I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

 
I don't think it's healthy to relate to a poem quite this much. 

Abstract Repartee

What came first, Nothing or Something?
Why, Nothing, of course.
How do you say that?
Because Nothing means Void,
Which is the absence of Creation,
And if Creation were absent,
Then there could only have been Void
At first.

Ah! But if Nothing means
The Absence of Something
Then if Something were not there first
How could it be known to be Absent?

…
Perhaps, in the beginning there was Void,
But without the awareness of Void
Engendered by Creation
It was merely named Void in retrospect?
For example, I AM alive now
But I was not before I was born
Even though, I could not
Have known I was not alive
Until I was born, and with it
Granted awareness that, in retrospect,
I was not alive before.

It seems sloppy work then,
To merely say,
“In the Beginning there was Nothing”
Instead of “In retrospect, there
Was Nothing in the Beginning”
In any case, what beginning
Could there be, without awareness?
For, are not true beginnings
Begot in awareness?

If Awareness were the sole
Validation for Beginnings
And Creation equaled awareness
Then Void would not have a place
In existence at all
Which it does, as void equals zero
And zero precedes one,
Even without having a value
And yet exists in sequential numbering

No, it does not.

….What?

Zero is a number tolerated
Only so it may illustrate
The absence of numbers
But have you ever seen a book
Beginning with Chapter Zero?

Are you saying Void
Does not really exist?

Of course, it exists.
For if Void is the absence of Creation
And if Creation is to be absence of Void
Then one cannot be without the other.
The question posed, was:
What came first, Nothing or Something?

I think it is clear by now
Philosophically and numerically
That if Nothing were to exist at all
And exist it does
It necessarily preceded Something

Ah! But what if, in the Beginning
There was Something, or Creation
Then it was taken away, becoming Nothing
And then the Void were replaced
By Creation once more?

...
There can be only one conclusion
For this debate, good sir.
Yes? And what is it, pray tell?
That one must never attempt
To search for philosophical enlightenment
Without a cup of tea.

 

 As the deafening vacuum of air

Starves out the furious flame,
 

As the hammering sheets of rain

Subdues into mud the snake-
 
-coils of suffocating dust,
 

As the destructive wake 
 
Of an undammed flood
 

Submerges the animal detritus 
 
Out of sight and mind,
 

As the hacking cough 
 
Dislodges the phlegmy refuse

From a tortured windpipe,
 

Such relief is the stage to me

The sharp inhale of theatricality

Exhaled gustily in an abandon 

Of melodrama

Flushing out the pin-pricks,

The poisons and pollutants,

Of my malaise-riddled spirit
 

To breathe in sweet release

But for a moment.  

Yes, yes, I have heard the hooplah surrounding Christian Bale's meltdown on the set of Terminator Salvation. On one hand, as a Bale fan, I'm disappointed because he comes off sounding like a complete arse. I mean, it's really his acting talent I appreciat him for, but I'd like it if he were a nice guy as well. On the other hand, as someone pointed out, an actor threw a bitchfit on set? Really? You'd think they were all overpaid prima donnas anyway... 

Take a fuckin' Chill Pill, Senor Bale. 

But this wankery I do not mind, because this EPIC GIF was born of it:

( Cut to be kind to dial-uppers, and apologies to those who follow scans_daily )

Dakota Fanning cast in "New Moon". As in Twillight Part 2.

WHY?

This girl is a hyper-talented child prodigy. Why on earth would she want to act in a trainwreck like this? WHY, LORD?

Also, Kim Manners is dead, what? I didn't even know he had cancer. This is such a damn shame; he was such a great director. He was one of the cornerstones of Supernatural. Everyone on set must be so devastated.

I HAS GOT JOB!

I got a job at Asia Digest. Newly launched YA and family-oriented magazine (no relation to Reader's Digest) flat structured company, informal environment, few other co-workers (one of whom is a good friend), good pay, boss open to suggestions. So much potential that my inner editor gene, dormant since I left the school newspaper, is going utterly haywire. I have to keep telling it to pipe down and keep my head down and get to know the people first, before gradually suggesting changes. I WILL NOT BLOW THIS, DAMN IT. 

My own enthusiasm is scaring me. It might be my undoing.  Must keep reminding self that I am simply a newly-hired  wet behind the ears newbie and must act accordingly, flat structure be damned. 

Of course, I'm still going to contribute to  The Sunday Times, because hello, it's the Sunday Times and having a few published pieces in there to show off  in my portfolio is nothing to sneeze at. 

In conclusion: Hee! *hugs self* 

*hugs flist for good measure* 

*prepares for horrible things to happen, now that the 'good' portion of the day is over* 

The day so far: Dragged Dad out of bed to drive me to a 7  a.m rehearsal. Encountered locked theater and sleepy director/ theater owner who infromed me kindly that he meant the rehearsal was at 7 in the evening because 7 a.m is too early for normal human beings to function *hint hint*. Drove back with disgruntled Dad who informed me that my little stunt had made him late for office and my brother late for school. Got stuck in school traffic on the way. 

