The Tricky Part

Ever feel that you'd rather read an entire shelf of library books on breathtaking stories, fascinating histories, and weird science that actually excite you and get you asking questions instead of numbing your mind with another term paper you have no desire to write?

And it's not that you're lazy. It's that school somehow became... a little less inspiring, maybe a little bit stifling. Like your curiosity grew into this electric ball of frenetic energy and you can't stand the thought of sitting through another boring lecture taken verbatim from the textbook. But you persevere anyway because you want that diploma and it's your meal-ticket to the future. Your future. The title of being an honors student doesn't even matter as much as it used to...

What matters the most is discovering that you have this natural inborn curiosity about the world and how it works and that you want to make something beautiful to inspire ideas in people. Like leaving a legacy behind, an imprint, some kind of indication that you lived and that you contributed something to make this world better off than it was before you became inspired.

The tricky part is figuring out a way to never lose that part of yourself, the part that never stops believing, the part that allows you to embrace the possibilities and work through the mess to find out the world's essence. To find the beauty, the truth, and the light in yourself... and to inspire others to see that in themselves. 

Poetic Prose: The Seemingly Nonsensical Logic of My Disquieted Mind

So many thoughts lingering in my mind, at the tip of my tongue, waiting for my lips to form the words that would breathe the sounds to life. I'm living in a mess of indigos and violets, my poetry blurring into my prose. I haven't felt this way about writing in a long time.

How does one convey emotion through images, rather than merely tell?

Perhaps that's precisely what has been troubling me about my writing. I have the paintbrushes, the paints, and the canvas. Perhaps I need to trade in these old specs for a new set of lenses. Maybe I just need to hone my brush strokes. Or maybe...

Maybe I just need to get my hands to stop shaking.

I flip through old diaries, the paper cracked and crisp betwixt my fingers, until I feel peeled and distant from the teenage girl who authored them. I slam each diary shut. I wish for a furnace, but burning these well-worn leaves won't stamp out the invisible imprints that the past has branded in my mind. But that teenage girl, the one who bared her ideas on those personal pages, will forever remain a part of me. She's grown up and she's moved beyond the silly narration of those pages (I can only hope).

I stare at empty pages as my thoughts dance in circles, waiting for my voice to give them weight. Instead, they linger, waiting for an unassuming passerby to catch the barely audible whisper.

So this is my journal of discontent, my heart's manifesto, the seemingly nonsensical logic of my disquieted mind.

Clearly, I still have a lot of figuring out to do. I won't cross my fingers, though. I need to write.

False Starts & Indefinable Fresh Beginnings

False starts and fresh beginnings. We've all had our fair share of those.

Just when I think that things are finally falling into place, life shifts and I'm thrown against a corner with the breath knocked out of me and my heart making a break for it. The problem is, my heart's got nowhere to go. The exact direction has yet to be determined.

The words escape me. What was I thinking? Why did I say that? I can't take it back. Did he really mean what he said? The part about me being a "worthwhile challenge"? I can't for the life of me, fathom why.

All I did was paint the world the way I saw it. The way I dream it, sing it. Live it. The way I twist my doubts, wring them in my hands and set them free, turning them into hope. Hope for the better, hope for the right answers, hope for the possibilities, hope for the future. All this, my odd and misplaced philosophy. Yet I never once considered myself to be a philosopher. I'm just someone who likes to think.

Am I really that strange? Am I really that crazy for thinking that I can live my life outside the confines of a  black-and-white box? Am I foolish to believe that I have the freedom to choose which combination of right ideas will be the hues that color my world? Am I naive to believe that I am the master of my doubt, that I can bend my doubt like a helium balloon and set it free so that it does not stomp on my free-spirit?

Sometimes he talks a mile a minute, and I'm still hung over the first words that left his lips.

I don't know why I bother so much.

Arguing in circles. There's a reason why they're pointless. You forget why you cared so much in the first place. Taking a stand and then you forget your purpose as you trip over the semantic wires you used to tie up your argument. You then end up tying your own tongue with words you hope you won't have to eat later.

In the middle of washing dishes, in the midst of reorganizing my bookshelves, in the hours I spent at the laundromat watching the clothes spin in repeated circles, I felt it: that first inkling, that indefinable emotion, the way my heart slowed down for just a tiny beat the moment the thought surfaced in my mind: it bothered me.

It bothers me that I care.

