Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

Let’s see now. I’m currently sitting in the common room trying to fix this ghastly essay before tomorrow with a space bar that only half works. My main problems are that I don’t explain my points and I have real trouble with all of that language and structure crap. I detest language and structure so much because I don’t know what people expect me to put. All I can say is that so-and-so says this to show this and it’s laid out like a diary because it’s a “Stream of consciousness” etc. I don’t know what more they expect me to put. I don’t read books so that I can pick them apart and say they said/did this because etc. I read books because they’re meant to tell a story. No one intended for them to be scrutinised by 17-19 year olds in their classrooms just to show that they can study a book.
You see, this is why most of my English lit. class don’t read their own books anymore. They’ve been put off of reading by this constant scrutinising of books that they either do or don’t like.
The cause of all of my aggravation; Atwood and Orwell, or more specifically ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and ‘1984’. Orwell’s not so hard to do because I can just say that it was an attack against totalitarianism, based on his experiences of this and that, plus he did several essays that I can rip parts out of to back up my statements. The case is not so easy for Atwood. She doesn’t have anything near as big to mark her as the two world wars. I’m struggling to find anything about her besides “Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Atwood was the second of three children of Carl Edmund Atwood, a zoologist, and Margaret Dorothy Killiam, a former dietician and nutritionist. Atwood began writing at age sixteen. In 1957, she began studying at Victoria University in the University of Toronto” etc.
It’s currently six pages at about 2552 words. So I have the space to take thing out or add more in. Now I’m looking up critics to take quotes from and squeeze them into my arguments.
Also, I’ve dug myself a bit of a hole by saying, “Atwood is considered to be a feminist writer and appears to have knowledge of Greek mythology, particularly the plight of women. An essay written by Atwood on a website called ‘www.randomhouse.com/boldtype’ titled ‘On Medea’ shows this as well as a great knowledge of prominent female characters in literature, particularly those that dominate over men in some way. She begins the essay with;
“Of all the seductive, sinister and transgressive women who have haunted the Western imagination, none has a reputation more lurid than Medea's. Judith, Salome, Jezebel, Delilah, Lady Macbeth -- these murdered or betrayed grown men, but Medea's crimes are yet more chilling.”” But now I need to explain how this is displayed in her writing. I’d like to keep the statement, because it sounds rather decent. The trouble was that I wrote it at two in the morning for yesterday and I don’t think my brain’s got over it yet. I’ve thrown in some stuff about Jezebels but that’s it.
I just don’t know how I’m expected to write an essay on crappy computers with noisy year 12’s.
Oh, and I found out why we no longer have a study room on Tuesday. To cut a long story short somebody moved offices downstairs and then they all moved offices and in the end they needed another room and so they stole our study room to out the naughty little brats in. I really cannot wait until I leave.
I thought of starting a new story about cyborgs, I actually wrote nearly a page as an introduction, in a made up language that can only be read with one of my notebooks. But I dropped it because I had a good idea but couldn’t throw the plot together. I’ve been thinking of another story lately, based on an episode of Ghost in the Shell. It started as one of those little fantasies that I cook up where I imagine something happening to me, either good or bad, I g through a lot of stuff and end up happy. I doubt it’ll go far but at least I’ve nearly written a page on it. Those kinds of ideas are lucky if they see paper at all. Well, it hasn’t actually seen paper, because I typed it up .
Let’s see. Any other news since my last update?
Yesterday was Tom’s birthday. I haven’t got anything or done anything. I haven’t seen him since that visit after Christmas. He said he got Saturday off of work so he’ll be visiting us and if I haven’t got him anything then we can go out then and he can pick something. I don’t think he was too thrilled with my efforts at Christmas, he hasn’t mentioned them to me. He’d say something if I asked, but I’d rather not know his opinions on them. I’m not fast enough to whip up a short story. Last time I did that it was a week late and was intended for Christmas and not his birthday. It was rather off putting. Besides, I don’t want to write him the kind of stories he’d like, where the hero (him in some from or another) manages to bag an attractive, preferably busty, female character. Last year I was writing him one. I started it in advance, though he wasn’t the hero. I was . We’d somehow been transported to this “other dimension” place which was ruled by the typical man’s idea of perfect women, slim but not skinny with large breasts. I attributed it because of the water they drank. It kind of slowly alters a person to perfect physical fitness, which makes them look pleasing to the eye as well. It was going to go that the women lost their men somehow, they didn’t know how but we would later found out that a siren had seduced them all. The men were second class citizens and they could not impregnate the women. Tom’s character was to become the loyal slave that would do the job. I figured he’d like the idea of sleeping with attractive women morning noon and night . Being a woman I was accepted into the queen’s company as a writer. I used this position pf power to set him free and find out the truth. Because he’d have needed setting free because he’d have learnt that his dream come true was not all it was cracked up to be. We were supposed to discover the men of the city and that the women were cursed because of something that the queen did, or the previous queen perhaps, I hadn’t decided. Basically this curse was that they couldn’t conceive children. Then we’d somehow fix it all and find a way to get home but I wouldn’t go because I had a very charming guy by that time and was expecting. So Tom’s character could either go or stay. I hadn’t decided. But the story never got further that Tom’s character being thrown in the dungeons, before he discovered his purpose there.
However, I’m rather passionate about this new story. It’s not my usual style of simple fantasy. It’s more of a real life story meets fairytale, because it all ends happily. It’s about a boy (I say boy, he’s nineteen when it happens) who is on his holidays. It was half term but I think I’ll change that, he’s a bit old for half terms. Who gets dragged out on a shopping trip with his parents. On the way home there’s a terrible train crash in which his parents are killed and he finds himself paralyzed from the neck down. He becomes rather bitter until he meets a girl who also survived the accident. She has a few broken bones but nothing too serious. She discovers that she is pregnant and there are concerns for the baby. The two become friends and help each other. Both of them have lost their parents and their other relatives don’t visit as much as they might. Her family live too far away while his family grew tired of visiting him when he was so bitter. I won’t reveal the ending because that’s as far as the in detail planning has got. I’ve got a vague idea about the rest.

Well. I’ve got an essay to get on with.
Bluebiird out.