I guess I'll try in the decline

Sometimes watching tv shows makes me happier and sometimes it just makes me low. :(  I mean, I really love this tv show called Californication though, there's a lot more rawness in it than say, Gossip Girl.  In fact, after being away from my computer for so long and being forced to not watch this shit, I feel like I don't even want to anymore.  Maybe I will do catch up sessions during the winter break whilst studying for exams?  I believe so.  Currently, I am only relying upon: Grey's Anatomy, Californication, The Office, and How I Met Your Mother (3 of which are just half hour episodes, so that like, barely counts).  Also maybe 90210, maybe.

I wonder why writing this  is so much easier than writing essays.  I'm writing one about an inter-chapter in Hemingway's In Our Time.  The writing itself is fantastic, it's just finding the meaning behind it that can be a little bit tricky.

I'm going to type it out here for your reading pleasure, because I think it's gorgeous and unconventional and so so strong.

Chapter V:

"They shot the six cabinet ministers at half-past six in the morning against the wall of a hospital.  There were pools of water in the courtyard.  There were wet dead leaves on the paving of the courtyard.  It rained hard.  All the shutters of the hospital were nailed shut.  One of the ministers was sick with typhoid.  Two soldiers carried him downstairs and out into the rain.  They tried to hold him up against the wall but he sat down in a puddle of water.  The other five stood very quietly against the wall.  Finally the officer told the soldiers it was no good trying to make him stand up.  When they fired the first volley he was sitting down in the water with his head on his knees."


Isn't that stunning?  I just wish I knew what it meant.  Maybe there's something there about the water, about typhoid.  The biggest thing I got was the duality of things: ministers vs. hostages, hospitals vs. execution grounds, soldiers vs. supporters.  Then there's an obvious softening in tone.  And also the repetition of the courtyard - the fenced in-ness of it all.  The rain?  Sitting in it?  All of the things we can't escape from in war.  Some of us can handle it, and some of us revert to our other personas.  It's all very hard to trace into a single point.

Anyway, I also read about Olenka & the Autumn Lovers on blogTO and myspaced them - just up my alley! Very Beirut-y with Eastern European influences + folkness.  I enjoy. (Also the guitar here is great!)  [Which reminds me, my guitar teacher quit the school I was at and I am at a loss of what to do since I don't like any other people there.  Do I leave the school? I would love to take private lessons with him.  I feel bad for my parents but it's really the school the pulled the rug out from under me.  Kind of gay if you ask me, but more on this next time.]

And now, off to trace all of this to a single point.

Ciao. Ak.