Wednesday, June 24, 2009

I'm approaching the end of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, in which a scary, desensitized sort of human civilization exists - all people are cloned or created, sexual promiscuity is the convention whilst monogamy becomes an unspeakable crime, the concept of family doesn't exist - the word mother is in fact scandalous, and the idea of God has been entirely replaced by the great Ford. Ford is a system that enforces stability and conformity, and utilises science and eugenics to an astonishing degree. All everyone cares about is happiness and pretty much... everyone are bimbos; just totally ignorant of their ignorance.

Some nice parts:

---
"Because our world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivvers without steel - and you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma. Which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr Savage. Liberty! Expecting Deltas to know what liberty is! And now expecting them to understand Othello! My good boy!"

Soma is basically like a drug, encouraged and enforced by the system, that the people take to dispel any sort of unhappiness.

---
"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."

---
"My dear young friend, civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic. Conditions have got to be thoroughly unstable before the occasion can arise."

---
This one's my favourite part so far:

" 'Men and women must have their adrenals stimulated from time to time.'

'What?' questioned the Savage, uncomprehending.

'It's one of the conditions of perfect health. That's why we've made the V.P.S. treatments compulsory.'

'V.P.S.?'

'Violent Passion Surrogate. Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It's the complete psychological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences.'

'But I like the inconveniences.'

'We don't,' said the Controller. 'We prefer to do things comfortably.'

'But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.'

'In fact,' said Mustapha Mond, 'you're claiming the right to be unhappy.'

'All right then,' said the Savage defiantly, 'I'm claiming the right to be unhappy.'

'Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.' There was a long silence.

'I claim them all,' said the Savage at last.

Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. 'You're welcome,' he said. "

---

Reading this just reminds me of what someone else said - how youngsters today seem to bemoan too much about a difficult life. When in fact, it's good to have it difficult. It's good. It's supposed to make you stronger and smarter and wiser, and above all, human. We're not supposed to have it easy.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Jiawen put this up before but I've been having a ball rewatching Arashi clips and I just love their beatbox thingum!!! Just watch it! It's awesome -- I have half a mind to attempt this myself. XD Hah! I mean, all I need are several people making weird sounds and someone to compose a rap with me. :P Anyone with me on this??? I have only little more than a month left for crazy private projects before the new semester starts, dang it.



Seriously, I heart Arashi.



---

We brought home several pirated stuff from KL this past week. :P Including The Tudors, the tv series, which I've been meaning to watch for a while now. It's not bad so far -- Jonathan Rhys Meyers is rather good as King Henry VIII and of course, terribly attractive. For some reason though, Sam Neill as Cardinal Wolsey grates on my nerves a little. I'm just not sure why. Natalie Dormer plays Anne Boleyn - she's not bad. But I feel like... most of the nobles, with the exception of the Duke of Buckingham who got beheaded early on, lack the ferocity, ruthlessness and evil that I'd always imagined they'd possessed. That's why the show is not as gripping as I'd expected. Only King Henry is as scary and volatile as I suppose he was. Mostly, mostly, I think, I'm watching cause of Meyers. XD Oh dear. But the good thing about this series is that it apparently tries to keep as close to factual history as possible? It's a lot less emotionally-driven I feel, than the portrayals of Philippa Gregory's, whose books have been a source of pleasure for me. And therefore perhaps more accurate.

Also, these pirated stuff are very uncensored. @.@ Here's Jonathan Rhys Meyers as King Henry VIII.



And oh, Thomas Wyatt appears in the show too, I'm not sure why. Does he get beheaded as well later on, for fraternizing with Anne Boleyn? Anyway, his poem appears in the show and of course I picked up on the lines which Lymond used in Checkmate for Philippa (in green font below)! Ah. Everything comes back to Lymond for me, haha. :P

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,

In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, "dear heart, how like you this?"

