Return

Hey, you. I haven't written here for several years. It's difficult for me to come back to this blog. According to the list on my account, I have several other blogs that I've tried to start, but none of them have taken off the way this one has.

So I've returned.
Is this, am I, are you
the spring after the snow, or the snow after the spring?
The green after the white, or the red after the green?
The drought after the rain, or the rain after the drought,
The dust condensing into a star, or the halo of dust after stars die.

I've returned in hopes that I'll start writing again, writing in a non-academic way. I've stopped writing, I think, because I became aware of how problematic my writing is. But maybe that's not a reason to stop writing. To write it is necessary to re-theorize writing for myself, for you, re-theorize it in a way that allows, not precludes.

I want to write a space story, a space romance.

And I need to apply to that Queer performance thing.

Bullet proof

"It’s utterly immoral to be slothful about the qualities you have," said Lawrence Durrell.

Rewatching Project Runway Canada yesterday, I remembered how inspired I felt when I saw Lucian devote three months to creating a fashion show. Watching So You Can Think You Can Dance last week, I felt inspired by the drive and work ethic exhibited by all the dancers. Funny, considering that I'm aware of how TV produces, using editing, the (fictional) narrative that maybe if we pursue our dream enough and work hard enough, we'll be able to make it big in the world.

But without the narrative I feel groundless. Maybe these master narratives aren't always harmful (sorry, what, postmodernism?). I remember how driven I myself used to be, and I see how tired and defeated I am now. I know I need to pursue my dream somehow, or if not pursue my dream, at least do something that contributes to this world. I can't keep biding my time. I'm 22. I have a shelf-life.

Sergei said, "You have to find a way to pull yourself into a purpose-bound bullet."

Pare all things extraneous, remove rough edges, streamline. Harden, condense body and mind. Solidify willpower. Rocket forward.

I shall wake up earlier, I shall not waste my breath by sleeping after the sun rises. I shall not be slothful, nor immoral, I shall write reviews, I shall write stories, I shall apply to this, then that, I shall read more, see more, do more, be more.

I know I need to stop procrastinating, stop waiting.

Disappointed

Another year, another Pride Parade. Somehow I can't help but feel disappointed. Not by the Parade, mind you -- that was great -- but by myself. Because I've failed.

Failed to reach out in a greater way to the community. While others were doing meaningful work, I comforted myself by telling myself that I was doing meaningful work because I was part of UofT's Sexual Education Centre. I love the Sexual Education Centre, and I do believe I do meaningful work there (I wouldn't be in it otherwise) but it's a small University organization, and its reach is ultimately limited.

Watching the others march in the parade, I screamed at the top of my lungs and cheered with as much spirit as I could muster, but inside felt lonely and dispirited. Because in a way I haven't accomplished shit. I am so afraid of being an activist, so afraid somehow of reaching out to people and trying to understand people who are different from myself. In Lit Theory I worked  hard to understand queer theory and read feminist texts, and I agree with much of the theory, but I don't have the courage to join an activist group. I don't have the courage to go to the meet ups of any other LGBT groups, either. Why, why, why. Is it because I am

shy? I've tried to mitigate my social anxiety; I've even seen a therapist! It's still difficult. I want to volunteer for an LGBT organization, but I keep finding myself set back.

Going to Pride this year I saw another way in which I haven't done shit. I met several gay writers at Glad Day Bookshop, and read many articles written in OutLooks or fab or IN magazine or xtra by people who are most likely gay and/or queer. I want to write more, but now that I'm out of school I see that my output has been most pitiful. I don't really even have a portfolio, and all I've written is informal posts answering high school students' questions. I've failed; I have no discipline -- having written nothing for the last two months except for cover letters -- and I have lost any semblance of control over language I once had. In summary, I not only haven't done shit, I haven't written shit.

I think I want to volunteer. To be honest, I don't know if it's the best way for me to actually do something meaningful for the world but maybe there's nothing to lose (except time, except I feel like I have that in reserve right now) so I might as well

try. I am still going to apply for Youthline and ACT, but I am nervous. But I will, I will. And God I swear to you that by next week I will have written something, I will, I will not have written shit; I will write even if it's shit.

Winter Reading List

I'm done on the 14th this year, so I have a lot of time to read.

-Some of the books for Canadian fiction so I can get ahead in the course. Probably The Diviners, and Lives of Girls and Women

-The Scarlet Letter

-The Great Gatsby (want to reread before watching the movie)

-Who Has Seen the Wind

-Books I've bought but not read. e.g. At Swim, Two Boys; The Left Hand of Darkness

-Jann Arden's memoir... if I can get ahold of it

-some kind of philosophy

Faith

Things have been getting really stressful lately. Despite all my intentions to start a new website or blog, I still haven't gotten around to doing so, so I guess I'm sticking to this one. I actually miss posting in the club; it helped me sort through my thoughts and de-stress.

Anyway, I swear being in the humanities is a lot harder than being in the sciences. I have two essays due next week and I haven't even finished the readings. I'm so stressed out.

I gotta have faith. Faith that my marks for this term will be satisfactory. Faith that, even if my marks turn out to be less than where I want them for be, I'll be able to improve them in second semester. Faith that, even if I can't improve them in second semester, I'll still be accepted into grad school somehow. Faith that, even if I am not accepted into English grad school, I'll still be accepted, somewhere, somehow, by someone. Faith that, even if I'm not accepted, I'll still be able to make myself useful to society.

