Friday, October 12, 2007



Alphonsus - ' Well, it's a LAUsy paper. '

I think what Alphonsus said is true. A-maths does stand for AfterMath. In this case, it's akin to being hit by a nuclear bomb. First you're dazed, then the pain sets in, and then you wish you were dead. You can't possibly be dead though, because Broaderick Bear's on top of your face, Glen's sweating from his mouth and John's being Emo.

[Sarcasm]
If anyone's interested, yes us ExCo really did suck up to become ExCo. And we are OBVIOUSLY lousier than the usual PSL but we get extra burdens and duties and responsibilities extra PRIVILEGES too! Wow! Being an SPSS is totally easy!
[/sarcasm]

And yet, how ironical it is that you can describe how we became SPSLs, and yet you didn't. It amuses me, greatly.

The Literature paper was ... unique. After sitting down and receiving the paper, I flipped through and to my horror saw the MidSummer Night's Dream based passage. There was non-pre-coordinated cry of 'SIR!' from everyone as we all realized we'd been given Paper 2

Only during Literature. Only during Literature.

Completely forgot that we had a choice of Poem OR Prose and ended up just starting immediately on the poem. Realized after a while that we DID have a choice, and just quickly glanced through the Prose. A relatively nice and easy passage, but I didn't manage to pick up anything deep or faux-intellectual that I could possibly twist and turn into flowery insightful bullshit words so I quickly returned to the poem.

The poem was really striking. Let me see if I can find it on the internet.

Aha, got it.

War Photograher

by Carol Ann Duffy

In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.

He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don't explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.

Something is happening. A stranger's features
faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man's wife, how he sought approval
without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.

A hundred agonies in black-and-white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday's supplement. The reader's eyeballs prick
with tears between bath and pre-lunch beers.
From aeroplane he stares impassively at where
he earns a living and they do not care.

The first time I read the poem, I could not help but be immediately fascinated by the intense emotive language used. The first thing I knew I would be discussing and expounding on would be juxtaposition because if that's not discussed then my essay sucks.

The only problem was that Juxtaposition was actually TOO GOOD a point, to the extent where everything more or less fell back under Juxtaposition as the umbrella term. Somehow or another, I managed to discuss Tone and Word Choice / Diction as two other key points.

All flesh is grass.
How could this not immediately bring out the atrocities of war? To live in a land, or to even see a place, where the ground isn't rock, isn't sand, isn't asphalt, isn't tar. It's not even grass. But it's flesh, it's meat. You're walking on the bloodied remains of others, splattered horrifically across the ground in such copious amounts that it's been likened to grass. This was one of the most powerful phrases in the entire poem, if I might say so, because in four short words, it manages to summarize every single atrocity of war there is.

A hundred agonies in black-and-white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday's supplement

Anyone remember Hotel Rwanda? 'People will just say "that's horrible" and go right back to eating their dinner.'

Does it not create a sense of revulsion within you? A hundred agonies, only a small fraction of what was actually suffered. And only five or six are chosen. This....was actually a very interesting point that I had to literally stop writing and think about it for a few minutes. The first thing that struck me was the juxtaposition of hundred against five or six which contrasts sharply the drastic difference of the impact. A hundred photos were taken, and yet only less than 10% are shown. Does this not immediately demean the entire situation? Like it's not important enough for us to care? And it's the Sunday SUPPLEMENT because now War isn't important enough and suffering is just the norm. And the sad thing is, suffering has apparently become The norm.

And then I noticed one weird thing. Previously I had discussed about the poet's use of Tone and Word Diction. By utilizing a Photographer and his camera, I suggested that the poet intended to pseudo-mechanize the situation, by explaining everything through the photographs. As we all know, the camera is mechanical and though the shots can capture emotion adequately, I felt that it was still the main intent to mechanize the situation that drove the poet to use a 'camera' as her 'perspective' tool. And even through this 'mechanization' we can so adequately and clearly feel the emotions of the poet as she wrote this poem. The irony is so blatantly subtle ( no pun intended ) and so powerful. I struggled to twist my thoughts into words, and until now I still feel that my words lack the true sincerity and emotions of my thoughts.


Ahh blahhhhh.

Let's just hope MND one will be easier. Especially since Raphael's gotta change the entire paper now, or at least rework it. At least I know roughly where to study. Point to note being that that was exactly what I expected to come out. Simply because nothing else seemed important, or pivotal enough to discuss, yet by throwing at us the 'Lovers Scene' and asking us to discuss, explain and expound on that would be far beyond any of our capabilities, given our abysmal not-even-A1 standards ( other than Daniel who is mini-imba ) so frankly that was the only section that could come out.

The biggest clue however, came from Raphael himself. He mentioned that Bottom would come out as a subject to discuss, and then reiterated that nothing from MidYear and before would appear again.

Well guess what, Bottom only appears again in -that- act/scene -.- It seems like a frisbee that gets bigger and then hits you, to use a horribly passe cliche.

And the school administration has also decided that it would be for the best to shift the last day of school from the 2nd of November to the 26th of October. While this meant good news for a lot of students, Li Zhi and I were swearing VERY VERY eloquently yesterday night about the date change, some mothers and the consultation of several forbidden areas.

EMD's on 1st November.
Last day of school is on 26th October.

How to get 326 people to come back 5 days after school end? Wah lao.

To quote a very famous VSCO PSL, whose legendary words are much famed and worshipped everywhere:
'Sian'