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

I've been rereading my old emails again and I realised I meant to post about this a long time ago -- Duck and me were discussing about cute babies becoming beautiful adults and I used Yamapi as an example:

I TOTALLY AGREE ABOUT THE CHIBI KAWAII --> GROWNUP KAKKOI TREND!! It's the same with Yamapi, and really, quite the same with anyone I think (unless they destroy their physical well-being by being totally obese or undernourished or got involved in some physically-marring accident). I think it's the case that if you're a gorgeous child, the tendency is that you'll be a gorgeous adult. It makes sense, because see, what's naturally beautiful will always shine eventually. I mean, if you had pretty chibi eyes, then you'd have pretty adult eyes. And all the awkward-looking stages of adolescence are the pains of transition. Morphing from chibi to grown-up can be a difficult phase, and I think most people suffer aesthetically through that period. They either play too long under the sun, like my brother, and become as brown as burnt peanut butter (my brother was born as insanely fair as tofu), spoil their eyesight and hide behind humongous glasses or they have some weird malnourished diet that leaves them as skinny as poles. Yamapi had a scary skinny teenage phase from when he was 15 to 18; when he was so incredibly thin such that his clothes hung on him unflatteringly and his eyes appeared overly large (to me) and his yellow hair didn't help. In fandom, that phase has been nicknamed his poodle stage. Some people say Yamapi looks good ALL the time, but you know, that period was especially questionable.

But my gosh, if you look at chibi Yamapi (I'm sure you've seen the pictures); without a doubt, his cuteness is irresistible! I swear, I'm not surprised if Yamapi was accepted into JE by virtue of his looks alone, although he might have been great at the dancing audition, or his very positive and hardworking attitude shone from him like a beacon of light from the moment Johnny saw him. Chibi Yamapi is SO CUTE I feel like squishing him. Really, I can't wait for Yamapi to have a kid some day so that that cuteness can be replicated in his son or something. I keep telling my sister, "Can I have a son that looks like chibi Yamapi!!! PLEASE!!!" At which of course my sister looks at me and questions my sanity for the millionth time.

But my point is: I agree that cute kids make beautiful people.

My sister is watching SMAP music videos now. My gosh, sometimes I wonder what has become of us.

And drawing parallels with DT -- god, why am I so mad???

Sometimes I look at the Pi/Jin friendship and think of Harry/Draco in Draco Trilogy, HAHA. Except I really really dont like Jin. Because how can someone so good and nice like Yamapi/Harry like someone as horrid as Jin/Draco?????????? And if you allow me to run away with my imagination, then Pi/Toma is like Harry/Ron -- the true friendship. :P HAHAHAHAHA. Because Toma is nice and friendly and Yamapi's first friend in JE.

Am I nuts or am I nuts. XD

---

With regard to real life, I've been trying to get a hold of a different professor for FYP. It makes me worried, but I shall persevere. :s

Thursday, June 11, 2009

I haven't blogged properly in a while. And there's no excuse, since I really am not doing anything this summer. -.- I just keep worrying about FYP, but not doing anything about it. So, I've spent my days watching an innumerable number of videos, playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook relentlessly and looking forward to lunches with my aunts, so I can see Insyirah (my cousin's baby). Part of me is trying to figure out a way to clear the clutter in my room too. I've been hoarding too many things, and need to dump them out. Gah. Just thinking about it makes me tired already.

I really need to figure things out.

On a side note, I just wanted to say: I heart Atashinchi no Danshi! :D Best drama this season for me.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Another nice Yusuf Islam song! :) And in case you didn't know, Yusuf Islam was once the much-loved pop star Cat Stevens. I love the lyrics.

Monday, June 08, 2009

I've always liked this song! Yusuf Islam's God is the Light:

Sunday, June 07, 2009

I hate America. Without a shadow of a doubt. Without any kind of hesitation, anymore. A deep, unrelenting hatred I don't think I've harboured anything before, except vaguely, the devil. And quite clearly, this is a manifestation of evil that both maddens and frightens me. I have just seen enough. I only feel a mixture of pity and despair for the large proportion of people in America, who know nothing of what their government has been doing and remain blissfully in their ignorance, swallowing the mind-numbing substances like The Hills and whatever else MTV or E!Entertainment throws at them, that they've been programmed to consume all their lives.

I watched Zeitgeist. And again, we're presented with the same kind of appalling evidence.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

I finally looked at my results. And yay! An increase in CAP! By a little, but still an increase. I am super surprised at least that my CS module (Combinatorial Methods in Biocomputing) got a B+! O.O Computer-Aided Drug Design got an A-; I can't say I'm very surprised because the peer reviews for our project basically handed us our marks. :)) Well. This gives me hope. If I slog more next semester, maybe it'll get even better, Allah and Rasul willing.

---

This is a crazily funny scene from That 70's Show.