To be honest, I do not really know if English is the right path for me. What I know is that the humanities offer a different mode of learning--one which challenges and engages me, at least right now. Yet there is still something lacking--the focus on literary texts, which is the method of inquiry for the English department, still leaves me feeling somehow detached for the world. I kind of wish I took more philosophy and sociology in undergrad, instead of taking so many science courses (all of which felt similar in nature). I could somehow segue into sexual diversity/queer studies, or another field, maybe, in grad school. I don't know. I'll figure it out; I have faith.

Insomnia

I can't sleep.

Too many things on my mind lately.

Sometimes, I'm in so much emotional pain, and no matter what I do I won't be able to get rid of it. And then a few moments later, I'll be okay again.

I know it's I subject myself to the same thought patterns and the same emotional patterns over and over again, but I can't stop thinking certain ways.

I've tried my best, I've given much, forgiven much.

So why do I feel so tired? Yet, if I don't, why can't I just let things be? I don't even know what love is any more.

Sometimes I just want to go away for a long long time, forget about everything, and come back to see what has changed.

At nights it's the worst.

I toss and turn in my empty bed, trying to break free.

I swear, sometimes I feel messed up.

I'm immersing myself in classical music, and Shakespeare. The great anaesthetics. But their effectiveness decreases after a while.

I'm just going to blame it on the summer restlessness.

I can't wait until Moncton.

I can't wait until school starts.

But I can't keep hurting myself.

I have to stop.

Reading List - Summer 2011

It's been a long time since I've updated. I don't know why; I just didn't feel like posting anything for a long long time. Plus, school's been really busy last semester--even though I only have 5 classes. Weird. Anyway, since classes are over, I thought it'd be nice to start another reading list. This summer, my goal will be to read at least three novels every two weeks, with some poetry interspersed in between. Moreover, I think I'll write a short comment and review of each book, and I might even do some analysis for books I really really like.

The books I choose are not limited to works traditionally considered "literature". I think in order to become a critical reader you really have to read a lot of different genres of novels. I'd like to read some fantasy, science fiction, graphic novels, pulp fiction, you name it! Rereads of books also count--it's impossible to get everything from a novel or poem in a first or even a second reading, after all.

Here's the list.

Finished

1) The Farthest Shore - Ursula Le Guin (April 12-13)

2) Dragons of Winter Night -Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (April 22-25)

3) Fifth Business - Robertson Davies (April 25 - 30)

4) The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (May 3 - May 7)

5) To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf (May 9 - 12)

6) Macbeth - Shakespeare (May 13 - 15)

7) The Manticore - Robertson Davies (May 15 - 19)

8) Hamlet - Shakespeare (May 28 - June 2)

9)

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare (June 2 - 7)

Reading

The Sun Also Rises

The Fellowship of the Ring

Want to Read

"Song of Myself" (complete) - Walt Whitman

Lesson

I didn't make DragonBoat. It's a good thing because because I think, truthfully, either way I wouldn't have cared very much. I say this not because I am bitter from not making the team; rather, it's because I've been rejected from the team that I can see more clearly now. Trying to mold myself into a part of this team has cost me.

I have lost time, and also I have lost myself. Recently Andrew made me realize I've become rather complacent regarding queer issues and goals I used to be focused on. And he's right. Rather than continue the fight against sexual discrimination as I'd been doing, I've been avoiding those issues because I didn't think other people of the team wanted to talk about them. Rather than presenting myself as a confident gay man unwilling to compromise issues important to him - as in the past - I've crumbled, and compromised.

Are athletics really that important to me? Not really. I have felt more fit in the last few months - but that's it. At the end of the day does my body, my already-fine health matter in the grand scheme of things?

And at the end of the day, does making friends matter to me? If there's one thing I've learned, it is that my duty on Earth is not primarily to make friends. It is not my duty on Earth to work in a team. I think I have been and will always be an independent thinker and someone who lives by my own principles and visions. In fact I'm a loner. But I think that's wholly natural. Working on a team bends these principles and skews these visions and while teamwork is a valuable skill to have, perhaps it is a skill better left to other people. That is not to say I don't need friends, because when I meet people I do click with I love those relationships.

And that is not to say I don't enjoy meeting people. But often a casual acquaintance is enough - enough for a lifetime.

Dearest, I have lost much, and have gained in place not enough.

To Stop Feeling Futile

We discussed "Song of Myself" in poetry tutorial today. I have not yet read the whole thing, but I think it is beautiful. My favourite section so far is the following passage:

Through me forbidden voices,

Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil,

Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd.

I do not press my fingers across my mouth,

I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart,

Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.

I believe in the flesh and the appetites,

Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from,

The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,

This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

What I recognize in this passage is courage - the courage that must have been necessary, in Whitman's time, to stand up for the status of the body and the value of sex. Evidently this courage would be necessary even today, as people were laughing in my poetry class about his erotic language.

What Whitman reminded me is that poets must write for the people, and that poets must stick true to their vision. Poetry is not just a vehicle for excessive emotions. Poetry has the power of vivid and sometimes frightening imagery, as well as memorable phrasing - they use these tricks all the time in advertising - so it does have, in part, the responsibility of nurturing new values, of changing the societal landscape.

I am only twenty. It is stupid to be anxious over whether or not I will end a writer, just because I don't always have a poem in progress in my mind. I do not yet have the vision Whitman or Wordsworth had. The important thing is that I've pushed myself. But beyond that, it doesn't matter if I don't get published or not this year. I've done a lot of work this school year already: I've started to learn about poetic theory; I've memorized many poems; I've pushed myself to read more, and to read with an open mind, and read not only famous poets but less respected ones as well. Because if I really want to call myself a writer, I need to live and breathe literature - the common as well as the canon.

For now, that's enough. No need to feel that my efforts are futile. I might not even become a writer if things don't work out.

