11/20/2006

i highly recommend anyone who's suffering from depression or burnout a regimen of 12+ hours of sleep followed by random lazing around on the 3 square metre area that is your bed.

once you've had enough sleep, way more then you need, you will find out what i mean. because you're perpetually half asleep, it's like you're always in a dream. that's just fantastic because you can start conversations with people in the underworld. that was orpheus' secret.

in the underworld, you're constantly peppered with visions of what you've not done, and what you could do. you think you're talking to the devil, when it's just your conscience speaking. i'd think it was divine intervention but i somehow suspect god does not work through sleep, though he does work in mysterious ways.

in a dreamlike state you think things like "i need water" and you go out and get it and you go back to sleep. was that my handphone's low battery? ignoring it a few times, checking and realizing it was a message. checking a website. going back to sleep...and then the morning comes, it's all cold and rainy, and you decide to skip today's lecture because it will make it all better.

then you finally wake up, check your email to find out you've received some articles, that you've got an appointment with your personal tutor in 20 minutes which you arranged because you thought you'd be at the lecture, and suddenly what everything they said to you in the underworld makes sense. you've got things to do, and it's as if they told you beforehand how to get through the entire week, and you've finally got a plan, contingent on the fact that you're not supposed to turn around or eurydice will disappear forever. then the rush to school, and adrenaline takes care of the rest.

i've never felt so awake and ready for a week on monday morning. and the rest of you, never underestimate the power of sleep.

i dreamt another strange thing, or was told. it was that not everybody deserves love, because they occupy themselves with other things.

11/19/2006

i'm a christmas whore

i'm one of those who believe you should put up the christmas stuff waaay before christmas is ever remotely near. what's the use of spending all that money on baubles if you ain't gonna use it, besides, we sort of decided when christmas was supposed to be anyway, it was supposed to be in the dark dreary winter when we need as much artificial lighting we can get.

i think i have adjusted worse to the lack of lighting this year. after the adrenaline-filled essay week, i find myself sleeping more and more. not just that, when i wake up, i listen to christmas songs waiting for christmas to come.

scarily, a kid on my msn just changed his nick to "who's going to 3-6 with me tomorrow?" so a sec 1 kid i once taught is now sec 3. oh my god teaching has got to be the worst occupation ever imagine seeing batches and batches of kids graduating and chewing up the years until you can no longer distinguish the individual years. then you're truly old and you're truly fucked. (tongue in cheek guys/gals, i don't want letters to the forum defending your occupation. you know we all luv ya.)

11/15/2006

reading hume and rousseau, and wondering how things got as they are, i always wonder sometimes whether there is a point to civilization? why don't we simply submit to our dreams and our passions and our instincts. why all this guilt, chastisement, all these fetters of civilization and reason? why all my reverence of stoicism?

i came across this checking up stuff for the italy trip again... and about this history of rome, which rousseau speaks much of. it's a confusing amalgam of myth and history, and virgil has made aeneas out to be one of the forefathers of the roman empire (he did get a vision of its future greatness).

just like my favourite passage in alice of wonderland is the knight bidding alice goodbye, this is one i like from the aeneid. i told ms rachel tan one day that in my spare time, i wouldn't read greek literature, but hey, people change.

setting: venus got her son cupid (who happens to be aeneas's half brother) to shoot dido with some love arrows. dido falls madly enough with aeneas, and during a hunting expedition a storm drove them into a cave where they had sex (wow, what a convenient storm). but then aeneas has a destiny, as is typical of most greek heroes, and has to leave. dido, queen of carthage has burned herself at the pyre after the heartless bastard aeneas left for the fertile lands of italy. aeneas, being the clueless guy he was, had no idea that dido was that into him. aeneas finds an opening to the underworld at cumae in order to find his father's spirit and encounters the dead. there he runs into dido.

it's so nice because here was crazywoman dido who burnt herself at the stake for this fucker, and when she gets to meet him again in hell she is able to detach herself, see everything stoically, replies with silence and returns to her ex-husband sichaeus, who she broke her vow of fidelity too in making off with aeneas.

