Literature.

After a dearth in comments on the blog, all of a sudden I am flooded with so many! And one from "the other writer" of 12 Lotus, Liam Yeo! I think I still cannot fully appreciate the fact that Singapore is so damn small that everybody knows everybody, and it's not a big deal if you have a friend who is on first-person relations with a celebrity. Even so, the fangirl in me squeals inwardly in delight when she is remotely in contact with a celebrity of any sort.

I've been thinking about a few things.

1) Men who post up pictures of their buff selves online
Somehow, I get the feeling that men who do that are likely to abuse their wives. I couldn't quite explain why initially, but I've since formulated a reasonable explanation. It seems to me that any man who'd think his muscles worth parading is the sort of man who would use it as a kind of weapon to oppress women as well. It's a double-edged sword, really. Just as easily as a woman might feel secure in strong, bulky arms, she could very well be crushed lifeless in them too.

I think that's why gym rats freak me out. They have this narcissistic obsession with their muscles, and they're probably aware of its alluring hold over women. First, the muscles are used to ensnare. Next, the muscles are used to beat the poor women into submission. Enchantment, then imprisonment!

That's probably the most interesting thought I've had lately. Yes, buff men and their narcissism.

I have this strange craving for macarons. I've never eaten them before, though. I hope it won't be one of those overrated things, probably inflated by my eager anticipation. Then again, I could very easily imagine what it might taste like, since after poring over dozens of recipes online, I am quite sure the macaron halves are going to be meringue-like in texture, and the ganache is likely to be just sweet.

I might attempt them, if only they weren't so notoriously tedious. Aged egg whites, powdered almonds and precise mixing times? That's when my uncanny ability to follow instructions would fail me, since macarons probably involve a lot of talent and experience.

Speaking of which, I chanced upon this girl, who's quite the baker.

When I saw her age, I was like - WHAT? The girl is merely 16? Well, then discovered that she's 17, so that's much better. Somehow 16 sounds outrageously juvenile... Not like I'm a good deal older than that, but still. I think I couldn't tell she was 16, mostly by the things she talked about. Yes, I realised that tALkiNG LiKe tHiS is no longer a good gauge for making distinctions between the juvenile and adult blogger, because EVERYBODY can spell now. Besides, that was SO 2000, wasn't it?

Anyway, yes, that baker girl. I couldn't tell she was just about my age, because she seemed so sophisticated. One would require quite a good deal of uppercrust training if one is to be aware of such complex and atas desserts. And the way she is a supermarket snob, by shopping exclusively at Jason's and Marketplace! Give me good ol' Sheng Siong and inhouse brands any time.

People gain cultural awareness due to age or money. Then I figured, hmm, if this girl is really 16, then you know what? She's probably frikkin' rich. And I don't think I'm wrong either.

Rich people have these... vibes. I've been trying to categorise them, but I haven't been very successful.

The Rich and Clueless Kid. This is the kid who's been very sheltered. She might not be arrogant, at least not outwardly so, but is quite clueless about how to go about mundane middle-class sort of things. For example, she might be hopeless at public transport, or she has no clue to go about doing anything remotely domestic. She is usually very fussy. Not fussy in the spoilt brat sense, but very particular about certain things. She could be super anal about hygiene, or people who smoke around her, or something like that.

Then you have the Rich and Reckless Kid, the one whose parents are too busy making executive decisions at publicly listed companies, so they don't particularly care if their kid doesn't come back home at night or organised a wild orgy in their District 11 home.

There's of course the Rich Snob, the one we're most familiar with. Some are none-too-subtle, but others need a bit more observation. You can tell by how they are somewhat careless with their money, spending it on frivolous items. They might not be too sensitive to others who come from lower-income families, and might not understand why anyone wouldn't want to go to prom. (Because $70 can be hefty for some, dimwit.) Then they might also change their accessories quite frequently. A new bag every couple of months, a new wallet, new shoes, new ear piercings: all these things add up to quite a bit of money.

