February 25, 2009

Sophelia's Weekly Five, Edition II

Despite the fact that I have plenty of homework that I have yet to start, I was trying to find "textual evidence" to prove something to G. Instead, I ended up reading through all the old xanga subscriptions I saved in my e-mail account and then ended up rereading my old xanga posts. Plus, I spent nearly an hour earlier arguing with my mother about journalism issues. And so because my head is rather jumbled at the moment and I don't feel like doing homework, I present to you:
Sophelia's Weekly Five, Edition II

1. Who the hell is this?! Pt. I

I don't know if it's the fact that I am called a "senior" has anything to do with it, but why do I feel so nostalgic and old these days? I'll get to xanga later, but let's focus on something else first. This weekend, my father went spelunking in the deep cavern known as our downstairs walk-in closet and unearthed the ancient video camera that has not seen the light in a decade. He decided to convert all the VCR recordings into digital WMV files on our computer, and so I can now watch videos of my bratty little self on the computer.

It's probably not saying much, considering I don't meddle with illegal substances, but watching old videos of yourself is probably the trippiest experience ever. Especially the ones when you're a baby -- I watch myself ripping the pages out of a book and arbitrarily stacking plastic cups, and I sit there in front of the laptop thinking, "What in the blazes was I trying to do??"

It also forces me to realize I was probably a pretty bratty sister as a kid. There's a video where my idiotic brother was trying to stuff my head into his shirt, and then I screamed like a howler monkey and head-butted his chest. And I was also ridiculously skinny and lanky as a kid. What the hell happened.

2. Who the hell is this?! Pt. II

As previously mentioned, I just wasted a good amount of time reading not only the old xanga subscriptions in my e-mail account, but I also started rereading my old xanga entries. Some hilarious things I noticed:
  • In nearly every daily digest, there is somebody who complains about how unfair their parents/siblings are and then threatens to kill him/herself.
  • People loved posting quiz after quiz about the most useless information nobody in their right mind would even care to read. Because really, I don't care if you prefer biceps or calves/thighs (I'm not joking; this was one of the questions).
  • One of these days, I want to invite G and Rogue over and we can browse through all the old BHMS photos, because some people have completely grown up. It's really quite amusing to see everyone back when they hadn't hit puberty.
  • Similar to the whole 25 Things craze on facebook, there was a fad I call 15 People, in which you wrote about how you felt about 15 unnamed people. Which really was a stupid fad. I can imagine it would be fun to write, but it basically resulted in a bunch of hurt feelings and misunderstandings. You would feel bad if someone you thought you were friends with did not include you on the 15, and then you would feel like shit if someone talked crap about someone that sounded eerily like you.
  • I find it really interesting how I got a pretty good amount of comments back then. There were two posts in a row where I received 17 comments. The record was the one with 35 comments. I guess I can proudly say that my entries were not laundry lists of my schedule for each day, but were they even that interesting? Then again, the fact that I've been spending so much time looking through my old stuff probably means my entries were entertaining, if not downright idiotic.
  • Middle school drama is ridiculously melodramatic.
I have to say, I was a very strange child. Though I thought this was actually kind of clever (and I'm only posting part of it):

Friend Most Likely to...

Serve cheerios at her wedding reception: G

Have a nervous breakdown and run off on a murderous rampage, but only after stealing every Sanrio squishy eraser and inhaling every single flavor: A

Make billions of dollars by selling overpriced water to people in the desert: C (I don't really understand this one)

Become a Power Ranger: J (or this one. Must be some inside joke I don't remember)

Become a Disney movie singer who donates most her profits to charities concerning the rights of cows: Rogue

Become the most wanted terrorist in the world known as Orrenishi with the command over the petrifying Streaking 88s: J'nette

I actually think it would be really fun to write an updated list of these. Since I'm an aging senior and all.

3. If my life had an alternate ending...
I could totally see us saying these exact words again this year for graduation, if it weren't for the inconvenient fact that she has completely changed, that she's probably already moved to Bolivia for all I know and that she is a complete stranger to me now.