It bothers me that I'm even writing this, wondering why he's even got me thinking about questions that I thought I answered long ago based on the premise that you can't always ask the same question twice. Situations may be similar, but there will always be the nuances, the subtleties that people often tend to look over and forget. There are black-and-white issues, but there aren't always clear-cut answers. The circumstances determine the form the answers will take, so I have come to believe, and continue to believe despite his prior efforts to change my mind.

Why did he want to change my mind so badly anyway? It bothers me to think that he cares about what I think. It bothers me even more to think that I could be completely off the mark in making this assumption.

I don't want to think that this is another one of those false starts, another one of those foolish moments when my imagination usurps my reason. It's a scary thought, one that leaves me awake at night, awaiting the next day with breathless anticipation.

Do dare give this thought, this breathlessness, weight? Do I dare utter the words out loud, write it down on paper, record it into this media for all the world to see?

I'm not sure if I will just yet.

But I'm not going to cross my fingers or twiddle my thumbs while the hours pass. Instead, I think I'll reorganize my closet. Read a book. Take a walk. Write some more crappy poetry until I finally get the words right. Maybe then I'll have some more answers, whatever form they shall take. Maybe then I'll finally step up with the courage to say the very words I dare not speak.

I'd like to believe that it's just the sun rising, gently brushing new colors onto a fresh beginning. Whatever this is, whatever it turns out to be, I hope it's all for the better.

Maybe it won't even bother me at all anymore, and I won't mind so much that I care. This should be interesting.

Esc

I think I've grown a little rusty in writing poems. I just hope I can learn a few more tricks and techniques once I take that poetry workshop this semester.

Until then, this is one of the things I have to work with, called "Esc." Feel free to be as honest as you want to be and let me know what you think of it. Writing is a learning process, after all. Thanks!

"Esc"

The never knowing

The moment you shake your leg, tap your foot,

Rake trembling hands through your hair, 

Teeter in your seat

Wonder if the message you sent

Ever reached the inbox

"Delivered," your screen reports

Yet you feel anything but saved

"Delete" you want to press,

But you can’t backtrack to that space

Shifting restlessly

So you go to your bed and lie in it

Sleep, that natural route of circumvention,

When one drinks dreams from that cup called denial

You never authored anything

Your fingers never touched that keyboard

Your prints aren't etched between each binary-embedded word

Each invisible pixel between the spaces of each

Letter you wish you’d never typed

The only thing retracted:

The only thing that ever mattered and meant the world

And even when the sunlight spills through the window and

Hits the speckled eggshell walls of your room

You’re sitting up, listening to your lungs expand and collapse,

Watching the shadows rise and ebb as the

Reasons dance around and around, and

Once again elude you

A Picnic, Promenade, and Parade

Last Friday, after a week of running around doing errands, I was finally able to relax and have some fun. Some of my high school friends and I met up at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. They were a little late because for some odd reason, my friend's key got stuck in the door of her house and they couldn't leave until the locksmith came to fix it. As I was waiting for them, I just sat in the nearby park and tried to enjoy the nice weather. The birds there were kind of funny to watch. There were a few little sparrows and two robins looking for food. One robin was lucky enough to find a worm, and the others were chasing after it. The early bird gets the worm, after all.
Not long after, I saw Liliana walking through the park while I sat there on the bench waiting. It was great to finally see her again after what must have been a year. Together we went inside the Brooklyn Museum of Art while waiting for the others to arrive. There was a graduation ceremony going on on the third floor, so we didn't get to see the European paintings. On the other hand, we saw this really elaborate and fascinating installation artwork called "The Dinner Party" by Judith Chicago, an iconic piece in feminist art.

The banquet table and the heritage panels in the adjacent hall pay tribute to over 1,000 historical women figures, from the ancient goddesses of old religions and myths, right down to twentieth-century contemporary feminists and their works. Every aspect of "The Dinner Party," right down to the hand-painted decorative plates and the shape of the dinner hall, alludes to the power of the feminine mystique. It was amazing and awe-inspiring to be in such a place, and somehow I felt connected to all the women in the past who have paved the way for the rest of us to become empowered and active members of our society. It felt sacred. The conversation that Lily and I had regarding our plans for our futures while standing in that space made the experience that much more powerful to me.

Judy Chicago (American, b. 1939).  
The Dinner Party (Mary Wollstonecraft and Sojourner Truth place settings), 1974–79.

