Yes, I know I'm supposed to be studying. Yes, I confess I'm guilty to wasting my time reading.

But the Black Magician Trilogy is addicting. It's better than -dare I say it- Harry Potter! (So I did say it.)

I love the books and the characters within, I think I've gotten too attached to them.

Even Akkarin. Especially Akkarin.

WHY DID HE HAVE TO DIE??!!!*bursts out in fangirl tears*

It is illogical and unreasonable! Why did he have to play the hero even if he was stabbed? There is a potential source of power within the University and they could have come up with a strategy to make this guy lose power. But, NO. Apparently some stupid structure and nobility was greater than a life, or a potential father.

What message is she trying to send out?

Ok, relax, it's just a book....

I CAN'T RELAX!!! ME IS VERY ANGRY THAT ME IS MAKING SERIOUS GRAMMATICAL ERRORS! ME WANTS TO KIDNAP TRUIDI CANAVAN AND FORCE HER TO RE-WRITE THE ENDING FOR ME!

I've actually sunk so low to scout for fanfic where Akkarin din't die and there is a happily ever after, but then again I suppose Trudi incoporated too much reality where lives and loves can hang in balance due to war.

BUT THE GENRE IS BLOODY FANTASY! MUCH AS I WOULD NOT LIKE TO READ ABOUT ROMEO PINING FOR JULIET AND THEY BOTH COMMIT SUICIDE, I WANT MY HAPPY ENDING! ROAR!

The female character is also pregnant with his child. Loose threads untied, but I suppose it gives an opportunity for the author to create a sequel.

But I REALLY REALLY HATE reading stories continued in a character's children 'voice'. I don't know why, I just hate it (Maybe it's because I don't like kids.)

Hmm, I don't recall getting this worked up since Harry Potter's Deathly Hallows, but then again I wasn't too attached to the characters. Especially the main character. I even wished for Harry to die in the battle with Voldermort as I found him to be an obnoxioud Happy-go-lucky git. How cruel of me.

Instead I found myself mourning the ending (Yes, I know you want to have sex and procreate, but PLEASE PLEASE don't include the children unless they have a pivotal role -- what's the point in giving the readers more names to remember?)

Anyhoo, back to BMT.

I think I'm really gettin' too addicted. Shit. Better this than manga, though. I don't want to sit through the exams with a girl in a ridiculous sailor moon uniform floating in a pointless background of roses, screaming, "Kyaaaaa!"

Unlike the book, which at most will help me ace my English composition (I hope). The vocabulary and sentence structure is useful! *nods frantically to convince herself*.

But WHY DID AKKARIN HAVE TO DIE? He was a slave in Sachaka for goodness' sake! He had very little happiness due to the secrets he kept from his closest friends, he tried to save his kingdom when he was freed, only to be exiled along with the main character when discovered to have been using black magic, got injured, nightmares, had a month or so romantic time with the protagonist (while trying not to get killed by scheming Ichani) and returned only to get killed.

How wonderful.

I realise that he is crafted like a regular OC, good looks, tragic background, often maligned, strong, more powerful than the rest, mysterious, except that OCs normally have their happy ending and does not attempt to blackmail or threaten the protagonist or romantic interest. The regular OC also has a longer time courting the romantic interest, and is prone to times where he 'softens up' and reveals cheesy romantic lines . Oh, and they get married at the end too, and procreate like rabbits.

I realise I sound like an average girl who wants to read about romance. WHICH I DENY.

But the good thing about romance is that you get emotion described in deatil and great vocabulary. Even if you start sprouting flowery/corny lines, poor development of plot and have fantasies. Now I realise why my poems and prose are so dry in emotions -- I need to read more romance! ROAR! ENTHUSIASM, POWER MY PROSE! (It even alliterates, with the 'p' giving a sound of excitement and vigour!)

Welcome to the purple prose club.

NOTE: SENSITIVE TOPIC

Religion is no laughing matter. Seriously.

A Christian friend of mine told me that she believes in God, and Heaven and Hell as well. People who believe in God would go to heaven, she says.

Amused, I asked her if a serial murderer who prays at churches but kills anyway (or a priest who rapes or molests) would go to Heaven if they believed in God.

She said yes.

I snapped my eyes open and asked her earnestly, searching her eyes, if a good person, a person who does philanthrophy and gives the last of her money to aid the starving, a good person who eventually is on the losing end due to her compassion will go to Hell as that person does not believe in God.

She nodded in affirmation. Yes, she will go to hell.

I was stunned. Speechless.

Which is why I now explain the fickle side of religion.

I detest the moment of weaknesses where we all cave in. I wish for miracles but I do not believe in miracle workers. I believe in the apocalypse.

In the end, when we kneel down to pray or chant, who are we praying to? Are we helping or destroying the world?

