Music is Action

Pedo-bait, cool music instruments and kawaii music... I don't know what K-ON is really about but I think it probably became a smash hit. The theme and content choices hit the dot exactly in terms of appeal. A point to remember.

It just occurred to me that all the climactic action scenes in movies would be nothing without great musical scores, and it's actually music that creates the great bulk of energy of thrilling sequences...

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"Man is accustomed to asserting himself; his clients believe in his competence; he can act naturally: he infallibly makes an impression. Woman... In business, in administrative work, she is precise, fussy, quick to show aggressiveness. As in her studies, she lacks ease, dash, audacity. In the effort to achieve she gets tense. Her activity is a succession of challenges and self-affirmations. This is the great defect that lack of assurance engenders: the subject cannot forget himself. He does not aim gallantly toward some goal: he seeks rather to make good in prescribed ways. In boldly setting out toward ends, one risks disappointments; but one also obtains unhoped-for results; caution condemns to mediocrity." -Simone de Beauvoir on the detrimental effects of stereotyping in educational settings on women in her time

"There isn't any fight on this earth that is determined by effort alone. Every challenge we face requires us not just to push ourselves physically, but to win a fight in our spirit and in our minds, to keep our confidence and our calmness in the face of troubling times.

There are two sides to believing: One where you grit your teeth and crawl through dark places, and another where you look at the sky, and know in your heart that you can fly." -Me... Will edit this someday so it gets less cheesy.

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What I did may not have been wrong... But it is undeniable that the way Wanyi suggested is ... better... Note to self: Think about this. Ask others about this and then write about it and remember it.

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Note to self: Overthinkingit.com

Detective noir story?

Two chars discussing their complete lack of sexual tension?

Remington in the Marketplace?

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FYP Poem right light sight night

Bottom of the totem pole goal

Reality Check

Pyramids Ratio Company

Jotter Books

When I was young, I was an extremely introverted kid... I don't really have many clear memories of my life then, but from what I can remember, I didn't frequently interact with people in conventional ways...

My sister reminded me of a hobby I used to have during primary school. Apparently, I would draw adventure mazes in my school-issued jotter books, complete with traps, monsters,treasures and bags of money with big '$' signs on them. After remembering about those days, I started to remember that I often invited my classmates to play my little book-drawn RPG. Hahah.

I suppose it was the enjoyment of adventure books and RPGs which led me to exercise my creativity in such a manner. And I guess that my classmates were willing to play with me as well because we simply didn't have anything else to do at the time (though of course my maze must have been loads of fun, in any case).

Today the kids have an endless flood of technology, toys, and electronic games to entertain them. I'm sure that 99% of them would mock and scoff at my humble jotter book adventure. That's fine though. Before jotter books kids played with pebbles and dirt in the ground. The medium changes but the spirit of play remains the same.

What does worry me however, is how the kids of today will exercise their creative urge. How will they find a way to bring their own creative yearnings to fruition in the classroom? The problem isn't a lack of creative content to appreciate; every generation has its own source of creatively stimulating games and stories. The problem (given that there are still kids that might enjoy playing creatively) now is that kids no longer have immediate access to the tools that could allow them to even begin creating things that approximate the objects they enjoy (The 'Angry Birds' and 'Solomon's Graveyards' that are popular today). Back in my day *cough*, we had pencils and jotter books. Now there are iphones, ipads, and smartphones. The jotter book of today is there but there is no pencil.

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As a long-time and hardcore gamer, I do think that game addiction does deserve its stigmatizing label. Games, while holding the potential for great good, can also be very self-destructive to the user if played excessively. In spite of this, I can't help but wonder at how people cannot see why they are addictive.

It is said that babies are full of wonder towards life, that even the simplest button or chew toy can hold their attention for hours at a time. We don't say that babies are addicted to chew toys. Reality is new to them; the perception of it utterly entrancing and absorbing.

