I am procrastinating.

I'm almost done my final animation. At this point, it's more than just the fact that I want a good grade; I knew I could get that. It's out of pride now. Our teacher is having a competition on the last day; Most Exquisite Animation being one of the awards (with a small, probably edible prize). I want this, badly. I've hand drawn hundreds of frames, with painstaking effort to make the lines clean, the colours aesthetic, and the animation smooth. I've spent hours trying to find the perfect sounds, editing them to fit time constraints, and plugging them in with as exact measure as I can.

So now I'm nearly done, and I feel good. I know I've done a good job. But that doesn't change the fact that there's a voice inside of me that's screaming "I want to win." After all of this, I want someone to recognize the work I've done, and admire the quality of what I've put forth; I want those hours to be worthwhile.

Everything assignment I finish now is one step closer to being free, and every day that passes is one breath closer to being home. But it is so hard to even think about what I will do once I am free, or when I am home, when it's all I can do to finish my assignments on time. I don't remember why I'm doing them; I just focus on getting them done, and nothing else.

One play to act
A five page paper to write

A screenplay to finally discuss
A Screenplay Final to be done

Animation to be finished...

One page Literature Assignment

Study for History Exam
Study for Literature Exam

A life to pack up

Okay. I'll be sane in twenty days.

Maybe if I submit my Final Research paper like this, my professor won't find out how convoluted and terrible it is.

Virginia Woolf and Gender: Her Doubts about the Differences

Much of Virginia Woolf’s writing takes time to explore the notions of sex, gender, and the differences between men and women.  Literary critics across the world have taken the time to interpret Woolf’s words about gender, with respect to her novel Orlando. However, few critics take the time to look at Virginia Woolf’s relatively short work, The Mark on the Wall. However, between Orlando and The Mark on the Wall, Woolf manages to point out the difficulties of female gender definition in a male-defined society.

 Both works introduce, at one point or another, the notion that men, due to the patriarchal nature of society, define what makes a woman is. Mark does so by questioning “what takes the place of those…real standard things? Men, perhaps, should you be a woman” (Norton 2084). Similarly, Orlando’s role as female is defined “once [she] set foot on English soil… [she would] never be able to crack a man over the head…All [she] can do, once [she sets] foot on English soil, is to pour out tea, and ask [her] lords how they like it” (Orlando, 158). In other words, once Orlando returned to a patriarchal society – she had lived with gypsies since becoming a woman – she was suddenly denied actions that she had performed as a man. Yet her transformation had no bearing on who Orlando was, so long as she did not live in a male governed society.  As the biographer says, immediately following her transformation, “Orlando had become a woman – there is no denying it. But in every other respect, Orlando remained the same. The change in sex… did nothing whatever to alter their identity” (Orlando, 138).  

It is relevant, that as Mark continues, the speaker questions the need to discover what the mark on the wall is – the masculine desire to define the world – by questioning the value of knowing. “What should I gain? – Knowledge?...what is knowledge? What are our learned men save the descendants of witches and hermits?” (Norton, 2085). Thus, in Mark, the speaker challenges the value of knowledge put forth by men. She states, “the less we honour them as our superstitions dwindle and our respect for beauty and health of mind grows.” The speaker’s comparison of the male definition of society to superstition is echoed in the falseness of gender distinction in Orlando, and perhaps, had Orlando never returned to England, she may never have discovered any changes in herself at all; the definition of male or female would have remained irrelevant.

Many feminists take the belief that gender – the psychological differences between male and female – is “a repeated performance of socially established meanings” (Watkins, Online). “’Sex’ [is] an artifice, a fiction, constructed by ideologies of gender which impose a biological explanation of gender in order to regulate it” (Watkins, Online). Thus, there exists the idea that, although there is a physical difference between male and female – and in Orlando’s body – there should be none in her mind. That is, unless she chooses to perform as a female or a male. “Woolf’s understanding of gender as performance which, rather than arising from biology actually creates a working version of biological sex for the performer, is apparent in…Orlando” (Watkins, Online). It calls to mind that, after being returned to England for some time, “a certain change was visible in Orlando, which is to be found even in her face. If we compare a picture of Orlando as a man with…Orlando as a woman…there are certain changes” (Orlando, 188).  

