If life were a bowl of cherries...

"Ah!" cried Captain Harville, in a tone of strong feeling,
"if I could but make you comprehend what a man suffers when he takes
a last look at his wife and children, and watches the boat
that he has sent them off in, as long as it is in sight,
and then turns away and says, `God knows whether we ever meet again!'
And then, if I could convey to you the glow of his soul when he does
see them again; when, coming back after a twelvemonth's absence,
perhaps, and obliged to put into another port, he calculates how soon
it be possible to get them there, pretending to deceive himself,
and saying, `They cannot be here till such a day,' but all the while
hoping for them twelve hours sooner, and seeing them arrive at last,
as if Heaven had given them wings, by many hours sooner still!
If I could explain to you all this, and all that a man can bear and do,
and glories to do, for the sake of these treasures of his existence!
I speak, you know, only of such men as have hearts!" pressing his own
with emotion.

Austen 

After a protracted period of silence I feel strongly persuaded to present you with a plethora of progessions in my otherwise pedestrain life. :P (I realised after the second p that I could have some fun with this sentance and I will once again use the time-old excuse... its MY blog!)

Anyway... to those of you who do not already know, I am doing music at Uni!!  :D And over the moon. Seriously, my cheecks are complaining because I am grinning to much. Not only do I now have time to do the things I wish to do (like practise, or read, or draw or listen), but no! This is encouraged in me. Active development of skills outside the classroom is encouraged and praised. No longer do I have to feel guilty for practising for more than the allotted 45 minutes. I am free! And it is wonderful. 

And as for my degree... I can't wait. 

Along with this I have given up Further maths. This is a less joy-bringing development, I do enjoy maths and will be sorry so see it go (despite the extreme hang-hold it had on my time). However, I do not enjoy - and neither am I good at - so that is less of a loss. And as I need the time, am not certain of an A, and do not enjoy the course I woulkd have to take it seemed like the logical conclusion. I will pick maths up again when I have time and inclination (If this means never I will be dissapointed, but so be it). 

Music itself is going well. I still need to order reeds from Howarths, so that will happen tomorrow. Started playing piano again - a glorious piece of Schumann! Which I will do in a concert sometime. Might pester one of the teachers to give me playing advice, but it seems fairly self-explanitory. Organ is organ. Some brilliant hymns, and even better volentaries. The head decided to announce my scholarship in assembly, I don't know how I feel about that.  :S  oh... and how do I tell the difference between Sibeleus and Wagner? ("Sounds like toffee pudding" applies to both!)

Went to the English Society last night. Which I have a strange feeling I enjoyed more than the English Students there. The talk was basically on "what is literature" and the perspective was that literature is a piece of writing that intrinsically serves no purpose and that now (with the rise in consumerisation) we no longer have literature as all written word is a comodity. Here I must disagree with a several issues:

• Publised books have always been a comodity; nowadays that comodity is accecisble to all instead of just the wealthy.
• If literature serves no purpose then there can be no literature written in the past as all historical literature gives us significant insight into that culture and how social states functioned during that period. Literature also allows us to develop our understanding of people and how people see things - it is in essence one persons view on a scenario be it imaginary or the combination of a series of events theyhave experienced.
• All writing has a purpose as it is written (perhapse not conciously so). People write what they feel, how they think, what polotics they support and abhor, the qualities they admire or distain - all these factors come across through good literature as the author (in part) tries to communicate and promote their own beliefs. Few people positively advertise that which they dislike.
• True, part of the beauty of literature is that is is based in fantasy and does not point to specific instances in time and tangible objects or events (and in this sense it is nothingness and "useless") but this does not mean it serves no purpose. If we limit purpose to the epirical then we limit all sense of culture/unity/emotion/faith/belief and also all sense of identity and history. We can not bring out our sense of beloninging (to a family or a group) as an object to see when it is discussed (Guliver's Travels - the philosophers) and neither can we identify a specific purpose for literatue that is ubiquitous. This does not mean one does not exist.
• The moment we try to define literature, to categorise it, to class it and treat it as something which can be contained and measured then we loose sight of so much, you cannot qualify the emotive and the beautiful. Why is something beautiful? Because it fulfills the golden ratio? Or because we take pleasure in it? Because the colours do not comflict? Or because it reminds us of a time we were happy?
  

Sorry, that was an incredibly badly constructed set of arguments/thoughts. My head is still reeling slightly as it was a very in depth talk. You will not be surprised to hear that I said nothing during the questions time!

Anyway, I should go do something productive (shocking isn't it!)... probably organ! But there is another character pending in office blog... so I think I shall post another episode of that, hopefully a little more amusing than the last.

xXx 

actualy Im not! which is probably good...

I have now finished: Math, Geog, English Lit, Language, Music 

By the End of the week i will have Finished: Math, Geog, English Lit, Language, Music, French, Science, DT

I will have left: Greek, Drama, Statistics. 

Exams went ok today.... nearly passed out in maths exam :S - too hot, no air, claustrophic sitting in the archery nets! but was ok and managed the paper ok - too much number crunching so boring and tiresome and bleugh. But hey, the other paper was so much fun I suppose it works out. Geography: the only danger was being too bored to finish the question. I spent my time dotting between the questions and answering each one when I got the energy and inclination to do so. It worked quite well but that was because I knew I was playing with about 30 minutes excess time if  worked solidly. Heh!! I had the breeze from the window keeping me refreshed.

Do you know how much your smile meant?

As I left lips pressed shut and thoughts flung wide

Silent as the star that watches the war - helpless.

Do you know how much it took to look

To break free and reclaim ideas long lost

And smile

Communicate something of where I was

What lands I had travelled to, so far from home,

When I hoped to be back home, trapped safe,

Torn between two opposite truths:

A safe fear, a lonely friendship, a destructive progress

And Answer

Too much for me, falliure draped his cloak to warm me

Shake of the head, tilt of the hand, tensing muscles rarely used

Looking away and passing on, leaving the interlocking truths

Torn, scattered, seperated and hidden,  buried treasure

Cursed blessings followed me out, safety in abandoment

A legend 

Isn't it strange how the world looks so much truer through sunglasses; how the tainted light filters the colours, defining them, giving them life, bringing the image we see into exact perspective. Everything looks so much more real through sun glasses, so much more vivid and tangible. So much more desirable than the bleak brightness and hazy white light bluring all together into an indefinable mix. Maybe that's all we need to do to seperate real from fantasy, sane from insane, hope from fact, theory from proof. Maybe all we need to do is view the world through a tinted lens and let the colour speak for itself.

Someday when i have time and a am bored I shall print out previous text and edit it... there are a number of words I am not happy with even at this level of vague perusal! (sp?) and the grammer and syntax is 4 steps past illeagal - not that I intend to improve that. But I have no time... so if people could kindly point out words/phrases/poor grammer/incomplete sentances to me and I can highlight, and at least thing about from time to time.

Thank you 

xXx