No kidding, you can't seriously be reading this, can you?

So I was told to re-start blogging.

Bah. Not much to say, not much to do, not much happening around.

Or maybe I can start a Bureau en Gros ranting blog?

Because that's what I feel like doing after that customer we had yesterday. Crazy dude. He comes at the cash with an enveloppe, and asks how he can mail it. And I'm like " Do you want stamps? If so, you better go to the copy centre to have the enveloppen weighted." Then the guy goes "NO! I'm asking you about the MAILING SERVICE.!!!"

Of course, being there for only 3 months, and having never heard of such service, I politely tell him that we don't have any such service here, except for Purolator, and if he wishes, there is a post office in the centre on the other side of the street. That's when he goes bananas and starts yelling at me and the other girl at the cash (who's been working there for a year and has no idea what he's talking about either) about how he wants THE MAILING SERVICE, NOT A POST OFFICE, AND IF YOU'RE TOO STUPID NOT TO KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, THEN I'LL GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!.

man, what an asshole.

And in case you're interested, BenG does not offer the service anymore, apparently. Jerk.

Yep! I totally agree!

Let's discuss the contents first. Basically, the lines are:
I look to the skies in hopes to see that my Dragon has come back to me.
It is truly hard to believe but my heart has been captured by thee.
Truly magical as it may be for the Love of the Dragon grows deep inside of me.
I call upon him in the night, for that is when we take flight.

First line, ok, not so bad, even if it sucks.

2nd line: "Truly hard to believe." OK, WHY, WHY is it truly hard to believe? That you'd love the Dragon? And what does the Dragon symbolize, anyway? From the first line, she says she hopes the Dragon comes back, so it symbolizes something positive. But then in the 2nd line, she says it's hard to believe, so is the Dragon supposed to be negative? It just doesn't make sense.

3rd line, the sentence doesn't make sense. I mean, Ok, I get that "the love of the Dragonf grows..." might mean she's increasingly attracted to the Dragon. But what does the "for the" do here? "For the"="because", hence "Truly magical as it may be because the love...". It doesn't make sense. Besides, the beginning, "Truly magical as it may be..." suggests that the second part of the sentence will say something negative, something like "truly magical as it may be, it still sucked" or something like that.
 
And I'll leave the last line alone, it somehow seems not so bad after the 2 horrors-of-sentences above.

SECOND. the structure SUCKS.

I look to the
skies in hopes
to see that my
Dragon has come
back to me.
It is truly hard
to believe but
my heart has
been captured by
thee.
Truly magical as
it may be for the
Love of the Dragon
grows deep inside
of me.
I call upon him in
the night, for that
is when we take
flight.

The lines are too short, and they cut the "momentum" of the poem. It would be much better if it were cut at each cesura (thought break) and it would allow to exploit the rhymes too. The way she has it, it's emphasizing all the wrong words. It would be much better to have it written like this:

I look to the skies
in hopes to see
that my Dragon has come back to me.
It is truly hard to believe
but my heart
has been captured by thee.
Truly magical as it may be
for the Love of the Dragon
grows deep inside of me.
I call upon him in the night,
for that is when we take flight.

Or something like that.

Soooo... like I said, I've bought Stephen Fry's book on Poetry, the Ode Less Travelled. And, like I said, technical knowledge is important!!!

Says Fry:
"But however well or badly  we were taught English literature, how many of us have ever been shown how to write our own poem?

Don't worry, just lift the lid and express yourself. Pour out your feelings.

We have all heard children do just that and we have all wanted to treat them with great violence as a result. Yet this is the only instruction we are ever likely to get in the art of writing poetry.

Anything goes."

Fry quoting Jan Schreiber:

The writing of poetry has been made laughably easy. There are no technical constraints. Knowledge of the tradition is not necessary, nor is a desire to communicate, this having been supplanted in many practitioners by the more urgent desire to express themselves. Even sophistication in the manipulation of syntax is not sought. Poetry, it seems, need no longer be at least as well-written as prose."

Then, quoting Auden:

" The poet who writes "free" verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor -- dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor."

Then, my favourite part of the book. (p 176-177):

"I do not despise free verse. Read this:

Post coitum omne animal triste
i see you
!
you come
closer
improvident
with your coming
then -

stretched to scratch
- is it a trick of the light? -
i see you
worlded with pain
but of
necessity not
weeping

cigaretted and drinked
loaded against yourself
you seem so yes bold
irreductible
but nuded and afterloved
you are not so strong
are you
?
after all


There's the problem. The above is precisely the kind of worthless ass-dribbleI am forced to read whenever I agree to judge a poetry competition. It took me under a minute and a half to write and while I dare say you can see what utter wank it is, there are many who would accept it as poetry. all the clichés are there, pointless lineation, meaningless punctuation and presentation, fatuous creations of new verbs 'cigaretted and drinked', 'worlded', 'nuded', 'afterloved', a posy Latin title -- every pathology is presented. Like so much of what passes for poetry today it is also listless, utterly drained from energy and drive -- a common problem with much contemporary art but an especial problem with poetry that chooses to close itself off from all metrical patter and form. It is like music without beat or shape or harmony: not music at all, in fact. 'Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down,' Robert Frost wrote. Not much of a game at all, really.

My 'poem' is also pretentious[...]." [then there's some more rant]

Sooooo. Now that I've quoted all I had to quote (for now) let's proceed to examine this little piece I've found in a forum. And just to be intellectually correct and all, I'll even link the forum.

