On Fantasy...

I meant to update this ages, derp. What with uni and work and me just being a useless piece of shit...yeah, this kinda got abandoned.

Anyway.

One of the saddest things I heard about in recent times was the death of Diana Wynne Jones. Now, aside from the obvious Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, 1984 and Alice in Wonderland, her novel Fire and Hemlock is one of my favourite books of all time, and perhaps the one I've read more than any other. Someone's review stated it's one of those books that you find something new in with every re-reading, and I'm inclined to agree. It's an...obscure book, I suppose, based on the ballads of Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer. It's the story of nineteen year old Polly Whittacker, who comes to have two sets of memories, and goes through those memories to find out she met a man named Thomas Lynn when she was about ten and gatecrashed a funeral by accident. And as she remembers, she has to unfortunately remember the event that caused her memories to be hidden, and has to do something, fast, to save the man she had come to love.

Now normally I'm not big on fantasy, except Harry Potter, but I really love Diana Wynne Jones. Howl's Moving Castle is another great book (the Ghibli film was also wonderful, but rather different to the book), as is Hexwood, and the Chrestomanci series...augh. I intend to finish all the books one day. Especially now that there's not going to be any more. Sigh.

I guess the thing I like most about her novels is the characters...they're not all unfailingly good. Take Sophie, from Howl's Moving Castle. A firey redhead who is predestined not to succeed. She and Howl spend the entire book at odds with each other, and even in the romantic resolution, are still fighting (albeit lovingly). But Sophie is hard to like - as is Howl. I had to reread it to have more sympathy for the both of them, to be honest. Howl was a good for nothing lazy arsehole who kept buggering off to Wales, whereas Sophie was...kind of a shrew.

And you still can't help but cheering when that romantic resolution comes around.

I suppose it's not that they're really difficult to like, as such, it's just that they're not wonderful friendly happy people. So to speak. They've got a lot of personality. All four of the girls in The Time Of The Ghost are absolutely horrid, but I grew to love them all. They're just characters that you need to give the time to grow on you.

Okay this is incoherent, bluh. But yes. I was dreadfully saddened by this news. And I can only highly recommend her books to any interested readers out there. They're excellent stories that, if you give them the time, are well and truly worth multiple readings.

On Pokemon, Part Two...

I am pretty tipsy as I type this. It's amazing my spelling is going as well as it is, really.

I'm almost up to the third gym now. Just caught Victini. It's pretty rad. I love it now, though I wasn't too enamoured with it at first.

Ummm yeah, not much else I can say while incredibly drunk, bahahahaha. D:

On Pokemon, Part One...

These may well be the best games I've played recently. I speak of, of course, Pokemon Black and White. Specifically Black version, as that is the one I shelled out for.

The only complaint I have to make so far is with the grinding. It's an utter pain in the arse. Seriously, I'm grinding like mad for the second gym. Second!

Admittedly, the Pokemon are about the same levels as Misty's. Actually, thinking about it, the levels are comparable to Kanto. There's just less grinding opportunity.

I have a Dewott (Revolver), Drilbur (Yoko), Woobat (Anastasia) and Herdier (Muttstache) who comprise my main team right now. Drilbur is a champ.

The graphics are absolutely gorgeous and the gameplay is paced nicely - battles are faster, which is very convienient, and it's different enough to be a new experience, while at the same time being the same recognisable franchise we all know and love.

If I get past the next few gyms I'll have more to say, heh.

On Teenage Drama...

This blog was meant to be about Persepolis, and I intend to write about that soon. But, considering basically nobody in question will be reading this, I decided to be fifteen years old and write about some shit that's going down over the web.

Imagine for a moment that you're a nineteen year old girl. You've been working a full-time job but now you're unemployed because you've gone back to university and you're struggling to find a new job, but you're doing okay for now. You're studying Arts, you're modestly good-looking, average height average weight decent figure etc. Until recently (well, end of last year) you were in a relationship. You thought it was a decent relationship, because you were naive and caring. You were willing to continue a friendship because you're a nice person and because you don't like drama getting between friends.

A month later you discover that the scoundrel you'd been dating had been cheating on you for the very end of the relationship. Hence the dumping. Suddenly a lot falls in to place. Like why he was so awkward at the New Year's Eve party he invited you to (really, he could've just told you then), and who that not very attractive chick who showed up at 4am was.

Naturally, you're pissed. You trusted this guy and wanted to be friends with him and now you can see things clearly. How he treated you very poorly the entire relationship. How he didn't even have the courtesy to tell you about any of this (indeed, you found out through a good friend who had been told to keep quiet, wanted desperately to tell you, and in the end told you because they could see that you were hurting a lot and really needed to know). As you're pissed, you send a Facebook message that yes, it is a bit mean and angry, but you demand an apology. Not just for that, but for everything. When you were the one who apologised throughout the entire relationship, it's about time the tables turned and you got the apologies.