Something beautiful, something which was supposed to bring the world together can be used as a weapon, a line drawn between others. A reason for war. A reason to kill 'righteously'. A reason to do ill with 'Holy' books as protection. A reason to sue. A reason to hurt.

Is it too much to hope, even on account of naivete, that the world will one day be peaceful and in harmony? Too much, perhaps. It will only come when the apocalypse is here, where hearts are joined in fear, but then again the apocalypse could bring out the demons in us as we scramble for religious protection, ensuring a pathway to heaven.

What's wrong to be without a religion? Why do wee want to be in a religion? Are we standing up for what we sincerely believe in, considered all angles, or are we just blind sheep following the masses? Are we cowards afraid of Hell, or are we zealots cursing non-christians at their funerals? Are we the preachers, hoping to draw unwilling people in with guilt, or are we the caring ones? Are we the curious, just there to see, or are we the snowman, only seeing a single season to live?

What is care? Is care drawing and influencing your friends? Is care imposing your beliefs on another?

Why do we turn to religion?

Mountains of questions, no straight ansewrs, only beliefs sketched. My doubt grows everyday.

I don't believe in wishy-washy nonsense that something can live in the heart, because humans are capable of anything, especially the ability to forget.

Prove it to me -- no miracles or one-sided stories, no propaganda or sad inspiration, no guilt trips of manipulation, just shows me by giving us humans a year of peace, no war, no economic instability, no ozone depletion, no selfishness.

Posting this up today cos I wanted to check it for any embarassing grammar errors or spelling error made in my anger.

None. CLEAR.

Anyway, on Friday I went to Chin Yee's place to do The Horror. So after the tiring and strenuous session, I decided to board a comfort taxi home.

When we reached my destination, I was nursing a headache so I just gave the cabby $10. I, however, remembered that the total fare was $5.90something.

I got back my change ($2 + a few cents) and got out of the cab, a bit disoriented. While walking back, I checked the change and realised that he took off with $2.

Ok, some may think that I remembered wrongly, but I don't think it was an accident. The $2 note was folded into quarters was it would not be obvious to a very tired person that there is only one $2 note.

Disgusting behaviour. What was the extra $2 for, you cad?! Service tip? You sprayed some GOD AWFUL flowery fragrance and you expected to be tipped $2 for that?!

Argh. It's just $2, but the point is that people are GREEDY. What would happen if I paid $50? Would he just return me 3 $10 notes and pretend that everything was fine?

------------

[Edit]

This has nothing to do with the subject above... but I am down with flu. I hope the cleaners did not take away my tissue box, or my textbooks from my unlocked locker. Urgh.

I always get this feeling after I celebrate.

Empty. emptyemptyemptyemptyempty. I can even close my eyes and type out this word.

E-M-P-T-Y.

Never mind the fact that I can already do so for any phrase for a short period of time.

It's like a am a ceramic container that looks beautiful, painted intricately with caricatures of roses and sunshine and happiness, and you open it to find that thee's a black gnawing hole.

Writing doesn't even help.

I'm thirsty.

I feel like I am missing something, but I don't know what it is.

What am I missing?

Can anyone tell me?

Wait. You are not even me in the first place, how would you know?

So I here I am, celebrating the day I was in this world, woken up by a nightmare, forced to study and worry about my finals, not enjoying myself (much) at the party, and now it's pouring (it was storming earlier). It's like crying on a special day.

Nevermind.

The back-to-school blues.

First period, Geography and I haven't made any headway on Land Pollution or SGP.

I am Fabulously Fourteen now!

Whoo~!

Even if I am older, but still, it's amazing to think yesterday I was one year younger xD.

Don't yer just love idiocy?

Gloria, Thanks for the wishings =) First classmate to wish me Happy Birthday! I would give you a hug but then I think it'll be too awkward.

On a darker note (if there's a birghter note, why not a darker note?), I can't seem to finish my latest attempt at writing.

Oh, and I was awoken by a nightmare on my birthday.

THAT nightmare on all days! It's the second or third time it happened.

Somehow it involved flying (as a means of escape, DON'T ASK) and a caterpillar toy, Peter Pettigrew (from Harry Potter, I changed into a MOUSE of all things) and some weird looking yakuza guy.

Ok, it wouldn't classify as a nightmare, but I woke up feeling alarmed. It's just those type of dreams that seem harmless on the surface, but you just know it won't turn out well.

Caterpillar...hmm...the worm from 'The Sick Rose"?
"And the invisible worm that flies in the night" (or something like that).

