Some great T-shirt slogans from De-Stereotype Day- "My favourite poet is Tupac" (white girl)
- "I am not an angry black woman" (black girl)
- "I can drop my booty better than you" (white guy)
I didn't wear a shirt, but what's a few ideas for next year?
- "I'm a FOB - now tell me that isn't sexy."
- "For a while, I wanted to marry Pablo Neruda."
- "I'm sick of correcting your spelling."
# posted by s. ning @ 4:46 PM
Fact: Secret of Life
When you can walk down the street and say I AM ME, MOTHERFUCKER.
Did a presentation on Alfian Sa'at for my Poetries of Asia class and it went wonderfully, everyone was very impressed by how young he is, although I think I somehow gave the class the impression that the PAP government consists of narrow-minded ogres, which I of course did not intend. I received this cute email from my professor afterwards.
Hi Shuang-Ning, I enjoyed your presentation very much and want to thank you for introducing me to the work of Alfian Sa'at. I have asked Alderman Library to buy a copy of "One Fierce Hour". It seems there is a later collection, "History of Amnesia". Have you seen it? If you hear of any ghazals by Sa'at written in Malay, could you let me know?
All the best,
Peter
I just received call number sixty-five from Bernice's bff back home, only to give her "Sorry, she isn't in," all smooth and polite in long training from my mother's phonecalls, but where is my roommate anyway? She appears to have vanished from life because of highly stressful and dramatic catering job, racks of wine glasses and colleagues who do nothing but smoke weed in parked cars.
End-of-term usually just means a lot of eating; at last night's CCF closing small-group there was shockingly authentic mee sua, mutton curry and guo tie as well as cornbread, pistachio pie and homemade strawberry ice-cream. Not to the mention the chocolate fondue that didn't come into being because Eileen didn't realize we needed fuel for the fondue maker. I want to have signature dish by fall. I love how everything that happens pushes me to try something new; not in peer-pressure way either. Then Gaellic TA quite unaffectedly brought cookies he baked for our last discussion, I could just see my female classmates mentally putting their hands to their mouths and squealing at how adorable this was.
I have successfully finished a post without a mention of finals. They are fine. There's so much to cover, but nothing that will kill me.
Han will be here in 10 days, I am too excited for words.
# posted by s. ning @ 3:56 PM
# posted by s. ning @ 5:12 PM
The only people you hear about Cynthia McKinney from are the white kids.I think it's wonderful how Japanese in translation always sounds sentimental and perfumed, while Spanish in translation is long, long sentences crammed-to-bursting with imagery. This is why I want to take comparative Lit. This summer, I am going to try to rediscover Mandarin the way I learnt English, i.e. the only way to love a language - read, read, read.
I still have 3 and 1/2 lectures to review for Bio quiz and US Latinas paper to plan and it's not even that much, but it pulls me in that I need to do well. As in, really, really well. What's the point of going to an American college if you can't get a 3.6 GPA, even a 3.1 GPA, huh? Not even a question. It closes in.
By the way, I can't take Mr. Oscillation Walt Whitman.
This is the press of a bashful hand.... this is the float and odor of hair,
This is the touch of my lips to yours.... this is the murmur of yearning,
This is the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
This is the thoughtful merge of myself and the outlet again.
What is a man anyhow? What am I? And what are you?
All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
Else it were time lost listening to me.
I do not snivel that snivel the world over...
I might hate e.e. cummings too if I really studied his stuff. Actually, I never talk about stylistic elements, and feel it would be better if they wrote down their hearts without thinking about shape or meter or subtlety or parallels or anything. Not the best thought of a potential English major.
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Essay - I take no clear stand. But I'd wear this.
I walked into the girls' bathroom at Newcomb Friday to find three guys excitedly putting on makeup and heels. Turns out, it was Drag Bingo night organized by the very active Queer Students' Union as part of Proud to Be Out week. I thought it fantastic, and at the same time surreal because I'd come from Good Friday service in progress just a couple of doors away, but caught myself. Why can't homosexuality be placed alongside religion, at all?
Easy-on-the-eye perspectives catalogued for you, i.e. sources you should make use of
a) Degrassi: The Next Generation. Season 5 Ep 14.
(I don't think I've properly explained the preoccupation with Degrassi, it's an effing teen soap with couples that shuffle like there's no tomorrow, but to my delight, raising Very Controversial issues is their forte.) In this ep, the Christians are mostly dismissed as small-minded bigots - please note their POV was dismissed entirely by the cool kids.
There's a loophole here too. Why does no one try to explain or refute the "it's wrong to have premaritial sex or be gay because it's in the Bible" rhetoric? Is it really a given that that's exactly what is said? Wouldn't Marco's refusal to talk scripture make him as much of a hypocrite as Linus the fundamentalist?
b) Gay Lesbian Christian Student Alliance (GLCSA) at UVA. I was so happy and amazed to realise this actually exists. Yet,
"Passages from the Bible and a long history of conservative teachings have supported many Christians' view that homosexuality is sinful."
