King Lear
While people who just can’t stop living in the fictitious world of magic were foolishly lining up in their witch costumes in Borders when they could’ve bought the book without any hassle at Vivocity (Actually this insult is aimed at a particular someone, other HP fans are excluded), I was watching…
Ian Mckellen! All I could think of was why would Ian Mckellen perform King Lear in this puny little pompous red dot of Singapore? Initially, I was a bit hasty about how the play would turn out because of the awful Macbeth he played back in the 80s (It was a really weird production, and his lips were practically glued to Lady Macbeth’s lips the whole time even while he recited his lines). However, he played a really good King Lear.
The play started off with King Lear dividing his territory to his 3 daughters – Regan, Cornelia and Goneril. In a moment of egoism, he requested his 3 daughters to declare how much they loved him. Regan and Goneril did so, however Cornelia refused as she felt that she did not need to express her love for her father through words. Insulted and furious, King Lear banishes Cornelia and some Duke who defended her.
Eventually, King Lear began to quarrel with his 2 daughters, both of whom refused to take him into their homes. Distraught by betrayal, King Lear wandered deliriously through the storm along with his fool. There he met Edgar, the legitimate son of Gloucester. Edgar was betrayed by Edmund, the bastard son of Gloucester (aka the bad guy). Edmund had also deceived Gloucester into believing that Edgar had evil intentions.
Eventually Gloucester was captured by Regan (there was an ongoing war between the French and some other country), whose husband and some other dudes blinded Gloucester. Gloucester was then left alone, and Edgar found him. Edgar began to assist Gloucester without informing him that he was his son.
Well, I got a little confused with the plot after that part. Cornelia somehow managed to find King Lear and she took him into her home, and Gloucester learned how Edmund deceived him and Edgar both. The irony was that Gloucester was unable to detect which son was the betrayer when he still had his sense of sight, but only realised the truth after he was blind.
Then for some reason, Goneril decided to poison Regan. After Regan’s death, Goneril committed suicide. (?!?!)
Subsequently, King Lear found Cornelia dead (I don’t know why she’s dead!) and he later died of heartache.
A classic Shakespearean play – Everyone dies in the end. Sigh.
Apparently Ian Mckellen stirred up a little debate over homosexuality rights and freedom in Singapore. I guess he’s not too pleased with Singapore’s homophobic, anti-homosexual environment.
I noticed that the reporters failed to report this issue in the article about his performance as King Lear in Life! newspaper though. Hmm.
Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows Spoilers
WARNING to Harry Potter fans: Below are spoilers for the latest book!
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In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows…
Snape’s on Dumbledore’s side.
Snape died.
And Lupin.
And Tonks.
And Bellatrix.
And Fred.
And Colin Creevey.
And Voldemort (*ping* one spell and oof!)
And Snape loved Lily Potter.
Story ended with a chapter on how their lives 19 years later, grown up with kids. (someone please spell out “CLICHE!”)
Best selling children’s book, yo.
Also, I’ve been reading A Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, and boy are the characters gay. It wasn’t even attributed to how men could have acted in the past, but it honestly seemed homosexual, even though it wasn’t explicit. Like, when Basil met Dorian Gray, he was totally entranced by Dorian’s ‘aura’ and Basil was acting like a jealous boyfriend when Dorian spoke to some other guy. Dude. There was even stuff like, “..[roused Lord Henry from his]… characteristic languor to a desire to influence Dorian, a process that is itself a sublimated expression of homosexuality.”
Curious as to why Oscar Wilde would make his characters seem gay, I checked Wikipedia.
Turns out that Oscar Wilde was gay as well! Figures. Apparently the homosexual atmosphere in the book is called Homoeroticism. Interesting!
I’ve only read halfway through the book, if I have time I’ll post about it later 
Random
School work is so insane, I realised that my hobbies probably aren’t even hobbies anymore. I started sketching today, after months without touching the pad, and it felt so new and weird. My skateboard’s forming iron (III) oxide (applying Chemistry to blog posts!).
O level Chinese Oral was a major booboo. 7 months of preparing for 10 minutes of talking, gone. Their question was, “In what ways does the government help the handicapped travel with convenience?” Or something like that, I couldn’t even understand the question anyway.
All that memorising and regurgitating in practice about teenage crimes, suicides, stress, handphones, dengue fever, preserving the environment, the elderly being bullied, school uniforms, the IR and practically everything else, gone. All absolutely put to no use! The only coherent sentence I uttered was a sentence which was irrelevant to the question! Ugh.
Well, it was quite awful. I couldn’t say “ramp”, “railing” and “wheelchair-ridden people” in Chinese, so I ended up doing a bunch of demonstrations which the teacher was nice enough to translate into Chinese. Sigh.
Oh well, I guess I wasn’t expecting more than a Merit, or after that ordeal, perhaps just a pass.
English prelim oral was quite alright, threw in as many adjectives as I could.
We thought our examiner was a kind middle-aged lady who didn’t speak much English so we could impress her easily, however I have a feeling that despite her gentle exterior, what lies underneath is a strict and well-spoken teacher! [Dun dun dun duuun] Also, she was the teacher who “caught” my guy friend and I sitting at the stairwell during recess, and she thought we were skipping lessons. But alas, she didn’t recognize me. Hoorah.
I’m also doing a lot of mean bitching behind people’s backs lately… Ugh! I’ve really got to stop gossiping.
Also, I’ve been doing some odd dreaming lately. Here’s one:
Lizard, Dee, Eunice and I were standing with a crowd of students in TK’s assembly plaza. Suddenly, we ran out of the school to hail a cab, at which the road began to flood. We jumped right into freezing flood water, the grass underneath the water looked glassy and actually pretty refreshing.
When we got into the cab, the cab driver somehow drained the water out of the car. Then, I began scrubbing my hair with heads & shoulders. The cab driver turned around, irate. “You better not dirty my seats!” he warned. I shot back, saying that I was going to wash it off later.
Then, I realised the Dee was missing. She probably got caught in the flood, I thought.
So I sent her a message, “Yo u gg to be ok?”
Suddenly we switched scenes. We were in a shopping mall and I spotted a toilet. I went into the toilet to wash the shampoo off my hair. In the midst of washing, blood began to trickle down my temples. I remember that I was thinking about something really infuriating at that point in the dream, but I can’t remember what. So blood was pouring down my face, I looked up into the mirror and shrugged.
My dreams seem to contain either blood, dying, bugs or cartoons.
I was thinking about a post I made about a person a while ago. I realised that I was wrong – he didn’t actually change at all. It was I who foolishly misinterpreted our friendship as a special one, when this “special” friendship is duplicated with many others by him. His actions haven’t differed at all since the day I met him actually.
Selfishly, I think the reason why I thought he’d changed was because when our friendship began to wane, he began acting the same way to other people the same way he acted towards me. I suppose when our friendship still existed in a proper state and definition, I was so submerged in it that I hadn’t even noticed the way he was replicating his actions with others, subconsciously dwelling in denial maybe. So.. I guess I’m in no position to judge him, neither do I have the right to blame him either.
On another note, here are some amusing works of art by our Literature teacher. Goodness. It looks like the type of pictures of test scripts made a jokes.
Script’s Xing Hui’s, and the funny little thingy there is a snail.
Translated: Slow! Add oil!
I have no idea what that is. I thought it was a decapitated head at first, then a ghost, then maybe it’s just a screwed up ‘9′.