Wednesday, October 20, 2021

GENDERBREAD

I received my grade for the first essay I wrote for the Love and Friendship module, and received kinda positive feedback from the professor I'm absolutely in love with, so I'm pretty much floating on a cloud right now. The disclaimer I would like to make is, my writing does not necessarily reflect my views, I have been called stubborn and inflexible on more than one occasion. But one can always learn and grow, I guess? :)

The dynamic between Creon and the titular character, Antigone, in Sophocles’ play is an ideal representation of the question “what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?” In the play, the answers are: death and destruction. This is why I posit, based on an investigation of Creon’s and Antigone’s characters in the text, that wisdom is embodied in flexibility, a trait that neither protagonist possesses, until it is too late for both of them.  

Antigone’s singular action, of disobeying Creon’s explicit orders and going on to bury her brother Polyneices, is the driving force for why the play takes place, so we begin by examining Antigone’s character and her interactions. When she first confides in Ismene about her plans, and asks Ismene for help, Antigone poses the question “Are you true to your birth? Or a coward?” (38), therefore betraying the first instance in which she thinks in terms of binaries. Antigone thinks Ismene is true to her birth only if she assists with the burial, anything else would brand Ismene as a coward and nothing more in Antigone’s eyes. 

At the outset of the play, Ismene literally advises Antigone to “think carefully, my sister” (49) and in the following lines (50-67), Ismene proceeds to enumerate the great calamities that have befallen their family, following the Oedipal curse. However, Antigone ignores her sister’s laments and retaliates with “I wouldn’t even let you help if you had a change of heart” (69). Much later in the play, Antigone proclaims “I won’t accept a friend who’s only friends in words” (543). She does not want to divide the burden with Ismene, and Antigone has been stubborn through the entire text.

Despite the fact that Ismene has outlined her valid apprehension, Antigone provokes her with “Go on, make excuses. I am on my way” (80). This depicts the fact that Antigone is so unaccommodating, not only does she want to do the burial, she does not consider her sister’s legitimate fear and concerns, and calls them excuses.

Toward the end of this first dialogue, Antigone professes to Ismene, “You’ll be more enemy to me / If you are silent. Proclaim it to the world!” (86) and “When you say this, you set yourself against me” (93). Antigone sees the world in black and white, Ismene is either with her or against her, there is no space to negotiate anything in between. 

Even when Ismene tries to console Antigone and accompany her in a crucial, frightening moment, when the antihero is headed toward certain death, Antigone rejects her in line 546, with: “Don’t say you did it. You wouldn’t even touch it. Now leave my death alone!” Antigone is the picture-perfect definition of being an immovable object.

While we have scrutinized Antigone to her literal death, as a foil to her character, Ismene maintains: “But I gave you reasons not to make that choice” (556). Ismene has considered the minute details of the situation and was flexible enough not to think in binaries, thereby displaying wisdom in that she has not courted her own death.

We first examine Creon through the lines “...if anyone tries to run a city on the basis of bad policies… That man is terrible / So I have always thought” (176) and “I will never hold my tongue about what I see. I will never call a man my friend / If he is hostile to this land” (185). Here we see that Creon also subscribes to potentially false dichotomies, he uses the words always and never, peppering them frequently through his speeches, without considering the in-betweens of life. In the same tirade, Creon asserts, “They are the ones, I’m absolutely sure who used bribes / To lead our watchmen astray” (290), declaring statements that have no factual justification, yet with conviction of their veracity.


In lines 485-487, “...if she’s not punished… Then I am not a man… I don’t care if she is my sister’s child,” Creon believes it would reflect well on him that he would treat even his niece, to whom his own son is betrothed, with cold objectivity, but it further isolates him as being obstinate and unfeeling.


In his intense back-and-forth dialogue with Haemon, Creon utters the lines, “So you think the people should tell me what orders to give?” (734) as well as “So I should rule this country for someone other than myself?” (736). He is purposefully being provocative and inflammatory, although Haemon has been cautiously trying to advise him. This culminates in Creon accusing Haemon of a threat. Haemon then asks, “What threat? All I’m saying is, you haven’t thought this through” (752), followed by Creon’s retort of “I’ll make you wish you’d never had a thought in your empty head!” (754). 

