Aramel

Fic bunnies again!

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 12:06:40 GMT

I... have this sudden urge to write anti-Arwen fanfiction.

(Also, what happened to good old Not-Arwen.net? I used to lurk there about three, four years ago and now it's gone...)

I've also been driving myself crazy trying to remember this one fanfic I read way back which had a some people of Gondor (Lossarnach? Lebennin?) offer to back Faramir against Aragorn (which he refused). I thought was a remarkable insight into Gondorian politics. If only I could actually remember what it was called...

On dress sense, culture, and random ranting.

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:01:27 GMT

Our school's due to have a singing competition tomorrow, with classes competing against each other in a choral sing-off. Sounds perfect, right?

Yep, till you get to the bit where you're deciding what the class will wear.

As one of the people in my class with some performing experience, I went shopping with two or three other people, looking for shirts/blouses to buy for the girls who're going on stage. We spotted one of those really lovely blouses with lacy collars and tiny faux-pearl buttons, and I fell in love with them at first sight.

So I draw my classmates' attention to it, and suggest that we get some long, colourful skirts to match. Collective objection ensues.

"It's too feminine!" complained one. And another, "I'm not wearing that, it's so womanly!"

And the guy who's directing the choir rolled his eyes and said pointedly, "You know, you might not care about wearing a skirt, but some girls are actually modest."

Now, from this reaction you might think I wanted them to go on-stage in their underwear. However, the garment that caused such hubbub is...

I am annoyed. It's not so much what the boys in the class say, though that certainly plays its part (in what world is an ankle-length dress immodest?). The thing that really makes me furious is how many of the girls also quail and refuse to touch a garment with a few ruffles on. I mean, it's fine if you say it's not your style, but what the hell is "it's too feminine" supposed to mean?

Now, there's a reason for this, and that reason is not "they're all blind". It might be our culture, which has such strange expectations and double standards for girls, especially teenagers of sixteen or seventeen, which is the age most people in my class are.

The attitude of society goes something like this: girls should act "feminine": that is, shy and retiring. They should speak softly, never object or argue, and should blush at the drop of a hat. Girls should be pretty, but "good girls" are pretty despite how they dress themselves, and not because of it. In other words, "good girls" do not take pleasure in dressing up, and should indeed wear extremely sexless clothes in order to avoid catching the attention of the opposite sex.

I should probably add here that being attracted or indeed attractive to the opposite sex is the Mortal Sin of all sins in Chinese schools. Beat someone up? Flunked all your tests? Cheated? Sure, you can be forgiven. But heavens help you if the teachers find out you've got a boyfriend or girlfriend.

(My school uniform. The face has been censored for privacy because it's not me, but one of my friends.)

In any case, as the point of school uniforms in China is to avoid being attractive, and indeed society itself is bent on keeping teens away from each other and away from attraction, it therefore follows that "good girls" do not dress up. They do not wear "feminine" clothes. Especially not skirts. In fairly elitist schools like mine, girls who dress up are automatically considered airheaded, uneducated, and goodness knows what else.

Which all makes me a bit grumpy, since one of my interests is sewing and costuming, and I do think dresses and skirts can be rather pleasant to wear at times. I wear them when I can (which is about once a year when uniforms aren't mandatory), and perhaps more than I would if it weren't such a point of contention, since I wanted to make a point: that it's acceptable to care about your appearance, that there's no shame in it if you do - though also no fault if you honestly don't want to bother.

I don't know if I have gotten the point across, though. I also wonder what impact this shame our schools and society instill in girls - shame of their own beauty, and perhaps of their femininity and their bodies - will have on them in later life. And sometimes I just want to vent, as I am doing now, because it's so bloody pointless.

For goodness' sake, this isn't Victorian England. The zeitgeist has changed. Society in general has moved on and stopped obsessing about what women wear, and whether they might "tempt" people. What I wear does not determine who I am; at best, it reflects it. So get over it already.

