It's a lot of fun being a geek.

Maybe it runs in the family. Despite friends' accusations that I look, act, and talk very little like my parents, maybe genes do count for something; because there're bits and pieces of geekdom scattered all around the family tree that must have somehow all become G33kd0m Dominant in me.

My granddad waxes operatic, my other granddad writes poetry in perfect Reverendian cursive, my Dad has a secret liking for anything to do with the Greek military, and my Thios David, my θείος David (he doesn't like being called my Uncle. Must be Olympian fixation with immortality or something) speaks Elvish.

Or at least he does a pretty good job of pretending he does, because I know for sure that the Sindarin phrases he posted on my FB Profile are from Google. I know this for a fact because ArwenUndomiel.com/Elvish.html used to be my favourite webpage, too- and with good cause!

Today Lisa and I went to the library to source out more secondary sources for our H3 Lit papers. It was going pretty well until I saw the Greek Classics section and Lisa made a beeline for the Young Adult Fantasy Fiction section. We ended up guiltily borrowing two Tamora Pierce books (her), one slim volume of Homeric hymns (me), and a book of Sappho's poetry (me).

To our credit, though, the next hour and a half or so was spent upstairs at the reference library being Fully Productive-- her thumbing through some book on political satire and the brainwashing of teenagers, and me wading my way through a literary criticism of Kerouac's On The Road (a lot of sex) and "Dionysus since 69" (...and again.).

Erik has a knack of snagging me at exactly the right (and occasionally the most annoying! ;) ) moments-- I was on my way down and out of the library in the left when Garbage started moaning "I'm only happy when it raa-aains" from my pocket and I picked up my phone.

To be honest, I was a little more than happy to have any excuse to head back up to the books again, though; and so in defiance of the Two Day Block, half an hour was spent very calmly and very well between shelves of Ireland, Go To Greece! and Othello and A Midsummer's Night's Dream.

... I can't WAIT for A Levels to end so I can just spend the whole day, glorious hours on end, in that library. God- sometimes I'm sitting there just reading and inside I'm dying little deaths of ecstasy- words, words, words, all voices whispering down the ages and forgotten places and the bronze jars in the corner of the temple. The Man was right- I love beautiful words telling me terrible things.

Like so.

----

" The human being may perhaps be unknowable-- unknowable and ultimately irrational. And we were warned of this thousands of years ago by the characters, the unappeased characters of tragedy-- who could not know themselves but who have called out to us again and again: "Remember me. Remember me."
We cannot conclude ourselves. We cannot bring our plot to an end. We are forever unresolved.

The need for truth, for self-knowledge, is profoundly human. That it may be out of reach, forever out of reach, is profoundly painful and equally human. In Dianeira,in which I used Sophocles' Women of Trachis as a basis and inspiration, Dianeira faces with bitterness the incomprehensibility of it all. 'It was all a waste of breath', says Dianeira wearily as she kills herself.

Is this a bleak end? I am not sure. Because if you look at, write, see in performance the unknowable human being, you will not close off with the conclusions that have brought so much destruction on our world: you will not insist- even to the death- that this is the right way to love, this is the political system that works, and you are the one who knows best.
You will wonder at the human being as Sophocles asked us to in the second chorus of Antigone--

Wonder
at many things
But wonder most
at this thing:
Man..."

- Dionysus Since 69

in which Cara makes a wish

... On another note:

I really, really, reaaaally want a kitten.

Somebody be my Secret Santa?

so last night I had a really odd dream, in which:

we were back at Warwick. (beats me why; it's been a while since i last thought about it)

We were back at Warwick, and it was just Joe and i, for some reason, and for some reason, everyone was gone.

And it was just corridors upon corridors of rooms- we went in every one; we would open each door and behind each door would be two beds: massive, warm, soft beds, and each with a JM's name carved into the headboard. A la the Seven Dwarves, only that much cooler.

only, for all that massive warm softness; you could feel the silence in the sheets/ the queer, pervasive sense of absence.

