Listful Thinking

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not brave. I’m scared of choking while alone in my apartment, I once had a massive panic attack brought on by thinking about ringworm, and I live in fear of the day my boss realizes my job is not difficult and sends me home forever.

This is a cold, unfriendly planet, fraught with incidents of asphyxiation, fungal infections, and job termination. I often want to escape for a while, maybe by popping in a movie. I do not want that movie to be scary.

For the record, I’m not a baby. I’ve seen things that would curl your hair– fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! Things were pretty grim, but then four guys in coveralls climbed onto the roof of a skyscraper, challenged a…

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The Fault in our Stars – John Green

The very fact that a teenager, that is suffering from terminal cancer is actually less sappy and more realistic than those who can live long healthy lives was a beautifully thought out reality to me. 

It is true that those who are dying will see their lives as somewhat less impacting on the life around them than the people who grow up and have the life that they dreamed they would. Although Hazel explores this early in the book by saying that death is inevitable and the existence of everything that lives is dependent on the whole idea that they shall die in some manner at some point of time, I loved that the book explored what happens to the people around a dying person who believes his/her death was not as meaningful and heroic as a person who valiantly , and literally fought of death. 

The marks that people leave behind are not the marks that people praise historically, but signifies the mark that you leave on the people who love and care about you, and most importantly, will truly miss you when you’re gone. Those people who leave behind condolence messages on social networking sites and suddenly believe you’re the most important person in the world right after your death are those who have never well and truly cared about you. The universe works in such a way that the death of one person does not shift its functions significantly in time, and the universe will move on with or without you in it. But the metaphorical representation of the universe to a teenager, an adult, a cancer victim, or any other member of the human race, is the section of the universe they are familiar with and interact with. 

When Hazel’s father says that the universe only wants to be noticed, metaphorically it means YOUR universe. People are so self-centered, that most of the time the center of attention is on them even though there are so many discrepancies withing their universe. It really depends where the center of the universe is. Hazel’s take on the nihilistic nature of oblivion and the injustice of the universe are only bridged by the biggest change in her life since her diagnosis. While her diagnosis enabled her to be intelligent enough to point out the nature of death, Augustus Waters created a paradox inside her, causing her to reflect upon what she believed in. Because of him, the idea of death became too painful, and not bearable as SHE wasn’t the one dying and leaving the world. SHE was the one who suffered the loss of a loved one.

That gives her the ending of An Imperial Affliction, because she finally understands that in a way, she is a lot like Anna’s mother. Her life was interrupted mid-sentence by the death of Augustus Waters, and what happens after that wasn’t very relevant to her. She finally realizes that her book ended when Augustus died, because everything before that was what was worth preserving, and everything that came after that only seems like an afterthought. Her life moves on, her parents, and her school and her friends move on. But the book is not about her, it was what changed her universe and what really mattered.

Augustus Waters was a bit of a romantic. A romantic whose ideals were more realistic, and yet romantic in nature due to his revised uptake on the world following his diagnosis. His cheesy love, and his fear of oblivion, and his prefunerals are just glimpses into what the teenage mind could be like with cancer. How someone could look so optimistic toward the future and yet ponder on the metaphorical resonance of everything around him. How someone can be so insightful, and yet so delightfully innocent at the same time. Augustus is the perfect kind of character people can fall in love with and relate to on some level. And even though it seemed natural to assume that Hazel would die from the beginning, it would be more relatable to have Augustus die instead. 

Honestly, I think that anyone who can write such a beautifully processed, thought-out, and natural sounding peace of work deserves 5 stars. Because what John Green has done is woven his story with the ideals of two cancerous teenagers, ideals that seem the same, but are different, ideals that can live together and die together, and ideals that could be interpreted into an infinite number of ways.

John has brought us on a journey from the first page, where we fall in love with Augustus with Hazel, where we understand her pain and her standing on all the principles of the universe and where we cry and our hearts bleed with Hazel’s at the news of Augustus’s death. Because we become romantic, hopeless fools in the moments leading up to someone’s death, and we expected a better, different ending, and when reality hits home, your ideals don’t matter anymore and the fact that that special someone is gone crushes over you like a giant tidal wave.