School is getting better. I don't mind the labs or physics classes as much anymore. It is foolish as well to think that science is not useful. These will probably be my last physics classes so I'll just have to enjoy them while I can. No need to feel that they are wastes of time.

How soon, unaccountable, I became sick and tired

I haven't been posting much lately. In fact, I haven't been writing much lately at all - no poetry, no ideas for poetry. I've been feeling lazy, tired, sick.

Part of it is school. I just don't really like my classes, other than Fantasy&Horror and Poetry. Apart from those two courses, this term I have Practical Physics, Classical Mechanics, and Basic Statistical Mechanics. In fact I added Classical Mechanics after dropping two classes - Introduction to Real Analysis, and Theories of Sexuality: Contemporary Perspectives. The former I dropped because I did not have enough energy to sit through another math class for a semester; the latter I felt was too philosophical. I'd bought the textbook--non-refundable--and I was sitting through the second class and halfway through I realized I had no idea what the professor was talking about, and moreover that I felt sick discussing sex through a lens so philosophical. I preferred the approach we took in UNI255, investigating studies of actual human sexual behaviour, not examining vague declarations how sexuality is "liminal" or how it simultaneously "permeates, fuels, and yet subtracts itself from the predominant economy of exchange in capitalist societies" -- which is basically saying nothing, nothing, nothing at all.

Subsequently I swallowed my pride and emailed the whole class to resell my non-refundable textbook for a slightly lower price, then dropped the course, and math. I needed a 5th course, and I'd sat through the first class of Classical Mechanics and it's the only core third-year physics course I lack, so it was the logical choice. As well, Adrienne, Desmond and Cassie are in the class.

Recently, though, I've been overwhelmed by the despair that I get from studying science. I had a long chat with Adrienne tonight about this and I recalled this poem by Walt Whitman, entitled "When I heard the learn'd astronomer".

When I heard the learn'd astronomer;

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;

When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure

them;

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in

the lecture-room,

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;

Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

I used to dislike this poem, used to think, "What does Whitman know about astronomy and physics?" But perhaps he knew more, because right now science makes me feel just sick to the core. In my childhood I remember being entranced by the planets, the cratered face of Mercury, the smooth icy crust of Europa under which lay a vast subterranean ocean. This fascination with space is what drew me to physics in the first place. But this fascination is gone and in its place only a deep sense of loss.

In my Fantasy&Horror class, we read Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories" -- his treatise on the genre of fantasy literature. In it he talked about "recovery", the regaining of a clear view of our universe. And he says, "We should look at green again, and be startled anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red. We should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then perhaps suddenly behold, like the ancient shepherds, sheep, and dogs, and horses— and wolves. This recovery fairy-stories help us to make."

This is what I need. Recovery. The power to behold even the planets and stars anew. This light only literature ignites, only language calls forth.

To The New Year

My new years' resolutions.

To sleep more. To sleep on time. To learn how to manage my time. To write more. Perhaps more importantly, to write without self-censorship. And to write without shame: to transcend that paralyzing emotion. To not worry about whether written works are successes or failures. To write a little every day - it adds up. To experiment with a larger amount of poetic forms and imagery. To get published. To read more. To survey, absorb, and experience different kinds of writing and of literature. To become more aware of language, and how writers in the past have used it. To learn how to rhyme in more interesting ways. More broadly, to become more involved in the arts: to play piano more frequently, to become exposed to different types of music. To help in the fight against sexual discrimination of all kinds. To develop the vocabulary necessary to talk and argue convincingly about sexuality. And again, to talk without sex and its associated subjects without shame. To join an anti-homophobia group. To develop a personal philosophy. To stand up for my own principles. To accept responsibility; to reflect on faults; to look on the world with unwavering humility and wonder. To forgive when understanding is not possible. To remember, cherish, love.

Here's to the new year, everyone.

What is "Literature"?

Today, after working out with Andy at Hart House, I decided to go to Indigo at Bay/Bloor to see if they had anything good for their boxing week sale. It turned out that they were offering 30% off all hardcover books. I started wandering around the shop, looking for a hardcover book I would be interested in.

Thirty minutes later I was starting to feel severely disappointed. I'd searched the whole bookstore, from the Fiction sections to the Ideas section, but no -- as huge as the bookstore was, apparently no one had ever felt the need to add an LGBT section. This is despite there being books on religion and self-help and poetry and philosophy and psychology and current news and fashion and beauty and sports and alternative health (saw a bodybuilder-type person on one of their covers) and Asian Cooking.

Not that I should've had much hope for LGBT literature being in a mainstream bookstore to begin with, but come on. It seems like this systematic alienation of LGBT youth and adults will never end. I did stop by the sexuality section and typically, it was mostly straight vanilla stuff, all girls with lipstick and stereotypical imagery, aimed towards people who have no experience nor training in these fields at all. I saw one or two gay/lesbian books. Something hit me at that moment. I started to wonder whether it is appropriate to even define something as vague as "literature".

People will say, "I study English literature". "I love literature." But really, is "literature" just another socially regulated category, some elite group of books that have been deemed socially acceptable? Ideally, what good "literature" is should be based on solely the quality of the writing and language and ideas. But this is never really the case, and claiming that literature is everything that's "good writing" completely ignores other factors that people use to define and delineate what good literature is, such as the author's existing fame or lack thereof, the author's cultural background, the readers' cultural backgrounds, or even luck. If someone today wrote an extremely well-written book with evocative and new language and intricate and innovative ideas, would it be noticed if the subject of the book was BDSM? Or would the inclusion of BDSM automatically banish it to the realm of "alternative reading"?

