banging gates

After yesterday's outburst I had a good night's sleep. I dreamt about Prof Sciriha bullying me into telling her what the real word for a call centre is, and I also dreamt that a small cat had got into our house, but then it turned into a cheetah. I also dreamt something else but I forgot. Woke up to the sound of the wind banging one side of our gate into the other, but I must admit wind and white steely skies are great to study. I've given up on continuing the Sciriha write up today. I'll make myself do it in the library next week. At least there I do not have distractions. Just wanted to say that I'd been reading more than ever before exam period started, and am getting more excited about stuff than I'd been in years: books and films and similarly moving things. Just watched the first part of The Machinist but had to stop so as to study. Yesterday I found this: Kurtz reading TS Eliot's The Hollow Men. How genial is that?



"Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone."

elizabeth

evilness

I have not the slightest idea what unspeakable evils I committed to deserve feeling like the pile of shit I am feeling like right now. I am trying to do the Sciriha write up and trying to deal with the guilt feelings of having wasted an evening but I just can't. All I can do is weep and listen to this Take That song. I know it's soppy but its utterly lovely so all the cynics should shut up. I'm sure none read my blog anyway.

Anyways I have nothing more substantial to say, except that I feel like a pile of shit. And the anger I'm feeling at the moment is inexplicable and evil evil evil. Mah dear but this song is so sweet.

end stupid blog

liz

A splinter of ice

It's May and we all know what that means. The word bleakness, which used to be this vague fleeting sinking of the heart I got every now and then becomes a rather more concrete reality. Since basically all that awaits everyone for the next forty days are books, books, notes and notes. There's nothing particularly evil about books, mind you. It's just having to comment intelligently about them in essay form that can prove rather tricky. Today I realised I must be the worst parker and three point turner that ever crawled on the surface of the earth. I just do NOT get this stuff, and the twisted logic one must use to maneouvre it. And how is one supposed to be quick with one's hands while steering and slow with one's feet while maneouvring the clutch? I just can never soar to such heights of bodily co-ordination. I give up. At least a Beatles song came on the radio while I was driving. It's always heartening to see such remnants of humanity stuck around while driving in some unspeakably hideous place like the tunnels near the Junior College.

A few days ago I posted a blog about the amazing, marvellous, superb, brilliant, yes, brilliant, one of my favourite words in the whole of the English language, film that is CAPOTE. But I deleted it cos it just did not do the film justice. What. a. film. !!! It is basically about the story behind the writing of In Cold Blood, this "nonfiction novel", by Truman Capote. It is about art, and an artist's desire for recognition ("When I think how good my book can be, I can hardly breathe") , and how far he'll go in order to create great art, and the relationships he'll get caught up in. Philip Seymour Hoffman is just superb as Capote, and he transmits the complexity of this fascinating artist, who could have easily come across simply as a gay prima donna or else a completely clinical attention-seeking manipulator. Perry Smith, one of the murderers, will melt your heart and reduce it to a little seed (gungliena). I found myself utterly in love with him.


Anyways I got to be off to continue studying, Good luck to everyone.

Take care
liz
xxx

Is it just me?

I picked up an edition of Q magazine I'd bought about a year ago and I wanted to start screaming and shrieking and stamping on it. Why is everyone so hell bent on being called indie and cool while at the same time paradoxically pretending they're laid back? why? why? why? Why can't people just give it their best shot at making some good music/cinema/theatre/whatever and get on with their lives? Ok maybe I'm becoming paranoid but it's true!!! I remember seeing a sketch on MTV about an MTV2 presenter, and the guy mimicking him said this: "Hello, My name is Gideon Yago. I'm so indie and cool. Take me seriously." Don't you ever get the feeling that everyone's whispering that under his breath? underneath those clothes which are so skilfully worn to give the impression that the person just couldn't care less? At least, if you're eager to please, for goodness' sake, just say so!!! It's perfectly natural! I like it when people like me and think I'm intelligent/cool/funny/whatever. There, I've said that. Now tell me why can't other people say so too? Ok, I do know quite a few genuinely nice people without such pressing self-image issues, and I'm very glad I do, but what the hell is wrong with everyone else??? Anyways, I should be off.