When we close the book and we set it aside, Hazel and Augustus do not exist anymore and you realize that they are made-up and they cease to exist anymore. But you’ve read the book. The characters are developed, and nurtured and stored inside your head, no matter that they are fictional. The minute you read the book, their legacy lives on inside you, and it is up to you to imagine what might have happened after the ending of the book. I think that freedom to do what you please in your imagination once a book has ended is truly one of the most magical moments of reading a book, because you have the groundwork for your own little story in your head, and all you need to do is let your mind wander, and the colors fill in.

Protagonists Are Too Perfect!

Is it just me or does every major character in every book much better at everything than I am? I’m going to make a list of all the major characters in the most famous books youth reads and we’ll just see how good everyone is compared to the lesser folk of the universe. *grumble**grumble*

1. Harry Potter – J. K. Rowling

Okay. First of all, Harry has the really cool bedhead look, which many of us hope to achieve but miserably fail. He is the freaking Chosen One. All I have ever been chosen for is English presentations in class. He can do magic, and is amazing at Quidditch. He has a cool owl, a bank vault full of gold, the best friends in the whole world, gets to go to school in a castle and has a godfather that can turn into a dog.

Harry also lands a sweet chick, is the best in class for Defence Against The Dark Arts, saves the world more than five times and revolutionizes the Ministry of Magic with his buddies Hermione and Ron. He has an invisibility cloak, is the favorite of many teachers, and even the worst teacher doesn’t want to kill him. His fathers best friend gives him a Magic Map of the school! All I get is extra homework. *moregrumbling*

I get it. Nobody wants a life where you’re bullied by your relatives, the greatest Dark Wizard of all time wants to kill you and your parents are dead. But is it just me, or does Harry still manage to be better than normal people even without all the baggage?

2. Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien

The hobbits are short, and love good food and naps. But even they are brave and honored. They, species which haven’t even reached the ears of many in Middle Earth, manage to save Middle Earth from certain doom. Two defeat Sauron’s greatest power, and two manage to play their part in protecting the two biggest kingdoms: Rohan and Gondor.

We have Merry as Theoden’s squire and Pippin as Denethor’s. Merry saves Eowyn’s life, and Pippin saves Faramir’s. Frodo and Sam, well, they end up saving the whole world don’t they? Heck, even when the hobbits were younger, Frodo inherited the Baggins’s giant hobbit hole, and Sting, and the unpenetrable mithril coat.

Sam is a great cook (Which I am not), and super loyal to Frodo. Most of us are give-uppers, we would never go up to a volcano even to save the world. If they were normal height, they would be much greater than us.

Again, I get it. The burden of carrying the One Ring is to unbearable to think about. But what about the great experiences with Tom Bombadil, and the star gift, and the opportunity to sail across the sea? The greatest opportunity I’ve ever gotten is to go to college, and even that is something almost every student manages to accomplish.

3. Percy Jackson / Heroes of Olympus – Rick Riordan

The movie sucked. But the poster IS cool. Now this series I’ve read about seven times. I absolutely love the series, and all the characters have been given depth to perfection. Don’t get me wrong, Harry Potter covers plotlines and character developments to much better extents, but I know this series in and out.

Percy is the son of the sea god. He gets to breathe underwater. He gets to make mini-hurricanes. He saves the Western civilization from collapsing, and he kinda-sorta defeats Kronos in the end. But even he has perks many of us don’t get to enjoy. For example, the camp. Oh gods, the camp is freaking amazing. Even if it wasn’t for the demigods, the nymphs and spirits, and the centaur, the camp still is cool. Normal people can learn archery, ancient greek, swordfighting, forging and other cool stuff. But we don’t have that kind of summer camps. Or don’t get invited to them. or are really expensive and only the high and mighty can afford them.