Our other friends finally came about an hour later, and so we made our way to the Botanic Garden. We had a blast that afternoon in the garden, just enjoying the beautiful scenery and the fresh summer air. One of the security guards tried flirting and hitting on one of my friends. He singled us out for having blanket out on the grass (even though there was a mother with her kids with a bigger blanket laid out) and then asked us if we'd like to take a tour of the rose garden ("That must be why you lovely ladies came to the Botanic Garden, right? To see the roses?" he asked). We exchanged amused smiles as Renee panicked and kept shaking her head, looking too freaked out to tell the guard that she wasn't interested. So Liliana took the lead and refused for her while the rest of us tried to hold back our laughter until the guard finally left us alone. The whole thing was pretty hilarious, since we weren't even interested in going to the rose garden, let alone on a tour of one. I mean, what's there to take a tour of? It's a garden, full of ROSES. Go figure. Though, I have to give the guy a little credit. As cheesy as his lines were, at least he tried.

Actually, the real reason we went to the Botanic Garden had absolutely nothing to do with seeing the pretty roses in full bloom. In fact, we went there just to sneak in contraband BBQ chicken drumsticks, rice rolls, and sandwiches, to play the word game Taboo, and to take random pictures of each other. The day grew more interesting as we all got into Pris's car and tried to decide where we would eat for dinner. Generally, we're a pretty indecisive, go-with-the-flow kind of bunch, so it took us about twenty minutes to finally make a decision.

We ended up going to an Indian restaurant in Brooklyn Heights called "Amin." The prices were affordable, the staff was welcoming, and the food was overall pretty good. Our waiter even offered us complementary chips, chutney, and a couple of other yummy sauces whose names escape me, ahaha. I just remember that one of the sauces tasted somewhat like sweet, fruity barbeque sauce and the other tasted like a cool and somewhat minty-sweet complement to the chutney's spiciness. I was so full from the banana fritters and samosas that I almost didn't have enough room for the mushroom shag I ordered as the entre. I would have ordered dessert, but we were all so full from the meal! If you're ever around Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights and are craving something different, definitely check out the affordable Indian cuisine at Amin restaurant. At least try their yummy, crispy samosas.

Later, we strolled down the Promenade and took pictures with the beautiful sunset-lit New York City skyline in the backdrop. We shared more inside jokes and talked about our views on relationships and life in general. As the day slowly wound down into night, I felt thankful. I got to spend a beautiful summer day with some of my closest friends and we all got to reconnect with each other again.

This is going to sound a little hokey, but I felt like I was at a crossroads in my life, what with that internship I have this summer, the prospect of becoming a college senior, and the somewhat-confusing-yet-exciting possibility of what could be either a good friendship or a blossoming romance with that certain someone (I hate thinking that maybe things will fizzle out over time).

Hanging out and laughing with my friends, though, helped me stop worrying so damn much about my own uncertainty about the future. In each of our own ways, we were all confused about life. Though we may have an idea of what we want to do in the future, we don't know if any of it will work out. The one faith that we all share is that things will work out eventually. No matter where we end up somewhere down this twisting and winding path that we call life -- even if we all end up cat ladies! -- at least we'll still have each other.

Sunday, June 5th was pretty interesting, to say the least. My mother, my sisters, and I marched in the Philippine Independence Day Parade, like we usually do every year, with Regal Court No.1 of the Order of the Amaranth (a masonic organization). I wasn't expecting the parade to be so crowded, since last year there didn't seem to be that many people, but man, was I wrong about that. I learned on that very same day that Jericho Rosales, a famous and talented (and incredibly good-looking!) actor from the Philippines was there at the parade and would be giving a live performance at the cultural festival. My sisters and I saw him in "Pangako Sa 'Yo" and the more recent drama "Green Rose" on TFC, so of course we had to try and see him. Together with our fellow Rainbow girl Camille, we linked arms and made our way through the super-congested crowds toward the stage and tried to get as close to the front as possible.

It was totally worth it, because we were less than twenty-five feet away from the stage and we got a close view of the performances and of Jericho's handsome, smiling face as he came on stage and sang. My sister and I kept screaming like a couple of excited fan-girls. I never I had it in me, but damn was I excited to see Echo perform! My sis and I even made jokes with each other, playfully arguing with each other that Jericho only had eyes for one of us, since he kept lingering in the corner of the stage which we were facing. Though it's foolish to even entertain the thought, I still maintain that Jericho was looking at me, ahaha.

Anyway, below is one of videos that I had my sister record on my iPod (she's an inch taller than me, haha) of one of the songs Jericho performed, "Change the World," originally by Eric Clapton. Jericho has pretty good vocals:




He even took a picture of the crowd on his phone and posted it on his Twitter. Try to spot my sister in there if you can -- she's the one wearing a pink long-sleeved sweater standing somewhere near his head on the far right of the picture, hehe.

