GINNY AND I HAVE TICKETS!

The lineup:


Muse
Powderfinger
b>Lily Allen</b>
Eskimo Joe
Groove Armada
Grinspoon
The Mars Volta
Ladyhawke</b>
Dizzee Rascal
Karnivool
Peaches
The Temper Trap !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kasabian
Midnight Juggernauts
Rise Against
Magic Dirt
Mastodon
Lisa Mitchell
The Horrors
Bluejuice
Calvin Harris
Kisschasy
The Decemberists !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tame Impala
Girl Talk


KVNSOIBNWBNWDBNWOBNWNWQ Decemberists and Temper Trap! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

So I graduate from high school today.

That's a bit of an accomplishment.

IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE !

srslyftw.

:D

I'm going to go explode with happiness now.

If you'd like a copy of the final product out of curiosity (it's changed a little since I posted it up here a week and a half ago) drop me a line here, and I'll print you out one & send it over (:

So lately I've been thinking a lot about actually blogging. Not that I think anyone's actually going to read my organised rambles anymore than they read about my general life on their friends list, but I will be making specific posts public. Namely those about threatre productions and bands, assessments so my teachers can stalk me properly, and studying tips for the HSC.

But... these studying tips for the HSC aren't going to be... normal "do this, do that". I suppose they'll be more of an "I'm so shit at studying, aren't I?" observations. With pictures.

I mean, I have to do something to make all this time spent thinking about blogging (who DOES that, anyway?) constructive. Plus, it totally justifies all the pictures I've been taking with my iPhone to chart my progress. Oh! And then after the trials hopefully I can look back and say I achieved all this.

STEPH'S HSC OBSERVATION #1

COLLATE NOTES



So, as you can see in the photo, I have quite a few notes. In books. And textbooks. And folders. And just, you know, floating around. And I know when they say to study they say have one set of notes and stick to them. Well, that's awesome in theory. Except all the HSC texts say different things, and at different points in your study you're just like, "Well, screw this. Let's go with Artistotle because I know where he is in textbook a).

I knwo that's really unhealthy and I sound really collate ALL of my notes, but it just seems so pointless to me right now to have 27 sheets of details from all books and not have a cohseive argument for each syllabus point. So, -_- at the moment I'm taking twice as long as usual to write responses to the last 8 years of HSC exams.

So, to study better than me: COLLATE YOUR NOTES. I love my textbooks. I love that I know what information is where on recall and can flip to the page. I have a talen for knowing WHERE things are, but only being able to remember half of them.

I should take my own advice. After the trials, when all I'm going to be doing for 2 months is writing responses to HSC exams. @.@ It's like, sheesh, make some more practice papers because I've memorised the answer to this paper the HUNDREDS of times I've written responses about it.

Question 1 (25 marks)
With reference to the Source and other sources, discuss how this interpretation of history
compares with your own view.

( My response to Fell's excerpt )

So, HSC Extension History is supposed to be a highly philosophical subject, and really, my ultimate perspective on history is that we're lucky to even have it.

I'd be interested to heard your answers, or responses to either Fell or myself!

{The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic}

It is the tendency of literary criticism to remove the author from a place of authority in order to search for the meaning in a text. In our post-modern age, the resulting pluralism that arises from this critical perspective makes it difficult for any critic to discuss any text with the confidence that their interpretation is true to the text’s ‘real’ intention.

This hermeneutic approach began to emerge at the time of the trials of the literary figure Oscar Wilde. In 1895 Wilde was charged with gross acts of indecency in a trial that made his text The Picture of Dorian Gray famous in literary circles because of the so-called immoral themes that it was said to display. During the first of three trials, The Picture of Dorian Gray was critically analysed in the form it was published in by Ward, Lock and Co. in April of 1891 from a highly metaphorical and allegorical perspective, which proved detrimental to the aesthetic and philosophical perspective Wilde had on his own text. In this trial, the ontological status of literature and art came under scrutiny by the judicial process, which passes judgement on real life. The boundaries between art and reality became so blurred that an author’s fictional characters became real life evidence submitted in court which would eventually send a man to a real life prison. This kind of literary dissection is usually applied to authors subjected to posthumous biographical examinations and resurrections of their texts. However, in the case study of Wilde’s trial, the opposition farcically presented Wilde as the official custodian of the text’s dominant interpretation, while simultaneously undermining his authority on his own text. The critical perspectives adopted by the court, and at large by modern society as a result of this paradigmatic shift in hermeneutic principles, deserve close scrutiny.