And it isn't even 8 o' clock yet. 

Yeah, this is going to be a good day. 

Red letter day in Sri Lanka today. 

The Sri Lankan government managed to capture LTTE capital Kilinochchi today.  Defence Wire confirmed it  first thing this morning. 

And there's already a Wikipedia article on it! 

The President addresses the nation.

Citizens use opportunity to prolong New Year's celebrations by setting off the last of their firecrackers and dancing in the streets. Because the ideal time to dance around the streets of Colombo is when you've just majorly pissed off a bunch of terrorists who happen to have a bunch of suicide bombers stashed away in the city. It's living proof against the theory of natural selection. 

Tigers kill a minister and bomb a high security zone - in front of my Dad's office!  

Thankfully, he got held up at work, and was not on the road at the time of the blast. However the roads are blocked/ closed off now and it'll take him a miracle to get out of there. Here's hoping nothing else gets blown up at least until he and my sister (who is at class at the mo) are safely home, but that may be too optimistic. Colombo is on high-security alert, but those fuckers are now desperate, furious and unpredictable and they've already managed to bomb a high security zone. 

It's going to be "a hot time in the old town tonight". 

This caught my eye: "Now the troops can do what the rebels did to them 10 years ago. Once they consolidate their positions in and around the town, they can set their sights on Elephant Pass, the strategic land bridge leading to the Jaffna peninsula."

I remember when Elephant Pass fell to the Tigers in 2000. The battle of Elephant Pass will be remembered as the biggest military debacle in the history of the Sri Lankan military. In the end 2403 soldiers and 3024 rebels had been killed. Another 357 soldiers were wounded.  At the time  I, like a lot of people, was screaming for blood. But now I think differently. Even if we do get it back,  sooner or later they're going to try to  get it back again and there will be more bloodshed. Back and forth, back and forth - I'm sick of it.  Who cares if we get it back if we can't hang on to it for another two administrations running? And while a part of me want all the terrorists to be die painful and humiliating deaths, another part of me remembers that the majority  of the LTTE are children who have been  kidnapped and co-erced into their ranks and been brainwashed. 

It's been going on for 25 years and in all likelihood will go on for another 20 more until the economy is in shambles and anybody with two braincells to rub together has got the hell out of dodge and the country is left to  criminals and dictators. 

I'd like to have hope...but I don't see how I can. The children of my generation have grown up with this war, and we no longer remember any other way to be. We haven't stopped fighting since 1971.

I owe somebody a review of The Princess Bride, which is rather overdue by now (sorry, Paul!) but won't be going up till Tuesday. One of my friends is coming over to watch it with me tomorrow, and I'm sure the commentary will be doubly interesting then, so I'm saving it to post for later.

I did great battle with the invading forces of Dust Bunny yesterday, head cold notwithstanding. Today, I have slain the dust bunnies and reclaimed my room but am left with an even beastlier cold. Therefore, today I view the world and all things in it with a baleful and misanthropic eye. Piffle, Bah Humbug. 

Also, I is depressionated again. Joy. 

This is truly a fix. I am most certainly not going back on meds again - that method has been tried, tested and failed. I put off going to gym because I've been so busy with school work since I got out of hospital, and now that school's over, I am back to square one with sinusitis and tendonitis in my left leg, so I can't go to the gym before I get meds for that. Again. My counsellor has gone abroad on holiday. It would help to primp myself up a bit and get out of the house everyday, only, I am too dead broke to get around town and my salon closed down (hopefully temporarily) because of a fire that broke out in their building, two days after my finals ended. 

I kid you not. Luckily, no one was hurt, and they are a part of a famous chain of beauty parlors, so the emplyees will probably be relocated post-haste. But until they do, I don't have a salon! It takes a while to find a beautician whom you can trust and who knows what you like. You need to know that if you're shelling out a quarter of your allowance to get hot wax lathered over your skin and your body hair ripped painfully out from the roots, they're going to do the job right and leave your legs feeling like silk and not sandpaper. You need to know that you aren't going to shell out 2000/= for a hair cut and have your hair hang around you in rat's tails after a shower. You need to know that your beautician knows the difference between shaping eyebrows and destroying them. 

For a woman, finding the right saloon involves a lot of trial and error. And when you've finally found the right one and you rely on your regular people to know just what you like, and you've been frequenting the place for two years and THEN IT ALL GOES UP  IN SMOKE JUST WHEN YOU REALLY NEED A BIT OF PAMPERING WTF, well, it kinda pisses you the hell off.  

Argh, argh, argh, argh, argh. 

Excuse me while I sit in this corner here and keep Ebenezer Scrooge company for a while. 

HERE LIES BRILLIANCE!

And the Awesomesauce Award of the Year goes to.... pgwfolc !

Paul, you sweetheart!! (♥ x squishes) millionty! 

Indeed, going so long in ignorance of Inigo Montoya is pop-cultural blasphemy. Thanks for helping me correct this gaping flaw in my education. 

*dances with Kermit*