I was standing right next to her, but you can't see me because the picture cuts off already. Oh well. It's enough that I got to see one of my favorite Filipino actors. I'm looking forward to next year's parade. I wish Jericho will be the special celebrity guest again, but that's probably unlikely, haha. We'll just have to see what happens.

As a Filipino and as an American, it's pretty confusing trying to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to be. Who am I? What is my identity? I'm actually of a mixed background -- my great grandfather on my mom's side (my Lola's father, to be exact) immigrated to the Philippines from China, and I have a great-grandmother on my dad's side who was half-Spanish and half-Filipino. So I look a little chinky-eyed and lighter-skinned for a Pinay. Yet I don't identify myself as being Chinese or Spanish. Ethnically, I'm a Filipina who happens to be mestiza. Culturally, I consider myself to be a New Yorker and then an American. I was born in Brooklyn, I live in Queens, and I go to school in Manhattan, so I identify most with being a New Yorker. I'm a New Yorker who happens to be of Filipino heritage.

It's only now that I'm trying to branch out and take a deeper look at my roots. I started out asking my parents what their lives were like growing up in Kalaoocan (my mom's hometown) and in Malabon (my dad's hometown), which are towns located near Manila. They'd tell me stories about their childhood -- my dad's would be more anecdotal, whereas my mom would use these stories as an opportunity to teach us something about Filipino values. Then I started watching Filipino soap operas, and it became easier to keep up with the shows once my mom finally decided to get the On-Demand package from TFC. I still find some of the shows a little too melodramatic for my own personal taste, but I guess the melodrama speaks volumes about the cultural mindset of Filipinos. Through the Asian literature classes I took at my college, especially the course "Philippine-American Literature," I learned how and why the Filipino culture and values are as complicated and as multi-layered as they are today. Then after watching a re-run episode of "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations" on the Travel Channel, something inside me just kind of... sighed.

The Philippines somehow always gets passed over by Western writers and historians. I believe that I've already mentioned this in a previous post regarding how the Philippine-American War (or Philippine War of Independence, or the Philippine Insurrection, depending on who wrote the particular history book) is often skipped over in history classes. With such a deep, diverse mix of Chinese, Spanish, Malay, and American influences in the Philippines and in Philippine cuisine, you would think that the Philippines would surely be one of the countries featured in a food and travel show. The truth is that the Philippines is almost always skipped over, as some sort of anomalous funky mixture that few want to stick their hands into because it's so complicated and difficult to explain. With all the Southeast Asian countries that Anthony Bourdain has visited in previous episodes, it was about time that the multi-faceted, multi-cultural and dynamic flavors of the Philippines was represented in his food travels.

I felt some kind of connection toward the avid fan who persuaded Bourdain to finally continue his food travels in the Philippines. The fan was also a Filipino who was born and raised in New York (Long Island, actually), and he wanted to create a connection with his cultural roots. He's also had something of an identity crisis, just like me. It's not actually a crisis, really -- more like an intense longing, or a yearning than a crisis. We both yearned to learn more about our ethnic heritage and culture. We feel as though we're not fully Filipino and yet not fully American. Sure, we get the best of both worlds, but it's still weird to be standing in the middle. Filipinos, in my honest opinion, are like sponges -- super absorbent of other cultures and flavors, very malleable and adaptable, and above all, tough and resilient. It's a somewhat odd analogy, I know, but that's how I've come to think of my parents' homeland and its people. I like to think that it's a good thing; it means that we are able to adapt quickly to change as time moves its feet forward and the world shifts.

Anyway, whatever it is that you happen to be -- Asian, European, Native American, Hispanic, Black, Blue, Polka-dot or Zebra-striped -- I hope you also branch out and learn a thing or two. If you happen to be looking for your roots, I hope that you find rich, soulful soil somewhere.

Here's to happy summer adventures and personal discoveries, everyone! See you in the next post.

I'll leave you with a track from Anna Nalick's newly released "Broken Doll & Odds & Ends," a lovely song called "These Old Wings."

Oddities and Curiosity-filled 2011 Summer Plans

Ever since my last day of the Spring 2011 semester, I've had so many things running through my mind lately. The summer heat over Memorial Day weekend hasn't helped my brain functioning all that much, I'm afraid. Although I've been trying to catch up on sleep, I haven't had much luck. Not that anything's wrong. In fact, things seem to be going just fine...

I just hope I can keep up!

Anyway, I've been reading some of my older posts -- the ones from the past three years -- and I have to say that I sound a little different. Does this mean I'm growing as a writer, a blogger, and a critical thinker? Haha, I can't be sure.