Or, worse, would it be censored, suppressed, erased from the face of the earth? In UNI255 I watched a film I watched called Little Sister's vs. Big Brother, which detailed the legal battles of a bookstore (Little Sister's) to stop the censorship and seizing of gay and lesbian materials, including s/m materials, by the government (via Canada Customs). I distinctly remember one participant in the movie who said that the government was in fact speeding up the disappearance of a literature: many the authors who'd written the books had died from AIDS and the seizing of the materials precipitated their being unnoticed and forgotten.

This leads me to a personal conundrum which I have never been able to resolve. Is the whole process of delineating what 'good art' problematic? But if the concept of high literature did not exist could we ever separate what is wonderfully or inventively expressed to what is clumsily written?

After my adventure at the bookstore I popped into Calvin Klein to see if they had any nice underwear on Boxing Day sale. While I was looking through their racks a masculine-looking gay man was speaking to the sales clerks and was telling them that he went with this underwear instead of that underwear because that underwear he'd seen on people who are "really gay".

Two Should Not Be the Magic Number

A few weeks ago, I made the mistake of dating someone who had different views towards sex as the ones I hold. The person in question had told me that he was "open" about sex, but I should have clarified what "open" meant.

I hate it when people use words like "slut", "dirty", and (especially) "perverted". These words are used to regulate sexuality, and to classify - as Gayle Rubin described - what is good sexual behaviour and what is bad sexual behaviour according to our society. Promiscuous people are labelled "sluts" and pornography and sadomasochism are "perversions". Words like these perpetuate the shame that people feel towards sexual desires and acts, and it is this shame that deters people from exploring such a core part of themselves.

I truly believe sex and sexuality in all forms are beautiful and fascinating - and perhaps the most intimate and deepest to connect with anyone. And from now on, I refuse to date anyone who does not understand my philosophy towards sexuality. I'm tired of explaining myself and tired of feeling ashamed for something I should not feel ashamed of.

Some may say I am setting myself up for a life of solitude. I am aware that my dating pool is limited. I am gay, so I already have a smaller dating pool than most. But you know what? Some things are more important than couplehood. I will not have a relationship for the sake of having a relationship. I am sick and tired of discrimination based on sexuality and I have made it my life's goal to fight it. And if someone takes that battle away from me, I'll no longer have a reason to exist. If this means I'll be hard-pressed to find someone willing to accommodate me, so be it.

"But won't you get lonely when you grow older?" I know what you're getting at: but what is love, anyway? The word itself is so fraught and conflated with meanings. Yet we always seem to think of it as the pinnacle and centre of our exciting lives. Love this, love that, love hurts, love creates jealousy, love sucks. Why does two have to be the magic number? (Why not three? Why not one?) I feel obliged here to quote Shakespeare:

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O, no. It is an ever-fixéd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken.

(Sonnet 116)

Love is everlasting. That's all that matters. I have this love -- and I don't need couplehood to provide it, and I don't need to change my views on sexuality for it to appear.

INFP

At times, I'm so filled with self-doubt. I cannot help but look upon what I've written and feel that it's crap. I want to change it but I don't know how. I don't have the ability or the ear or the power. I feel like I'm deluding myself for even dreaming to be a writer.

And even if I do become a writer, who will read me? The world is so huge, and there are so many people who will not listen to a thing you say. At the end of the day, how the hell am I ever going to change anything?

Be self-confident! This is what people will tell you. But then they tell you not to be arrogant. That line between self-confidence and arrogance is so hard to maintain that at times I wonder if it even exists. I oscillate between periods of complete insecurity and periods where I'm calm and stable and convinced that I can overcome anything - you tell me where's the line.

This is why I'm doubting. I don't only doubt my ability to be a writer; I doubt my worth as a human being. About a week ago someone said I was arrogant and hateful (this after they also told me I was insecure, dependent, and clueless) and I felt terrible because I felt like these were unworthy parts of me that I have not yet been able to change.

In truth, I am arrogant. I feel like I'm so smart and I feel like I'm oh so wise and I feel like I can actually write well. Am I hateful? Of course. Even after so long, I'm still trying to get some of my personal prejudices ironed out from my thinking. Am I insecure, dependent, clueless? Jesus, you know it.

Then again, sometimes I think that it's futile to describe people using adjectives at all. That's one thing I did not like about psychology - many psychologists seem to simply assume that a static core, if you will, that exists within every human being and fluctuates little over time. You'll see this type of thinking in the general population too. People use them to categorize themselves. "I'm optimistic", people will say. "I'm bubbly." "I'm an introvert." "I ranked 80% on Openness on the Big Five." "I'm an INTJ."

What if phrases like these are not applicable to us at all? In Atwood's Cat's Eye, Elaine's relationship with her best friend Cordelia morphs over time. In their childhood, Cordelia was a bully, a tormentor, yet Cordelia was also a misfit and a dimwit in her father's eyes; in high school, Cordelia was Elaine's best friend, a mischievous girl who was yet sometimes insecure; in their adult lives, Cordelia is sent to a nuthouse. Tellingly, at the beginning of the book when she mentions Cordelia, she then ruminates: "[W]hich Cordelia? The one I have conjured up, the one with the roll-top boots and the turned-up collar, or the one before, or the one after? There is never just one, of anyone."

It's an observation that I've come to believe is true. I used to tell others that I am an INFP, taking pride in the fact that my principal mode of learning was 'iNtuition' and that my way of making decisions depended on my emotions ('feeling'). Today, I know that this is simply a guide and I adopt this identification less readily. I know: I'm still an introvert when it comes to many things. I simply don't like partying very much and at many times, I just want to stay home and listen to music, play games, or read a book. Yet, I can also be extraverted - I've met a lot of people this year and according to some people, I'm almost "socialite". Although I do base a lot of my life decisions on emotions, I also base a lot of them on thinking and logic. I think so much on the subway because I have so much time.

