My New Favourite Quote

Hello everyone!! (:

This blog is like sooo dead after some time, I think it's time for a revival from yours truly (: Right, so anyways, as a good lit student I've started reading Othello and I think it's awesome stuff! This is my new favourite uh.. stanza (?):

"Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so for my peculiar end.
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In complement extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at. I am not what I am."

I.I.60-66

Thought it was a wonderful line by Iago, who is the baddie in the play but so far, I seem to like him best (: Ok, shall end off here!

Nicole K.

Well, This Isn't Really Related to Lit, BUT..

1. Men who kiss their wives in the morning live five years longer than those who don't.

Perhaps deprivation of domestic needs from women cuts a man's life shorter. After all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

2. People are more likely to tilt their heads to the right when kissing instead of the left (65 percent of people go to the right!)

Maybe it's 'cos they are right-handed? Hmm.. Interesting, what if everyone tilted their head to the right when they kissed?

3. When it comes to doing the deed early in the relationship, 78 percent of women would decline an intimate rendezvous if they had not shaved their legs or underarms.

Talk about physical peer pressure... BUT, women are sensitive to these sort of things.. so, oh well (:

4. Feminist women are more likely than other females to be in a romantic relationship.

Are they serious?!

5. Two-thirds of people report that they fall in love with someone they've known for some time vs. someone that they just met.

6. There's a reason why office romances occur: The single biggest predictor of love is proximity.

7. Falling in love can induce a calming effect on the body and mind and raises levels of nerve growth factor for about a year, which helps to restore the nervous system and improves the lover's memory.

8. Love can also exert the same stress on your body as deep fear. You see the same physiological responses — pupil dilation, sweaty palms, and increased heart rate.

9. Brain scans show that people who view photos of a beloved experience an activation of the caudate — the part of the brain involving cravings.

10. The women of the Tiwi tribe in the South Pacific are married at birth.

11. The "Love Detector" service from Korean cell phone operator KTF uses technology that is supposed to analyze voice patterns to see if a lover is speaking honestly and with affection. Users later receive an analysis of the conversation delivered through text message that breaks down the amount of affection, surprise, concentration and honesty of the other speaker.

12. Eleven percent of women have gone online and done research on a person they were dating or were about to meet, versus seven percent of men.

13. Couples' personalities converge over time to make partners more and more similar.

14. The oldest known love song was written 4,000 years ago and comes from an area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

15. The tradition of the diamond engagement ring comes from Archduke Maximillian of Austria who, in the 15th century, gave a diamond ring to his fiancée, Mary of Burgundy.

16. Forty-three percent of women prefer their partners never sign "love" to a card unless they are ready for commitment.

17. People who are newly in love produce decreased levels of the hormone serotonin — as low as levels seen in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Perhaps that's why it's so easy to feel obsessed when you're smitten.

18. Philadelphia International Airport finished as the No. 1 best airport for making a love connection, according to an online survey.

19. According to mathematical theory, we should date a dozen people before choosing a long-term partner; that provides the best chance that you'll make a love match.

20. A man's beard grows fastest when he anticipates sex.

21. Every Valentine's Day, Verona, the Italian city where Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet took place, receives around 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet.

21. When we get dumped, for a period of time we love the person who rejected us even more, says Dr. Helen Fisher of Rutgers University and author of Why We Love. The brain regions that lit up when we were in a happy union continue to be active.

22. People telling the story of how they fell in love overwhelmingly believe the process is out of their control.

23. Familiarity breeds comfort and closeness … and romance.

24. One in five long-term love relationships began with one or both partners being involved with others.

25. OK, this one may not surprise you, but we had to share it: Having a romantic relationship makes both genders happier. The stronger the commitment, the greater the happiness!

I thought this was rather interesting, saw it on someone else's blog (:

God Bless (:

Nicole K.

Sickness

Since everyone has been falling sick lately, I think that it is my duty as a Literature student to find a poem related to it; under the theme of Pain, Injury and Illness (for me, that is). In a way, you can see Plath's voice shimmering through the poem:

Motion Sickness

I am tired of the heave and swell, the deep lunge in the belly, the gut's dumb show of dance and counterdance, sway and pause, the pure jig of nausea in the pit of a spinning world. Where the body moves, the mind often lags, clutching deck, anchor, the gray strap that hangs like the beard of death from the train's ceiling, the mind lost in the slow bulge of ocean under the moon's long pull or the endless coil of some medieval argument for the existence of God or the dream of the giant maze that turns constantly in and in on itself and there is no way out . . . I am sick and tired of every rise and fall of the sun, the moon's tedious cycle that sucks blood from the thighs of women and turns teenage boys into wolves prowling the streets, hungry for motion. Let me be still, let me rest in some hollow of space and time far from the seasons and that boring, ponderous drama of day and night. Let me sleep in the heart of calm and dream placidly of birds frozen in the unmoving air of eternity and the earth grown immobile in its centrifugal spin, and God motionless as Lazarus in his tomb before he is raised dizzily to fall again, to rise, to fall. B H Fairchild

If you notice the structure of the lines, it waves inwards and outward, mimicking peristaltic motions... Hoped you all like that, I rather liked it (: The allusion to religious figures and God seem rather blasphemous, but there is more to it than meets the eye. Sorry I can't meet the analyse it fully, don't really have the time now.