How is it different when we experience completely new realities and dynamics through computer screens and game consoles? Simply put, it isn't. Not in itself. Just like babies can grow out of chew toys, boys and girls can grow out of computer games and go from complete absorption to a moderated appreciation/admiration for these beautifully crafted worlds.

The problem then, is not that kids get absorbed by their games, but that some never grow out of it, and some get too absorbed during their impressionable youth at the cost of their studies and academic life (something, which though rightly so, is forced on them by circumstance and society). This is what we have to fix, rather than games themselves.

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green fleur-de-lis

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a beaming white jewel in the sky

silver grey and bronze sky

pudgy as the pig

the wretched conditions of its birth

When you push your body too far, your body pushes back

"A stitch in time saves nine."

"He who hesitates is lost."

"The early bird catches the worm."

"Always be yourself... unless you suck."

Pointers

A few of the things I learnt in the month of June:

1) When you're totally relaxed, rested, happy, healthy, and without a deadline, you can make the shiniest things.

2) Even if the deadline is bearing down on you, you still have to be able to ignore it, lie on your bed, and drift aimlessly. Chilling is the hardest, yet most essential thing to writing at times like these.

3) Going off-tangent with an alternative story can be really useful in the end, even if the alternative route bombs completely.

4) Never try to fake a realist social commentary of your country if you don't have one in mind.

5) When you're obsessed with winning, the fear of losing can eat you alive. Also, remember to take your meals at regular intervals. Stress kills.

6) Your proofreader is your best friend.

7) When you're completely unsure about which direction to take your story in, that's the time to really go back to what you know for certain, and what you believe can realistically be done. You have to hold to what you're sure of and not let yourself get swayed by too many 'what-ifs'.

8) God provides.

So at the end of the day, I sent in a 3rd person plot-based modernist fantasy story to a competition which, by all appearances, seems to favor 1st person plotless postmodernist realist nationalistic narratives. Wonder how that will turn out. In any case, there's still 2 years from now and I have 1 year left to muck around. Hahah.

Now that the story is finished I seem to have a limitless amount of free time. The FYP is a little more on track than before. I just need... interviewees. 1 down, 13 more to go.

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Post-note

9) When there is no faith in the future there is no power in the present..... Hope is the feeling that what you're feeling now is temporary.

10) Don't work in a spirit of fear... Don't run when you write... Trust God and don't overwork yourself to the point of death simply because you're afraid of losing.

11) Writing shouldn't be excruciatingly painful. Don't overdo it.

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Note to self (for legs):

1) Stretch daily.

2) Massage thigh and calf muscle. Calf muscle tends to get tight easily which leads to imbalance -> knee pain

3) Don't walk distances that are too long.

4) Heel tends to get tight; make sure your heel is bending properly when you walk

5) Ice.

Tunneling; Sky

http://www.youtube.com/user/day9tv

Never thought that somebody could draw such an incredible amount of philosophical insight from Starcraft. It's pretty amazing to hear how this game has been the center of Day9's life, how it's taught him life lessons and even how it brought his family closer together.

It's been 9 days since my last post, and the competition is over. The past month has been a blur. I think I can say that the time has been well spent, but I really do wish that I had kept calm at times instead of freaking out. The story I produced was really... just passable, ultimately, more easily identifiable by its weaknesses rather than its strengths... That got me down for a while, given how badly I wanted to have a good shot at winning this competition, and given that I'd seen God (and my proofreading friends) encouraging me throughout the process.

Today though, I watched Day9's reflections on the impact of Starcraft in his life, and it really struck me how he persevered throughout the years even though success didn't come instantly. In eight years, he only won two out of the many tournaments that he'd played, and it was through those defeats that he learned things that improved his game and his personal life years down the road. I guess it isn't healthy to be too hard on yourself, even if you know you're the one who let things slip. If I don't win this year, it's fine. I'll just come back two years from now with something that can clean out all these punks with their deliberately pandering, nationalistic, identity-questioning, postmodern plotless pieces of junk (Damn you Trondheim). No dark wizard or older-woman-loving telepath of mine is going to lose out to these punks.