( Read more... )

I tried to put in all the formatting, but it is 11pm and I'm tired. There's no reflection statement and I think the paragraph on John Gray still needs to be tweaked, but here it is after 11 months. Two weeks away from submission, folks!

Any feedback is appreciated. I know it's long, but any comments are greatly appreciated!

So I decided I’m going to start “blogging’ about the theatre productions I go to. It would be fun to learn how to write proper reviews, but for now I’m basically going to relate my impressions of the productions (quite a few months removed, unfortunately) sans cocktails and red wine. Plus, I’m terrible at concisely describing anything (for example, it’s taken me, what? 8 months to aptly describe my dislike of critical theory in 4,000 words? Yes. FAIL.)

So, this particular play was in a location and a theatre I had never been to before except on stormy days to watch the green waves crash into the pier (sounds poetic, but it was completely by accident. It was pouring down, so Daniel and I ran into the Box Office and up the stairs. I love coincidence.) We were at the Wharf, Theatre 1.



THE CITY written by MARTIN CRIMP.

A review from by Kevin Jackson is the best, and closest to my own perception as I have found:

Maybe written as a companion piece to Mr Crimp’s play THE COUNTRY (2000), THE CITY (2008) concerns a young couple, Clair (Belinda McClory) and Christopher (Colin Moody) living in a city under the contemporary pressures of job insecurity, and the influence of a world full of war, torture and terrorism, of all kinds – close at hand and far away. It reveals a world of the fracturing social block of ‘marriage’ and the residual inheritance that the children are dealing with – unfinished ‘music’.

( The rest, including my thoughts )

So, I generally get tickets for $30 because I’m under 30, and The City was one of these. The next STC production will probably be $30 as well (I’m thinking Poor Boy, Sydney Theatre), but A Streetcar Named Desire with Cate Blanchett was $80, and it was like @.@ in the light of the seven hours of War of the Roses which was only $60. Sheesh.

Season pass for Christmas, please.

Dear Greater Union, Birch Carroll and Coyle,

Back in the day of that fateful work meeting when James and I got together, you mentioned we would be turning into EVENT cinemas. Yay, we all said.

Then we all turned up to work about two weeks later and had to start saying "V-MAX" instead of "G-MAX". We all fondly made a few vagina jokes and moved on.

Then someone stuck up a sign reading "SCOOP ALLEY" in the candy bar, and we all had a giggle about how ridiculous we'd look standing behind a candy counter with SCOOP ALLEY. Someone said we'd all be wearing different coloured shirts to correspond with our areas of work. Hee.

And then there was nothing.

AND THEN THERE WAS THIS:



OH THE HORROR!

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME WORKPLACE!?!
Thankfully none of them are me. Yet.

And it's only my work department. Waaah. Everyone else gets to keep their uniforms! WTH.

Hm. Perhaps they don't realise that someone who's almost 6 ft tall (with a great deal of it LEGS) and alright boobs (yes, yes. I blame him for the ego) is going to look like a HUSSY.

In Campbelltown.

I'm not going to be ridiculed. Hah, no, you can laugh that off.

I'M GOING TO BE ATTACKED.

D:

But, at least I have a job. I'm grateful for it. I'll wear it if i have to. But man. -shakes head-

Hm.

I just managed to er, stalk someone based on their open ID, and once again I was like, "Stephanie, yo so laaaaaame." But seriously entertained, and a new live feed! So not all sad and sorry.

And then I realised I actually have quite a long-lasting variety of entries that are public. Hm.

And then I realised I really, really just feel like sleeping. And then I remembered the last time I felt like sleeping and then couldn't / wouldn't... my brother gave me a gin & tonic (hello, pretty blue liquid!) and... I was sleeping in the car like I was five again.

But seriously. Gin. Amazing. And this lemon myrtle beer I picked up in the Hunter Valley? So freaking good. I have a very sad feeling that all of this Campbelltown nonsense is rubbing off on me.

And the fact that I just related that story to you means it is well and truly time to go to bed.

Goodnight.

OH. CHAI LATTE WITH SOY. YOU MUST TRY.

Oh, I had a fabulous idea. But I don't think I can use it. Not yet, anyway. I should finish writing this. There's nothing like leaving it to the last minute, anyway.

But imagine if I wrote a philosophical letter to the prosecution, imploring them to quit the crappy interrogation and just stop and smell the roses? Stop, and look at the novel as less a confession, more a story of influence.

I always think back to this psychoanalytic interpretation of the Harry Potter series I read in a compilation of HP essays edited by Mercedes Lackey. The psychologist was (regretfully, he said) relaying his idea that Harry never left the cupboard. Harry Potter, bullied, orphaned, friendless. Suddenly out of nowhere, he's the most important person in the world, has more than enough people willing to be his friend, is rich, goes to a magic school, for heaven's sake.