Granted, I'm still that slightly awkward, glasses-and-braces-wearing girl with a twisted imagination and a weird sense of humor. I'll always be that nerdy bookworm who reads random titles on philosophy, history, science, sci-fi, fantasy, poetry, classic literature, and of course, the occasional YA novel. I cannot live without books -- this is one girl who says, "Give me a good book over diamonds any day!" Right now, for instance (though I haven't read any Nietzche beforehand and am only somewhat familiar with existentialism), I'm reading Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

What has changed over the years? For one thing, I find that I'm a lot more confident than I was when I started blogging.

When I started college, I had no idea what the hell I was doing majoring in psychology, a subject that I only decided to take up because my parents told me that I needed a practical, respectable, well-paying day job to support myself and build a career. I did it for selfish reasons; I majored in psychology to help give me some insight into the absurdities that take root in our private minds and manifest themselves in everyday human social interaction. Doing so made sense at the time. Now, though, I find that I really want to become a clinical psychologist. I want to provide counseling and services to those who really need it, to those who need a little help in the same everyday activities and routines that we so often take for granted.

So I decided to step up, be a woman, and go after that internship. I'm now in the process of finalizing everything. All that's left for me to do is fill out the form, send it out to the on-site intern adviser, and then ask my psychology undergraduate adviser if she would please become my faculty mentor, especially since she was my professor for abnormal psychology. I'm crossing my fingers here, hoping that all goes well.

As far as my writing projects go, I feel comfortable with how I've been shaping my characters and building their world from my research on body-snatching, women in medical history, and historical periods such as Elizabethan and Victorian London. I have finished rewriting and editing ten chapters, and I hope to continue with the eleventh sometime this week. I just hope that with this upcoming internship, I can still have enough time to work on my writing and fine-tune my techniques.

I also love taking inspiration from a variety of television shows. I've recently kept up with this kooky and quirky show on the Science Channel called "Oddities," which centers around the strange and hilariously outrageous encounters that the shopowners of Obscura Antiques & Oddities experience on a day-to-day basis.

In one episode, I couldn't stop laughing. Priscilla texted me on Saturday night about it, saying that she caught a marathon of it after I'd mentioned it to her. So I turned on the TV, tuned into the On-Demand Nature & Knowledge Channel, scrolled down to the Science Channel, and played the latest episode of "Oddities."

A man walks into the shop, accompanied by his assistant, who's carrying a box full of small cases. Sean Miller, an artist and the curator of JEMA (John Erikson Museum of Art), starts collecting  Obscura's -- I kid you not -- dust samples. He tells the shopowners, Mike and Evan, that he collects dust samples from art museums, photographs them, and even creates buttons and coasters for sale. Miller hopes that his sales pitch, along with a tour of his dusty (haha) art museum, will persuade Mike and Evan to buy their own dust back!

Below is a clip from "Oddities," and if you're actually interested (or think that I'm kidding) then you can also find out more information about the dust exhibit from JEMA's website: http://www.jema.us/pages/dust_pages/state.html



I was pretty surprised to see the photographs that Miller and his fellow artists took from the magnified images of the dust samples. The concept of the artworks sounds completely bizarre and incredibly weird, to the point of utter hilarity, but the photographs and images themselves are actually pretty cool to look at, almost like paintings. No two dust samples are alike! Kind of like post-modern abstract art, if you're really into that. I know I'm not so much into modern art (though I do occasionally go to the MoMA to open up my mind to new and highly-stylized artforms), but I do have an appreciate for art in general. With his unique take on viewing dust, I actually commend Miller and his colleagues on their work and their guts to show off their photography endeavors in a dusty art exhibit. (FYI: Pun totally intended.)

A detail of Art Museum Dust Montage by Connie Hwang

If you're feeling so inclined, I dare you to go google the keywords "magnified dust samples" or "microscopic dust." You'll either be fascinated or creeped out by the surprisingly colorful and intricate dust patterns. For me, it's a little bit of both, as well as freaking out over the fact that I'm actually genuinely fascinated by something as weird as this. Not that it's groundbreaking or anything, though breaking the ground will probably kick up some more interesting dust samples for the people at JEMA (haha).