"...everyone's gone." (this said softly, quietly, almost to self)

he was sad but kind of okay with it. "Let's go. This is Yesterday and it's time to close the door behind it." ... already walking out.

And in my dream, inexplicably, I was crying in a dress of pastel as I closed the door; and as I did the truth broke from my lips in a sob:

"... I want Yesterday back. I miss it so much."

then I woke up, and went to make a pot of coffee, and then remembered it was all okay. that is all.

" We waited for the storm in the static houses.

'...but the weatherman promised,' you said, insistent, low tremor of your voice like thunder and cereal wrappers through the radio. Darkness took things and twisted them in strange and fantastical permutations: fences into Great Walls, words into warnings, the not-quite-moon above your head pluming into a strange and unholy halo. I should have run.

There was something about this storm.

When rain comes in the night, it brings peace to the lonely, fills 2AM offices with the sound your mother's linen dress made as she tucked you into bed, ...etc etc sad and silent lull etc etc...: for a time, the glide-chug-stamp of the printers are muffled by the sound of laughing, a lullaby, the chime of mothers thinner-limbed and happier.

Not this storm. (This storm was dangerous-)

We saw it coming from a mile away. It sizzled, simmered, murmured half-forgotten hexes so the air around us crackled with a deep and dark magick; we were alive,

we were waiting, we were

dangerous/

beautiful/

insane

and desperate for rain.

Later on I stood outside in the hot, sharp air,

torso bare and cupped by the manic hands of the babbling night,

hair plastered to damp shoulders. "...siren" you whispered

and ~flash~.

the story convolutes and we were back indoors, dark Montague, do you remember?

the house of windows became a house of walls and the NO NO NO of everything we could not do shimmered through the corridors--

i wanted the nightmare, you wanted the awakening, we wanted the terrible paperback tale without the grim resolution

you tried to tell me something but I bit it back down into your lip and clutched you till you swallowed; you

pushed me against the wall until I smiled and said "more"; i

talked time and tarshish into your throat

until your gag reflex kicked in and you slumped by the wall murmuring "the storm, the storm, the storm..." "

- Abeer Mos. E, adapted from "The Rabbit's In The Bush!"

rant on packing:

I think moving house comes very close to being a new form of Chinese water torture.

My days have comprised sitting desolately amidst heaps and heaps of boxes and general Junk That Might Be Useful and wondering what in Hades possessed me to buy so many hats... who did I think I was- Cerberus???

On another note; one of the ginormous cardboard boxes containing loads of my jewellery and bags has mysteriously gone missing. I've trawled the entire up and down of Nemesu looking for it, inc the back room where most of the boxes I've kept.

My maids mean well but unfortunately don't spell as well as they mean, so most of the boxes have ended up with very dubious names: eg "Blower", "Horse", "Tois", "Sir's Balls (for games)".

I have spent about half an hour sifting through boxes of Kookery and Washing Tings, looking for my big box which apparently has been given the ambiguous label of "Cara's Staf"...

... there are about 11 boxes of Cara's Staf, verdammt!

Onward, ho.

Le sigh.

Dio, to Lisa, about H3: "So do it, then. Do a new one. It's all about the versions."

Cara, watching him leave: "... What's all about the virgins?"

Lisa: "If you're going to Europe- stay. in. a. hotel. Europe is a developing country."

Cara: "...Europe isn't a country."

(LISA YOU'RE A GEOG KID FO SHAME)

Joan: "I'm sure there's a YMCA in Greece where you can stay, Cara!"

Lisa: "Not all the men in the YMCA are very Christian!"

Amrit: "That's okay! God loves all!"

Lisa: "The problem, Amrit; is when they love you more than you love them!"

Cara, annoying the Science kids during a particularly intensive Chemistry mugging session: "... Call me Bond. Chemical Bond."

Josh: "...But they're NOT going to moderate the Lit marks!"

