"That time of the semester" doesn't have quite the same ring as "that time of the year" or "that time of the month". But it is that time of the semester... when provisional results are released.

My classmate kindly asked for my student number and offered to help me keep a lookout, but when she told me what I'd scored, I decided I had to see for myself. Just like how, in my undergraduate days, I called my college THREE TIMES to verify my final year results. In case, y'know, the person reading the results to me over the phone had accidentally read those of the candidate listed above or below me. It isn't wildly beyond the realm of possibility, after all!

So I traipsed over to the university today during my lunch break. Lo and behold, my classmate's eyes had not deceived her!

Research Methodology: A-
Critical Discourse Analysis: A

*blinks*  I distinctly remember walking out of the exam hall after the Research Methodology paper and telling friends, "I'll probably pass, but most likely won't score."

So much for predictions! *super silly grin*

I grew up reading Reader's Digest. When I got my hands on the latest issue, I'd always flip to the funnies first -- Laughter, the Best Medicine, Life's Like That, All in a Day's Work, and Humor in Uniform. Much like how, when presented with a newspaper, I always flip to the comics first. I just like things that make me laugh, y'know?

The cool thing about the Reader's Digest was -- and still is -- all the little anecdotes scattered through it. After reading the funnies, I'd flip through page by page, looking for the other funnies. Then I'd read Quotable Quotes and Points to Ponder. After that I'd go through the articles, winding things up with Drama in Real Life just before finishing with the longest one, the Book Section.

I normally do have a system, even if I look like I don't!

Today's Reader's Digest somehow just isn't the same. It's not as funny or as heartwarming and insightful as before; it's also thinner, and seems to have less content. When I was in my mid-teens, my parents stopped subscribing to it for that very reason, and Dad began subscribing to National Geographic instead. I didn't always read the National Geographic articles, but I was fascinated by their gorgeous pictures.

There are very few things from your childhood that you can go back to and find still as captivating as before, but the Reader's Digest seems to be one of them. I'm re-reading some of the old issues and laughing just as much at the jokes as I used to. Luckily I don't have a very good memory, so I don't have that "I think I've heard that joke before" feeling to spoil my fun!

      Two children were bragging about their intelligence. "When I was eight months old, I could walk," said one. 
      "You call that intelligent?" responded the second child. "When I was that old, I let them carry me."
--Laughter, the Best Medicine, Reader's Digest (September 1994)

There's something about reading a written work aloud that strips it of all pretense and lays it bare. I remember my mom wresting a romance novel from my hands when I was 15. She declaimed it as "trash" and, flipping through its pages, proceeded to read certain passages aloud to me in a most disparaging voice.

Somehow, words that had danced and sung on the page seemed tawdry and clumsy when read out loud. For that reason, I've never tried to read a romance novel out loud. Ever. They've never been about good writing anyway, only fairy-tale worlds. Why tarnish the illusion?

Other works can't get away with the same excuse, however. The best pieces ought to be able to weave a spell and still be well-written. And good writing is good writing, no matter what the medium -- print or audio.

Having attended the 'Readings' at Seksan's on Saturday (an event where writers -- both published and unpublished -- read their works to an audience), I think I finally understand why all the writing advice I've heard keeps telling me to use adjectives sparingly. Too many adjectives clutter the piece and lose me when I'm listening. They're okay on the page, because then the reader has the chance to read at his own pace, absorb the image that is being painted, go back and re-read the description to let it sink in. But when something is being read aloud, at some point a bunch of adjectives get to be too much information.

I remarked to Erna that pieces with action or dialogue are probably more suitable for reading aloud to an audience, but she disagreed with me. Maybe it's just the person I am -- I don't have a high attention span when listening to somebody read or lecture, but I'm always captured by flashes of insight, emotion, humour, whimsy, movement, rhythm and rhyme.

 
If my dad were here, he might have placed that ad in front of me and said, "Hey, Miss Journalist! Tell me what is wrong with this ad!"

He used to do that all the time with random sentences in newspaper articles. He's sharp, is my dad. Can't pull the wool over his eyes, no sirree.

Do you see what I see? If I were to be kind, I'd say this company is trying to hedge its bets and cast its net as widely as possible to catch all possible candidates. However, if I were to be unkind, I'd say this company has no idea what it wants.

Is it looking for experienced people, or is it looking for fresh graduates? Your guess is as good as mine. I suppose this proves that they truly do need an editor, not least because "editing skill" should be in the plural!

Did you know that Louisa May Alcott did not like Huckleberry Finn? In fact, she disliked it so much that she reportedly was instrumental in getting the committee of the Concord Public Library (in the state of Massachusetts) to ban the book from their library.

Basis for the ban? The book's "tawdry subject matter" -- after all, it was a story about a black slave and the son of an alcoholic -- and "the coarse, ignorant language in which it was narrated" -- because it was written in the vernacular, the sort of dialect a young, uneducated boy would use. [source]

The story goes that Twain, upon learning of this ban, proceeded to take out advertisements in newspapers across the country, saying, "My latest book, Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, has been banned in the state of Massachusetts FOR ALL OF ITS DIRTY INCIDENTS." Sales of the book, which had been slow, picked up overnight.

I'm rather sceptical about this advertisement business, though, because I've only been able to find one reference to it, from Elliot Engel in A Dab Of Dickens & A Touch Of Twain. Makes for a good story, but needs more verification.

Nevertheless, I found this little tidbit interesting. Perhaps because it makes Alcott less of a one-dimensional name printed of the cover of a book and brings out her human-ness. But also because I wouldn't have expected her to dislike or criticise the work of another well-loved author. I mean, you'd think she'd recognise good writing when she saw it, considering the fact that she herself wrote so well. But nooooo--!

Moreover, it's astonishing (to me, at least) that she felt so strongly about the book that she even approached the board of the public library to get it banned. Obviously, the book aroused some fierce emotions in her, so fierce that she wasn't content simply to criticise it or write angry letters to the author. She had to Do Something.

Come to think of it, I didn't even know that Alcott and Twain were from the same time period, let alone that they knew of each other. I always somehow think of authors as autonomous entities who churn out books... not as real people who might interact with one another! Especially when their books are as unrelated as Little Women and Huckleberry Finn!

 
At first I was insulted. Are you trying to say my blog is unintellectual? And not to be taken seriously?!?

On second thought, I decided to take it as a compliment. Writers are supposed to write clearly and simply, and my blog is so well-written that it appeals even to elementary schoolchildren! (See, everything depends on the spin. The spin is king. Long live the spin!)

 
LOLcats are starting to affect my grammar. Badly. OH NOES! I IZ SPEAK TEH LOLCAT!

If you don't know what a LOLcat is, allow me to acquaint you with them: pictures of cats, overlaid with pithy captions written in what one writer has called "kitty pidgin".

There's something very contagious about this kitty pidgin. Its tentacles have reached deep into my brain, and now I want to speak it. Deliberately flout all the rules of grammar. Not care whether my subjects and verbs are in agreement. Wilfully litter pages with misspelt words. Fly in the face of my normally perfectionist self.

 
Upon closer inspection, I think kitty pidgin might be fairly close to our Malaysian slang, which might explain why I so easily slip into it when I'm talking. Then again, it's not hard to conjugate wrong once you know how to conjugate right. It has been said that it is possible to get cat-speak wrong, which means you must actually know how to alter the words and where to omit others.

Apart from the fact that the cats are normally cute (and I'm not even a cat person!), the captions can be unbelievably apt. Not to mention clever. That's enough to keep me visiting icanhascheezburger.com daily to see what's new in LOLcat World. Even if mah English it iz corrupted!