Will Not Name This Entry Valentine

I'm really on a writing binge nowadays...just finished writing Cabdriver version 1.2, the edited version for the publication. The trouble with it was that it was too telly and they wanted it to be more showy, which I took to be to use more imagery and lyricism. And under the influence of Kerouac's On the Road, Cabdriver's second stanza was wholly rewritten in the drugged dizzying tone of the Beat generation. I was having lots of fun with new images (including the traditional and conventional light and dark image) and devices, but then I realised that the new stanza doesn't match the original point of the poem at all. It's hard to bring out the mutually dependent relationship between driver and passenger (the means and the reason to travel) clearly; I just get carried away with the images. In the end editing needed editing, and now I just hope the sudden shift in tone would be taken as a shift in gear in the journey that is the poem.

By the way, how much of writing is self-serving? If I didn't write out of ego, I wouldn't edit Cabdriver so extensively just to get it published. And though I write as freely as I can here, I always write for an audience. Even if you ostensibly don't write to please anyone (and that is quite dubious), you still derive pleasure from it yourself, and what writer would not derive pleasure from other people admiring your work? What writer would be brave enough to write solely for himself? In that way the approval of an adoring public can affect writing styles. Though there're probably other reasons why the poetry for the publication bear similar tracks by school. And empirically, they do bear similarities. Of course there are exceptions to the rule; but then again, what I see is a writing guideline.

But anyway, it's already week 7, and what am I still doing here writing? Indulging in my Bohemian fantasies of day upon day of writing about everything, and drama. We have so much to write, an infinity to write, and the whole night sky to drain of its ink.

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Had the first part of J1 auditions for RJGE SYF today. Heh, being nice to the J1s is quite hard when you're bored and tired and some of the J1s inconveniently do not follow instructions and harry you to change their audition slots at the last minute. But still there were good auditionees among the few that did turn up on time, or did turn up at all. A few have real ability; a few more have the right attitude and earnestness to learn and commit, but they don't have the skill. A pity really...if we had more time, these motivated novices would probably make better players than some of the J2s.

Some were pretty nervous...we were all trying our best to keep them calm, but being outnumbered by a panel of judges is always harrowing to a novice. But being on this side of the judging table, I find it quite hard not to be nice to them. How can some judges bring themselves into intimidating their auditionees to the point of tears? All those promises to be a nicer judge than the oral examiners of yesteryear were easily fulfilled; it takes a certain strength of character and a strong stomach to be a Simon Cowell.

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Eh, Valentine's today. Today was a nice slow start to week 7 because the first two periods didn't materialise for various reasons, PE was soccer, we had Hist with a trainee teacher, and there was no Math. The girls pulled their trick in Econs lec, which was really hilarious...Sowden didn't miss a beat with those pairs of underwear! Heh, and now that I've brought my fair share home, what am I to do with it? =P Hehheh, and I thought that only guys would think of such devious plots. But then again, the playing field has shifted beyond recognition; in CHS, if a guy bought underwear for a classmate, it was funny. Now, when a guy does the same thing, it takes on a tinge of vulgarity. Hmm...

Anyway, I think the best way to deal with today was really just to laugh it off. When you hear the self-defensive declarations of Singles Appreciating Day for the hundredth time, it just becomes bathetic. And to be sure, the sentimental side of me doesn't mind the sight of couples enjoying each other's company and gifts, when I'm not busy trying to avoid whole packs of girls who group together and are almost defiantly and noisily attached =P I swear, if some girls weren't so into the whole VDay thing, the whole industry would collapse.

But watching people is always a nice pasttime, and watching people today does yield some funny thoughts. Like all the variations of Duffy's Valentine that can be written on the gifts being passed around.

And I maintain that there is no need for any different attitude when facing attached people and singles. A bit of discretion, perhaps, but there's no need to make a big fuss out of it. I would have thought that by now people would have noticed that humans get attached and detached all the time. Most couples don't appreciate excessive public attention very much anyway.

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Went to have my eyes checked today...need a new pair of glasses cos the frame of the old one is falling apart. I've forgotten how fun it is to get an eye checkup...everything shifting in and out of focus, the high chair and the huge apparatus with the lenses that whirs in front of your face, the refraction machine, the little numbers and letters and coloured panels. Without your glasses, can you imagine that the letters are saying something secret to you? The blur look at the world very differently. And the optician with her soft voice and carefully calibrated equipment playing with light...your sight. Sitting on that throne, it feels exhilarating to have someone else decide how much you can and cannot see.

pondered by phoenican @ 14.2.05