I'm not sure if I'll ever visit that dust museum (it turns out they also have a location in Genoa, Italy), but I'm definitely thinking about visiting Obscura Antiques & Oddities one day. It's located in the East Village, right in New York City, so maybe I'll take a train there one day with my younger sister and just take a look around. It'll probably be more fun and interesting than walking into any of those old antique or thrift shops that we've visited in the past. Though we probably won't buy anything (we're broke as a joke college girls, after all), the experience of going there will be worth the visit. Maybe they sell some cheap crafts items that my sis and I can afford as souvenirs. 

I should also bring some of my friends, too. They'd probably love exploring the odds and ends in there, too. One day, when we're not too busy with school... maybe one day this summer. I should bring it up when I see them on Friday for our girls' day picnic at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

With all this talk of "oddities," my parents think that my younger sister and I are a little weird. I can't say I blame them. It's just the way we are. I like to think that our geeky tendencies and propensity towards the oddness, absurdities, and grotesqueness of life are part of what make us unique individuals. ;)

It's seeing the beauty in the ugly that truly makes life, and indeed art, worthwhile subjects to examine and experience. (I hope I don't scare people off with my weirdness, haha.)

Speaking of weird and endearing things, I've recently added Anna Nalick's new blog site called Odds & Ends to my blogroll. Not only does she have song-writing talent and amazing vocals (she's one of my favorite artists!), but she also writes narrative poems and funny stories that have a charm all their own. I recommend checking out her blog if you have the time and are up for some entertaining, quirky, lyrical and poetic material to read. I'm getting her latest album ("Broken Dolls and Odds and Ends") as soon as it comes out, same with Michelle Branch's new song and upcoming album.

Little things like Anna's songs "Paper Bag" and "Shine" get me through each day. No matter how confused I get, I just turn my iPod on and play one of these songs. Sometimes I'd listen to some Vanessa Carlton, Michelle Branch, or Sara Bareilles. These artists bare so much vulnerability and yet so much courage and optimism in their lyrics and music that their works seem to have their own essence -- their own soul. I know that this probably sounds a little flaky, but they inspire me to continue with unraveling the confusions that I come across in both my life and my writing. They truly do.

At the bottom of this post is a list of some of their songs, which I sort of made into a themed playlist. I feel like I've been living in a daze these past few days, ever since the last day of the semester. If you go through the music below, you'll probably get an idea why.

I don't want to spend another blog post dwelling on it, since its salience already weighs in my mind. Things seemed like they were going pretty well between us... He took me by complete surprise the day before the final, asking me if I'd like to get together with him and cram study. Oh, would I? Of course! We shared some laughs about the final and learned some new things about each other. Overall, I'd say things went pretty well and we left things on a good note.

Maybe I'll call him this summer. Maybe I won't. Maybe he'll be the one to call (or text, since he seems pretty shy in general). I don't know.

I'm a girl stuck in a rut because of some stupid dating rules. I could easily call him later on during the summer and ask him if he'd like to see that sci-fi movie he mentioned. But I don't know if I should, considering I'm the girl and I'm supposed to play that stupid "play-hard-to-get" game. Such needless ridiculousness. It's like watching some stupid mating dance among bird species on the Discovery Channel. Is this what romance in the twenty-first century has been reduced to?! GOSH.

Don't you just hate that twisted knot feeling in your gut, preventing you from breathing properly and thinking straight because you're left wondering about a certain someone? Why can't life just be simple? If a guy and a gal like each other so much, why can't they just be forthright with each other and hang out like old friends getting to know each other, talking about the things that they're most passionate about in life?

Oy vey, that's what I say. And I ain't even Jewish!

Oh, to hell with it. Let's just see how this thing goes, shall we? Part of not knowing is torturous, sure, but it's also half the fun. And if things turn out differently, then oh well. It could have been the start of something beautiful, but we'll never know. On to the next song in that infinite playlist! ;)

If he doesn't call, then there's no harm in asking him if he wants to hang out during the summer to see either a movie or grab some coffee or frozen yogurt (even if it's just as friends), right? I mean, if I flop on my face, then I flop on my face. If he laughs, but then he helps me up after that, then maybe we have something going on here...

There's only one way to find out. ;)

Anyway, here's that playlist I've been talking about (thanks to youtube).

• Fools Like Me -- Vanessa Carlton
• Only Fooling Myself -- Kate Voegele
• In My Head -- Anna Nalick
• Words -- Anna Nalick
• The Lullaby Singer -- Anna Nalick
• All You Wanted -- Michelle Branch
• Sooner Or Later -- Michelle Branch
• Sweet Misery -- Michelle Branch
• Breathe -- Michelle Branch
• Come Undone -- Vanessa Carlton
• Walk Away -- Anna Nalick
• Where Are You Now? -- Michelle Branch
• Breathless -- Corinne Bailey Rae
• Uncharted -- Sara Bareilles
• Let the Rain -- Sara Bareilles
• Red -- Sara Bareilles

I'll close with a quote from "Red," the last song on the playlist. It has that feel-good optimistic summer vibe that I hope inspires you, too.

