very soon now we are going to drown in a sea of inter-referentialism.

soon we will be able to say nothing that does not signify another thing, and when that happens

the world will explode

into candy

dickens pisses me off sometimes.

yes his stories are brilliantly constructed. yes he is a master of technical suspense, and type, and theatrical voice, even if it doesn’t approximate anything real.

it’s just his implicit assumptions that his characters are either 1) irredeemable evil or 2) essentially good. it’s such a dangerous thing, it just makes readers kind of smug about themselves. Nobody thinks of themselves in any seriousness as a Pumblechook or a Fagin, and if we self-identify with Dickens’ heroes all our moral indignation is directed outwards at signs and structures and stereotypes which have no relation to myself. maybe if I read them as fables.

I suppose it wouldn’t bother me so much if his stories weren’t actually interesting to read.

edit: okay so Dickens was probably thinking of social issues when he wrote Oliver Twist. Still! It’s such a narrow message. We’re supposed to care about how foundlings are treated, but the criminal classes are an irrelevance outside of being plot elements? PEOPLE ARE NOT PLOT ELEMENTS

You can probably tell this has been bothering me about reading Dickens for awhile

discouragement / exhaustion are the most interesting kind of lessons

we’re a different kind of colour
on the other side of the lights

people people people
they are the time of your life.

strangers, empty highways, the inn and tavern,
the whole shebang,
alone among company -

it’s not important, really,
a kind of world’s-end wisdom
but it’s not important, really.

they’re there, and we never really die.
they’re moving on, and we never really die.
and the ones we meet move on to the next
it’s like a sum, just
carry the one

and the times they are a-changin’ but -
one carried the sum.
and nothing seems quite bad anymore.

you don’t carry friends around with you when you leave
but it’s not important, really.

asian pride

A girl from my class I meet on the way back from the library half tongue-in-cheek asks if going back and forth from the library is the only thing I do, because it’s the only time I see her outside tutes.

In my defence I was going back to fall asleep. After like 15 minutes of trying to absorb The Rhetoric of Fiction. Reading is hard.

No, seriously I’m actually kinda slack here. My anti-social tendencies mean that I haven’t really signed up for any clubs and societies yet (considering maybe the RockSociety, drama and the Christian Union), and of course all the go-getter girls (the boys just tend to hang around outside the dorms and smoke abit) are already doing a second language, rowing, insisting they want to bake etc. I’m just happy figuring out how not to get my bike lights stolen, finding out where the laundry is, and remembering to show up for the lit society meetings.

Geekiest moment this week: I walk into a guy from the lit class reciting the lines from Sylvia Plath’s Daddy to himself as he’s walking out to get a smoke.

Kinda want to start running, the weather here is perfect for it except when it’s miserable wet

over yonder

So.

I have finally gotten my internet working after about a week of being given the run-around by my mac.

I’m listening to Satellite Mind over my laptop speakers. I’ve just bought and put up a Gorillaz poster, a Pulp Fiction poster and an Audrey Hepburn poster. And my internet is FINALLY WORKING. Cool.

Here’s a quick summary:

1. Old british houses converted into dorms aren’t very…majestic. Damn you claire, and your brick-red monstrosity of a college. My room’s pretty sweet though. I got me a fireplace I can’t use but there’s so much space

2. Got my first assignment. It’s about pentameter. Brief panic attack when I saw the words ’spondee and trochaic’

3. My tutors are awesome. The senior one is this ‘back from the states’ dude who looks like an aging rock star / Richard Branson, has a habit of trailing off softly whenever he digresses or makes a witticism (which is every other sentence), and flashes brilliant smiles at people in pauses in conversation

4. I CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE BLOODY BRITISH ACCENT. My latent american one somehow gets more pronounced here. I have to keep telling people I lived in Boston when I was small.

5. People are really nice, but I’m giving myself some time to culture-adjust. Feel a little awkward sometimes, but I think I’m getting on fine. So many names to remember

6. It’s actually university. OH FUCK IT’S ACTUALLY UNIVERSITY Gonna get a bike tomorrow

See you cats in abit. I’m really looking forward to this

M.I.A.

This is quite awesome. It’s like what hip hop was supposed to sound like

the dark side

I’m posting this because if you look, the voice-work for the Joker is done by Mark Hamill

been working on your evil cackle I see, Mark

Meanwhile, Harley Quinn seems to be voiced by Fran Drescher from the Nanny

permanent forward

future/perfect/.tense

bullet train from out the barrel of a gun.