At least there was a small triumph, which was more from coincidence than anything else. All the other blouses were sold out, so we ended up buying the pretty lace-and-pearl ones after all, and we'll all be wearing them if only for ten minutes. I suppose it's a start, at least.

Well, I'm back.

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:01:10 GMT

I've been away from LJ for -- what, two years now? It seems like longer.

There have been lots of reasons, beginning with school and running the gauntlet down the many busy little things of daily life, but the most direct reason was that China banned LJ for these two years. I've never quite understood why -- probably something political.

In any case, whoever banned it must have relented, because now I can access the site. I've been randomly lurking for a week or so due to finals, but exams are now over and I'm hopefully back for good. So hello again, and I bet you've all forgotten me by now!

I'm writing this on my mobile phone in my dorm, and it's almost lunchtime. Will probably be back later today or tomorrow with more stuff.

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 08:30:35 GMT

Well, I'm back.

I haven't died. I haven't gone mad. And the big exam is over. It was a bit of a disaster, but I'll live. :P I might even make it into my high school of choice. We'll see.

It's been so long since I've been on LJ-- two months since my last post, half a year since I've been here regularly. Actually, it's been half a year since I've done anything at all except study. I mean to rectify this problem-- no more textbooks this summer! I'm just going to go read sci-fi and sew and sing and write.

Whoo.

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 13:44:56 GMT

I am not doing well at the moment.

I did quite badly in my Chinese exam, scoring just 89 out of 120. :( That's 18 points lower than the highest mark. As a result, Mom has banned me from the internet, and filled my spring break with extra-curricular lessons. That in itself wouldn't be too bad. I mean, it'd be a nuisance, but not that awful. It's just that all the things added together... it gets to me.

I'm having the zhongkao in about two months. My teacher says the course of my life will depend on whether or not I can get into a good high school. I have a ten-hour schoolday, lessons on Saturday, three tests per week, the works. It's... depressing. And the parents are angry because I didn't do well, and the lectures abound. It feels so <i>unfair</i>. I want to plead that I'm not perfect, but I can't. Nobody asked me to be perfect. People don't care whether or not I can sing, or write, or play the piano. All that's wanted is a good grade, and that last is the one thing I don't have at the moment.

I hate the way life's going. I hate looking at the classroom window and seeing those ugly iron bars. I hate all this pressure, the cold judgement of my worth as a person based on a bunch of numbers. My hands shake whenever I see an exam paper, and I feel trapped and trammelled and helpless like a wild animal.

I feel so lifeless and grey. It's springtime, and I shouldn't, but I do. I don't even care what I do any more. I'm that tired. I just want to cry and have it all stop, but it isn't going to no matter how hard I cry. I can't show my talents in an exam, and nobody will ever know. All they'll know is what I scored.

My sixteenth birthday's in three months. How I celebrate it will depend on how well I do in the big exam, as will my vacation. Damn it all.

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:45:12 GMT

I am so absolutely in love...

I bought Carol Berg's Rai-kirah series a few days ago (the Transformation, Revalation, Restoration trilogy) and I have one word to sum it up:

Wow.

And, for once, I will give in to my baser instincts and do a rave review.

The main character, Seyonne, is a slave. He's in his thirties, and has been sixteen years in captivity, during which he's suffered quite a bit at the hands of several masters (we never get told explicitly just what was done to him, but it includes having his hand nailed to a door. Ow). Then he gets sold again, and this time he's bought by the prince of the vastly powerful Derzhi Empire. The prince, whose name is Aleksander, is a cruel and arrogant man, and Seyonne has some pretty miserable days. Among other things, he gets his face branded, almost dies of privation, and ends up unconscious several times from beatings by his new master.

How do you expect the story to go? He escapes, right?

Wrong. I won't say any more, because I can't express the wonderful development of those two characters properly, but the climax of the first book is a battle where Seyonne fights a demon for Aleksander's soul.

