This is an announcement for the anonymous people who comment. Please leave names when you make a comment. Though sometimes I can tell, sometimes I am seriously wrong, though like every other person on earth, I think that I am correct.

Hope, a Beacon or Abyss?

What is the first thing that comes into your mind when you hear or read this word? A sunrise, a sunset, a crushed heart that belongs to you or a loved one? A red rose, fragile, vulnerable, but thriving in the midst of a harsh winter's storm? For me, it brings forth a phrase which I have read in The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly.

Said by the doctor who was warning his patient's best friend, Fiona Finnegan.

"Be careful of too much hoping," he'd warned her. "It is hope, not despair, that undoes us all."

The reaction of Fiona was to never give up hope. Contradicting? I agree. Wait,there is a lot more. In the same story, Fiona had a dream of owning a shop with a lad whom she liked. Unfortunately, that man was thick headed enough to run off with a woman, giving the excuse of drunken folly. What happened to her then? She plodded day by day in a never ending limbo until she found out that her dad was murdered after her mom by her employer. That forced her to go to New York and begin anew.

So what is hope,by the dictionary?A feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. Let's face it, all of us living, breathing creatures on the same planet,hope. An ant hopes to find food, a dog hopes for a bone, a polar bear hopes to escape those bent on hunting down their fur. We hope for more than what a normal creature hopes for, being lost in a world where people seek the paeans of power to their own success. An average worker hopes for enough to feed and clothe his family. A person on the rise with youthful spark hopes for more, a higher position, a bigger bonus, a Mercedes perhaps or a beautiful diamond from Tiffany's?

Hope is of course a vital thing for us, we might as well take ourselves to the grave if we ever stop believing in our dreams, hoping for a better tomorrow. But is there a limit to what we can hope? We can pray about it, do everything we can about it and strive to a goal but we are merely human. Compared to the infinite cycles of water, our life spans are worth about a nanosecond to that eternity. No make it a hundredth or billionth of a nanosecond.

About the thing that the doctor said, I feel that there is a bit of truth in it. If you cling on to much on a non-existent dream or hope, when you really have no more of it, part of you dies with it. Like Xuelian in the Embers of Heaven by Alma Alexander, when the Golden Wind cadets broke her kingfisher comb, her only link to the dead emperor, she no longer cared if she was dead or alive. Her old, vulnerable body taking and withstanding any physical pain because there was nothing left to hope for.

So is hope something that lets us live but crushes us with its full weight the moment your dreams and life are dashed, like an abyss much easier to fall in than to climb out? Or is it something great that keeps us living and the circumstances are the ones that destroy us? I have no answer to that question. No idea on how to reason on such a thing. A beacon or an abyss.

Reading the Stories of Truth

Another novel by Jennifer Donnelly, A Gathering Light, is for want of a better word, perfect. Every chapter has a different word and really, how many people in this world know that hispidulous is a word for a surface covered with short bristly hairs like a man's unshaved face. What really touched me in this story is her emphasis on books.

The main character of the book, Mattie, is a book lover and who writes her own stories. She herself was expressing why no one wrote the truth about things, like how a pig pen looks like after a sow has eaten her own young or how cancer smells like. All this is quoted. Her teacher and mentor, Miss Wilcox, replied, " Make them care Mattie."

It is true, hardly any of the renowned writers like J.K Rowling or Alexandre Dumas ever write things that has a great value, that feeds on our minds and lets our souls really ponder on the true, deep meanings behind it. Take Alma Alexander for example, author of the Embers of Heaven. She knows that life is not flouncy and perfect and always has to end with a happy note. It ends with a lament that we are trying to throw back our foundations of tradition to grasp at straws of revolutionary ideas. What seems weak, might prove to be stronger after a thousand years have passed. Only that we never live long enough to realise that.