But Percy isn’t horrible looking. And he isn’t stupid either. Yes, the ADHD and the dyslexia, and the yummy smell to monsters does put a slight damp on things, but he still has a super amazing mom, a flying pegasus, and the affinity to the color blue. And he has met the many fabled Greek monsters/supervillains. Greek mythology ftw! And we have to study about legislations and treaties and all that in History. 😦

Okay, I have been focusing too much on magical characters/books. So people reading might be like “what the hell is wrong with her?Magic ain’t real! Of course they’re better than us” Which is why I mentioned other nonmagical stuff too.

4. Alex Rider – Anthony Horowitz

This. This is completely non-magical. No excuses this time. Alex is hot. Extremely good-looking. Drop dead gorgeous. And who better to play him than Alex Pettyfer? He has a certified diver’s license, and is one step away from being a pro at karate, he knows how to parachute from a plane, and can kite-surf, and take out drug sellers with a crane, and went into space to blow up a satellite thing, and foiled the best criminals in the world.(*ahem*Scorpia*ahem*) Thrice.

Please tell me what else someone could do to be absolutely PERFECT? He’s got the model looks, money, a great opportunity by MI6 to save the world 9 times, and he is absolutely talented in everything he does. Need to rock a suit? No problem. Need to bungee jump a really short distance and then blow up a research lab? Check. Gets to travel all over the world? Easy Peasy. Survive getting shot in the heart? Didn’t hurt at all!

And can I just mention the cool gadgets he gets. Forget James Bond! There was this show called Totally Spies on Disney, Alex Rider is just the male version with boy gadgets instead of girl gadgets.

Just LOOK at those blue eyes! (*sigh*) No fair.

What am I good for? I speak half the number of languages Alex can, I can play the keyboard haltingly, I have dived only once, I am dead scared of height and bugs. I have never been to Europe, and I can’t even hope to turn into a spy. At least I get better grades than Alex. (YESSSS!) But if I saved the world nine times in a year, I guess getting good grades would be the least of my worries.

5. Eragon – Christopher Paolini

The movie sucked. The series is awesome. But the poster IS cool. Ish.

Eragon is a farm boy. Ordinary. But he finds a dragon egg, and the dragon forms this telepathic and empathic bond with him, and then he can do lots of powerful magic, and he travels all over Alagaesia, and his father was a dragon rider too, and his half-brother is a dragon rider too,  and the love of his life is a dragon rider too, and the elves and the dwarves accept him, and he has a cool sword that gets its flame on when he says its name, and he has the power of so many Eldunari, and his dragon is super amazing, and he saves the world, and he’s really good friends with the Queen, and…

You see? THAT is cool. Not the super-run-on-sentence. The powers an ordinary farm boy came to possess. Maybe the sentence too.

I grew up in a city, went to school, got a couple of certificates, went to school again, made some friends, got good grades, and am going to college. I can’t do magic. As much as I want to find dragon eggs in the park, I only find oddly shaped rocks. I can only telepathically communicate with… my subconscious. Not an awesome DRAGON! I don’t have a sword. I have a pen. And if I get to my dad’s golf kit before my archenemy kills me, then a heavy golf club. Heck,  I don’t even have an archenemy.

I don’t think anyone would mind if you gave them superpowers, and then say “Oh, here. Take this evil badass, and beat him before he ruins everything.” “Can I keep the powers after that?” “Sure, but don’t die.”

See, who wouldn’t want that?

Now, you would finish reading this and say “Oh, Bella from Twilight is a whiny idiot. EVERYONE is better than her.” But no. Even BELLA can whine and cry, and be a better freak than I can. But that’s an insult to her, and a compliment to me.

There are so many other examples I could delve into, but I don’t have the time or the patience. Now, if I had some superpowers, like magic, or slaves, or a squire, I wouldn’t mind. But I am a mere mortal, a stupid Muggle, so I will have to end this post. *grumble**grumble*

I love these books though. I love the characters, and the plots, and the setting, and the fact that they make me happy when I read them. But you would be lying to yourself (and the world) if you said you weren’t even a little jealous of them.

GOODREADS!