What really makes my day, though, is that there are no villains. No black-and-white. Aleksander is a harsh man who shows little mercy to his enemies. Seyonne, in madness, kills innocent people. The demons have their say too: they just want to go home. Seyonne is almost killed by his own people, the magical Ezzarians, for willingly agreeing to be possessed by a demon, who ironically turns out to be the god his people worship.

And the dialogue! *turns green with envy*

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 13:34:50 GMT

I am a pyromaniac. I am, however, in good company. There are about a million other pyromaniacs in the city.

Today is Chinese New Year, the Spring Festival, whatever you'd like to call it. Traditionally, people set off fireworks. Which is why an alien from outer space would have thought that Beijing looked like a war zone with all the smoke. Last night saw the most spectacular burst. The ban on fireworks was lifted just a few years ago, and there must have been hundreds of people setting off their own fireworks just in the area around our house. For good measure, dad brought some, and we lit them. They went up with a sparkle and a bang. We couldn't see them properly, because we were too close, but other people could. I had lots of fun, and almost got blasted by one.

This morning I was wakened by people setting off crackers. To be fair, it was ten o'clock. And they're still at it right now, which is nine thirty in the evening. But then, this is the New Year, and noise is traditionally involved. It also happens to be my mother's birthday, and tomorrow we're heading off to Singapore, where dad gets to go golfing with his buddies, mom gets to go shopping, and I get to bury myself in the local Borders-- a rare treat, since there are no foreign bookstores at all in China. It's not allowed, or something. *mutters* Then we're going to Bali for a bit.

I still haven't finished my homework ('bout two hundred pages left) but apart from that, life's good.

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 12:29:30 GMT

*squee*

Ahem. I do have reason to be pleased; I just messed around with a bit of new software today and recorded a song. *beams* I am an Aramel-of-all-trades after all, it seems.

Link! 2 megs.

It's Greensleeves. I can't remember where the accompanying music came from, unfortunately; it's been on my computer for ever. And I accidentally ended up recording everything twice, which is why I sound like a one-person choir. But it does sound nicer than it would otherwise.

Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
and who but my lady Greensleeves.

It was meant to be sung by a man, I guess, but whatever.

There is also a recording I made of the Communist Youth League initiation ceremonies, only I'm afraid everyone was mumbling, because our class is not that enthusiastic about the whole thing and people had either forgotten their lines or else were too embarrassed to say anything.

I wish I could provide transcripts, but most of it's too unclear for me to do anything. Just as well I don't plan on getting initiated, I suppose. I'll just translate a typical initiation petition, because it's too spoof-worthy for me not to. I did not make this up; it was translated, word for word, from a real petition.

I petition to join the Communist Youth League of China, of my own free will. The CYLC is the organization for the advanced youth of China, a good helper to the Communist Party of China, the university in which we study Marxism, Leninism, Mao Ze Dong thought and the Deng Xiao Ping theories, the army with which to build a democratic, cultured, and strong society with Chinese characteristics. Under the leadership of the Party, with realizing Communism as its ultimate goal.

I am a student of class X, and of Y position in that class. I aim for perfection in my work, and I am a hard-working, respectful, rule-abiding, class-loving student. I am eager to improve, and I accept new things well. I am of the new generation of the 21st century.

From history: since the May 4th movement in 1919, the youth of China, aiming for democracy and freedom, staunchly obeying the calls of the Party, eagerly organised and motivated the youth of China (Note: Yes. The youth of China motivated the youth of China. I don't know if that's twisted logic or not), according to the guidance of the Party, unbendingly fought the opposition, and wrote the history of the Youth League with their fresh blood. I am proud of the selfless spirit and the glorious history of the League! Now: our League is not undeserving of the title of the vanguard of China's youth, and has lived up to the expectations of the country and the people. It is faithful to the Party, faithful to the people, and beloved by all the youth of China. Therefore, I wish that I may join this organisation, which fills me with respect and the desire to join it, as soon as possible, so that I may more directly accept the guidance of the League, and raise high the glorious standard of the Deng Xiao Ping theory, and fight hard to build our great Socialist nation, and do what little I can to make it into a great nation.

