Writing dogma

I peeled myself off the laptop screen finally when I told myself enough is enough. Having read one of these amazingly written blogs, which is one of the most eloquent I’ve ever read in the longest time (and the last time I actually read a book was like what, almost a year ago wtf?), my own writing pales in comparison to these blogs.

The fact that my lack of reading has contributed to the degrading of my own writing is a little sad. Oh wait, hang on. I mustn’t use boring adjectives like ‘sad’ anymore! Maybe I should lookup a thesaurus for ‘sad’ because I’m sure this sad little adjective has thousands of other misery-inducing siblings and cousins.

And these very people are so clever with their writing I could drop down to my knees and kiss their feet. Because after reading what they wrote, it’s as if they enlightened me intellectually. Using words like debilitating and decadent sporadically like some exotic herbs on a delicacy makes me spawn over.

I must admit that I had been an English-elite sorta person, as much as I tried to deny or hide this. I used to dislike using Malay or Chinese terms when writing a completely English piece (with me using italics on such words when I had to), but then again, what’s writing without injecting some local flavour?

Plus I’m learning a new language, which means I’d have to spend lesser time thinking and talking in English. :) I used to think English is all I ever needed, but then I fell in love with linguistics.

I’ve had my English lecturer secretly writing notes proclaiming love to me, not of me as a person but of what I wrote, and I secretly relished her compliments. For what I thought my writing was seemingly bland against a seemingly bland topic (like “The differences between the Japanese language and Chinese language”), I get really nice comments from her, “I really enjoyed reading your work. Keep up the good work!”

Now back to my lack of reading. I think this is partly due to how I cannot simply stop reading a novel I’m reading halfway despite how boring it is. The novel that I’m stuck at for ages, Stories We Could Tell by Tony Parsons, an author I had loads of respect for, is soooo retrospectively boring. It’s like I’m wading through pages and pages of the hippy and rock ‘n’ roll era (read: 70s and 80s) just for the sake of finishing a book I read.

For example, it’s hard to believe that Irish Independent summed up the novel as “A funny, affectionate and heart-warming page turner” when I only found it funny at several pages and barely heart-warming at all when one of its several main characters is forlorn and heart-broken at the apparent ‘betrayal’ of his girlfriend.

Oh god I HATE romantic novels. And why did I purchase this book in the first place, you ask? Because um, Allison Pearson (god knows who this person is that her words deserved to be on the front cover) was quoted as saying “A wonderful, bitterly funny, powerfully nostalgic novel.”

You see, I’m a very nostalgic person, so I thought this book really suit me alright. But after 100 odd pages of struggling through the novel chapter by chapter, I realised that it’s only nostalgic for people way into their 30s or 40s or 50s because hey, I can’t relate to the bloody decades of the 70s and 80s dammit.

So what if Elvis Presley dies? Thousands of people die every single minute (so says the cynical me, when I am vaguely yet acutely aware that a single death affects the loved ones around him or her, but sadly deaths are overused for statistical reasons like “70 people dies in tragic earthquake”).

And I still have an unwrapped hardcover of For One More Day by Mitch Albom, whose writing I loved in his popularly-acclaimed The Five People You Meet in Heaven. But then again I’ve also loved Parsons’ Man and Boy (referring to a father and son dammit, some people obviously have a sidetracked mind).

During my upcoming one month holiday, I aspire to achieve the following: – complete Zelda: Twilight Princess on Wii (I’ve only accomplished 2 hours of the entire game)
– complete reading Stories We Could Tell
– complete a date
– overhaul the currently bland HS forums, we’ve just bought a license to vBulletin woot

Now that is the longest thing I’ve ever written since the start of this year. (That’s exercising the writing muscle for you.) Please enjoy the rest of this entry as I probably won’t have much time to do anything else, this being an exam week and all. (Actually I’ll have a bit of time since I’m a naturally lazy person.)

Today is somewhat of an animal field day. After our English paper, my classmates and I headed for Asia Cafe for lunch (in which I have none since I already have a packed kai fan sitting at home waiting for my stomach). As I was reading the first issue of R.AGE this year, a really young kitten passed by and my heart went to it.

How adorable.

It looked like it was lost and forlorn, scavenging for food with bits of litter and trash on its grey fur. In fact, with its grey fur, it looked like an offspring of the evil grey cat of Asia Cafe (long story how we came by this name), because I hardly ever chanced upon kittens with grey fur.

It’s surprising how I write about animals like I truly love them, but the truth is, I wasn’t brought up to be an animal lover. Parents had forbidden me since young to keep any pets, and only Bunny the Bunny (oh how I marvel my creativity when I was 12) is allowed – and not cats and dogs – because he wouldn’t crap all over the place and wouldn’t cause a ruckus with the neighbours and my own household with any annoying pet whines and barks and meows.

Sad truth, you see, but the saddest part is about how true it is.

Some little chicks in a coconut, caged up near Asia Cafe. Oh, and whilst reading the papers, I literally heard (or did I imagine it?) a SPLAT on my right shoulder, like right out of a cartoon, and to my utmost horror it was bird poo – in its glory, dirty white-greyish-ness and all. -____- Not that I was particularly affected by bird poo, unless it falls on my beloved Blue Marlin’s jacket, or on my unkempt hair.

And a traumatic experience with a relative’s dog when I was a toddler made me fear the canines, but years of befriending Heng and his even cuter Aldo succeeded in converting me otherwise. :)

So yes, while I’m not a complete, true-blue animal lover in which I’d parade naked to champion the causes of using animal’s fur in fashion, I do like these domestic pets. Although I’d have to think twice or thrice of adopting a miniature schnauzer as a pet, since I barely even have time for myself as it is.