Trip of the tongue

Presentation over! *throws confetti*

Turned out fairly well, I think... Managed to get through nearly the entire presentation with no major trips.

Nearly, yes, because towards the very end, the weird-sounding science-fiction-ish terminology (Anar-res-ti, Ur-ras-ti, Oi-ie, Sa-i-o, Si-mul-ta-ne-i-ty, Ha-i-nish, comparative-cultural-anthropology, fundamental-complexity-and-relativity...), and the sheer speed at which I was reading them, got my tongue so tied up in knots that I tripped over-- of all things!-- my lecturer's name.

"So to conclude, here's just a very brief summary again of the main thrust of my argument. Like Prof cut-ke-cup-tup-pup-pup-- Prof cut-pak... SORRY! I mean..."

The class dissolves into laughter. Prof P, at the side of the room, looks slightly amused.

"Woah, I'm sorry! Tongue got a bit--blah. Let's try this again." *deep breath* "As I was saying. Prof. Pat-Ke mentioned that..."

Gah. I was blubbering plosives like a motorcycle that refused to start, right before the class of 30-odd students. (Classmate to me later after class: "Were you gonna say Prof cupcake?" -_-) So embarrassing lar! I was nearly gonna panic when I couldn't string the two syllables of his name together in that terrifying suspension of 10 seconds.

Yet on hindsight it did seem funny, haha. I'm glad the class is amused, actually-- for most part of the seminar they were comparatively more silent than usual (probably because a good number didn't finish reading the book :P), so it was a relief to hear them laugh :) Ah well, all's well that ends well... I'm immensely grateful. Now I can crawl back to bed and sleep off this throbbing headache :)

Foreword

On Friday I find Brave New World lying on my work table, along with The Tempest (which I hadn't had time to read yet). It's almost, in the craziest kind of way, a response to my despondency blogged just a day before.

Not the book itself, or its rather depressing contents, of course, but the author's foreword, which I had begun to read Friday evening.

Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better the next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.

Art also has its morality, and many of the rules of this morality are the same as, or at least analogous to, the rules of ordinary ethics. Remorse, for example, is as undesirable in relation to our bad art as it is in relation to our bad behaviour. The badness should be hunted out, acknowledged and, if possible, avoided in the future. To pore over the literary shortcomings of twenty years ago, to attempt to patch a faulty work into the perfection it missed at its first execution, to spend one's middle age in trying to mend the artistic sins committed and bequeathed by that different person who was oneself in youth -- all this is surely vain and futile. And that is why this new Brave New World is the same as the old one. Its defects as a work of art are considerable; but in order to correct them I should have to rewrite the book -- and in the process of rewriting, as an older, other person, I should probably get rid not only of some of the faults of the story, but also of such merits as it originally possessed. And so, resisting the temptation to wallow in artistic remorse, I prefer to leave both well and ill alone and to think about something else.

- Aldous Huxley, "Foreword", Brave New World

If you do believe in coincidences, then this is a happy coincidence. If there is no such thing as coincidences, I am still deeply grateful for this little reminder to learn and move on with understanding and grace =)

Funny how it takes a book on insanity to remind me where sanity lies. And how funny, too, that it takes complicated literary twists and philosophical forewords to remind me the simplicity of how things oughta be dealt with, after all.

=)

Food for thought

Maude: I should like to change into a sunflower most of all. They're so tall and simple. What flower would you like to be?
Harold: I don't know. One of these, maybe.
Maude: Why do you say that?
Harold: Because they're all alike.
Maude: Oooh, but they're *not*. Look. See, some are smaller, some are fatter, some grow to the left, some to the right, some even have lost some petals. All *kinds* of observable differences. You see, Harold, I feel that much of the world's sorrow comes from people who are *this*,
[she points to a daisy]
Maude:yet allow themselves be treated as *that*
[she gestures to a field of daisies]


Maude: A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They're just backing away from life. Reach out. Take a chance. Get hurt even. But play as well as you can.


Maude: You know, at one time, I used to break into pet shops to liberate the canaries. But I decided that was an idea way before its time. Zoos are full, prisons are overflowing... oh my, how the world still dearly loves a cage.


Harold: You hop in any car you want and just drive off?
Maude: Well, not any car - I like to keep a variety. I'm always looking for the new experience.
Harold: [smiling] Maybe.
[sobering]
Harold: Nevertheless, I think you're upsetting people. I don't know if that's right.
Maude: Well, if some people get upset because they feel they have a hold on some things, I'm merely acting as a gentle reminder: here today, gone tomorrow, so don't get attached to things.

Go watch Harold and Maude. It's depressing and hopeful and funny and bleak and inspiring all at the same time, it'll probably overturn whatever expectations you'll have of a romantic comedy, yet I feel somehow that there are little things that zombie people like us --so well regulated by an overarching system-- could afford to learn, little reminders on what it is, really, to be truly alive :)

*hums* if you want to sing out sing out.
And if you want to be free be free.
'Cause there's a million things to be.
You know that there are.