In the end, he finally relents and apologises, offers no explanation - that you also demanded - and half-heartedly claims to wish you the best. You tell him in no uncertain terms that you were too good for him and you keep your head held high. You know this is rather childish and not maintaining the moral high ground but you need to keep your self-esteem in check, it's often dangerously low.

You have a vague relationship, you keep moving on, you see him again and no contact is made. Though you hear about some drama that's happening with his family and out of kindness, you message him wishing the best for his family and wondering if everything's alright. You don't continue the discussion past a couple of messages, but you are glad to hear that everything's okay. You're female, yes, but you're not that horribly vindictive.

About a month later you're back at university, life seems to be falling in to place again, despite the no job thing (but that'll sort itself out). Your ex boyfriend continues to be a douche and makes misogynistic Facebook posts, and then with his tiny group (which, since your relationship ended, seriously diminished to only a few people) made a relationship chart. Most people would refer to it as a shipping wall, but clearly they would not get your references/the four relationship quadrants. A couple of your friends step in and call them out for their stupidity, and your best friend (the one who told you about the cheating) launches in, too, a little less subtle than the others. So then three people - your ex, his lapdog of a housemate (the one who fights all his battles for him) and a friend of yours start attacking him.

Now, you had no intention of getting involved. But you don't like seeing your best friend get attacked, so you enter the fray, and you point out the stupidity of what they're doing (and say that your ex needs to draw a relationship between himself and not having a spine - not your finest moment). The lapdog starts attacking you. You personally. You get riled up - you've always had a bit of a temper - and comment on how she's basically sucking him off, when she's fighting his battles for him. That means she starts attacking you more, about how your ex's new girlfriend is a 'European Upgrade' (as your best friend rightly points out, a few sizes upgraded) and has a healthier figure (you laugh - you have a healthy figure, she could stand to lose a few pounds, and let's not get started on the lapdog). But, you don't see the point in continuing. You know it's not worth it.

So they all celebrate giving you a 'thrashing', particuarly the lapdog, and then the next day your ex allegedly posts a status going "should've done this a long time ago - go fuck yourself, you bitch" and deletes you off Facebook.

And you wonder to yourself, why did you waste your time so much? And why, when most of the time you tried to be his friend, was he so quick to turn on you? And why, when YOU were the one who was cheated on, why everyone else seemed to turn on you?

And you realised that while you're one of the only people in that circle who's still an actual teenager, they're all acting like thirteen year old girls.

And at that moment, you're glad you're not part of that group any more, and you relish being in university. Even if you don't really know anyone, your classes are filled with intellectuals who are willing to learn and not act like little kids.

And you smile and post a slightly vitriol filled blog post.

On Greener Pastures...

I've always loathed 'Australian Literature'. Okay, maybe not loathed, but in high school, we'd be given such dreary, preachy texts like Rabbit Proof Fence (which wasn't too awful) and the horrific The Road From Coorain (and don't get me started on the telemovie adaptation of that, good God...) which made me despise the genre.

Which seems unfair, there are quite a few Australian texts I love. For instance, Tim Winton's Cloudstreet, while falling dangerously close to the preachy texts I despise, is one of my favourite books. Not to mention how I do rather enjoy Nick Earls books. Then again, that's different subject matter - they're coming of age stories in modern Australia, as opposed to dreary mid-1900s texts that spend a whole first chapter coming up with similes and metaphors for the dry outback (yep, that's The Road From Coorain. Urgh.)

Anyway, I digress. Today I sped through another book for ENGL2070 (I am on a roll), Amanda Lohrey's Vertigo. I had to fight a shudder at the subtitle: 'a pastoral'. Pastoral? Oh God, I thought. This is going to be so incredibly dull and boring.

But it really wasn't. While I wasn't exactly wowed, as I was with The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Lohrey's short novel (it's 140 pages, and the font is a fairly large size, not to mention it's a fairly simplistic way of writing) did manage to retain my interest and I would honestly have to say I found it a good read.

Even if it is 'Australian Literature'.

The basic premise is this: Luke and Anna are a married couple in their mid-30s, used to a life in the city but feeling run down and claustrophobic - particuarly Anna, who's begun to suffer from asthma, which comes as a huge disappointment for the very athletic and energetic woman. With this in mind, Luke decides that they need a seachange, and the two of them move out to a tiny rural town near the ocean, in order to start a new.