If the organisation of the League accepts my petition, and allows me to become a glorious member of the League, I will obey all the rules of the League, and carefully do my duties, staunchly and unyieldingly carry out the orders of the League, and be a role model as befits a member of the League. If the League denies me, I will keep trying at every opportunity.

Now you know why I'm not interested in joining. That was also a nightmare strung together of long sentences. Someone should have told this person about semicolons.

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 13:51:02 GMT

Feel like testing your subconscious? Try this. It's fabulously eye-opening.

I did a few tests, and the results were mildly surprising.

I was told that I identified Asian Americans more readily with America than European Americans, when my real reaction is quite automatically to think of them as my countrymen (sue me, but I'm trying to work on it). I suspect it may have more to do with my inability to recognize American landmarks than anything else (what was that greenish monolith thing anyway?)
I was told that I have more positive feelings with Jewish people when I really never ask about others' religion lest they ask about mine and then try to convert me.
I was told that I have a moderate preference for gay people over straight people (that takes up only about 6 percent of the whole) when I'd expected them to come out roughly equal. ('S all you guys' fault for writing slash. :P Just kidding. But hey, I feel special.)
I apparently have a moderate association of male with career and female with family. I'm trying to work on this too, since I obviously don't want to spend my life just doing housework, but I will admit for once that this has something to do with the culture I grew up in.
I have little preference between African Americans and European Americans. Possibly because I spent my time among a hodgepodge of people of all kinds. I was surprised by the diagram, though. It's the most extreme one I've seen. Bar the gay/straight diagram.
I had a slight preference for other people as compared to Arab Muslims. Point is that I've never met an Arab Muslim. Weird.
I was neutral about abled/disabled people too. I mean, guh? What was the point of this test? Why would anyone be negative about disabled people? Apart from the fact that they need help?
There was a test on ambivalent sexism on a linked site. I scored ridiculously low. 0.4 out of 5, when the average was around 2, meaning that I'm fairly non-sexist. The interesting thing is that they put "benevolent sexism" on too (finally!). Benevolent sexism, FYI, is the knight-in-shining-armour kind of sexism. Think Victorian England.

So... any other takers?

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 09:10:00 GMT

Does anyone remember the whole fiasco some months ago over a boy recording his teacher's words in a small town named Kearny in the US? If not, read this, including the comments.

Some people's stupidity makes my mind bleed. I mean, I know not everyone Over There is like this... but so many? Ugh! What amazed me was that the person involved (one Matthew LaClair, who seems to be the only one remotely capable of independant and articulate thought) actually got death threats, and his fellow students are being rather nasty. Actually, this Kearny high school doesn't seem to be doing a good job of educating its students in general, judging by the quality of their comments on that blog. Many of these high schoolers can't even spell properly.

*headdesk* That LaClair boy's kind of cute, though. :P

Edit: Oh, and I just finished The Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins is brilliant.

Sat, 03 Feb 2007 13:13:07 GMT

... does anyone else ever have a problem with people poking around their computers?

Yesterday, my dad informed me that a friend of his told him all students in the US had to give their internet account passwords to their parents. I said that what goes on half a world away is not my business. He then quoted his friend's words to his son: "I don't necessarily have to look, but I have to be able to look." I didn't say anything because sometimes it's best not to.

Today, he told me he wanted to use my computer. I said OK, and started closing my browser windows. He told me not to. I kept closing them, and he shouted at me. I didn't close the rest, and left, feeling all-- wrong. I remember something he shouted at me some years ago, when we were still wrangling about my decision to close my bedroom door at night. He said, "What is it you don't want us to see?" The answer would be that there isn't anything specifically, but I just don't want people peering in at me while I sleep.