sweetlikelem0ns: im reading ppls xangas adn it seems like they have promo dresses and such already picked out
sweetlikelem0ns: i have noo idea what im gonna wear
sophelia: i dun give a shit
sweetlikelem0ns: great
sophelia: i really dont care
sweetlikelem0ns: we should show up nude
sweetlikelem0ns: make a statement.
sophelia: if it wasnt semiformal
sweetlikelem0ns: muahah
sophelia: i would wear cargos

sweetlikelem0ns: haha
sophelia: maybe we should show up wearing tuxedos and mocassins
sweetlikelem0ns: xD
sweetlikelem0ns: and indian head dresses
sweetlikelem0ns: just for the heck of it
sophelia: and we can do an indian chant
sophelia: ...in tuxes
sweetlikelem0ns: and bring war paint
sweetlikelem0ns: and paint ppl's faces
sweetlikelem0ns: with blood! scrwe the paint
sweetlikelem0ns: yeah. that would be fun.

sophelia: bring a staff with disembodied heads on the end
sweetlikelem0ns: start a bonfire in the middle of the dance and let it burn the whole night while we dance around it..with our indian chants..in our tuxes..with the moccassins
sweetlikelem0ns: they will envy us


4. Why I would never be an editor as a profession

Don't get me wrong. I love being one of the editors in chief of the school newspaper. But I really hate all the bureaucracy a high school newspaper has to deal with. Long story short, I spent an hour debating with my mother about whether or not I should let a certain article be published. In the end, she convinced me to not publish the article -- but I only agreed up to a point, because her advice was practical. To be honest, my anger at a certain person has still not subsided, and so I wanted to give the article's author a chance to attack/defend.

My mother asked me why I don't write a column if my writing style is much more honed than some of the other
writers on the staff. I replied that in my opinion, editors in chief should avoid publishing their own work as much as possible. Then we got into a whole argument about my philosophy about columns as an editor, but that's not the point. In truth, there are times when I wish I had a column. Since I generally grade the columns this year, a lot of times I find myself thinking, "If I were writing this, I would do this..." and then I would have to shake off that thought. As a writer, I hate it when people start rewriting my work and cut out things and change words without my approval. As a result, I don't think I was meant to be an editor, because I am so reluctant to do what I hate to other writers.

5. My Least Favorite Movie of All Time The Film Faceoff columnists of the school newspaper are debating about The Greatest Film of All Time. I felt like getting into the spirit and taking the opposite direction.

I'm sure there are plenty of terrible movies out there -- but I wouldn't know, because if I knew they were t
errible ahead of time, I wouldn't bother watching them. There were some I was coerced into watching, like the original The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie, with actors in gigantic animal costumes two-dimensional animations of griffins and ghosts, or the film version of Farenheit 451 in which the Mechanical Hound looked no more deadly than my Roomba. But the fact is, these movies were tolerable in that the terribleness was so knee-slapping funny. So for my criteria of the worst movie, I picked a movie that was terrible to the point of making me want to cry.


Firstly, I acknowledge that I would not have hated this movie so much if it weren't for the fact that I am in love with the book. Children's book, be damned! I love Ella and Char to death, I love the tragedy of Ella making Char hate her so that he can be safe from her curse, and I love the ingenious twist on Cinderella at the end with the three evening balls. As far as I am concerned, that story is perfect as is.

With that in mind, I admit I did not have very high hopes for the film -- but I have to say, I did not expect the film to fall so frighteningly short. Now, I would understand if a director decided to cut out parts from the novel -- after all, it would be difficult to include everything from a Harry Potter novel into a two-hour movie. But no! The director not only omits my favorite scenes from the book -- he adds completely useless characters and plot lines.

Firstly, the central conflicts of the book focused on Ella's curse, her relationship with her stepfamily, and her decision to reject Char's love so that she can protect him. But apparently this wasn't enough for the screenwriter, who decided to give Char some trouble by throwing in an evil uncle with a talking snake. HELLO? Did somebody decide to make Claudius from Hamlet torment other princes as well? As far as I could tell, the only point of having the evil uncle character was to somehow force Ella to attempt killing Char, which she manages to resist and thus breaks the spell -- not what happened in the book at all, by the way. And actually, the way she broke the spell in the movie was so stupid to begin with. If all it took was to yell "You will no longer be obedient!" to the mirror, why didn't she figure that out ages ago?

Secondly, in the book, the magical book Mandy gives Ella will always show a new story, letter, or diary entry whenever she opens the book. Amazing thing, no? And what does the movie replace it with? A TALKING BOOK THAT IS REALLY THE CURSED LOVER OF ELLA'S FAIRY GODMOTHER. Really, how is that necessary?

Thirdly, the movie omitted so many of the best scenes. I cannot believe they completely got rid of the masquerade ball in which Ella disguised herself as Lela in order to see Char one last time, instead replacing it with a stupid murder plot by an evil uncle. They threw out the scenes when Ella and Char slid down the bannisters, when Ella and Char first met in the cemetery, when Ella breaks her curse by forcing herself to say No when Char asks her to marry him. Instead, they concoct a pointless journey for Ella to wander about.