I remember after I read that, I was about to cry. I was so angry at this person, no matter how sad and angry they were at themselves, had destroyed my image of Harry Potter. They had ripped apart the illusion by analysing it. I mean, I still get sad when I think about it now, and I think I would have been completely gutted if it had turned out that way.

You know what? I'd love to see what the flightless bird could do if it hadn't been told all its life it was flightless. Look at the bumblebee, for pete's sake. It's the cutest, most optimistic little being! Take that, Aerodynamics.

And take that, critical theory. -pokes tongue out-

My extension two is not necessarily ABOUT Oscar Wilde, but is more about the human condition.

The individual, and society.

The science is the evolutionary aspect - in order to survive, we bow to our superiors. We recognise in the playground, in the workforce, in life, that we have superiors and we must check ourselves if, according to society's laws, we are to be accepted.

The survival of the fittest = Darwin = SCIENCE.

However, there is nothing scientific about individualism. There is nothing scientific about the way something things just work. I am not referring to miracle that defy all scientific knowledge (this is straying waaaaaaaay too far from my topic) but rather the spark. What is the brain, other than electricity? There has to be some sort of SOUL, yes? Even if you don't believe in a soul, there has to be SOMETHING that makes us individuals, that gives us the ability to be different, that faciliates the discrepancy between individuals that results in the need for the scientific selection process. Some are "better" "stronger" than others. This is what we fight for. THIS is romantic.

Individualism = soul = immeasurable = ROMANCE, ART.

Do you see? Do you see that while we all work within the parameters of science in our philosophy, in our art, in our lives, we are still individuals? We are still squahsed, because we're a sea of bodies valiantly trying to escape the constraints placed upon us by our human attempt to understand ourselves?

On a more acute level related to my work, readings and criticisms cannot begin to truly discover the secrets of Wilde's art. Perhaps Wilde does not even know what he has created. While readings and criticisms have merit (undoubtedly) they are so, so limited by their inability to do anything other than scientifically attempt to rationalise that which is immeasureable. Art is not Science. While there is science IN art, and science in LIFE, structure and language features and allusions, metaphors, characterisation, technicalities, the final product is so much more than the sum of its parts. Readings and criticisms can identify components of art, but cannot explain it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my idea. Society spends all its time trying to rationalise when it should just listen to the music without trying to analyse the notes. Beauty is subjective and indivisable, so why should we even try? Why ruin it for ourselves?

JUst posting this here so I don't forget that today (at 1:42am, again) I realised more of my focus of extension.

But Life soon shattered the perfection of the form. Even in Shakespeare we can see the beginning of the end. It shows itself by the gradual breaking up of the blank verse in the later plays, by the predominance given to prose, and by the over-importance assigned to characterization. The passages in Shakespeare – and they are many 0 where the language is uncouth, vulgar, exaggerated, fantastic, obscene even, are entirely due to Life calling for an echo of her own voice and rejecting the intervention of beautiful style, through which alone should Life be suffered to find expression. (224)

Wilde, The Decay of Lying.

What do you think? Do you think science destroys the holistic nature of art? Do you belief that attempting to measure the unmeasurable results in disappointment and ill-concieved half-truths?

Because I do.

I believe that in searching for the soul we construct opinions that are at once truth and lies, because while we realise there is some element of truth in our estimations, we also subconsciously recognise that we do, in fact, no nothing and are attempting to rationalise that which is absurd and wonderful.

Please comment? I'd love to know what you think.

So the reason nationals depressed me so much is that.. I have big dreams. And it scared me that I may not be good enough at what I want to do to achieve them. Don't get me wrong, I'm the first to say that if you really want something, hard work and dedication will get you there.

I just want so badly to be an international level pole vaulter. Not many people get that chance. At the moment, I'm a really, really long way away. But I can fix that.

BUT.



Item on agenda today is The University of Sydney. Basically, it's the "Ivy League" of Australia. Except we don't have Ivy League. We have Sydney, in all its prestige.

Sydney University is my Hogwarts. It's not practical, but it's beautiful. I could get into other "lower" universities which are closer to my home, but I don't want to.

I want Sydney University.



This isn't my campus, but isn't it beautiful? There's the most amazing library ever - I'm going to go there in the holidays just to write. The picture above is the Quadrangle, and it leads onto the Nicholson ancient history museum I went to a couple weeks ago ♥.

It's the uni everyone wants, and says stupidly that they can't get into.