While Ismene is the foil to her sister Antigone, Haemon acts in much the same way for his father Creon. Haemon contends, beginning in line 688, “My natural duty’s to look out for you, spot any risk… The common man, you see, lives in terror of your frown; He’ll never dare to speak up in broad daylight… But I’m the one who hears what’s said at night… This sort of talk moves against you, quietly, at night.” Through this little monologue, we see that Haemon possesses the flexibility to respect Creon yet is also privy to the real opinions of Thebes’ common folk, and this provides Haemon the wisdom of knowing what is really happening. Conversely, because Creon has ruled through fear, he has never had the wisdom of knowing what people really believe about him.

While Creon is bitterly embattled against Tiresias, he complains, “...you people keep shooting arrows at me…/ Like marksmen at a target” (1035). Instead of realising that the many approaches of advice for him indicates a necessity for reflection on what he could be doing better, Creon feels attacked and does not benefit from any counsel.

Once Tiresias has revealed Haemon’s impending death, Creon protests “It’s so painful to pull back; it goes against my heart” (1105). If Creon had been flexible, it would not have been so painful for him to pull back, before the last minute. It is only for Creon and Antigone, whose identities revolved around their stubbornness, that it would be excruciatingly painful to change a stance, because they held their beliefs so close, so dear, and so important to themselves. For people whom such stances are fluid, these decisions would not weigh so heavy on their hearts.

As we approach the play’s conclusion, Creon’s expressions take the forms of “You were expelled from life / By my bad judgment, never yours” (1265), “Why don’t you kill me now? / My misery is so huge” (1309), and “I killed you, poor child…/ I’m worth less than a nobody” (1319). We have now seen Creon lose everyone who was dear to him, and suffer much pain that could have been narrowly avoided, if he had simply acted sooner. Having seen Antigone lose her life, and Creon lose everything of value in his life, both due to their extreme tunnel vision and single-mindedness, we can infer that flexibility is indeed a form of wisdom, which you would do poorly to lack in life.

This was her feedback:

Sarah Mei,

You have a wonderful, expressive writing voice, and there is excellent use of evidence in this essay. A couple of things that would improve a future draft: clarifying the thesis to be more specific and following from your particular analysis of the play. For example, perhaps something about how thinking in binaries/dichotomies leads the characters to adopt an all-or-nothing rigidity. Having a specified thesis would then help to organize your body paragraphs into micro theses that support this over-arching claim. 

Another key thing is to be sure to begin new paragraphs with a claim or a micro-thesis that tells the reader how the evidence that follows is building toward the main thesis. With these two edits, this would become an outstanding paper.  78/B+

(I have made in-text notes on docx file)

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

BUY AN UMBRELLA,
YOU CHEAP BITCH

I've had an enlightening, enjoyable and lovely weekend. Alessia and I took the ferry to Vancouver, and it was my first time going into the city proper, because prior to this, I'd only done a short transit at the Vancouver airport to fly into the island. Alessia's family lives in Vancouver so I was doing a sleepover at her family's house. Her mom picked us up in the drive over from the ferry terminal to their house, and I had a sort-of field trip on the way over. Alessia's brother had just returned from his birthday trip to Whistler with his girlfriend, and they're twenty years old, so her mom was telling us about the trip, and everything was just so chill. In Singapore, if you're from my community, when you go on a trip with your romantic partner, you'd have to lie to your parents about the people you're going with, pretend it's a group trip with your friends, etc. I learned about the issue with snow in Vancouver, and the fact that they recently had a salt shortage during a snow-in, and had to get salt delivered in trucks from other provinces. A salt shortage! To deal with snow!!!! What an interesting issue. 

We got to their house, and they had prepared the guest room for me. Alessia has a dog (fuck I'd asked for the breed, but now I've forgotten, I know there's a poodle part in the mix) called Korra, who is the gentlest furriest bear of a doggo, and she was so friendly, I loved giving her belly rubs. Alessia then drove me to Stanley Park, which was a lovely gradient of yellows and oranges and reds, and we found out that Stanley Park is bigger than Central Park in terms of land area! We then went to Granville Island, which is like a cross between Grand Central Market in LA and... I think, the Meatpacking District in New York? It has an entire market of fresh, delicious, diverse variations of cuisines, and also lots of cool, crafty, indie items on sale. I know when I was in New York, Adam took me to a sort-of reclaimed warehouse, that sold soy candles and eco-conscious items, I don't remember where it was at the moment, but for some reason the term Meatpacking District means something to me? Maybe, maybe not.