Okay, I discovered this website in February (well, not actually DISCOVERED it as much as forced to join here by a friend) and can I just say that it is just WOW! The website is called www.goodreads.com, and it is the BEST thing that has happened to book lovers since paperbacks and e-readers. Let’s just say that this baby is a library, just better. And I mean better than the Hogwarts style ancient tomes, ladders and reading by firelight.

To get the most out of the website, it would be better to register for it. (Yes, yes, it’s free. Hold your hippogriffs.) You can see how great the website is from the moment you register. Goodreads will take you down aisle of books of different genres, and you can rate books you HAVE read, and add books to your own personal library and mark them as to-read. Which means that in the future, you can peruse upon your wonderful collection and muse upon books that you may add to it from you “to-read” section.

 

As you can see above, based on my ratings of all the books in the fantasy genre, Goodreads coughs up some neat fantasy recommendations for me. Note: You can’t see any of the classics by Rowling, Tolkien, Paolini or Nix here because I’ve already read or want-to-read them. If any catch your fancy, all you have to do is hover over the “want to read” button, and a short description of the book will appear, like this:

Under the title, you can see the average rating by all the users, and you can click on the title for user reviews and regarding stats. You can also click on the series (if there is one) to see the titles in it. And not just that, you can make friends with people and compare books with them. Once you make friends, the books they are reading or have read will show up on your home page. By clicking on their profile, you will be able to access the “compare books” feature, which will show how compatible you are as friends. When you find a book that you think your friends will enjoy, you can recommend them the book, and they can check it out themselves! I think that sure beats the old-fashioned way of letting someone know of a book you like, and keep bugging them to google it.

If that doesn’t catch your attention yet, then maybe this will. For those of you who have only read a few books in your life, and only stick to a specific genre, it’s all the more reason for you to sign up to this website. When you select a book, you can read the official blurb on it, you can read user reviews, you can see which of your friends have read or will read this book and you can see which books are similar to this.

And that’s not all. If none of these books appeal to you, then users can create lists of books such as:

• Lists of Dystopian Novels
• Lists of YA books
• Lists of books with the prettiest covers
• Lists of Must-Read fantasy classics

And so on. Most of the lists are very popular, and the books you find there will be similar to your tastes. Sometimes even more than the recommendation page itself.

The lists are quite useful, and tailor to specific needs. So if you;re one of those people who buy a book because a girl is wearing a pretty purple dress and is holding a crystal orb or whatever, than the lists are places you can find them. Because the recommendation site is only for books with substance.

If you’re a fan of fanfiction, (Heh. Fan of fanfiction. See what I did there?) not to worry! Many users create groups and discussions for LRP (Live Role Play) and relive their favorite scenes the way they want to. Some groups, like the Young Adult one features new books and discussions for fans. Others dedicate discussions to criticizing and analyzing a book to excruciating details. And others try play a game, like Which Character said What. (WARNING: FOR THE GEEKIEST OF BOOK LOVERS) Personally, I hate fanfic, but I don’t mind it if others leave me out of it.

Finally, the website plays host to a multitude of quizzes and trivia about your favorite book, and no matter whether you love boring documentaries or wonderful magical fantasy, you will always find someone who is of the same mind as you. You will be surprised at how many people there are who appreciate reading, books and the beauty of creating a world in your head.

I think everyone who has read even one book should sign up here, as reading is great! Harry Potter, Eragon, LOTR, Hemingway, Freud, Biographies, whatever it is, I’m sure Goodreads can set you up for a nice date with another book, for another evening.

By the way, that was a cliched ending, but even so, goodreads is really really awesome, and I just love the website. Give it a shot!

 

The Blame Game

Life is a constant flow of thoughts, ideas and actions from birth to death, during which some, if not most, of the decisions we make are wrong. But as humans, what do we do? Blame another for the mistake you’ve made. You’re a scapegoat to somebody else’s scape goat and the only thing you can do about it is make another one your scapegoat. Life gets easier that way when the guilt of not making the correct decision doesn’t weigh down on your conscience.