*turns to Cara* "How many marks did you miss your A by?"

Cara, pokerfaced: "I didn't miss my A."

Josh: "Oh."

[The Difference Between Arts Kids and Science Kids]

Carol: "Roses...lilies...no, no." *turns to Cara* "What type of flower is it that changes colour from pink to blue in different PH water?"

Cara: *funny look* "... Plastic?"

Carol: "Uh no." *turns to Xu Yang* "What type of flower is it that changes colour from pink to blue in different PH water?"

Xu Yang: *funny look) "...Litmus?"

Amrit: "And then my mum was all OH MY GOTT AMREET you better wake up your idea lorh!!"

Josh: "Your mum doesn't talk like that."

Amrit: "I know. But I like to pretend that she does."

Josh: "And then my mum was like JOESHUA WHY LIKE THAT ONE"

Amrit: "Your mum doesn't talk like that."

Josh: "Uh. Yes. Yes she does."

Amrit: "So if you have one white and buff guy, and you have one black and skinny guy..."

Josh: "I wonder what kind of kids they'd have."

Lisa: "... they wouldn't HAVE kids."

Josh: "But how dyou know if you're gay?"

Cara: "If you look at guys and something happens down there."

Amrit: "Come on Singaporeans! We are United In Failure!" *rallies*

Cara: "Yeah!!! ... wait, what?"

"I'm going to look like a whale so Hayden Panettiere will save me."

Mum, referring to the NJC poster: "Why're there two such dark people on the NJ poster? Isn't it supposed to be multiracial? Then why is it Chinese Indian Indian Chinese?"

Cara: "No, mum. It's Chinese Indian CANOEIST Chinese."

Mr Menon, to the P.E class, and Jason and Justin: "So we only have two whoolesome guys--"

Josh: " -.- "

Mr Menon: "... OH! Hi."

Mr Menon: "Forgetting your PE kit on the first lesson is called amnesia. Forgetting your PE kit in subsequent lessons is punishable by the penal code."

Mrs T: "If you take O Levels, you have access to a certain pool of men.

If you take A Levels, you have access to a certain pool of men.

And if you take PhD..."

KKY: "... Then there will be no men."

Lisa: "Cara, I bet you slipped off for a tryst with Shahab."

Cara: "It was a DIPLOMATIC VENTURE. I was trying to make peace with the Arab states."

Lisa: "I know exactly what that Arab state wanted to make with YOU. ;) "

Carol: "I mean, happiness is only temporary. If you're happy now, it's because you decide to be. If you're happy during bad times, it's because you decide to be. And if you're happy all the time-"

Cara: "then you deserve to be medicated."

Shakti: "What's a ho?"

Lisa: "A variant of a garden tool."

Shakti: "Oh. Then what's a rake?"

Dora: "Another kind of garden tool."

Shakti: "Oh. Then what's a pimp?"

Cara: "It's what comes before a pimple. Like, y'know. '...don't pop that pimp'. "

Shakti: "Oh."

Amrit: "This is given by God. No matter your rationality! ... I mean nationality!!"

Lisa: "I googled black comedy and I got-"

Cara: "- racist jokes."

I like your all-American swagger.

... Unfortunately; Smart also has the A Level grades that get you into NUS Law, and nobody really wants to listen to your Stories unless you're Edwin Thumboo or Catherine Lim, or maybe Perez Hilton.

It's Tuesday.

I'm not quite sure what to feel about Time any more- because on one side, I reaaaally want it to be Friday; but on the other hand- I reaaaally DON'T want us to get any closer to Prelims; we're in an uncomfortable enough proximity as it is.

So I'm not going to say anything.

It's...just Tuesday.

I got to sleep at past 2AM yesterday. I'd like to say it was because I straggled in through the front door at 1:16, all messy hair and mascaraed eyes and streaming glitter from some psychedelic press-up of bodies.