Anyway, Granville Island is currently my favorite place in Vancouver, and I definitely look forward to another full-day visit sometime. This time, I had a lox bagel sandwich, and the salmon tasted so fresh, I know now what they mean that seafood is super fresh in this city. We also bought fudge, and I had some of mine, and kept the rest to snack on during long and heavy classes. I freshened up at Alessia's home, then left for my date. My date(s?) and I have a running joke, I was supposed to be going on two different dates on the weekend, because I'd matched with them on the dating apps (hilariously enough, I matched them on different apps - one was on Bumble and the other on Hinge) and found myself getting along with them at the same time. 

However, one of them had a busy weekend, and so I met only one of them on Saturday. He brought a rose, because I apparently am now on The Bachelorette, and I will have to make my pick between the two of them. We had a lovely date, he brought me for bingsoo, as well as sushi. We got sushi at Davies St, which is the LGBT district of Vancouver, and the sushi was so fucking good! It wasn't even expensive, but it was delicious, so I suppose I will be eating much more sushi here than in Singapore. Even though the weather was hideously rainy (not something I enjoy, y'all know I love and thrive on the sun), I had a very enjoyable date. He also bought me "Canadian snacks" - most of which I'll probably snack on during my film studies classes, so basically all the people I'm hanging out with are being the best tour guides, and I’m so grateful.

Having mentioned one date, another curious thing is the other person I'd matched with, he and I have a mutual friend, a thing that has never happened in all my years and regions of being on dating apps. If you're observant, you'll know who our mutual friend is, because I only have one Singaporean friend who lives in Vancouver. She knows about us and our match, she had only nice things to say about him, and so, in my book, this increases his credibility by 319218. I'm looking forward to seeing him. On one of our video calls, he showed me his relatively new tattoos, and one of them was a character I recognised immediately, because I'd also been enamoured by her on the Netflix food documentary she was featured on. It struck me as wonderful that he'd chosen such a person for a tattoo. 

On my date on Saturday, I found out that he and I had a very enjoyable time, emotionally and physically, you may make of that what you will. It's always nice to know that someone you can connect with, also fits with you physically, so that's great. Now I will have to see the other person, and see if there is also a spark in real life. If there is, then I'm either fucked, or it's time to explore polyamory (I KID, I KID). I like both people, or what I know of them. They are both humorous, work with sound, are very aware of their own... personal stuff, as well as socially aware of all the shit that goes on in society, and I'm fond of them. I think they like and appreciate different things in media, though, so it is interesting to see how dating each of them will turn out. 

At the moment, I just learned about interactive movie screenings of The Room and Rocky Horror Picture Show, both of which the audience can participate in and do call backs to the dialogue/scenes (for example when Janet uses a newspaper to shelter herself from the rain, someone will yell "buy an umbrella, you cheap bitch"), or throw items like rice, or toast, or spoons, at the screen, at different points of the movie. This seems so fucking fun and I cannot wait to experience it for the first time in my life. Somebody needs to tell The Projector in Singapore to do this, I'm sure they know of such screenings happening, but I wonder why they don't conduct such viewings. 

I am.... happy. I am feeling a lot of love, and I hope you feel it too, in some way, shape or form. Thank you, Canadians, for making my experience of Canada feel so wholesome.

Friday, October 15, 2021

ANOMALISA


you call me again drunk in your Benz
driving home under the influence
you scared me to death
but I'm wasting my breath
'cos you only listen to your fucking friends

I don't relate to you
I don't relate to you, no
'cos I'd never treat me this shitty
you make me hate this city
and I don't talk shit about you on the Internet
never told anyone anything bad
'cos that shit's embarrassing
you were my everything

and all that you did was make me fucking sad
so don't waste the time I don't have
don't try to make me feel bad

I would like to make a disclaimer that I am simply linking this song because it's been in my head since I first heard it at the Friendsgiving dinner I went to on Sunday evening. I think it's a good song, and I love the contrast between how calm and serene it sounds before it turns into an absolutely ragey rant, and it still works so well together. It's one of those songs I think will stay in my mind for years to come. I absolutely did not expect this.

This has been a lovely week for me. Kass invited me to a Friendsgiving dinner, where I had my first sweet potato pie that was topped with marshmallows. North Americans eat the weirdest food, but it works, so. I had my first mid-term test this week, I have consumed a lot of media for school and have written a lot over the course of the past seven days, so I don't quite have much more in the way of words.