God Bless (:
Nicole K.

Peanut Butter... AGAIN

Hihihi (: (:

Since we're on the subject of peanut butter, I have found another really cute poem on peanut butter :D It's a Children's poem, but I think it's rather sweet..

I'm Getting Sick of Peanut Butter

I look inside my lunch box,
and, oh, what do I see?
A peanut butter sandwich
staring glumly back at me.

I know I had one yesterday,
and, yes, the day before.
In fact, that's all I've eaten
for at least a month or more.

I'm sure tomorrow afternoon
the outlook's just as bleak.
I'll bet I'm having peanut butter
every day this week.

I'm getting sick of peanut butter
sandwiches for lunch.
Why can't I have baloney
or potato chips to munch?

I wish I had lasagna
or a piece of pumpkin pie.
Another day of peanut butter
might just make me cry.

But still this awful sandwich
is in every lunch I take.
You see, it is the only thing
that I know how to make.

--Kenn Nesbitt

This boy should read Zen and the Art of Peanut Butter (: Hope that cheered you all up! And yes, it's not exactly ample material to analyse, but I think it's cute.

Nicole K.

Zen and the Art of Peanut Butter

Hihihi (:

Since most of us are pretty stressed out over the looming Promos, I decided that we see more humour in our current situation and just laugh off our stress :D (OK, yes, this is pretty much a rip-off from today's Compass Programme; but at least it shows that I was paying attention!)

This is probably one of my favourite poems of all times, I hope you all like it too!

Zen and the Art of Peanut Butter
First, seek the most direct path
leading to the pantry.
Focus on the jar itself.
Reveal the contents
with a reverse spiral motion.
Delicately insert the knife.
Delicately withdraw the knife.
As if applying salve
to the infinite being himself,
spread the contents
on the leavened slice.
Attentively lick the remainder
from the blade,
and throw the sandwich away.

By W.G. McDonald

Love love love love this poem, on the peripheral, it seems really simple and has nothing much to it, I mean, it appears to be a poem that talks about how we should take things slow (unlike Singaporeans), but rather, the enjoyment of doing sth that is totally mundane as an art (:

Well, gotta go back to mugging!

God Bless (:

Nicole K.

Greetings from Cambridge!!

Hey all,

It has been a while. Only Gary seems to only "blogger" left. haha. I hope everyone is enjoying school as much as ever. No irony intended. It has been fun in Cambridge. There is a staging of Othello every night at Girton College, where we are staying. I attended one with Safiah yesterday night and it was impressive. I am amazed by how the actors remember all their lines without tripping on them. Would have loved to upload photos here but what a pity I left my cable behind. Will try to see if Safiah or Joan is able to do that. In the meanwhile, take care everyone and see you in 2 weeks.

Ms. Lim

'My Mother'

Hello all! I found a poem written by Sylvia Plath's daughter, Frieda Hughes, which was written, I think, to express her anger towards the film.

My Mother

They are killing her again,
She said she did it
One Year in every ten,
But they do it annually, or weekly,
Some do it daily,
Carrying her death around in their heads
And practicing it. She saves them
The trouble of their own;
They can die through her
Without ever making
The decision. My buried mother
Is up-dug for repeat performances.

Now they want to make a film
For anyone lacking the ability
To imagine the body, head in oven,
Orphaning children. Then
It can be rewound
So they can watch her die
Right from the beginning again.

The peanut-eaters, entertained
At my mother's death, will go home,
Each carrying their memory of her,
Lifeless - a souvenir.
Maybe they'll buy the video.
Watching someone on TV
Means all they have to do
Is press pause
If they want to boil a kettle,
While my mother holds her breath on screen
To finish dying after tea.

The filmmakers have collected
The body parts.
They want me to see.
But they require dressings to cover the joins
And disguise the prosthetics
In their remake of my mother.
They want to use her poetry
As stitching and sutures
To give it credibility.
They think I should love it-
Having her back again, they think
I should give them my mother`s words
to fill the mouth of their monster,
Their Sylvia Suicide Doll.
Who will walk and talk
And die at will,
And die, and die
And forever be dying.

-Frieda Hughes

It alludes to a few of Plath's poems, especially Lady Lazarus, and while I admit it's not of as high a standard as her mother's, I thought it would be an interesting read. And I think it's also pretty ironic, because here, we are the "peanut-crunching crowd" reviewing her death over and over again.

There's also a short interview with Frieda Hughes by Time magazine here.

I'm actually rather intrigued by that family, haha. Yes yes, I confess to being a guilty peanut cruncher.