The same goes for my internet history. There's nothing wrong with my family knowing what I do on the net, if I want them to-- and there's the rub, I suppose. I hate the idea of people-- even my dad, or maybe especially my dad--surfing through my webpages, tracking what I read and what I do on the Internet. It seems to me that rummaging through someone's surfing history is just as personal as rummaging through someone's desk drawer (more so, in my case, since all I keep in my desk are pens). I'm not doing anything illegal. There are just things which belong to me that I don't want to share immediately with those close to me. I need to be able to talk without my parents listening in on what I say, and shaking their heads over it.

I don't want them discussing what I read late at night, in their room, asking each other if it's a problem, and when I'll get over the "fantasy phase" and come into the "real world" and stop thinking about knights and elves and magic and wrangling with other people over things like religion and its influence on society, and start thinking about sensible things. I need a break from all that, from people knowing what I view and what I write. It makes me uncomfortable, to know that someone who has the power to tell me what to do knows what I'm thinking deep inside, whether I want them to or not. And no, I do not care if that's unfilial.

Damn, look at that angst piling up there. A bit more of this and I'll practically mutate into Túrin or something.

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:12:02 GMT

I need a rant.

Now, we had a day off yesterday. So today we went back to school for test analysis. After the analysis, my English teacher dragged me out into the corridor and gave me a nice dressing-down.

Her: You have a problematic attitude to English (in Chinese this is: Ni dui ying yu tai du bu dui).
Me: Er?
Her: Look at these questions you got wrong.
Me: What's wrong with "I'm happy to be able to help them"?
Her: The answers say it's wrong. Could you stop being so difficult and just go along with the answers?
Me: I didn't know the answers. That's the point of the test.
Her: Well, you'll lose marks this way.
Me: Fine, then. I lose marks. You could give me a zero. But I still don't see why the sentence is wrong. You never explained. You just said, this is the answer.
Her: You have a problematic attitude. If you're going to be like this, I'm not going to be able to teach you anything.
Me: Well, fine.

So there commenced an almighty row. And I want to rant.

To a certain teacher:

1. For goodness' sakes, ma'am, could you please teach instead of just giving an answer? We have answer sheets. We don't need you to tell us the answer, we need you to tell us why. If you can't tell us why, then maybe you should think again about whether this is the answer. And my attitude towards English is quite fine, thank you. It's just that the more I listen to certain English classes, the more I wonder whether anyone has any idea of anything. If I were to count the mistakes you made in ten minutes in class, I'd run out of fingers. Please do not equate your classes with the whole English language.

2. Could we please stop being so obsessed with marks? Yes, your other students get higher marks than I do. So what? They memorise the vocabulary, the sentences, the bloody essays from the book, and write it down on the tests. Unfortunately, most are rather lost when asked to write essays on subjects they haven't memorised. Most of the people you teach couldn't string an original sentence together before we started practicing in the dorms. Am I supposed to envy that?

3. Look, give me a break, OK? I didn't wade through the times when I opened a textbook and started to cry uncontrollably, the nights when my brain was mushy with revision and I suddenly wondered what it was that I was living for, the feeling of being no more than a machine to do tests, the nightmares that had me waking in a sweat, the days navigated on caffeine alone, simply so that you could shout at me because I got a 94% in English.

*headdesk*

I have holiday classes, which means that I'll still have to go to school during winter vacation. Also, we have 500 pages of homework for five weeks. Woe.

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:27:56 GMT

Well... the reason for the long absence can be summed up in one word.

Tests.

I've been working myself into the dust this past almost-month, preparing for the tests. This isn't the big test but it's pretty important. I did OK, I think. Results are out today and I got a 90% in Maths, an 88% in Chinese, a whopping 99% in Chemistry (whee!), a 97% in Physics... and a 94% in English, which was a bit of a disappointment (As in "WTF? You're telling me I got a 94% in bloody Grade 9 English? Where the bloody textbook consists of 'Good morning, sir, may I help you?'. Sheesh."), but otherwise fine. I don't know if I can place Top 50 in the year (there are, after all, more than 600 people) but I should be OK.