I am introverted, and I am also extraverted. The two aren't mutually exclusive because whether I'm introverted or extraverted depends on situational factors such as the environment I'm in, the time of the day, the people I'm with, my mood, and the other responsibilities on my mind. Similarly, I do depend on my emotions, and I also depend on my logic.

Whether it's because of something they've learned or some chemical doing wonky things with their brains, people change every day. Their reactions to something today might not be their reactions to something tomorrow, or even the next hour. I try to keep that in mind. There are periods of time when some of my friends always seem to drift away from me; there are days when certain friends will act nasty to me. I can't even decipher my best friend sometimes, and we're pretty tight. But I remember that they may be affected by the lack of sleep they'd had the last few days, or their conflicting emotions towards their future careers... and this is how I remind myself to forgive.

Please forgive me, then. I am arrogant, but not every day. I'm dependent. I can be insecure. (But you just said I was arrogant!) I can be hateful. I can be naughty. I can be nice. (Confused, Santa?) Alas, some will still insist on seeing me as one person. If hateful and arrogant come with a label that someone cast onto me after meeting me for two days, I suppose I'll have to deal with that.

Course Evaluations: Fall 2010

We've come to the end of the semester. Because it's too late and I'm too tired to do any more studying for today, I'm just going to list some of my thoughts about my courses. By the way, in my rating system 5 represents the average. I don't give pity marks.

Partial Differential Equations - This course turned out as expected, which is to say that I didn't really learn very much. Half of this course was learning about separation of variables and the Fourier Series, which I'd already learned in other classes - Calc II in EngSci, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, Classical Electrodynamics, and Quantum Mechanics. I enjoyed listening to Professor Sulem, and she cracked me up ("You didn't correct me"). Still, she always seemed to underestimate the mathematical prowess of the class: she explained everything in utmost detail and didn't skip any of the obvious steps in the derivations. This lead to a very slow-paced class. In fact, one could mostly ignore the plan that the professor listed at the beginning of every class because almost all of the time, only half of the plan would be covered.

Overall, the class was very easy and the averages for the midterms hovered around the A range. This made the course less stressful, but it wasn't really conducive to learning. Rating: 4/10.

Poetry - I have learned to love this course. Although the professor goes quite slowly and is sometimes too opinionated, I have begun to appreciate her wisdom and the passion that she holds for poetry. Someone on RateMyProfessors says that "Professor Reib

etanz embodies the spirit of poetry", and I am inclined to agree. I loved learning about meter and form am enjoying learning about rhetorical devices. In second semester we're going to be reading Robert Frost and W. B. Yeats in depth and I can't wait to sink my teeth into them.

The course itself has been easy so far. What is not easy for me is reading and interpreting poetry. It's still hard for me to interpret poems and sometimes I stare at a poem for an hour and I still don't really understand it. This course, though, has been a good first step in learning how to think about poetry critically and moreover to appreciate its intricacies. Plus, I can actually recite some of Shakespeare's

sonnets now. Rating for first half of the course: 7/10.

Biography and Autobiography - This was definitely one of my favourite courses this semester. Professor Jackson was very articulate - in fact, I'd probably say she is the most articulate professor that I have ever encountered during my time at UofT. Despite initial doubts, I really enjoyed the class material. I have never really paid much attention to biography as a literary genre; however, after this class I am starting to realize there are many things to in writing a biography. For instance, how is it even possible to represent an entire life well? Inevitably, life details get filtered, selected, twisted, and represented subjectively. Often details are not even accessible. Other interesting questions we considered include, "How are biographies influenced by novels, literary movements, and psychology?" and "How do different biographical models lead to different views of the 'self'?" Rating: 9/10.

Sexuality - To tell you the truth I am slightly disappointed in this course because 1) Professor Rayter's teaching style doesn't really appeal to me, and 2) there was a long section in the middle of the course where we focused on histories of sexuality and that was really boring to me. I was not really interested in reading about how sexuality was used to demarcate colonial power. Notions like "power" still feel too abstract and ill-defined to me. Thankfully, after the boring middle section, things picked up when the class turned to studies of stripteases and the lesbian S/M community.

Still, I'm grateful that I took this course because it's provided me with new ways to think about sexuality, as well as new vocabulary to articulate my thoughts about it. Specifically, I loved the theories section and I especially liked Gayle Rubin's theory of the "Charmed Circle of Sexuality" (see accompanying image: the inner categories, the "charmed circle", represents the sexualities which society unjustly considers good, normal, and blessed; the "outer limits" are considered bad, abnormal, and deviant). I am considering taking more sexual diversities courses next term. Rating: 6/10.

Classical Electrodynamics - Professor Paramekanti was extremely lazy. The last problem set was assigned on the last day of class and consisted solely of several textbook questions. Furthermore, he spent around nine weeks covering electricity and like, three covering magnetism (in the words of my classmate: "We've spent so much time on E, when will we get to B?") Overall, the class was okay but I didn't learn much. Not much else to say about it. Rating: 5/10.

Quantum Mechanics I - I did not enjoy this class. The professor put in effort, but he was still not a great instructor. Classes moved too slow and did not feel "physical". Moreover, the marking scheme was just stupid. 50% of our mark was allocated to 5 problem sets, which consisted of 1-2 questions always confusingly-worded. There was no midterm for us to gauge our standing in the class. No contest: the worst class of the term. Rating: 2/10.

Four lines

10:30 pm on the bus.