"Baby girl, it may take a while, but take the good from the bad
And never minds are never sure, 
So never leave them wanting more
 What are you waiting for?
How you love is who you are

I dive in and I sink in
And I find new colors to think in..."

Another Twilight-ish Cover? This Time on Jane Eyre? WTF?!

We are told time and again not to judge a book by its cover.

But we hardly listen anyway.

Let's face it -- we are visual creatures. For the majority of us, the gift of seeing is so centric to our experiences that we would hate to be blind. It's why we make movie adaptations of books or make scrapbooks and photo albums. Just take into account the English language and the way we often substitute the word understand with see. Behold the following example:

"I don't understand the point of creating Twilight-inspired covers for classic literature when these covers have absolutely no relevance to the actual stories."

"I don't see the point of creating Twilight-inspired covers for classic literature when these covers have absolutely no relevance to the actual stories."

See what I mean? (Harr, harr.) The message is essentially the same.

So if we are to follow this logic, it would make sense that the first impression we get of a book is the way that the book's cover is visually presented to us.

I'm incredibly chagrined right now (yes, chagrined... a word in the English language that's been overly abused by SMeyer throughout the Twilight Saga. Hope she doesn't commit the same crime again in her other books). We all know the cover designs of SMeyer's books with the red, white, and black color motifs. In a previous post, I remarked on how annoyed I was that there is a Twilight-ish cover for Wuthering Heights. There are other classics that have fallen victim to this trend, such as Romeo & Juliet and Pride & Prejudice.

Just look at these covers:

Now I'm flipping annoyed at the brilliant morons responsible for trying to market Jane Eyre as THIS:

It has nothing to do with flowers, especially not red flowers. Ditto with the red lips and the red nail polish, and the eerie albino-ish skin. Don't get me wrong. I like this cover -- very much. There's something alluring about the contrasting vividness between red and white. It's pretty. I think this cover might work if the book was some kind of retelling of Snow White. That would be interesting then, to think about the story and how it relates to the cover insofar as symbolism is concerned.

But for a story like Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre?

It is, quite simply, a travesty.

It's like trying to market dangerously seductive blood-drinking demons when there really aren't any to be found in the book (sound familiar?). That would be false advertising.

And okay, I'm sure there's the argument that I should take a chill pill because these are fictional works I'm talking about, not some newfangled miracle drug that is really an epic failure in disguise. I get that there are plot twists that could surprise us, and could even possibly change our whole perspective on a particular thing (like impressionable tweens changing their  perceptions of antiquated bloodsucking ghouls as being the ideal soul mate). That's fine, really, because it's fiction. You're allowed to imagine what you want to imagine, so long as you are mentally stable enough to recognize the fine line separating your reveries from the reality of your situation.

None of the female characters in Jane Eyre even remotely resemble the anonymous woman on the cover. Not even the pretty Blanche Ingram (the woman that Jane was jealous of), who was described as having a lovely olive complexion. Bertha Mason was described as being of Creole descent, so I highly doubt that she'd look chalk white. Jane Eyre herself was plain governess (hence the term "Plain Jane") and had simple tastes, so she can't be the woman on the cover. Besides, what would a governess in the 19th century -- who refused to buy or wear purple and pink silk dresses that Rochester picked out for her -- be doing wearing bright red lipstick and crimson nail polish?

It's nonsense.

And what is the red flower supposed to represent anyway? "Bleeding Love," as Leona Lewis would call it?

I don't think so.

Jane certainly isn't as fragile or delicate as a flower, I'll tell you that. She's more like Tsuchi Makino (the protagonist in the Japanese manga/anime/drama "Boys Over Flowers"), whose name means weed. And no, I am not speaking of cannibis here. Rather, no matter how much you try to pull out a weed with your bare hands, it's still there. Persisting. Growing. Flourishing. The weed knows where its roots are and clings to the soil that it's known for so long, just as Jane (and Tsuchi Makino) knows her true self and clings steadfastly to her morality and beliefs despite the adversity she endures. Jane is determined as she is passionate.

Okay. Maybe red is supposed to represent passion, such as the passion that Jane and Edward Rochester feel for each other. (If you ask me, Rochester loses himself to passion way too many times to be called rational, given the nature of his misdeeds and his temperament).