Unfortunately...no. Was because I was curled in front of the computer in my dark-rimmed glasses and an oversized shirt, frowning at a particularly tricksy SEA essay question and wishing just a little bit that I was less great at writing rambly unpoetry and maybe a little better at writing straight. precise. meticulous A Level History essays instead.

Di's recital was lovely, though.

(...i'm narrating this in reverse. Is disorienting, esp on too little sleep and not enough coffee. I'll start from the beginning.)

Past 6PM: Met Erik @ Wheelock.

I got distracted by the lights on the ceiling, scrawling like spiders in their frame of silver metal going further further further back-- i started wheeling around slowly so i could make the stars spin. I'm sure I looked completely normal.

I also love it when Coincidence does a POP so we meet people who aren't quite kindred spirits, but are still pretty cool and have twinkling eyes. I sifted out the Goddess book I was searching for and arranged myself in a corner to see if my Primary Pathway followed that of Athena, Aphrodite, Persephone, or Artemis and I ended up making friends with this guy across of me who kept looking across and smiling and was reading the third installment of Eragon. I've always been more of a Tolkien girl (that one line in the movie Eragon just completely turned me off it: "...To the skies, to the skies! To fight or to die! *brandishy move*) but it's always great to meet a fellow g33k- which as it turned out- he was. Talked skimmedly about Steven Erikson and my marginally embarrassing 12-year-old fanfiction.

... Long live the misfits.

Di's recital @ the Arts House was lovely. Of course it was.

When she walked in, I did a little half yay-half whistle and called out "im meleth nin, Goddess!" and people turned a bit to look and it felt odd, the alien words ringing in the air- but they felt so natural. She and I speak to each other in a conglomeration of German and Elvish all of the time, and the words tripped off my tongue perfectly; and even "Goddess" was intonated with an odd lilt I never intended to happen.

I watched her face the entire time.

There are stories in my Di's eyes- there are the words of generations; there is lovelight.

Afterwards, we four (Cephas, Erik, Diana, Cara) lounged on the overstuffed blue sofas and laughed and talked about- oh, silly, deep things. Paradoxical, but the night grows hazy even now- I just remember warm faces and the texture of Diana's leopard print gown and me inclining my head to kiss Zeddicus and his pretty eyes of black onyx. Past lives: Erik was a traveling man (we all didn't see that one coming), Di was a holy woman who basically prayed till she died (Di: "...is probably why religion and I are so iffy now, nee?") and Cephas wanted Genghis Khan but got a Yorkshire dairy farmer primarily known for his wife's avid midwifing skills.

The rest of the night went by in an up and down, slightly intoxicated haze...

Rapid exchange by the water fountain. Steady the rhythm in the background of the falling water slapping against white tile-- metronome to the words we bulleted out of our mouths: half incoherent, half devastatingly profound.

"so this is how you begin: DEAR ERIK, THESE ARE ALL THE WORDS I NEVER SENT..."

I like free word association; especially when we're belting it out nonstop with hands shoving in faces and chins jutted out, faux angry, the air crackling. What comes out is by turn complete poppycock and the words of the prophets.

"it is a ship to the stars!"

"a ship to nowhere!"

"a ship to the plastic stars!"

"...and the spaces in between our toes are what we try to fill with bank accounts/ bills/ 1.5 wives/ and a 9 to 5 job for a land that does not love you"

...something about cartographers climbing in between your braces and planes flying into your pockets, i can't remember the rest.

And then arms and trust and bright lights and you tried to make me fly. I thought I'd fall. I didn't, of course- you're not a commando for nothing. The airplanes in the nightsky that Hayley apparently wants us to pretend are shooting stars ain't got much on us.

-

today was tired, under-caffeinated.

Perked up momentarily during Lit lecture.

Mr Whitby: "So the reality is: that the lie Jack has been telling all his life has actually been the truth!"

exciting epiphanies.

Me, leaning over to Josh: "Guess what."

Josh: "Mm?"

Me; low, vicious, thrilled: "... I'm the Queen of Sheba."