I look at my reflection, catch my drooping eyes

see my dreams, my lies

this guilt's guttering my veins. This sadness washing over me

but a familiar beat's on my MP3

I've got money in my pockets,

I like the colour of my hair,

I've got a friend who loves me,

Got a house, I've got a car

I've got a good mother,

And her voice is what keeps me here.

This song, for me, has always been about taking a step back and remembering to be grateful for what we have, instead of what we don't have. Often in our society, the tendency and temptation is to keep wanting more, and more. And don't we all want more at times? Perhaps we want more money; perhaps we want to be more beautiful; perhaps we want to know that many people love us.

This stanza for me is a constant reminder of what I need to be grateful for. Jann Arden tells us that although she may not be rich, she has enough ("I've got money in my pockets"); she tells us that she may not be beautiful, but she at least has features that she loves ("I like the colour of my hair"). She tells us that out there, there is at least ONE person who loves her ("I've got a friend who loves me"). The number is important. So many of us get caught up in feeling that we have too few friends, but perhaps having one true friend is having more than our share. Jann, like many of us, is fortunate: she has shelter; she has transportation; she has a mother who, while not perfect, loves her.

Feet on ground

Heart in hand

Facing forward

Be yourself.

These four lines are four of the most important in my life, and by juxtaposing them Jann Arden made them so, so powerful. These are what they mean to me:

Feet on ground - We must stay practical and down-to-earth. Without a grounding in reality, we may not perhaps not be able to accomplish what we want to.

Heart in hand - We must stay in touch with our emotions. Emotions allow us to exist as more than bodily shells, and allow us to empathize, connect, and bring light to others.

Facing forward - We must focus not on the past and what can not be changed, but the future, and what can be changed.

Be yourself - We must not be afraid to express ourselves. "Be yourself" also reminds me of the joy we may often find in being single. We don't have to be "a couple"; we don't have to be "a boyfriend/girlfriend"; we don't have to be part of a group or partnership. We just simply have to be ourselves.

Jann Arden plays this song at the end of all her concerts, and for good reason. I myself play this song whenever I'm unhappy. It simultaneously humbles, yet lifts me at the same time. I'll never tire of that swelling feeling I get from hearing Jann repeat these four simple phrases.

Feet on ground... Heart in hand... Feet on ground... Heart in hand.

Poetry - Conscious or Emotional?

I went to a poetry workshop today. So you are probably thinking that I had lots of fun and felt extremely inspired and excited that I did. But I'll be frank and tell you that I didn't.

The workshop was very strange. I found myself surrounded by a lot of older women - upper-class, judging from their clothing, though that isn't to say there were no other guys. The poet who led the workshop, while nice, did not really have the same mentality to me towards poetry. She encouraged us to do exercises in free-writing and to not think about anything: we were to just tap into the energy of the words.

Now, I do agree that words have different types of energy. A word can have specific or variable rhythms, pitches, and sound; it

brings with it particular connotations, histories, and associations. However, that is precisely my problem with free-writing. I can't not think when I write poetry because I need to consider all these sounds and meanings and associations.

In my opinion, poetry needs to reveal itself to be conscious. If I just took a bunch of words, and slapped them into lines, I would not be able to say that I'm writing poetry. Perhaps it is just me, by the word "poetry" implies some sort of deliberateness, some sort of awareness in the sounds and the ways to play with words, and what I was doing today was just breaking things up into lines. (I guess you could do that if you were William Carlos Williams, but you could say interesting things about his use of meter). Honestly, I have enough of a problem calling a few of my works 'poems' because I don't feel like my use of language in those works is quite conscious enough.

Perhaps that is why I like rhyme so much -- because it gives the sense that the poet is aware of the sound, and that the poet is skilled enough to weave the rhymes into a meaningful pattern. Maybe I'm just more of a technical writer, and I don't mean I'm a science/engineering writer: I mean I enjoy using analyzing and using rhetorical techniques. Without rhyme, I feel lost. In fact, since I started writing again, all of my poems contain rhyme to varying degrees.

I think that "freewriting" just totally ignores the techniques that great poets have used in the past. I honestly don't think Shakespeare freewrote his sonnets; his metre is too regular for that. In the workshop, some of the women kept smiling serenely and nodding their head to everything the poet said, and in the back of my mind I just kept thinking "no... I don't really agree."

The workshop was just geared more towards people who wanted to open up their emotions and express themselves through an unfamiliar literary form. I don't have a problem with that. I did though start to feel sick in that room. The combination of the heat and the blatant emotionalism was getting to me. One of the upper-class women actually cried because she got so emotional. I didn't notice until she made a comment about how emotional the workshop was, and said "You guys saw me crying". Apparently she had transformed a line about life into a line about death. I know, I'm being really insensitive and cynical here. But I can't help it. I myself was starting to feel strangely emotional about nothing whatsoever and I just wanted to leave the room.

Is the role of poetry to capture overflowing emotions? Perhaps it can be. But at the same time, I also believe that the emotion in poetry has to be somehow controlled and reined in. There has to be enough skill present in the poem that I can believe that the poet is someone who I can trust knew what he or she was doing. Furthermore, everyone gets emotional at times, but I believe we have a responsibility to put that emotion to use. If we all just spewed out emotions and arranged them in lines and published them... then what good are poems? What is the poem's function in the world if it can't persuade, if it doesn't consider that there will be an audience, if it does not alter societal discourse in any way? What is the point of writing another poem when there are so many out there already?

I really don't think emotionalism and consciousness necessarily exist as two separate spheres. Indeed, I think the times at which I feel the most inspired to and capable of writing are when they act in tandem with each other: when I am consciously using metre, sound, language to express emotions, and when simultaneously I'm vividly emotional about this conscious experience. When I'm solely emotional, I don't write poems; I write diary entries. When I'm solely conscious, I don't write poems; I write flat, uninteresting lines.

