I've been away for a while because I've been caught up in a whirlwind of well...words. I'm currently writing this in between typing out an essay due the week after Recess week, and I've actually just been doing that a lot. Writing and re-writing and then after all that throwing a half-written essay away and writing notes for modules that don't have essays(yet). Some people I spoke to once told me how they perceive literature as an easy major, especially (and perhaps somewhat ironically) if they are love reading/have read widely.



And I have to agree that the romance of sitting in Starbucks with overpriced coffee and reading a slim paperback edition of an ( English translation) of a Greek classic is alluring. But I do think the study of Literature can destroy the love of reading if you do not understand that it requires you to regularly reaffirm a commitment to reading texts that barely resemble any English known to man in the last half a century and finding meaning in it. My experience of "finding meaning" has so far proven to be as abstract as it sounds and I think this lack of certainty is something a number of my peers too are struggling to learn to work through.



I'm currently reading Huckleberry Finn and it is terribly tedious.

I have to say that the reading is truly volumous. I worked out that I'm reading about 400 pages a week collectively of school-related texts. Now, that really isn't a lot if you were to read in a way that you'd read the neswspaper for example. But contemplation and to some degree rumination about the material is a prerequsite to get anywhere in classes and assignments. It is all very unglamorous and sitting at Starbucks and looking pretentious is often a distant reality from to sitting around at 2a.m. in your room in your pyjamas and wondering if you'll ever be able to write anything half decent by the deadline.

But it is not all grim and burdernsome because of life outside of school. What has been really helpful to my life is the discovery of cute, cartoon bubble stickers and the realisation that I can bribe my tutees with them. I mean I've contemplated using other methods to motivate my students but after some taught I've decided there are just so few ways to make learning long division interesting for a nine-year-old.



Bribes.



I've also signed up for this volunteer project where we help children with intellectual disablities finger paint on plain white tiles to form a giant mosaic replica of Van Gogh's famous sunflower painting, that will be put up on the wall outside the YMCA building in town. This is actually something I'm really excited about, I will post pictures of the mosaic when I have some! Here's what it's supposed to look like!





I'm also working on a personal painting project, it's another paint-by-numbers kit ( I've done at least 10 of those before) but this is using oil paint instead of the usual acrylic and I really, really love the texture and finish. It looks like this now...but when it's finished it'll be amazing. :D





I only see life becoming busier in the next 2 months. One professor mentioned in a discussion about Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" that she thought every utopia is a dystopia but not every dystopia is a utopia. She also said that Singapore is much closer to a utopia than most places. It's hard to remember that this is one of the only places in the world where you'll only very rarely find beggars on the street when it is so easy to be caught up in a lifsetyle that does not make it easy to slow down and sppreciate the privilege of living here. I do have faith that eventually I will figure out how to make a life for myself that is more balanced, but I suspect it will take a maturity I don't have just yet. But for now I'm looking forward to SUMMERRRRR. I MAY have a very interesting internship opportunity with a...non-organisation if I'm lucky! But I won't say more and jinx it.

Hopefully I will have more interesting things to write about in the next post. In the mean time here're my favourite pictures from a day trip to Pulau Ubin.:)



We be chillin' with the wild boars



We be exercsing caution around wild boars



:D

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