Not far from these Phoenician Dido stood,
Fresh from her wound, her bosom bath'd in blood;
Whom when the Trojan hero hardly knew,
Obscure in shades, and with a doubtful view,
(Doubtful as he who sees, thro' dusky night,
Or thinks he sees, the moon's uncertain light,)
With tears he first approach'd the sullen shade;
And, as his love inspir'd him, thus he said:
"Unhappy queen! then is the common breath
Of rumor true, in your reported death,
And I, alas! the cause? By Heav'n, I vow,
And all the pow'rs that rule the realms below,
Unwilling I forsook your friendly state,
Commanded by the gods, and forc'd by fate-
Those gods, that fate, whose unresisted might
Have sent me to these regions void of light,
Thro' the vast empire of eternal night.
Nor dar'd I to presume, that, press'd with grief,
My flight should urge you to this dire relief.
Stay, stay your steps, and listen to my vows:
'T is the last interview that fate allows!"
In vain he thus attempts her mind to move
With tears, and pray'rs, and late-repenting love.
Disdainfully she look'd; then turning round,
But fix'd her eyes unmov'd upon the ground,
And what he says and swears, regards no more
Than the deaf rocks, when the loud billows roar;
But whirl'd away, to shun his hateful sight,
Hid in the forest and the shades of night;
Then sought Sichaeus thro' the shady grove,
Who answer'd all her cares, and equal'd all her love.

11/09/2006

So i had an essay to do and micro 2 undone, and I went to go watch Jet anyway. I'm pretty pleased I went, they had fantastic stage presence. Great stamina, long set, and I liked the backdrop and setup.

I had lots of coffee recently, and it's surprising that once you don't have it for a long time it really can keep you up. Maybe it was also the adrenaline of reading up on kinda new, not so boring stuff (like the insanity defence), and of solving micro 2.

11/07/2006

sometimes i think, it's the girlfriend or jazz.

maybe it's because i'm have a little more to do this year, i haven't been able to kick back, stay awake till late and just listen to songs from my selection.

it's an inevitable sacrifice, but it was something i enjoyed. it gave me happiness. it was called smelling the flowers. it's a different thing now. but it's absurd to compare the two! then the question would be, which state would you choose. and i would choose this state, because it is my choice now.

sometimes though, jazz must have its revenge. this is one of those nights.
on my wall are pasted many photographs. photographs are misleading things, especially at one in the morning.

for example, one photograph has the rolling hills of wales in summer. what i would give to be on a hill in wales in summer on this cold night.

right before i went to wales, i thought, "i must get out. i must get out now". seeing photographs always make you think you can drop everything and find forever. that girl with the facebook photo, that place to visit. that's how i think, occasionally, anyway.

i'd like to say i'm happier because of that, that i've seen more places, for example, but the realization strikes you that photographs are forever, film is forever, but happiness isn't (duh), but i think it's actually let me down. i wish someone had explained to me what discipline was, what it did, what it was for, explained it in terms i understand, like i think i do now.

not in the 'monkish ascetic' sense of discipline bringing happiness, but the constant reminder it brings that wishing to be happy doesn't make me so. maybe i've let myself get too caught up, though i still find myself instinctly revolting at maxims such as "save more", be "financially secure". i try not to go into debt, but at the same time i can't kid myself, i save only to spend, and spending on finding that next happy place no less. i am blessed or cursed not to like drink, which means less money spent on that but less fun in social situations, had a previous (haven't smoked in a bit) weak spot for the comfort of cigarettes.

but yet i don't want to be a complete bore! just a partial one. but i'm pretty afraid of letting it all go to shit again.