The QYS Message Board

Oh, and just a quick little disclaimer: Anyone offended by whatever I or anyone else on this webjournal says about anything can get mad at me or whoever wrote said comments. These comments are in no way endorsed by Stephen Fry, his publisher, or anyone else other than the author of the comments. I'm merely using what he wrote to prove my points.
Just to be safe.

(And I'm not doing this just because I've got a personal grudge against the author of the poem. It really IS a horrible poem, after all.)

"My Dragon"
I look to the
skies in hopes
to see that my
Dragon has come
back to me.
It is truly hard
to believe but
my heart has
been captured by
thee.
Truly magical as
it may be for the
Love of the Dragon
grows deep inside
of me.
I call upon him in
the night, for that
is when we take
flight.

(don't worry, the author of this poem shall get full credit for her work. Once I'm done. See, I don't want to set any bias. And this is not bashing, or flaming, it's CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. Thank you.)

Over to you, Drew.

too lazy to post.

So I'm in my dad's friend's office right now... He had arranged for me to "work" here during the "holidays" so I'll know what it's like to work in China, and mostly, in Chinese.

I'm bored to death, and the only thing I do here, besides using the internet, is occupying a certain physical space. I met Hugo, thoiugh. (Hugo is the Canadian guy that got shipped here as a spokesperson for some festival they're organizing here.) He "works" in the office next door. Note that we're doing foughly the same kind of "work." Anyway. I'm locked up in a small cubicle, on the 6th floor of a 15-floor building not in the downtown area. Where the hell is downtown anyway?

Since I've got nothing to do, I'll just put up some of the pics I took when I was in Shanghai.

Pics were taken in the Water Garden, in Suzhou. This garden used to belong to the emperor of China back in the days when there still was an emperor.

This is one of the 2 wells in the park. It has a cute history. Apparently, the Emperor used to have 2 of his prettiest concubines live in the park and both of them used the river in the garden as a mirror. The Emperor was afraid that they might fall into the river while adniring themselves, so he had the 2 wells built. Thus both women could look at their reflection without risk. It is said that women who look into the well will become prettier. (There was an empty water bottle in the well.  

This is a pic of a tree root. Root carvings are very appreciated in chinese culture. This one has a part that naturalloy grew to look like a dragon. It also has a carved dragon on it, and is therefore called the Double Dragon [something].

 

This is a phoenix. The tail of the phoenix is natural.

 

This rock is almost sacred. the words on it were written by ShenLong and his father. (Shenlong was one of the greatest emperors) Touching the rock is supposed to bring good luck.

Heeeeee!! Updated with pics!! (might take some time to load)

Sooo... went away on July 2nd. Bye Bye Montreal!

I just spent a few days in Shanghai, the big, huge-ass chinese city. I got off the plane, and the first thing that hit me was the overwhelming heat. must've been around 40 C outside. A friend of my dad's picked us up at the airport. We were six people crammed into a sedan. Yep. China. Thank god he had air conditioning.

It was quite a few kilometres of highway from the airport to the city. The one thing that struck me was how nice everything was. On both sides of the hwy, there were planted trees and bushes, with very professional landsaping and stuff. Not a twig sticking out where it shouldn't be. all the way, I was wondering how they could spend so much money on these things when there are so many people out there who would actually NEED some help.

As we approached the city, I was expecting something close to New York. You know, really tall building in the downtown area. I was surprised. I heard so many times about the tons of skyscrapers in Shanghai, but there just didn't seem to BE any. Or at least, none that was sticking out of the mass. Then we drove into the city, and I was like *faints* the reason no skyscraper was sticking out? that's because ALL the darn buildings are so darn tall!!!

Spent that evening visiting what would be shanghai's Times Square.

Neon lights everywhere.

LOOK in the background!!! The Aliens are attacking!!!!!!

A closer look at the aliens:


I guess this is downtown shanghai...

That big white tower is shanghai's trademark. I think it's the TV Tower, or something like that.

No time to blog. Visit my Photobucket. http://photobucket.com/albums/v198/bluetwinkle/china%20pics/

Oh my Gawd. Only 4 days before I go. And I'm NOT ready!!! *goes bananas*

Got into a fight with my mom a couple of days ago, and I just hope everything will be solved before we leave. Otherwise, I feel like she's going to let me rot in some airport on our way,,,

"OOps I think we've lost Jen... Ah, nevermind. No point missing our next plane because of that."

And I don't know what to bring with me. What do I need except for clothes and books? What? What??

I have just realized something today...
I'm leaving for China in a WEEK!!! ONE week!!! July 2nd!

*goes ballistics*

COUNTDOWN: 8 DAYS

Must start packing up!

Had 2 exams today: Chemistry and English.

What the fuck was that English test anyway? Why do we even bother to do it? Oral and reading comprehension. Oral comprehension was on tape, as usual. It starts.
"Final Enlish test, sec. 5, blablabla. You have 5 minutes to familiarize yourelf with the questions. [5 minutes' pause] Part One. Listen to the tape. Read the questions. [1:30 min. pause]"

At that point we were like "WTF? do we look like idiots?"

1:30 min. later...
 
TAPE:"Write the answers in the designated space in the Answer Booklet."

Well, DUH!

TAPE: "The questions are in chronological order."

*headdesk*

 Every text read twice. SLOWLY and CLEARLY. Gawd. Questions easy as hell.

TAPE: GIRL: [says some stuff about cravings]
GUY:"Chocolate! It's the only thing that calms me down before an exam."

QUESTION: "When does the guy crave chocolate?"



I'm in High School, right? ... OK. Just checking.