And finally, Char is so unattractive. If there's any movie that desperately needs a remake, it's this one.

And that concludes Sophelia's Weekly Five, Edition II. I really should have been doing something more productive.

February 24, 2009

Incandescence

By chance, Mila found him again.

But even if he could leap off of the photos on the summer program web page and materialize before her, nothing would happen. The last time they met had been nearly six years ago, when they sat on opposite sides of the classroom and never directly said a word to each other. But Mila always noticed the ones who could light up a room, who would joke with his friends and answer peevishly to the teacher. How could she not, when the energy of the class seemed to deflate whenever he was off competing at a basketball game that weekend instead? Even back then, Mila's palate encompassed the same tastes -- one, that he was tall; two, that he was an athlete; and three, that his confidence drew her in like a moth to the flame.

Now, when Mila sees how much he has grown in six years, she wonders. How ironic that she can still recognize his face after all these years. How ironic that last year, he attended the program she intends to attend this summer, that their lives run in parallel lines, forever within sight of each other but never intersecting. How ironic that when she sees his face after all these years, she can still feel the same heavy bittersweetness that caked her heart six years ago when he barely saw her at all.

February 21, 2009

Tomorrow

So fucking nervous. I'm going to shit in my pants.


(I really don't want to do this)

February 19, 2009

Nowhere. Now here.

This has got to be one of the worst days in a long while.

Sandra told me my heart is missing. She meant to say that I was emotionally disconnected from the music, but her words hit the bulls-eye in every possible way.

My muse is gone. I can't write anymore. I don't feel pleasure in playing the piano or singing. All I feel is emptiness. I pass through each day doing the gestures, getting nowhere.

No. Not nowhere. How did I get here? What happened to my discipline, my work ethic? I look at what I have done these last few years, and I think, "I could have tried harder, practiced more, stopped slacking off." I used to play 2.5 hours of tennis, 2 hours of piano every day; I used to be able to wear tight-fit shirts without being self-conscious of my body fat; I used to finish my homework first before spending time on the computer. Now I am fat, out of shape, lazy, unmotivated.

My mother is not particularly supportive of my writing. When she commented on Sunday that I should not be wasting so much time writing when there are so many other things I have been putting off, I immediately reacted with a defensive snarl. But I get it now. My writing is juvenile, a method of fulfilling the fantasies I want to live through. At school, we study works in which every word, every description, every moment in the story conveys a deeper meaning. I cannot even contemplate how rigorously the great writers toiled in creating their masterpieces.

I used to write only vignettes and poems on this blog. But now that I have broken off ties with my muse, I am dry and uninspired. I do not know how soon I will be able to finish the current short story I am working on, but this is the central question I want to explore next:

Would you kill yourself slowly for the sake of art?


February 16, 2009

Claustrophobia

The world is closing in on me.

I am so damn depressed today. I can't do anything right.

February 15, 2009

33%

Apparently "The Big Read" assumes that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them.

(I'm not going to do 2 and 3 because ideally I should read all of these and the blog editor doesn't have an underline button and I'm too lazy to do the html)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible (parts of it)

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte's Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
---------------------------------------
FAIL

February 14, 2009

Valentine

I've spent the last week writing a short story inspired by "Lady and the Tramp". The objective was to have it finished in time for today, but just in case I don't reach my goal by the end of the night, here's wishing you have a good day, for those of with you significant others out there. And for those of you who don't, no one loves you more than yourself. So treat yourself.

I used to have expectations for Valentine's Day when I was younger. An unsigned letter, a mysterious delivery of chocolate. But now, I expect nothing more than adding some pounds to my already bulky weight.

I fell asleep on the living room couch again last night. I don't know, there's something about that couch that's like a mouth to unconsciousness, because I hopped onto it with a blanket at 9:30 PM with the intent of taking a nap and slept like a rock until around 3 AM. I went on the computer for awhile, changed into pajamas, and then went back to sleep on the couch.

I don't take stock in dreams. The only thing predictable about the dreams I have is that if I dream it, it won't happen.