11/06/2006

violence

need to blog for about 20 minutes
dumb microeconomics. dumb dumb dumb. it's so dumb they have help sessions for econometrics when micro 2 is the real problem. didn't take enough multivariable calc or real analysis? sucks to be you... sucks to be you... it makes me groan in defiance.

but then again it's not dumb because it's mathematical, its's just shit boring. everyone has cobb-douglas preferences, the answer to this guy's preferences builds on last weeks work, and when they don't have cobb-douglas preferences, they are some straight lines or leontief. can it really be this easy? GIVE US SOME REAL FUNCTIONS, THEN I WILL WORSHIP YOU.

warmth. breasts. water. sun.

there is always a temptation to live as if there were no tomorrow, which is strange, why we lose it as the number of tomorrow's gets scarcer and scarcer. so living like there's no tomorrow is more an acknowledgement that there are many tomorrows for you to waste. but it probably is a convex quadratic function of tomorrows and temptation.

11/05/2006

jesse's writings for make benefit of his friends

evil borat has started to make everyone speak like him, an evil testament to the insidious powers of comedy.

went for a guy fawkes celebration last night. i was left so unsatisfied. the fireworks were marvellous and lasted for a good half hour, and from the top of the hill at alexandra palace we could see fireworks simultaneously launched all over london (and all the way to canary wharf). still, i came to see effigies, and whereas last year i was in the company of dedicated pyros and arsonists, this year we were all good sweet fireworks lovers. all the same, there was a big funfair in the kitschy interiors of alexandra palace.

i will be spending the next few days working on my philosophy essay. the good thing, however, is that the specific topic does involve lots of reading on criminal law (specifically the insanity defence), so i won't be reading the same arguments over and over again. yay!

11/03/2006

it was date night tonight, which turned out very enjoyable, and very american=p.

the first chills of winter is coming and the clocks have been turned back. now we wait around to have our asses frozen off. still, though the sun is all but gone by 5 it's nice on friday evening to have no more meetings, no more work... for now.... for now....

went off to watch avenue q which i thought was delightfully irreverent, and comedy is so hard to write... pretty much stereotypical characters and almost predictable plot, but there were so many clever twists and turns inside... and i thought the way they wrote the lyrics was so contemporary. many many sharp comebacks and turns of phrase too. to complete the american evening, we went for peanut butter milkshakes and burgers at ed's accompanied by jukeboxes playing elvis presley while i was dressed in my 70's shirt.

it was also nice, given that i'm not longer staying south of the river, to walk down the strand and see the lights. it was so cold you could see the moon.

11/01/2006



i had no idea fran?oise hardy looked like that!

tous les gar?ons et les filles de mon age
se promenent dans la rue deux par deux
tous les gar?ons et les filles de mon age
savent bien ce que c'est d'atre heureux

et les yeux dans les yeux et la main dans la main
ils s'en vont amoureux sans peur du lendemain
oui mais moi, je vais seule par les rues, l'ame en peine
oui mais moi, je vais seule, car personne ne m'aime

mes jours comme mes nuits
sont en tous points pareils
sans joies et pleins d'ennuis
personne ne murmure "je t'aime" a mon oreille

tous les garsons et les filles de mon age
font ensemble des projets d'avenir
tous les garsons et les filles de mon age
savent tras bien ce qu'aimer veut dire

et les yeux dans les yeux et la main dans la main
ils s'en vont amoureux sans peur du lendemain
oui mais moi, je vais seule par les rues, l'ame en peine
oui mais moi, je vais seule, car personne ne m'aime

mes jours comme mes nuits
sont en tous points pareils
sans joies et pleins d'ennuis
oh! quand donc pour moi brillera le soleil?

comme les garsons et les filles de mon age
connatrais-je bienta't ce qu'est l'amour?
comme les garsons et les filles de mon age
je me demande quand viendra le jour

òu les yeux dans ses yeux et la main dans sa main
j'aurai le coeur heureux sans peur du lendemain
le jour ou je n'aurai plus du tout l'ame en peine
le jour ou moi aussi j'aurai quelqu'un qui m'aime

this is one of those "when will someone love me songs"
"all of the boys and girls my age are walking down the street 2 by 2"