But as the old adage goes, 'the grass is always greener on the other side', and so it is that they (particuarly Anna) begin to feel disappointment with their new surroundings. And ghosts of the past continually haunt the pair of them, the very ghosts that happen to be part of the reason for their leaving...

While I feel that perhaps more could have been done with this text, I think it's the perfect size for what it is. It's an easy read and while it does touch on issues such as drought, is hardly 'preachy' (thank God).

Maybe 'Australian Literature' isn't that terrible after all...

On Puzzles...

Being a university student with extended breaks and no friends and a lack of funding and textbooks, I turn to video games. A lot. And of course, anyone who knows me knows that I love Ace Attorney and Pokemon with all my heart, but close to that would have to be the Professor Layton series.

Confession: The only Professor Layton game I've finished (and by finished I mean I've completed the storyline, I haven't actually finished all the puzzles, but I've gotten to the credits) is Lost Future - Unwound Future for the Americans. It's one of my all time favourite games. I laughed, I cried (much to my mother's embarassment), I angsted over difficult puzzles, I squealed in glee when I worked out a particuarly annoying puzzle, I Googled the answers in weaker moments...anyway, you get the picture.

I'm currently playing through Pandora's Box. I started it ages ago, but then Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver came along, and a myriad of distractions...anyway, I've started working through it again and it's rather hard to put down. Yes, having everyone ever say 'oh, this reminds me of a puzzle'...PARTICUARLY mathematical ones (ohai, I'm an English major) can get on your nerves. But often they're incredibly interesting and fun. And as the plot thickens and gets more and more intricate...the games become incredibly hard to put down after a certain point. It does take a bit of tenacity to get to that point, I will admit, but after that, you're just determined to find out what's going on. Twists, twists everywhere. Delicious twists. So so delicious...

...oh right, sorry, got carried away there.

I'm hoping to finish Pandora's Box by the time Pokemon Black/White come out. Fingers crossed!

P.S. I'm praying, every day, that the gods of Capcom and Level-5 will release Phoenix Wright x Ace Attorney in English...

On Collision Courses...

I have three 2000 word essays all due on the same day. Research essays, I might add. The bane of my existence. I haaaaaaaate researching. I will do all in my power to avoid it.

So with the knowledge that I had two of these essays due on June 3, finding out about the existence of a third...well, lets just say it took all my effort not to scream and cry.

Oh, my first piece of assessment? In-class presentation next Wednesday.

Admittedly, that's my own fault.

But still.

Anyway, I went to the bookstore for the third day in a row to spend my dwindling lack of savings but the line extended the whole way around the store and out the door so I gave up.

Back to the assessments, and I have the feeling by early June I'll have burnt out. Oh well, gotta keep up with it. First assessment is an in-class presentation on Jane Austen's Emma. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I'm a sucker for Austen. I love Pride and Prejudice (obviously), swear by the BBC adaptation and loathe the Keira Knightley adaptation on principle. Love the movie version of Sense and Sensibility though, same with Emma, hated Clueless...okay, you get the picture.

Anyway, Emma's an interesting read. Quite frivolous on the outside, but has quite a bit of story to it. Also, I see way too much of myself in Emma Woodhouse (especially in Romola Garai's recent incarnation of our rather imperfect heroine). Not as universally adored as Pride and Prejudice (again, Colin Firth, lake scene, SWOON!) but very much enjoyed. Emma is perhaps the odd one out of Austen's heroines. While she goes through the same trials (being a witty female who makes errors, learns from her mistakes, and has a happy ending), there's the fact that at twenty, she's a very rich woman who has no intention of marrying. As opposed to, say, Elizabeth Bennett, the same age, but one of five sisters to a less well-off family, who's encouraged to marry.

And of course, the modern feminist would quietly (or not so quietly) seethe at Emma's childlike behaviour, and that she has to be set right at every turn by Mr Knightley (who, by the way, is absolutely lovely in the latest BBC version), I can't help but love this text. It's silly, it's fun, I'm even looking forward to most likely analysing it for 2000 words (most likely how the male roles in the text influence Emma's growth and development, ohai Mr Knightley).

If I can be bothered to get off my ass and research, that is.

On Motivation...

I tried to go to a time management course today.

Obviously I didn't manage my time well enough because by the time I got there, I was told I was too late and I'd have to go again another day.

As it is, I now have a wall planner up in the study. I've never used a wall planner before and it looks pretty imposing. Especially with all those 2000 word 40% essays due on the same day.

It's probably a hint to not blog but eh.

I've been trying to read my ENGL2070 text for Week 2, as well. Ian McEwan's Saturday. I honestly can't get through the first few pages. It's not nearly as simple to get in to as The Reluctant Fundamentalist, admittedly, but the main reason is, embarassingly enough, that I'm too damn squeamish. The main character of Saturday, Henry Perowne, is a neurosurgeon, and as such, there are plenty of descriptions of operations he performs in the days leading up to the titular Saturday of the book.