Yet this contradicts Woolf’s disparagement of the superstitious claims of educated men; they dictate that there are differences between men and women, and they are proved by the changes that occur in Orlando once she becomes a woman. However, Woolf pushes through this contradiction:

The change of clothes had, some philosophers will say, much to do with [the change in Orlando]. Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have…more important offices than merely to keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us. For example, when Captain Bartolus saw Orlando’s skirt, he [treated her like a woman]. These compliments would certainly not have been paid had her skirts…been… breeches. (Orlando, 187)

Thus, it was the male view and treatment of her that inspired Orlando to perform the female gender, rather than an actual difference in herself. The speaker echoes the power of being seen by others in Mark: “Suppose the looking glass smashes, the image disappears[;] the [self-perceived] figure…is there no longer, but only that shell of a person which is seen by other people…As we face each other…we are looking into the mirror” (Norton, 2084). In other words, our identities are formed in how we are seen – in a male world - which is certainly the case for Orlando.

                        However, there are conceptions of a world that is not intrinsically male, a world that might allow gender distinctions to fall away. In coming back to the speaker’s musings on knowledge and learned men in Mark, the speaker drifts from devaluing male “standard real things”, into a daydream about “a very pleasant world” (Norton, 2085) – a better one than her own. Lush with images of nature and feminine stillness, the world pictured is a quiet world, devoid of learned men, “a world which one could slice with one’s thought as a fish slices the water with his fin,” (Norton, 2085). This image is particularly striking. It appears that she is using the image to convey not only how she wishes the world were approached, but also how it is not; when a fish’s fin slices the water, the trail it leaves is not permanent. It has left no definitive mark on how one observes the world. In contrast, it seems that learned men effectively compartmentalize the world into knowledge, with the use of such things as encyclopaedias or records of social hierarchy. Thus a feminine world, or feminine view of gender would not leave a change in the one viewed.

                        What is further interesting to note, is that although women find themselves defined by male society, men seem not to share the opposite burden of being defined by women. The opening sentence of Orlando succinctly establishes that “he – for there could be doubt of his sex” was born male, and his identity, up until becoming a woman, is undisputed. As member of the male sex, Orlando enjoyed the power of The Mark on the Wall’s “learned men” (Norton, 2085), and, as the speaker describes, “the masculine point of view which governs our lives, which sets the standard.” Much of the gender confusion in Orlando only comes about once she is a woman. As a man, Orlando does not ask the same questions she asks herself as a woman, because as a man she creates the rules. Once she has become a woman, her thoughts follow the same process of the unknown speaker; Orlando asks herself “must I then begin to respect the opinion of the other sex, however monstrous I think it?” (Orlando, 156) and concludes that as a woman, indeed, she must start taking into account what men think of her. That she would start paying attention to “the opinion of the other sex” implies that as a man, Orlando did not give a thought to the opinion of women; she was free of the complications of gender identity. Karen Kaviola’s article on gender in Orlando explains this disparity, by mentioning the “history of incorporating the (female) other into the (male) self.” She argues that Orlando’s character takes on a certain androgyny- lacking a distinction between either sex- yet points out that “gender distinctions are maintained even as they intermix, implying fundamental differences that alternate but cannot be transcended or synthesized” (Kaviola, Online). This is because this form of androgyny “[depends] upon patriarchal ideas of gender difference” (Ibid.)

In both Orlando and The Mark on the Wall, Woolf begins her thoughts on gender distinction by ignoring them; “let other pens treat of sex and sexuality; we quit such odious subjects as soon as we can” (Orlando, 139), is the biographer’s response to Orlando’s change of sex. Similarly, Mark’s speaker initially excuses herself from “saying…[what] are men and women, or whether there are such things” (Norton, 2083.   However, the concept of gender in Orlando does not go unexplored – the perfect transition from male to female cannot be maintained, even by refusing to acknowledge it.  As Susan Watkins puts it “the [biographer] finally indicates a sense of bafflement at the difficult issue[ of understanding gender] and hastily returns to the narrative proper: ‘Whether, then, Orlando was most man or woman, it is difficult to say and cannot now be decided.’” This ambivalence, rather than closing the subject of gender, only opens it up for further speculation; why is it too difficult to tell? Only pages before, the biographer “[stated] the simple fact; Orlando was a man till the age of thirty; when he became a woman and has remained so ever since” (Orlando, 139).