There's also the typical generalisation that rich people are English-speaking, suck at Chinese (and most of them, proud of it), are relatively good at academics (perhaps not brilliant, since the diligently poor ones might clinch top-spot, but above average), perhaps Christian, and maybe, good-looking? There's a lot of baggage about rich people. We've got pretty colonialist notions of what it means to be uppercrust, huh? Leftover cultural baggage. Or maybe I'm just seeing 20th century concerns everywhere because of Literature.

Btw, I simply cannot STAND studying Murder in the Cathedral. I hate all that Christian mumbo-jumbo. It irks me. All the analysis boils down to the same shit: be holy and your life will have meaning. Yea, whatever. Life is meaningless. That's something the 20th century authors couldn't come to terms with, and the 21st century authors already have - or eventually will.

Though, I suppose it IS important to have some awareness of such a massive religious movement. Which is the only reason why I currently have a Bible in my possession. Purely for expanding my literary boundaries, mind. Figured that the first book that came to mind when people invented mass-printing is probably worth reading for its historical value, even if I can't stand the nonsense in it.

Interesting thing my KI teacher said: there really isn't a "Western" religion. It depends on how far west you want to go. After all, Christianity originated in the Middle East, didn't it? Furthermore, the first Western religions were all pagan and stuff. Hah!

I just did some googling, and here is the prose text selection for H2 Literature Paper 1.

Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
Toni Morrison: Beloved
R.K. Narayan: The Guide

This is the selection for drama.

William Shakespeare: Othello
William Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra
Oliver Goldsmith: She Stoops to Conquer
John Webster: The Duchess of Malfi

These are the texts for Paper 2, which is called Neoclassical Literature. I believe it's 19th century stuff. 2008 is the last year for Neoclassical Literature.

Alexander Pope: The Rape of the Lock
John Dryden: All for Love
John Milton: Paradise Lost (Books 1 and 2)
Aphra Behn: The Rover
Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels
Daniel Defoe: Moll Flanders
Henry Fielding: Joseph Andrews
William Wycherley: The Country Wife
William Congreve: Love for Love

These are the texts for Paper 3, Modern Writing, which my school is doing. 20th century stuff.

Wilfred Owen: Collected Poems
Katherine Mansfield: Collected Stories
W.B. Yeats: Selected Poems
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness
Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway
Eugene O’Neill: Long Day’s Journey into Night
Sean O’Casey: Juno and the Paycock and The Plough and the Stars (in Three Plays)
T.S. Eliot: Murder in the Cathedral

The texts for Paper 4, Imagining Other Worlds:

Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings: Poems, Tales, Essays
and Reviews (Penguin Classics)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Selected Poems
Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
George Orwell: 1984
Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange
Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale
William Shakespeare: The Tempest
Christopher Marlowe: Dr Faustus (Mermaid edition)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland

Paper 5, Literature and Identity:

Sylvia Plath: Ariel
Boey Kim Cheng: Another Place
Suchen Christine Lim: Fistful of Colours
Derek Walcott: Selected Poems
Anita Desai: Fasting, Feasting
James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Wole Soyinka: Death and the King's Horseman
William Shakespeare: King Lear
Kuo Pao Kun: Two Plays: Descendants of the Admiral Eunuch and The Spirits Play

Interesting, ain't it. I guess they decided to scrape Neoclassical Literature because it's too irrelevant to 21st century life. I think I shall try to read all of these texts one day. If it's worth studying in school, it's got to be good, right?

*******

I downloaded The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde and it was extremely entertaining. Isn't the man absolutely brilliant? A pun on so many levels! And it's very cohesive and tight; all the loose knots tie up so cleverly at the play's end. Tight - the new word that's being thrown around to describe essays nowadays. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks it's kinky. After listening to the audiobook, my inner voice now speaks in a pseudo British accent.

Nigella Lawson is so very attractive, isn't she? She's my new idol.


She makes the idea of a domestic goddess quite appealing. She's so sensuous and graceful and that hair! And the woman can make eating on a bed in pyjamas glamourous without looking anything close to an invalid. Food porn at its best! Well yes, she's pudgy, but the woman is 48. If I looked like that at 48, I wouldn't be complaining.