You can get into Sydney if you want it.

First stop Sydney University, next stop: World Juniors.

Source 5. 22

LYSISTRATA: Welcome, Lampito, my dear. How are things in Sparta? Darling, you look simply beautiufl! What a colourful complexion! What strength! I reckon you could strangle a bull!

LAMPITO: You could do the same, my dear, with proper training. I practise running-jumps every day.

LYSISTRA: (prodding here) Amd such marvellous breasts, too!

LAMPITO: (indignantly) I'd thank you not to treat me as though I'm some animal ready for sacrifice!

ARISTOPHANES, Lysistrata trans by A. SOMMERSTEIN, p. 183.


...

Hee. Trust Spartan women to make me giggle today. How appropriate.

The freaky moth is being freaky again.

I'm creating a tag: freaky dancing moth.

Er, that's all.

There are so many bugs in my room right now.

There's a mozzie on my elbow.

And... a weird yellow bug thing that resembles a mosquito on my screen?

And, oh my, there's this moth that just won't leave. It does a spiral dance all around my halogen lightglobe, all the way to the ground (9ft from the ceiling)... and then all the way back up.

Oh, and last night I had a dream I was a dolphin. But... a fake dolphin? Like, I was a human who knew that she was a dolphin, and really shouldn't have been. In a zoo where the water was brown, and people in beekeeping outfits were trying to comb out all the mud and grass. And I was like... so much brown water.

Dolphins in a zoo?!

I'm doing Extension History, and the whole premise of the course is "What is History?"

Basically, we're allowed to chose any topic in history we want. I've chosen to examine the historical accuracy of The da Vinci Code. My question I've come up with is "What is the Value of Popular History?

Popular history can be defined as being sensationalised media coverage, novelisation, fictionalisation or being made into a film, i.e. The da Vinci Code, National Treasure, Troy, 300. You get the point.

Basically, I'd love for you to comment here about how you feel watching historical films.

Why do you watch them?

What entices you to go see them, or to read a book about history?

Why not read history itself?

Do you learn anything from them?

Do you accept what you see as true? Why/Why not?

I realise it's a rather boring topic, but I'm finding it incredibly illuminating. I'm actually going to read the Bible. I have to, to doible check referrences to Jesus' divinity. I think it will be rewarding.

So, when they announced that there was going to be an Apple store in the city, I was like, "cool, another place to buy ipods I can't afford." My little green Samsung Apple Martin mp3 does me fine, thank you very much. It was gorgeous company on the Santa Monica beach.

So, I'm posting this from the Sydney Apple Store. I just bought Tess of the D'Urbervilles for $7.95 (thankyou, Penguin copyright!). I'm actually lost, but who cares? I'm supposed to be walking down to the opera House, which is usually a straight forward journey. I actually decided to go to another exit, and ended up somewhere different entirely. Yay for adventures, finishing off the school year.

Shopping in the city, buying books and using laptops - makes me feel like an individual!

Hee. And now I'm going to look up where I am, and find out how o get where I need to go. Honestly. Getting lost in Sydney city.

(It's amazing).

So, Im actually sitting in my brother's passenger seat (left hand side ;)) & well, yes, I'm posting this live.

Huzzuh for the excellent wireless he has.

So today's Sunday and I should be vaulting today, but coach is north in QLD so I'm gyming it with GTim. He trains at the same Fitness First as the Australian Biggest Loser guy. I don't know his name. I love the whole weight loss extreme exercise aspect of that show, but don't support the whole kilojoule intake crash diet + hard exercise thing. It's not normal (although effective, I guess. Hence my tornness).

My flight details for Nationals are 14th - 16thof March, so I probably won't be online at all, unless I borrow Suchy's wireless. Which I may do. But if you'd like me to message you (and I don't already have your number, coughLyscough just email me at steph_on_toast@hotmail.com) I'll do so. It'sonly the one event, but I'm up against the Parnov sisters, one of whom is the Junior world champion, and the other one who's only 14, but jumps 12ft is amazing @.@

Gah. I'm still kind of sick. I was a little whiney at work last night. Usually I love podium because you smile at everyone, but... ugh. I was swaying and totlaly not into it. And cleaning I was like -collapse on couple seat-. I've decided those seast aren't fantastically comfortable for couple, but are definitely alright for making out on. In theory.

-waits for another city tunnel to pass by-

The zipper onnthe laptop bag it rubbing my wrists. Time to go :)

♥

ETA: OH! OH! DRIVING PAST AIRPORT!!!!!!! I can see the plane I'll be catching ina couple of weeks!