We probably won't get to rest too long, though. Winter holidays is for around 30 days, with a small mountain of homework, which I don't complain about because the teacher says that my life could depend on the big test, the zhongkao in June. Scary thing is that I believe her. So I may be rather intermittent for the months to come.

Random thought: Coffee is the petroleum of the tired student. I think I'm developing a mild addiction.

Edit: Hmm... according to this site, I have more-or-less a Washington D.C. accent-- even though I've only been there once when I was six or something and stayed for around a week. The alternative is an accent from someplace I've never heard of in Oxfordshire in the UK, which I've never been to at all. Neither matches mine completely, but both are close. The difference is mostly in the "r"s and the "o"s.

Still, it's interesting. After a while you can just hear the accents converge and shift over the map.

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 16:32:19 GMT

Happy New Year!

May 2007 be a fruitful year for all of you... and may we never suffer writers' block. I would get the Seven to come and sing for you, but Turko is always off-key. :P

We had snow today, so it's a White New Year. Or something like that. People are setting off fireworks outside my window, and it's wonderful. And I have tomorrow off, so I don't have to go to school until the 2nd. *beams

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 11:16:10 GMT

To everyone on my f-list that celebrates it:

Merry Christmas!

I went to a movie with several of my classmates today. Note to self: do not go to movies with boys. We split up into groups accidentally on the underground, and the group I ended up with... well, those three boys insisted that I sit apart from them in the theater, which rather exasperated me since the point in going to see a movie together is seeing the bloody movie together. So I waited for the other group and watched the movie with them. Bwah. And then they went to play video games in the mall, but it was too noisy and raucous for me, so I headed over to the bookstore across the street and treated myself to two new (English!) books. They were rather pricey, but I figured I could afford it. :)

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:35:11 GMT

I don't know where this popped up from. Anyhow... 50 things Aramel believes. It was originally supposed to be meaningful, but ended up being not so meaningful. Arranged in no particular order.

Fanfic that gives me warm fuzzy feelings inside = squee.
Squee should be in the dictionary.
People (read "English teachers") might try being a little less upset by the fact that I used a dictionary on them. I wasn't aware that it was banned by international treaty.
Tests are weird. Who invented them, anyway? I mean, what a wonderfully awful idea. It actually stops me from learning much outside the curriculum.
The idea that English Literature majors can't find jobs and end up starving on the streets is pretty strange. Thanks, mom.
Women's equality means that I can wear a dress if I feel like it.
The girl in my dorm who keeps calling me and my best friend a lesbian couple is amusing. I taught her to pronounce it on Wednesday. We were talking about Sappho, I think.
Sappho rocks.
Witty novels about an angel and a demon working together and an 11-year-old ~~Antichrist~~ boy stopping the end of the world = Woot! Especially when Pratchett and Gaiman write it.
Self-description would be, "A girl with half her mind in the clouds, and the other half in the gutter." Nobody ever believes it, though.
Beijing in December would have caused smoke detectors to go off in Hell. (If that exists. Hell, I mean, not the smoke detectors. Well, those too.) Coal-- especially with sulphur in it-- pollutes, people. SO2 H2O=H2SO3, and 2H2SO3 O2=2H2SO4. Yes, that's sulphuric acid raining down on you, right now...
I've been over-doing the chemistry.
Bertrand Russell = Precioussss, yessss... I mean, he wrote his own obituary-- 30 years before he died. Got to heart that.
Not being able to use Wikipedia without additional software because it's censored = stupid.
Censorship in general = stupid. If you've got nothing to hide, why censor it?
Best friend jumping up and down squeeing because they glimpsed a certain boy in Class Five = disconcerting.
Own crush's seat being next to Best Friend's does not help.
People really do have Fëanor Complexes sometimes.
Doing a show-and-tell about universities is harder than it seems, because you can't haul one into class.
High school had better be good to pay for this year.
Descartes was totally sozzled when he invented the whole business with axes.
I will get down to posting all the English translations I made of the Chinese classics we're studying in class one day.
Swearing in English at school = neat. You can let off plenty of steam, and they don't get upset because they rarely catch what you said.
I should break the habit of #28, really.
The Screwtape Letters = Look, Mr Lewis, could you bloody well stop preaching for a moment and try to get into character?
Julius Caesar rocked because of the lack of villains.
Tamburlaine rocked because of the lack of heroes.
Watership Down rocked because of rabbits being non-cute.
I didn't really get the point of the Scarlet Letter.
Parents going haywire when they found out that daughter had watched BBM = not cool.
Propaganda delivered in the form of textbooks = even worse.
Having a great-aunt who's a fundamental Christian, and who gets the whole congregation over to try and convert you every time you go to her house, is embarrassing.
Religion (in the cases where it goes right) = conscience with frills on.
Atheism = conscience with no frills attached.
Marriage is a formality. It's what people feel for each other that matters.
The problem with absolute truth is that everyone thinks they have it.
War is so pointless. My grandpa fought in Vietnam, and when I was a little tot he'd tell me about how they lived out in the woods, and how ingenious the traps that they designed were, and how cowardly the other side was. (Only that last bit is never true, no matter which side says it.) People get hurt, and it doesn't help.
People tend to repeat what they hear from other people.
There is no "true history", because what history we have we know from our predecessors, who were human. And people in general seem to see more or less what they want to see, though I suppose that we'll never know because we won't have a non-human POV for comparison.
Bigotry ought to be classified as terminal stupidity.
Terminal stupidity should be illegal. Or maybe not, since the Law Enforcement Officers are busy enough as it is.
Holidays are nice, no matter whose holidays they are. (I remember that we had days off from school year-round in Singapore because of all the holidays.)
Gaiman's Sandman comics. I WANT.
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." Plutarch got it in one.
Why the &%^$ did they build a sports stadium that looks like an egg?
There are so many things I don't know. Unfortunately, I can't name any of them.
Things would work a lot better if everyone just used common sense.
Sometimes people say the darndest things.
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
People will be people. Hmph.