Is their love supposed to be represented by the flower? The freakishly white lady on the cover looks like she's giving the flower as a gift, offering it to someone the way she would give them her heart (metaphorically speaking).

On the other hand, I still maintain that flowers represent fragility -- flowers easily wilt if not cared properly, they lose their petals, they can get crushed or shrivel up and die, etc. Just analyze Ophelia and her behavior during her madness speech just before she drowned herself in Shakespeare's "Hamlet," if you're still not convinced.

But I think that Jane and Rochester's love is stronger than that, so much so that they both hallucinated -- hearing each other call out the other's name -- on the same night (freaky coincidence or not?). And despite his misdeeds, Edward Rochester learns his lesson. Jane all the more loves him for it, and loves him even more despite his disfigurement. Meanwhile, Rochester loves Jane for her determination, her fierce loyalty, her honesty, and her sense of individuality. They're both not what most people consider physically attractive, but they have qualities that transcend outer beauty. If that's not true love, I don't know what is.

While we're on the subject of true love, riddle me this: Why do Bella and Edward love each other?

I still don't get that, aside from that Bella smells like flowers and Edward is nothing more than a sparkly, hard (double entendre totally intended, hehe) statue. That's lust, really.

I actually feel cheated, having read the series and the first book twice, that I cannot find any substantial evidence (specific examples) of this love the two supposedly harbor for each other. Edward strikes me as extremely controlling and psychologically debilitating (what kind of boyfriend, praytell, tampers with his true love's truck in order to keep her away from people he does not approve of?), whereas Bella (even though she sometimes rebels) lets him perpetually screw with her mind and whines about how craptastic her life is without her vampire lover. Sure, Edward can't read her mind. But he sure knows how to manipulate someone into following his orders (as in "No, you cannot see Jacob, Bella. I am perfectly capable of holding back my affections from you if you see that guy again. No more make-out sessions, and certainly no sexing until we are married!"). I don't know if Edward is really protecting his "virtue" (saying that he has a "virtue" is kind of debatable, given that I'm accusing him of manipulation). But I commend him for his abstinance views and his belief that sex is the ultimate expression of love. HOWEVER, Edward knew how much Bella was crazy for him and would pretty much do anything to get into his pants. So he traps her into marrying him. Even though she doesn't ever want to get married, given the backstory about her mother marrying straight out of high school and getting pregant (which happens to Bella later on, of course). That, to me, is manipulation at its finest. It's no better than tricking a guy into marrying you because you're pregnant, even though he doesn't love you and he's only doing what he thinks is the right thing.

So if anyone has any insight into why SMeyer's power couple love each other, please enlighten me and cite specific examples. There's nothing more annoying than a Twihard who types in chatspeak and treats the books as if they're the absolute word of God: "B3cuz d3y jusz do, okz?! N if u cnt ex3pt dat, ur jusz jeloz of bellz cusz sh3 got a hot vamp boyfr3n dat spaklz in deh sun n U DUNTZ! TRU LUV RULZ!"

How the heck can anyone take the above statement seriously?

Anyway, the point that I'm trying to make here is that we should strive to keep the integrity of well-loved classics alive. If a publishing company wants to release a new and updated edition of an old classic by changing the cover, then the cover design should at least have a degree of relevance to the heart of the story. Covers shouldn't be there to simply "prettify" the work of literature any more than the use of purple prose to "prettify" one's shitty writing. Covers should complement the written text in some way, and they should serve to supplement our understanding of a story.

Twihard tweens and Twihard moms might not mind buying this particular edition of Jane Eyre, because it reminds them so much of their favorite saga, even though the cover design has nothing to do with the story whatsoever. Sure, literacy rates have probably increased because people are rabidly gobbling up the Twilight Saga and the overly obsessed will want to buy anything that remotely reminds them of the series without blinking twice.

But that doesn't mean good literature should be sucked of its soul (pun totally intended).

This spoils the beloved classic for the rest of us who don't give a bat's guano over Edward's veggie vamp sparkle powers -- we're not that gullible. It is an insult to assume that consumers who buy the new edition (at least those who like to overanalyze what they read, like me) will overlook the significance of the cover art.

Because I do judge a book by its cover. I may not judge the cover when I first see the book, and the cover may not be the reason I purchase a book, but I do judge it. After reading a book, I think about the imagery and the motifs that pop up throughout the story, and I try to explain the significance of the cover design based on my knowledge and understanding of the story. If a book's cover is irrelevant to the integrity of the story, then consider this blogger one greatly disappointed bookworm.