PS A classmate of mine mentioned this band with a very ridiculous name but some lovely songs. Quite worth your three minutes.

Till next time,
Liz
xxx

Our small lives

Stayed home today even though was supposed to go meet Adriana and co. in the afternoon for her birthday. But we met last night so I guess it didn't matter much. Laziness and a headache got in my way. Argh I disappoint myself. But at the same time, I have loads to do, so better stop letting days slip leisurely by as I've been doing lately. Spent the afternoon finishing my CV. Hallelujah!!! As I shall be applying for a job at Centrecom next week, in my unwavering attempt to avoid the evil language schools. We'll see. Attempted to buy Werchter tickets online last Saturday, but am still waiting for the reply which confirms my success in said enterprise. Hope I managed! Because despite the fact I'm a non-camping wimp, I'm getting really excited about the whole thing! Moreover, I'm getting hooked on the Editors, who happen to be just one of the awesome folks playing there:D. This absolutely heart wrenching beautiful song is what I'm listening to something like six times a day at the moment.

Spent the weekend re-reading Heart of Darkness, which I have solemnly declared to myself to be my favourite book. Ever. I loved that book from the first time I read it, yet realised that my awe at it had not prevented me from inconveniently forgetting a lot of rather important details, which are expected in exams. And now, I fell in love with it all over again. You see, you read a lot of stuff, and you say this is really amazing, really good, really groundbreaking. Yet it's always special when you read a book you'd wanna keep reading forever, a book that really strikes a chord somewhere really deep in the recesses of your soul. Oh God, it makes me want to cry. Ah I'm such a child still discovering!!! A couple of weeks ago got really excited at table with my mum's aunt and cousin and my parents, when they were having a really serious conversation about the Belgian Congo. (My great-aunt lived in Africa for 50 years). I usually hate speaking about uni-related stuff with sensible fully adult people, because I'm so darn full of issues, but I was actually dying to say that Conrad wrote a book about the Belgian Congo! And it will change your life if you read it!!! Alas, they changed the subject before I came round to saying it. And that day, I realised something, apart from the fact that I love Conrad, and that I'm a social invalid, as my sis would say. I realised that our small lives, our ordinary lives, are made extraordinary or special by these 'small' things: books, plays, songs, and in an action as simple as quietly (read: not to impress or boast) mentioning these things to others, we are trying to assert that this seemingly meaningless existence, actually means something, that this humanity is not just a glorified animal, but something MORE. Which is why I think that a society which considers arts students as superfluous and a financial burden is unwittingly letting its own humanity slip through its fingers.

I'd been dying to write this, even though a gazillion people must have felt the same. Hope someone actually, you know, reads it!

take care,
lizzy
xxx

April

Sometimes I feel like life is this constant sinking of the heart. This constant delusion and dread at the same time, like you're shrinking from what awaits you and dismayed at what has happened already. Today found myself daydreaming about having written a great book, or short story at least, and found myself babbling away about it. At least in the process I got yet another vague, will-probably-lead-to-nothing idea about a possible thesis subjsct. Oh well, we'll see.

Weather just turned glorious. And I'm going to a rock festival in summer. Where there'll be Radiohead! And Sigur Ros! And the Babyshambles! and REM and Mika and the Editors and Lenny Kravitz and lots of cool people wihiiii!!! Hopefully Rain won't make an appearance though.

Exams timetable just came out. My exams are rather uncomfortably packed together, poor things, should get down to work, shouldn't I? They're packt like sardines in a crushed tin box. And yes that's the title of a Radiohead song!!! *Nerdy grin*

am off,
cookies and chocolates
Lizzy
xxx

Bleakness

wrote this a couple of days ago but didn't post:

I feel bleak. This is probably the first time this year I've felt like this. Nothing can cheer me up. I seem to be constantly moving in a current of flatness.

Granny died about a month ago. I just can't get myself to go back to the room we used to share. But she's in a much much better place now. At the end her health kept getting worse and worse. As my sister said she's now dispersed in the sunset.

Goodbye Granny xxx