Perhaps those writers for children do not want to scare them but from young we need to know the truth, not go through life thinking that is a fairy tale and it doesn't matter if they make a colossal mistake for there will be some prince or heroine at the end and you will live happily ever after. What we need in this world are writers who use their skill and eloquence in language to speak the truth we need to fear. Never mind if it does not have the same spells at Hogwarts or the battles of King Henry the Fifth. All we need is the truth.

Art: Is there a line when art turns violent?

There is definitely none whatsoever. This issue was raised in Singapore recently when a 21 minute video of British artist Simon Birch beheading a pig was shown in an installation at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, called the Azhanti High Lightning. Gruesome, violent, botched or cruel? No.

It is a bit disturbing for those who go weak at the sight of blood but the majority of this world eat meat. Where does all our steak cuts, pork chops, whole chicken come from? Why make such a big fuss over an artist who is just trying to show us everyday things? He himself is a vegetarian, his friends ate the pig. He was only trying to show his talent and feelings about this subject.

Let's take another art piece then, Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacriox. A masterpiece depicting a scene during the time of the french revolution. Many injured and in pain, some with spirits in search of heaven after witnessing their victory. Bloody yes. Point 2,leading them was a woman with her bosom exposed. This art piece with butchered humans, woman's bosom, and is a war scene. It is in the Loft and is highly recognised. Not exactly the Mona Lisa but is worthy to stay in the same building. This artist was showing his feelings and people respected it, why not now?

Just like the impressionist artworks isn't it. Nobody really paid any attention because they stick to the rule book and lounge in cosy chinz chairs while somewhere in this cold world, someone who wants to express his feelings is rejected. Why this line between art? If this sort of video is rejected then I want Damien Hirst's artwork to be under the same list. Along with countless other artists.

Just because someone has never picked up a pencil or brush or camera and done something with it with their senses, it does not give them the license to slander them on tabilods, newspapers or websites. For once just try to think about all the other things happening, the wars, the terrorists. You can make such a big fuss over a little video like that, with factious comments and remarks, just for a pig that even animal lovers eat. But what is happening for things that affect millions of lives, each as precious as your own? Tell me that.

Achieving Success

Good news, the school that I applied for has shortlisted me and on Monday, 9th of July, I will be taking a test for my art. I will try to get those pictures of my art posted but I really do not know where they are. It seems to be a draw whatever you desire kind of thing and I am still pondering on a good subject. Abstract still life perhaps, I am horrible at making things look in proportion. I am really scared, since no one in my school has applied to this school for a few years now. There will be an interview after this test if they accept me into the second round and after that comes the final verdict. Why do they have to make US wait so long? We only get to know whether we have a secure comfirmed place until our end-of-year results are out.

Excuse me? Are all the schools just going to make us sit and wait for them to pick us out. Okay I know it is the system but frankly I have been slightly put off by their off timing. They sent an email about the changing of dates. I mean, students hardly have time to do such stuff like immediately make a presentable art work within a constrained time limit. Or think about a topic to give a good impression. Absurd.

Why can't we just send them our art pieces during the interview? Then we can tell the teachers why we chose such an art piece or whatever. I break easily under stress and this is giving me a lot of stress. Before the interview I have to read up on the school history and art history on certain artists and their works. My vocabulary better be good on that day. I am good with conversing and within 5 minutes I can get a relatively smooth conversation going with a stranger (e.g mom's friend or something) because I cannot stand silence if there is another breathing person in the same radius of 1 meter. Pray for me.

Scrabble

Does any one here feel crazy whenever you are faced with a scrabble board almost void of opportunities for you and all the letters you pick are vowels or non vowels?
I am and it is not funny. I am currently losing a lot to my dad in the first two games of scrabble in my short existence here but my words are a bit more colourful than his and he said that they are pretty good. We are still stuck at the words like sole, road and well boring kind. I have been trying to put in corrode, jarl,fungible and nearly put in weird word beany in desperation.

I must warn readers, I am suffering from severe-utterly-depression-blogging syndrome and I forgive in advance for any erratic typing. Sorry folks, but every teenager goes through this adults cannot escape as well.