Can we say, vague?
Surely, I can't expect a Nickelodeon series or college newspaper article to give a flat answer.
Only one way to find out. Where's my Bible?
"Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom or God." - 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (NIV)
My English TA said, "I don't think that term existed back then," when someone asked if Walt Whitman was bisexual. That's the point - sexual identity is a relatively new concept in history. They didn't consider the actual plausibility of concrete same-sex relationships, just perversive sex for the sake of sex. I think the actual gist of the translated "homosexual" would be same-sex intercourse out of sinful lust.
If that doesn't make sense, I have an example from Bent.
Two homosexual men, one posing as a Jew, a Holocaust concentration camp. A Nazi officer has the pseudo-Jew, who incidentally is Clive Owen, give him a blowjob in exchange for medicine. "I didn't know that bastard was queer," gasps the other prisoner, shocked. "Oh, no, he isn't," says Clive, "Can you imagine what he'd do to me if he knew I was?"
That was an essay about throwing difficult ideas in the air.
After the on-fire Mahogany after-party, seeing Em in the hospital again and wanting to cry because they won't let her wake up, meeting Anthony Rapp, brainstorming, it's a crazy world.
# posted by s. ning @ 12:24 AM
# posted by s. ning @ 4:55 PM
After much anxiety and resume-stretching, I am most likely employed for the holidays. Actually wrote to FiRST magazine asking for work and had my resume requested in turn, but I'll wait on that.
It's surreal as hell, but I'm going to see Ralph Fiennes in a Brian Friel play on Broadway before returning home for the summer! (
Tickets were a pain in the ass to get, let me tell you)
It is finally warm enough outside to wear shorts. I ran to main Grounds yesterday after a week of horror and procrastination writing two take-home exams both due on Friday at 5pm and skipping classes in order to do so. Got the exam in half-an-hour late, then Taiwanese Students' Association Night Market where the S'pore folks had a booth selling pork floss buns; it was fantastic eating carrot cake and bubble tea and fried rice on top of that, diverse and happy customers, spicy noodle eating contest for the ABC in all of us.
Then
AVP concert, the all-male acapella group my pop culture-loving soul delighted in. Where else would you find eighteen college boys who sing "Larger than Life" as an encore piece, bounce and flap like a rabid conga line, emo-parody Greenday, with a cauliflower-flinging audience?
The link and blab sectionExcerpt 1 -
When majorities talk about minorities______________________________________________
"Overly social-centered minority organizations can be counterproductive and actually further alienate their members from the University social scene... [common interest] groups will allow all types of people to interact based on shared interests rather than on racial or ethnic lines and to feel more like University students."
"Until ethnic minorities trek down Rugby Road* one Saturday night, until Southern belles sacrifice a mixer to go to an Indian food festival, the University has a long way to go in fostering an open social culture."
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* Location of predominantly white frat houses and hence, parties
This chick cited frat parties as an example of a cultural event. There's a punchline, right? Right?
I also find the term "Southern belle" kind of offensive, and I'm not even Southern.
Excerpt 2 - The honest-to-goodness Myspace account of Lance Bass
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"Don't know why I am on a book reading binge (cause i really have never gotten into reading) but, after I read "Here's What We'll Say" I am on "The Celestine Prophecy". I remember Justin reading it on tour, and saying how great it was..... now I am about to start it. Fun! It's like Lance's book of the month club! I'll tell you how I like it."
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Dude, he totally wishes he was Oprah.
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"I ran into some of the Idol kids last week at CBS... We share the same dressing room floor. I met Katherine McPhee, Lisa Tucker, Taylor Hicks, Chris D and Ace Young. They were all really great. I posted one of the pics I took. I'm such a geek!"
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I'm glad you realize that, because they are now more famous than you.
In case you were wondering here is said picture.
I absolutely love how Ace is already learning to drown out anything that leaves Mr. Bass's mouth.
- Degrassi High: The Next Generation - the most enjoyable teen soap and absolute cutest couple to avoid S'pore screens. Okay, so Marco is Italian, not Hispanic, never mastered the art of Crying, is terrified of bees, and has shifting hairdos that make him oscillate between looking like Enrique Iglesias and Victor Rasuk (bad Lords of Dogtown version), but you know, there's Unresolved Romantic Tension and Stuff!
- 10 Things - Some lovely person uploaded the entire movie on youtube so I watched it for the first time. And how come no one told me Heath is CLASS 'A' BUMBLY BADASS ADORABLE in it? I love the part when he yanks that bestial scowl onto his face and drills a hole through Joseph Gordon-Levitt's French textbook.
# posted by s. ning @ 5:10 PM