I actually started flinching on the bus and thanked my lucky stars that I could just use my reading of The Reluctant Fundamentalist for marks instead.

Started HIST1201 today, too. Australian History. It's pretty interesting, I must say. 1000 word analysis of a primary source due in a month. Watch this space for my angst over it in about three weeks time.

Especially with Pokemon Black and White coming out in a week time. Oh God...I don't like my chances at motivation.

Still, for now, I think I'm going pretty well. Fingers crossed.

On 9/11...

Let me start this blog by saying that when 9/11 happened, I knew nothing of what was going on. In my defense, I had only just turned 10 and was more concerned by the fact that Pokemon wasn't on (boy, how little has changed). The world around me changed, indeed, but I honestly barely realised at the time. It is now, as a 19 year old, I only begin to know better.

This year marks the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, and I was reminded of that fact in a book I read today - Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

Hamid's book is a deceptively simple read. Picking it up for my English class (University of Queensland, ENGL2070 - Modern Classics, if anyone cares) in the bookstore today, I read about 1/3 of it while in line with students frantically buying up textbooks. And instantly, I was hooked.

Admittedly, the title was a little off-putting - looking at the reading list for the course, I instinctively flinched when I saw it. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Boy, that sounded like a barrel of laughs. Likely a massive tome on religion, no doubt an absolute struggle to read.

It may be a total cliche, but let it be said that I've never been happier to be proven wrong.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is an evening encounter between you, Stereotypical American Businessman (specifically a man, I might add - buff, well dressed, hardly elaborated upon, because it's not your story), and Changez, the storyteller. This man has invited you to join him for tea in a Lahore cafe, and you agree - albeit a little reluctantly - as he begins to tell his life story. About he, as a young, intelligent man from Pakistan, got accepted in to a prestigious United States university. How he worked hard and was one of the top students, getting a job at Underwood Samson - an excellent opportunity for a student of finance. How he met Erica, the love of his life. It all sounds very romantic and idealistic...

...and then, on the eleventh of September, 2001, as the lights at the cafe begin to dim, the story begins to take a grim turn, as life becomes far less than rosy for our storyteller. The dichotomy between East and West becomes clear, the perfect life he had begins to fall apart...

What happens? Well, this is something you'll just have to read for yourself.

Like I said, though, I never quite understood 9/11 when it happened. I have little empathy for the characters in this book, but perhaps that is for the best. Regardless, even without that knowledge, I still appreciated this book and would highly recommend it. It is far from a complex read - indeed, it took me little over 2 hours to polish it off - and is thoroughly engaging. As Changez tells his story, you feel compelled to listen, to find out how it ends.

And how it ends is perhaps the most interesting part of the book.

On Spaghetti...

Everyone has a recipe that, in their own humble opinion, nobody does better than their own family. They won't have it anywhere else, or if they do, they'll know in their hearts it would be so much better at home. For me, that has to be spaghetti bolognaise. Nobody can beat the Ganly family spaghetti recipe. I learnt how to make it from my mother, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say I make it as well as she does, mine's not half-bad.

It's a fairly simple recipe, too, which is even better.

You will need:

• 500g beef mince
• a handful of diced bacon
• 1 brown onion, diced
• 1/2 a large red capsicum, diced
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tin of tomato soup
• 1 cup of water (easiest option is to fill the emptied tomato soup tin with water, tbh)
• 1 tsp beef stock
• 1 heaped tbsp tomato paste
• various herbs and spices (I like to use parsley, oregano and chilli, but I usually throw in contents of the tin labelled 'mixed herbs' too, for variety)

Heat a large frypan and throw in a dash of olive oil. Put in the bacon, onion, capsicum and garlic, and cook until the onion begins to brown/bacon starts to cook. Then, add in the mince and cook until it browns. Once that's cooking nicely, add in the the soup, water (with beef stock added in to the water), and tomato paste. Stir, then sprinkle the seasonings. Leave to simmer while you cook the pasta.

Plain spaghetti is fine, I know I've always loved various alternatives like shells and spirals though, but that's because I'm childish. Strain the pasta and spoon in to bowls, topping with the bolognaise sauce and parmesan cheese (if you desire). It's also good with garlic bread.

As I write this I have bolognaise sauce simmering on the stove. The longer you leave it to simmer the better. Even so, it's a delicious recipe and well worth a try.

Unless you don't like bacon.

Or happen to be vegetarian.

In which case you shouldn't have read this post in the first place.