I realize I do sound cynical, insensitive, and perhaps a bit judgmental and defensive. Also I do not want to deter or intimidate anyone from writing or enjoying poetry; however, in my opinion, there is a difference between being knowledgeable and humble about the techniques of poetry and completely ignoring them in favour of unbounded emotion. It is like saying anyone could paint a picture if they "looked to their heart for inspiration" - yes, everyone can do that, but it takes years, talent, effort, and luck to internalize an understanding of the elements of visual art and more to develop the technique and vision to employ them. To use another analogy, i could of course say that "everyone can do physics" but it takes years and years to get an intuition for the field so that one can make educated, well-supported hypotheses and create precise, accurate experiments.

Someone please comment and challenge my beliefs: I need an outside opinion. As for now, this is where my argument stands.

Worship

Time for a poem, I think. It's a little raunchy, though (but you can skip over it if you find it is not to your taste).

---

Shove my face

Against your groin.
Grind it in.
I want to
Taste mouthfuls
Of that coarse hair,
Breathe nothing
But your body

scent. Pungent

Yet warm, like

Incense, incense.
Your body is my
Altar; here I'll
Kneel, please,

Please: drag my skin
Onto your flesh
Those rippling
Flanks and muscles.
Drown me in
Your dew, that cocktail
Of spit and sweet sweet sweat.
Wipe my tongue
Across the trunk
Of your hardened thigh,

Tense in its release.

Pin my

arms

beneath my back.
Thrust my

head

against your chest.

Intimacy isn't a held hand

or a hug or a kiss.

This

is what it is:
Power. Control.
What you
(in a white dress shirt, tight trousers, a gold-clasped belt, standing upright. the spitting
image of politeness: as not to offend others.

pretending to be the same so they don't doubt that you're sane. your friend sits across the
table. he's wearing a nice shirt and sweater and an eighty-dollar scarf. you give him a hug

but you barely touch. there is idle talk, trite laughter. the only things you touch are the
stainless steel forks and the droplets that have condensed on your glass of iced water.

you pay the bill. another forty off your till. the bills, the bills. you have no will. you catch a
headline. the government adding a stupid law. you have no power, control, nothing raw.
Don't normally have.

in history, have men ever been so isolated, so powerless
so controlled, so bound

so false?

But I will Offer
You these.

Shove it in then.
Don't kid. Don't lie.
You and I both know.
That love's not real.
This is.

~Me, Nov. 18. Poem inspired by Equus (the play).
EDIT on Nov. 20: Added some lines at the end and shifted around some lines.

Crapyrus

There are some days when I look at the things I've written and go "oh my god, that's so crappy. That's an awkward sentence. This sounds like shit. This is so cheesy. What the heck was I thinking?" And today is one of those days.

During these times... I feel very powerless and frustrated. Writing is the easiest and best way for me to express myself. I can't really speak well - even in regular speech I stutter - so I turn to writing. When I feel like I can't write, then what am I left with? I am consistently amazed at artists' abilities to share their emotions with the world: they are so brave. How do they do it? How did Dido feel releasing songs about her father's death?

Just writing this blog already feels so draining, and not a lot of people even read it. I secretly do think of deleting what I've written here sometimes, or fantasize (with pleasure) about ripping the sheets I've printed my poems on.

But perhaps what keeps people like Dido going is their belief that sincere emotion can and must be a powerful persuader in a logic-and-rationalism-obsessed world like today's.

I guess one thing I've always liked about my science courses is that there is no swoop of the heart when I realize your problem sets are being read, no tug of emotions when you deliberate whether or not a line you've written is sound. In a problem set, you are not expressing your own opinions, but your understanding of and your own slant on what the professor wants you to learn. But as I grow older, I realize that even science doesn't quite work this way at higher levels of study. When one moves on to a PhD thesis, one's research project does require a lot of intuition, and creativity, and personal thought; hence, it probably does become a self-conscious and emotional affair. The grad students I've met have been wholeheartedly immersed in their experiments, frustrated when a setback occurs, and delighted when they make progress. Moreover, one's thesis would be read by people experienced in the field and the scientific community is probably as harsh a judge as its literary counterpart.

No matter what field I pursue, people are going to be judging my work: so I mustn't use these feelings of self-consciousness and embarrassment and excuses for not following my dream. Undoubtedly I'm going to write some crappy poems or some laughable articles sometime in my life. I will just have to remember that one criticism or one bad piece does not make or break a writer. These feelings will have to be overcome and ignored in order to generate discourse in society. Unfortunately, there is no undo button in real life (at least not until Staples invents one), but if I'm too obsessed with perfection or pleasing other people, I won't get anywhere at all.

EDIT: Just got my first piece of feedback from another writer, ever. Wow, it really is quite unnerving. This is the first time I have gotten affirmation that I have some (no matter how little) kind of talent, at least, and am not blindly reaching for a finish line that I don't have the physical constitution to reach.

Song Analysis: Dido's "Grafton Street"

While listening to Dido's "Grafton Street" for the hundredth time on my way to school this week, I got the, uh, brilliant idea to try my hand at a song analysis, reflection, interpretation, and review. A true songwriter, Dido's lips are closed when it comes to her songs - she's stated that she doesn't want to rob her listeners of the opportunity to interpret her songs. Also, I've mentioned her songs before, but I don't feel like I've done them justice. So she is the perfect person to interpret.