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 23:02:09 GMT

Recently BBC had a sort of Sino-British high school student wire-up, where people would ask questions of some students in some high school over here, which I (unfortunately) do not know of. I wish they could've come to my school, though. 'Twould be cool. I was tickled to see this:

Question from Eloise, Sheffield, UK

What is it like being a teenager in Beijing? Do you have a "teen culture"? What do you think about your uniform? How does it compare to that of other schools? What sort of things do you do outside of school? Or is there anything else you want to do in school? Because the focus seems to be on sport, do you do other things like music and drama. Do all of you like sport?

Li Keren (17): As a Beijinger, I feel lucky and proud. We have our own culture. After the class we usually go on spring outing or autumn outing. We visit museums and sometimes we take part in activities in the community. At school, we hope to have more time to enjoy ourselves. We like music and plays especially the Peking Opera. Most of the Chinese students are keen on sports.

Houston, we have a communications problem...

Read the rest here.

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 09:07:01 GMT

I took the "The Nine Muses" quiz on gURL.com
		My muse is... Calliope Calliope is the patron goddess of epic poetry. She is often depicted holding a writing tablet and wearing a golden crown, for she is the oldest of the muses and their leader. Her name means "The Fair Voiced," but Calliope inspires eloquence in writing. Read more... Who is your muse?

Anyone surprised? No? Pass, then...

Dear Santa...

Dear Santa,

This year I've been busy!

Last Friday I pushed tehta in the mud (-17 points). In April I punched cularien in the arm (-10 points). Last Monday I bought porn for dawn_felagund (-10 points). In May I bought porn for kaowyn (10 points). Last Thursday I donated bone marrow to sirielle in a life-saving procedure (300 points).

Overall, I've been nice (273 points). For Christmas I deserve a pony!

Sincerely,
aramel_calawen

*grumbles* Why am I always buying porn for people?