I shared a password to a media platform with someone who has been in my life for a literal week, and he shared his password to another media platform that I don't have a subscription to, and I don't quite know why, but this feels so intimate. I am possibly ascribing more meaning to something than it inherently has, but that's me, as you well know. People have been very nice to me, and I am smiling, and laughing so much, and even though it is way too early to tell and I will never know why, I think I know which direction I am leaning toward. What do I mean? Who knows? We'll see. 

As always, I wish you the best weekends and the best lives. :)

Saturday, October 9, 2021

TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB

It has been a long day, but a very good one. This morning I gave my presentation on Dante’s Vita Nuova, I was proud of my slides and the snarky words I’d chosen to highlight Dante’s sheer audacity. That was at the start of the class, and my professor said after that, that it was such a high bar for the rest of the class to match up to in their weekly presentations, and that my professor herself didn’t want to follow after me, to conduct the class. She was being very sweet and kind to me, but I felt so relieved and appreciated for the work I had put in. I really like this professor, I want to be friends with her and her co-lecturer, who is such an interesting and fascinating character, with the most wondrous collection of knowledge. My presentation lasted five minutes, so we had one hour and twenty-five minutes left in the class. It is the liberal studies class, where we discuss important texts about love and friendship, and two of my classmates engaged in an organic debate about the parallels between Dante and Diotima (from completely different texts) and they got so involved, one of them began visualising an entire new premise of his own, and drew it in the form of a graph on the blackboard. We mathematically and graphically tried to represent philosophy, and spoke of asymptotes (I’ll give you what the axes represent if you ask me, it’s a long, 2000-year-old story). I felt like I was being treated to the first, unrevised versions of my classmates’ respective future TED talks, if TED talks are a thing that will continue way into the future. Sometimes I worry about money, I wonder how I will afford to pay for all of my tuition, because my loan doesn’t cover all of it, but in that moment, I gave myself leave to enjoy education and knowledge, for the sake of the education and knowledge I was receiving. My heart was full of love and joy. It was a moment that will live in my memory for very, very long, and I cherish it. I wish education were affordable and accessible to everyone who wants it, and not done for the sake of capitalism and earning higher wages. 

I did some work in between, until DnD started at 5pm. Every week, I get more terms added to my lexicon, I learn how to say “nat twenty” for a natural 20 on the die, “soft twenty”, which is when your die adds up with your character bonuses to give you twenty, and today I learned “dice jail”, which is the funniest and most endearing thing I learned about the superstitions of my fellow players, who are otherwise pretty darn intelligent and rational. We were well into our session when one of them said he wanted sushi. I haven’t had sushi in Nanaimo, it’s supposed to be really fresh and good and cheap here, because we’re right by the sea, so I said we should order sushi. Then the girl next to me said she should probably eat because she hadn’t eaten for the day and she had gotten started on a new medication for ADHD, today itself. We took forever to order because all the nearby sushi places that delivered were closed for the day, etc etc, but we got into some pretty whackass hilarious conversations over the phone, as a group. In the end, we couldn’t get sushi but I insisted that we order pizza, for the sake of the girl who hadn’t eaten. It was pretty alright pizza, incomparable to sushi – a food I would marry if I could, but at the end of it, she sent me a personal message on Discord thanking me for being kind, and again, I felt the same love I’d felt with my professor in the morning. I have strong protective instincts, it comes with having many younger siblings. I’m not the best elder sister, but I know the people who hurt my younger siblings, I would be down to… do something to them in return. I also have strong protective instincts because there are a lot of people in my life who have always fought to protect me, because I suppose I’ve had lots of bumps in my life and I didn’t grow up the same way they did, so I learn from these strong protective forces in my life, all the time. Alternatively, I also don’t like it when people don’t have their meals on time, because I know sometimes when you’re not mentally all there, when you’re just too preoccupied with life, it just takes you more spoons to make sure your body is equipped with the basics it needs. Self-care can be impossible for the people who need it most, so I needed to make sure this girl fed herself.

I’ve been quite homesick, there are many things I miss about being home. I feel like I would sound ungrateful if I voiced it, so I don’t, but I know everything I know, everything I love is back there. I love Canada, I love the part of Canada I’m in, every day has been such a joy but I’ve been trying to be honest with all the conflicting feelings I’m having. Today, today I felt at ease, and joyful, and loving and loved, and I was proud of today. Today someone was kind to me and I was able to pass that kindness on.

Friday, October 1, 2021

EXIT PLAN

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” 

― Theodore Roosevelt