wife’s infertility. The text is practically an artifact of the past, showing that either, a mother’s role of having a baby was so important in the fifties, that letting her husband have sex with another woman just so that they can have a child is just, or that it’s a satirical text. The Author H.E Bates, wrote many other texts romanticizing family life in the country and confirming masculine roles such as the bread winner and feminine roles; giving birth to children and then caring for them.
gosh, nutshell statements are boring me *sigh* they aren’t as exciting as they sound (there were no squirrels :’ [] oh well… )
i’m going to complain some more: I’m very annoyed that I have english tommorow, just after today with art and my hand got all cramped up, I have to do the same tommorow, i wouldn’t have minded to just get discrete out of the way and leave english to last, something to look forward to, oh well, who am i to complain, my exams finish next Tuesday. Don’t know what i’m going to do though… haha. It probably won’t be as fun on my own lol.
I woke up at 5am with the curtains flapping and the door creaking. That nice feeling of being safe in your bed while outside rain patters on car roofs and leaves colour the roads orange. I wish i’d gotten back to sleep but I just seemed to drift in and out of it. Art exam today in the afternoon, but i studied mostly for that last night, I might study for english today as it’s tomorrow morning’s exam, and then all i have left is the Maths exam next Tuesday. Did you know that toast tastes better cooked in a toasted sandwich maker? Well, the toaster in the common room is kind of dead, last time Lauren tried to use it, it short-circuited and she almost died.
I finished Cloudstreet this morning. I gave up going back to sleep. Cloudstreet made me cry at the end. It’s actually an amazing book. I’m kind of looking forward to the english exam, I wish I had done lit though, it would have made so much more sense to do lit.
Corri’s phone keeps going off, I know because my speakers keep buzzing, it reminds me that
A: I have to get through exams.
B: Right now thinking hurts.
C: I’ve got cabin fever.
My new favourite painting is Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix (pronounced: Del-a-qua)
This painting belongs to a collection of masterpieces done by Delacroix between 1827 and 1832. It commemorates the revolution of 1830 that brought Louis-Phillippe to power. In 1831, this painting caused a sensation within the Paris Salon, although Louis-Phillippe bought the work to mark his succession, he kept it away from the public because it was potentially Inflammatory. The painting cleverly combines the gritty reality of the revolution with allegory, in a monumental way. The clothing of the people show their class, the young scruffy boy on the right symbolizing the power of ordinary people. The allegorical figure of Liberty that dominates the scene, flag raised above her, caused indignation because instead of personifying Liberty as idyllically beautiful, Delacroix’ lively brushwork shows a very real woman-half naked, dirty, and stepping over corpses in a way that might suggest how liberty could bring some oppression of it’s own. The use of colour and light in this painting worked together to convey a sense of reality and express truths. This use of colour would prove to be highly influential among the Impressionists and Modernists to come, from Renoir and Seurat to Picasso.
I really want to study philosophy.
Or law.
Or art philosophy. Or psychology.
or art
maybe i’ll just do an arts degree and specialize in something
oh and i’d like to do sociology and economics.
gah
so much i want to do, only one life to live, i think. Haha.
Dad just sent me this rather inspiring e-mail, and i should be studying for art exam, oh the irony.
I have a sore neck from study, can anyone offer me a massage?
please?
anyone?
i will pay you, just stop this pain.
I’m sorry to anyone who is reading this expecting something enlightening or even interesting, I just need somewhere to dish out my anger and pent up fire (oh lol)
rar
I feel really restless, you know when you’re giddy, but not in the good giddy kind, like the giddy and frustrated kind, knowing that you will not do well at your exams if you keep on being giddy.
haha, long sentence, a bit like my inclass essay today, i couldn’t find any ways of shortening some of them. I chose the question that everyone avoided lol. It was something like ‘Use the phrase ‘beauty and horror’ in a written response on a text you have read. So i ranted (still with structure :P) on about how Winton found beauty even in the most tragic moments, and also, that Cloudstreet was just a celebration of life and death. I really hope it wasn’t too vague, my essay, i had difficulty remembering quotes lol, theres just so many…
well! weekend almost here and it’s pretty much assigned for study and sleep, how exciting.
I feel so restless too.
I want to run out on to the streets where it’s raining and scream.
Now i’m just being melodramatic haha.
No seriously, i want to run in the rain and lay on the mud and get soil in my toenails and feel cool watery wind on my lips.
Oh look how poetic i’m getting, I should be ashamed of myself. Or not.
wow, this is so self-indulgent.
It’s this listening to Emiliano Terrini thats doing it I think.
*I travelled round, through deserts on my horse, the jokes aside, i want to come back home. You know, that night, you said you’d meet me, on the sunnyroad.*
Well, I know what I’m going to do for my studio piece.
Can’t be bothered explaining it right now, but it will be a bit surreal. and have a homeless man, i’ll have to find myself a homeless man.
I bought flash cards yesterday, my desk is swamped by them, i keep writing them as if by writing on them as If doing it is answering exam questions.
Econs exam is first. Discrete last on Tuesday.
I think i’ll go to Floreat Tuesday afternoon to stay by myself and lie in the backyard amongst the Eucalyptus trees and mossy ground, i look forward to this, i can imagine the trees swaying and creating shadows as the afternoon glow comes through in streaks on the ground. then I’ll lie on those lovely reflective wooden floorboards in the lounge room where old books crowd behind the T.V, outshone by trashy midday TV. I can finally finish Windup Bird Chronicles, if I can find it. Maybe I’ll do my art, find a homeless man, tell him I want to raise the awareness of homeless people in Perth and take pictures of him/her.
I might do a bit of shopping, try to find some good shops, borrow that op-shop book of Terri’s. Maybe I’ll spend my days in 78’s finding music and reading artsy magazines.
I might add more to my scrap-book, create some stuff. Gosh, i haven’t been able to be creative since year 7. Haha.
well, maybe I’ll just end up sleeping.
I have to do these exams first.
So yeah, the study guide said either keep a blog or a journal about English shiz, and i thought well! why not!
So I was thinking that an significant issue raised in Cloudstreet was the importance of family (or lack of) and whether we stick with our families and be influenced by them. Winton is very strong on wanting family to remain important and for people to find unity and safety in their family. Like Lester says ‘Take away family and thats it, there’s no point’, Winton shows the reconciliation between characters near the end to make his point that family is the only real reliable safety net. The idea of family is really changing so much, with father’s being mother figures, both parents working, leaving their children to become more independent, or is the role of the parent overrated? is it only typically ‘parental’ up to a certain age, where children are able to ‘fend for themselves’? Maybe, parents become more like a close friend when you reach a certain age, giving advice and support. For Rose, her family seems to confine her, through their economic situation, and Dolly’s lack of self-support, let alone providing for the family. Family has become a more flexible term, as forms extend beyond the traditional nuclear family, with gay couples adopting and single fathers and mothers sustaining their children. The fact that Red Lamb decided to never get married, shows a change in values and attitudes towards family, showing that she either didn’t value family as much, or wanted to stay with her own family, not starting a new family of her own. This decision by Red shows a fairly alternative take on family, not valuing it as much and not seeing the ‘motherly role’ as something she was born with, being a woman.
Cloudstreet is a broken down house of former glories on the wrong side of the tracks, a place teeming with memories of its own, a place of shudders, shadows and spirits.