I would heart a pony, though... :)

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 06:53:51 GMT

Irony of the day is this photo I took:

The sign reads, "Parking your bicycles here is prohibited". Argh!

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 15:56:11 GMT

Well, this was an eventful week.

First, I got my mid-term score. I was fifth in the class, and a hundred-something out of six hundred people in the year. Bah. The teacher was pretty upset about that. So was I, but to a lesser extent. Well, I'll see if I can do better on end-of-terms.

I have an English competition on Sunday. The teacher gave me a notice. Now, the interesting thing is that the notice was printed on the back of a used sheet of paper, and on the other side were a series of emails (in English, or else my classmates would have gone wild) titled "The outstanding issue of Viagra". I kid you not. Teachers are weird. *snicker*

I'm doing a Shakespeare soliloquy on Sunday (Hamlet's famous "to be or not to be"). I think I'm in geek heaven. The teacher was slightly upset that she didn't recognize a Shakespeare soliloquy when I read it to her (the quintessence-of-dust one) and instead demanded to know why I had made such a number of grammatical errors. So she suggested that I switch to one everyone would know, so I'm doing the one that everyone does (only nobody ever does, because this is Grade 9). I'll see if I can get some recordings on Sunday, or better yet a video, since I'll be wearing my home-made cloak. Yes, I really am a jack of all trades.

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:31:15 GMT

I found a Silmarillion pick-your-own-adventure at ff.net: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1362148/1/

I ended up getting married to Turko and killed by Curvo the day after. Weird, that.

On another try, I followed Maitimo to Himring. Only he doesn't appear to be the sort for romance. Hmph. :P

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 15:03:20 GMT

I failed an English test. Discuss.

...all right, all right. It was more of a competition than a test. But the fact remains that it was bloody Grade 9 English (remember, this is Grade 9 English in China). Sample questions are as follows:

1. Which of the below has the most letters?
A. Post office. B. Fish C. Spelling book

Of course, the problem is that I don't know what kind of letters they're talking about, the alphabet or the sort that you send to your relatives (only most people use e-mail these days). It's questions like this that make me want to scream.

And then there's this one, which was a part of reading comprehension:

Desert is large ecosystem in the world.

I know what they mean, but I still want to take a red pen and beta it. I wonder if it amounts to some sort of mental disorder. ;)

Mom was slightly upset about the whole matter. She thinks I need to stop reading all those "extracurriculars", which at the moment refers to The Silmarillion, Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Pratchett's Discworld series, Le Guin's Earthsea series, Watership Down (at long last! A book about bunnies that isn't unbearably silly!), Hamlet and Julius Caesar. (I seem to be transgenre. :P) The problem, of course, is that if I stopped reading extracurriculars there wouldn't be anything to read. As hard as I'm sure our textbooks are trying, "This must be Carla's book" is not really my idea of an interesting read. I probably should do something about my English, though, because it's not as much of a help as it once was in raising my average score.

And my mid-term English test is tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 12:57:09 GMT

... Why is it that I have problems with word limits?

I spent about two hours today on a story about Maglor being burned at the stake. Two hours, the scene is done, and I haven't even gotten to a thousand words. Not even enough to scroll a page at Pit of Voles. It's not that I don't describe enough or anything. It's just all so short, and I envy all those people to whom verbose introspective fics come easily, who can write 5000-word chapters, who can do a reasonable plot.

*headdesk*

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 01:23:00 GMT

I just got a 96 percent in chemistry. That's a 26% improvement from last time. So now I know I'm not a complete dunce at it, which is a fabulous feeling. *beams

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 14:24:26 GMT

"Now will I shew my selfe to have more of the Serpent then the Dove; that is, more knave than foole."

*Kit Marlowe love*

For some reason, I find the original version of his work much easier to read than the grammatically-correct edited versions. I don't know why. It's just a pity I don't understand Latin-- I think I'm missing quite a bit of Faustus (does anyone happen to know if the good old angel-demon on opposite shoulders thing was created by Marlowe?).

I really must research this guy.