Tension. Tension. Tension. Life is filled with tension. The person you blame for trying to put you in the right path may have cared about you, and all that unnecessary accusations just create stress in the atmosphere between the two of you.  I blame you, and you blame me for ruining your day because I blamed you. Welcome to the blame game. The only thing that arises from playing the “blame card” is the anger and frustration from being blamed for something you didn’t do, or didn’t mean in the way the other understood.

Household tension where a family member blames another for something that has gone wrong, school tension where a fellow classmate blames you for not telling him/her the test portion, work tension where colleagues blame each other for not finishing their part of the assignment, all this apprehension is usually for a cause that can be resolved with a simple chat and a negotiation. Of course, there is no need to complain when you are blamed for something you actually did.

Oh wow! Now that I read what I’ve written, my post really doesn’t make any sense does it? Not that it matters really.. Being human myself, it’s only a matter of time before I end up blaming someone (or something) for my incoherent words. Till then, try to lay of the blame game alright?

Overrated or Underrated?

Forgive me for not posting any sooner, I have been caught up with work from school (IB is a Killer), so my blogging might be a little rusty. With those words in the brackets, you must have already known about the fact that I, have opted for the extensive slavery program of the IB Diploma. Which requires me to opt for the Theory of Knowledge (TOK) course. Which in fact requires you to question the way people knew things, or basically, be suspicious of everyone.

Anyways, moving on, there was a discussion on the Holocaust one day during TOK, where a person said that the Holocaust was totally overrated, and not that many people have actually died. Where I argued that it was, in fact underrated, because of the millions of Jews that were abolished from the Earth. There are some things that are unfathomable, but it is up to us to put under Overrated, or Underrated. And most of the time, most of the people agree with each other, but there are always a few people who disagree, and they are entitled to their own opinion.

Here’s a list, but mind you, this is my opinion so feel free to differ in the comments.

Underrated things:

• The extensiveness of the IB Diploma Program – It takes up two years of your life, where you’d be lucky if you can get 150 hours of sleep, not CAS.
• The suffering experienced by English A1 students –  when they recieve just above zero grades for working so hard. So much for studying English since birth.
• Chewing Gum – Remember five years ago when all people did was chew gum? Now increased talk of diabetes and cholestrol and blah blah blah has degraded its significance even though they are still there and enjoyed by most.
• Newspapers – Internet and E-readers are killing this sit by the fireplace and read commodity. Not that I have a fireplace. But people still read them as much as they did.
• LHC at CERN – I inevitable go back to this. Everyone has questions and wants answers, but they never know what is put in to get those answers.
• Avatar – I know what you must be thinking, how can such a popular movie be underrated? But if you see, lot’s of people say that it is a stupid scipt, and it’s just some technology that produces pretty pictures. There’s a lot more to it than that.
• Dan Bergstein – His criticizing blogs on Twilight are totally hilarious, yet true. Too bad not many people know him though. (sad face)

Overrated Things:

• Global Warming – I bet this word has been used by everyone a billion times in the last year, and you know I’m right. If it were really that bad, we would have been dead by now.
• Justin Bieber – I like his music, I just don’t like the fact that he is so overrated. I really don’t see why so many young girls love him so much.
• Twilight – Need I say more? It’s been around for a while, and it’s annoying. BTW, this is a reference to Dan, who eases the pain of reading Twilight. 🙂
• 3D Movies – This is NOT a reference to Avatar. The technology used to make the movie was phenomenal, but there is a limit to how many movies you can “3D-ify”
• The Mona Lisa – It’s a beautiful painting, yes I agree, but I really don’t think its the ideal painting. Its hyped, because there are a lot of paintings by other artists that use different styles and look so beautiful too.
• Starbucks – It’s very popular, but there a many other cafe’s that charge you lesser, for better coffee.
• Farmville – I don’t have FB, but I hear a lot of stories on Farmville everywhere. But when I saw a friend play the game, it makes me wonder how it became so popular.
• Energy Drinks – Water does the same rehydration as Gatorade or Pocari, but the moment you break a sweat, you don’t need an energy drink. It’s only if you are totally done, and can’t move. People depend on them too much.

You might not agree with me, but that’s perfectly fine with me. Like I said, opinions are one’s own. Have a great day!