It was at lunchtime on a school day. The usual mob of people crowded around the area where I eat lunch were there -- I don't know what the occasion was, but everyone was making a big deal about being paired with somebody. For some reason, the group of friends I normally hang out with were absent. Instead, I was standing all alone by myself, not really caring about what was going on, until Tournesol called out my name. I walked over to Tournesol, who whispered that she knew who I wanted to be paired with. I replied, "Hell no, you fucking don't." Clearly, I was not in the best of moods. Unfazed, Tournesol pulled out a book and handed it to me, saying, "Look at Page 85 and 163." I did as she said. I found Your name underlined in pencil on both pages. When Tournesol asked me to confirm, I did not deny. Instead, I said, "Nothing ever happened, and nothing will ever happen." She, in turn, responded, "Only if you stand there and do nothing."

Sorry, Tournesol. I don't hope anymore.

February 8, 2009

Her 18th Debut

Today, I noticed a purple envelope addressed to me in the pile of Saturday's mail. I had a pretty good idea of what it was, because just yesterday, my buddy and tennis co-captain, E, had asked me for my address.

I have to say, I knew it was birthday invitation, but I did not expect an invitation printed on shimmering, pearly high-quality paper in scripted purple ink, all tied together with an elegant gray ribbon. The invitation was completely formal (2009 was written as "Two Thousand and Nine") with a list of E's "Court of Honor" and a "Courtesy of Reply" card with different places to fill in "_____ adult(s)" and "_______ children under 12". The apparent location of this "18th Birthday Debut" is at a local Marriot Hotel. I had to go back and reread the invitation to make sure I didn't receive E's wedding invitation.

To be honest, I am very intimidated by the invitation. E is a girl I get along with well, but she's not somebody I talk to very much once the tennis season is over. And other than the list of guests on E's Court of Honor (none of them whom I talk to very much), I really have no idea who is going to go. I'm hoping my CCS doubles partner received the invitation as well.

And the Courtesy of Replay card makes me antsy. If this really is a wedding-style 18th Birthday Debut, does that mean I am supposed to bring an escort? Because apparently, RS is E's escort. I guess essentially, this whole business makes me fidgety because it feels so grown-up. This kind of party reinforces the fact that all of us are going to be legally adults within the year. We are not children anymore.

I have always been drawn to the high-society styled parties, since I'm part of the middle society that spends a Saturday afternoon with friends by taking photographs in the countryside and making ourselves nauseous with laughter by playing Kingdom Hearts for four hours. When my S-twin decided to hold a masquerade party a few months back, I had a very grand image in my head -- though S-twin's party was held at her house, so obviously it would not have lived up to my expectations if I had ended up going anyway. I read about these kind of parties all the time in literature, and I see these dramatic parties all the time in cinema. For me, it's an exotic form that I would want to experience.

Then again, I don't need elaborate and fancy parties. Ice-skating and playing pictionary while dining on apple and pineapple pie for Rogue's 18th birthday; celebrating second-semester by eating at Aldo's and watching Garden State; spending a lazy Saturday taking photographs in the middle of the road, yelling at the TV screen when we finally defeated Riku for the first time with a final record of 1-15, staring stalkerishly at C through Skype, cracking up at the sexual implications of Kairi's words -- I really don't need any more than this.

February 1, 2009

Letter to a Soulmate

Dear Soulmate,

This is your soulmate writing to you. We've never met before. Of course, it's a matter of time, but really, we could have shaved off a couple of years from our preordained fateful meeting if it weren't for the fact that you keep bungling things up.

Like that time you were buying a tin of peppermint Altoids at the checkout line at the drugstore. If you hadn't insisted on picking out the exact change from your wallet, you would have left the store exactly fifty-three seconds earlier. You would have managed to walk to the intersection in time to sprint across the expressway just as the traffic light turned green for oncoming traffic. Instead, you waited at the crosswalk for two minutes before the light signaled for you to cross. By the time you got to the bus stop, the 2:55 pm bus had already driven away. If you hadn't missed that bus and taken the 3:15 pm bus instead, you would have chosen to sit in the same aisle as me, and we would have engaged in a deep meaningful conversation and shaved off seven years of unacquaintance.

Or how about the time you decide to take swimming classes at the local swim and racket club? You were supposed to choose tennis so that you and I would learn the sport together and watch our good-natured camaraderie grow into a cliched Pride-and-Prejudice-esque rivalry. Come on, you're my soulmate! How hard is it to figure that out?

Next time, please just get it right. Statistically, there are 6 billion people in the world and you encounter at most 1,000 people per day, so supposedly our paths only cross once every 16,500 years. If we're going to beat these odds, you'd better pick up your act. I can't tell you exactly where I'll be tomorrow, because if you're really my soulmate, you should know these things.

From,
Your Soulmate