Dido's Safe Trip Home is one of my favourite albums of all time. I have never heard a collection of songs so poignant, moving, and well-crafted. The first thing that might strike you about it is the cover - which depicts, in freefall over the earth, an astronaut: a white speck among the boundless black. I feel like this image was perfect for the album (though the person in the image is allegedly suing her for it). In this song, many of Dido's songs draw details from everyday mundane life, and her lyrics often find her forgoing an ambitious life for the comfort and joy of home and hearth ("I might have been a poet / who walked upon the moon / a scientist who would tell the world / I discovered something new / [...] / but among your books / among your clothes / among the noise and thoughts / I've let it go.") The other theme that runs through her album is death of a loved one - specifically, her father's death. The cover is ambiguous. It suggests that the astronaut is leaving the planet and departing into the emptiness of space... yet, simultaneously, it also suggests that the astronaut is approaching the blue, glowing Earth, and that he is on his Safe Trip Home.

Anyway, that's enough about the cover. Let's get into the song! (note that I am really bad at recognizing instruments, so you'll have to bear with me if I make a mistake :( )

Here's a video of her song:


The song opens a soft, chime-like melody, which is quickly joined by the drums. The timpani repeating a subtle, low-pitched motif (B - D - B - D - E, though sometimes the notes switch up) which gives the song a tribal ambiance. Over the beat and this motif, Dido's voice glides and we hear a Celtic-influenced melody in the natural E minor scale. The song title, "Grafton Street", is in fact one of the main shopping streets of Dublin (Dido's father was Irish). The absence of a leading tone in the scale means that the melody does not generally have an obvious direction to resolve in. This helps to establish a subdued, elegaic mood.

The first two stanzas of the song have the same syntactical structure, as well as the same melody (with slight variations):

No more trips to Grafton Street,
No more going there,
To see you lying still while we all come and go.

No more watching sunsets, it seems
Like summer’s holding on.
And no more standing quietly at your window.

The third line evokes the image of a person (who we can infer, quite confidently, is her father) not being able to move from a bed. The speaker is reminiscing about the things she used to do with her father - having trips to Grafton Street, seeing the sunset together, watching him from his window. The rhyme between go and window is subtle but effective.

No more driving down your road
Wondering when you’ll be home.
And no more peace when they all leave and leave us two alone.

The initial downward arc of the melody changes in the 3rd stanza. Instead, the melody rises upwards. This change is accompanied by crescendoing strings in the background; both evoke a sense of swelling emotion. In the lyrics, Dido continues her use of the anaphora, starting her lines with "No more...". This suggests an insistent, grieving pattern of thought; it also underscores the swelling in the music. The image created by the last two lines feels haunting and real: the image of other people ("they") leaving Dido and her father alone so that they can share a heartfelt, father-to-daughter moment.

And time we always lose... is finally found here with you.
My love, I know we’re losing, but I will stand here by you.

These two lines form the chorus. The first line, I think, shows us that the speaker feels that any time spent with her father is infinitely worthwhile. The next line, "My love, I know we're losing, but I will stand here by you" has got to be one of the strongest declarations of loyalty and love that I've ever heard sung in music. These powerful lyrics and joined by vocal harmony, more powerful strings, and - softly, in the background - the meandering, wandering melody of a recorder.

No more calling friends from the car
saying “I don’t know when
I’ll be there but I’ll do my best to come.”

No more letting you warm my hands,
No more trying to take it in.
And no more saying goodbye for the last time again,
And no more saying goodbye for the last time again.

The verse's melody returns, accompanied by an insistent rhythmic figure in the double bass. The strings also feature in this section, creating smooth, swelling harmonies. In the lyrics, the use of the anaphora continues as the speaker reminisces about forgoing meetings with friends so that she could take care of her dad (the first three lines). She also tells us that she is unable to say goodbye again for the last time to her father - as he has already passed away. Yet, "goodbye for the last time again" is the only line in the song that she sings twice consecutively. The juxtaposition of this repetition with her inability to repeat this line to her father this intensifies the feeling of pain and loss in the song.

And time we always lose... is finally found here with you.
My love, I know we’re losing, but I will stand here by you.

The chorus returns, along with the vocal harmonies and the recorder. After this, an instrumental interlude follows, made up of an agitated, rhythmic woodwind melody. After several bars, the recorder joins the woodwinds, its high melody soars over the other instruments. The interlude reaches a cadence on the dominant (a minor chord, since we are in the natural minor scale).

No more trips to Grafton Street,
No more going there,
No more sitting up all night, waiting for any word.

Nothing’s left that’s safe here now,
Nothing will bring you home
Nothing can bring us the peace we had in Grafton Street.

The first line and the verse melody returns, punctuated by loud plucked notes on the strings. The absence of the drums evokes a feeling of sparseness. On the third line the drums return as she tells us about "sitting up all night, waiting for any word", which means perhaps she was not able to sleep at nighttime because she was waiting for the hospital's call.

On the last verse the anaphora changes. The beginnings of the phrases morph from "No more..." to the more absolute "Nothing...". "Nothing's left that's safe here now / Nothing can bring you home", the speaker says. The speaker now feels afraid and alone in the world; she knows that she is now powerless in providing her father comfort and love. The speaker concludes the vocal portion of the song with one last reminiscence of the trips she spent with her father on Grafton Street.

A long instrumental passage follows. At first, only strings and the drums can be heard, playing harmonies that reach lower and lower pitches. Then the recorder once again repeats its wandering melody, as the strings swell in response to it. Eventually, the drum fades. The strings and the recorder play together for a while; then the the strings die out one by one, leaving the recorder to play its final, haunting E.

One cannot help but think that had her father heard this wonderful and heartfelt tribute to him, he would've had the utmost pride in his daughter. This is without doubt one of the most poignant, poetic, and personal songs I have ever heard and I will carry its wisdom and sentiment with me when I grow up and inevitably experience some losses of my own.