While making The Horror (our art thingy):

1) Never make the arse so big in a pathetic attempt to make the figure curvy, so that it can be identified as a female.
2) Baby blue never really goes well with anything.
3) ... Including white. Because it looks like a hospital gown.
4) For the boys' supposed perverted-ness, you'd think they'll care about the proportion of the female body.
5) In art projects such as fashion design, it is unadvisable to work with boys, unless they happen to be world-class fashion designers.
6) Never look at the chest flat-on - it looks better from the side.
7) Paper mache is a highly stupid method for making marionettes. In our case, anyway.
8) Armpits, boobs, shoulders and legs' length that are unproportionate really gets your work cut out for you when you attempt to design something nice.
9) Never sew an outfit and attempt to ram it up a model. It won't work, unless the model in question is just wire. That's why barbie's clothes have the wonderful invention called velcro.
10) Face actually matters. A fugly face tends to spoil the effect of a dress, no matter how well designed.
11) I remain convinced that male models are easier to make, except that their clothes would be a pain to sew on.
12) I have a newfound respect for the manufacturers of barbie, as well as fashion designers. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE LOVELY LOVELY CLOTHES.
13) I now understand why clothes cost a bomb
14)...But that doesn't mean I accept it.

It's another of those days where you wake up and think about the reason you have this dream.

I wonder why I had ever wanted to be a lawyer, because informing clients on their legal rights seem humdrum.

All I know about it that makes it so attractive is the pay (in that case, I might as well go into private banking).

And I certainly don't want to be a blue collar worker. I want a white collar job, but then the jobs seem so dull.

What is so nice about sitting in an office all day, facing the screen and sticking to office regulations (nevermind the fat pay packet)? I mean, if you love your job, good for you, but if you hate it...

I guess I'll go into business because it seems mildly interesting. I don't know what my product will be though, and working as a salesperson isn't exactly a bunch of joy.

Maybe one day I'll just form a company with a couple of aquaintances, and watch it grow from there. (even if it's risky, and blak blah blah, with little investors)

I really really really wanted the brilliant works of William Blake in his books of Songs Of Innocence and Songs Of Experience =(

THE FRIGGIN' BOOK WAS RARE!!!!

Apparently it was made up of copper plates and Blake has hand-drawn and hand-coloured it, thus making it rare.

The salt to the injury? Only the museums and private collectors have it.

ROAR!

I WANNA BE RICH SO I CAN BUY THAT BOOK!

It's droolworthy! (And I should know, considering that I have been ogling it like a pervert ever since my early days in CCHMS.) The pain of not having that one desire fufilled! *convulsions wracking frame*

Anyway, I got into this frenzy after reading 'The Sick Rose", which I honestly don't get.

It has so many interpretations! The sexual one, love one, political one, the human nature one, it's just ARGH!

How the -bleep- would I know what the rose is referring to?! Ask William Blake! WHY did he die so early? HAH??!

"And his dark secret love/ Does thy life destroy."

Is it rape? (Well, 'bed' and 'crimson joy', as well as 'secret love' certainly brings this to mind).
And why does the worm chomp on the rose anyway?! Why can't it feed on the darn leaves instead? How did it even get past all those thorns?

Besides the Rose is a rather ambiguous symbol, there's the 'rose' of Christianity (religion? 'Ol William doesn't do religion...Oh wait he does! Tyger, Tyger, burning bright!), the romantic rose (Yeah, William Blake belongs to the romantic era, but love poetry? I don't think so.), and the rose representing...something or the other in Greek Mythology.

Damn, I only remember the Rose Line or whatever it's called in the Da Vinci Code now...Darn you Dan Brown =(

Anyway, what can the worm symbolise? A pest?

-----

Ok, 'The Sick Rose' is the poem which confuses me the most so far.

But 'The Snare' is worse, considering I can't find examples of repetition. I know sentences are repeated, BUT WHERE THE @!$@#^! IS THE REPETITION?!

Is 'cry' counted? Even if it is changed to continuous and past tense... It's still the root word right?

'Cannot'?

ARGGHHHHH.

I realised that there are more things in the world that I hate than love.

Oh, and the possibility that I might be suicidal, because to quote from a physcologist, suicidal people feel that the world is a terrible place with no other doors open but death.

WHICH I DENY. I DENY ALL COUNTS OF BEING SUICIDAL AND INSANE, OR ANGSTY.

IT'S NOT TEENAGE ANGST!

I sound like Beatrice o.0

Maybe reading that excerpt from 'Paradise Lost' didn't really help.

Anyway, I am getting fustrated beyong my limits because of the STUPID literature worksheet and I can't find examples of repetition! I only know that there are whole sentences being repeated, but pattern of repetition? What answer do they expect? The structure of the poem?

To end this post, I would comment on my feelings of being an absolute misanthrope, even though I do want companionship (yes, I am a hypocrite) I still don't like people in general.

Weird physcology.

Strangely I find that deranged and upset people who act badly easy to understand.

I'm weird that way.