Various critics often quote “Orlando showed no such signs of perturbation [upon changing from one gender to the other]” (Orlando, 139), and stop there. One particular critic claims that the work “shakes notions of sexual identity (since Orlando goes on perfectly unperturbed from being a man to a woman)” (Cambridge, 267). The implication is that Orlando has taken down the patriarchal notions of gender rather decisively, but this is not the case. Rather, Woolf has illustrated, as argued above by Kaviola, that Orlando’s androgyny cannot defy male definition, because even that lack of gender is defined by men.  Mark’s speaker best reveals the impossibility of defying a patriarchal society. Even nature submits to the will of learned men; “Whitaker knows, and let that, so Nature counsels, comfort you” (Norton, 2086). If Nature, here given a female pronoun and undoubtedly the most powerful feminine thing, cannot stand against patriarchal dictation, “who will ever be able to lift a finger against Whitaker’s Table of Precedency? …. Everyone follows somebody, such is the philosophy of Whitaker; and the great thing is to know who follows whom” (Norton, 2086). Such it is that the feminine must follow the masculine.

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at aniBoom

This video was made by my sister and her friend Shruti. It's part of a contest to make a music video for Radiohead. Contestants must submit storyboards, and from this, the ten finalists (plus a golden ticket winner) will be chosen. The finalists then create the actual video, and the first place winner receives $10, 000. Please go and vote!

It's hard to write screenplays when you're literary-minded. Apparently books can do things movies can't do, like look inside someone's head. Also, apparently I can't write a story without not only getting inside someone's head, but psychoanalyzing it too.

Sad Boat.

When I was a child, I was put into an arranged marriage with Catholicism. From my baptism, a few short weeks after my birth, all the way through my childhood and to the opening of my adolescence, God and I had a relatively happy relationship. He listened whenever I needed to talk, reassured me that everything would be okay, that someone was always holding my hand and guiding me. He let me lean on him, just so long as I followed some basic rules.

And for a long time that worked for me. But then I got to the point where I saw how other people's relationships worked, and I wanted something more. I didn't just want someone to listen forever - I wanted some response. I didn't want my hand held; I wanted answers so I could forge ahead. I was (still am) very proud. I wanted God to hand over some answers, instead of hoarding them all to himself. We had a slow, messy break-up. I went one way, he went another. We still phone and catch up sometimes, wondering if maybe we can get back together - we had some good times afterall. But every time old differences get in the way. I like to think I've moved on.

When I was fourteen, I met Anarchism, and his cousin, Atheism. I flirted with Anarchy for a while, but he was so serious, and I was so young. I didn't really understand what he wanted, and we quickly drifted apart. Atheism too, I've had a few flings with, but nothing serious. Sometimes when he's in town, he'll call me up. I always go to see him, but it's never satisfying.

Sometimes I go out to the bar to dance with Nihilism. Our chemistry is all-encompassing; sparks fly from us as we grind against eachother. It's rough, hard. We're not kind to each other when we get together. We shout and hit, and say terrible things, but the sex is so good, it's hard to resist.

The only one that saves me is Existentialism. Our relationship is a little odd. He's like my best friend, in that he's always there for me when I need a shoulder to cry on after a break-up. He pats me on the shoulder, and tells me not to worry because nothing is set in stone; nothing is certain. I wouldn't be surprised if we got married one day - he doesn't even mind that I'm divorced - but if we did, it'd be simply to have a companion for our old age. We don't make love, it's not like that. He's the one I can eat dinner with, but we sleep in our own rooms, our own beds. He doesn't mind if I sometimes share mine with someone else. He knows that I'll be back. I always am.

Marian,

I have a history quiz today on 1500-1821. We are supposed to know about Napoleon, the French Revolution, and moving backwards, the Reformation. Do you know what this means?! Thanks to Mrs. Doll, I'm already prepared for this test! You know what else though?

We're supposed to know what Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses were. Bonus if you know where it was.

I am so happy.

LIFE!

Steam is rising from the drain in my kitchen sink, yet the tap isn't running. Is this a good sign that the hell-mouth might be in my kitchen? Hmm...I think so. (Actually, the dishwasher is running, so I'm assuming that's the cause. But how much less interesting is that?!)

>>>   From : X      Received : 17  Apr  2008 01:44:26 AM   >>>

Prime Minister Harper,

I have no doubt that this email will never reach your eyes. At the very
best, I can hope that it will be read by someone whose job is to sort
through the emails you receive, at the worst it will never be read at all.
That's okay; it's worth trying.

As a Canadian Citizen, I want to know that my country is doing something to
stop the Darfur crisis. I recognize that the Canadian government has taken
some steps, but I want more.

On February 12th, Steven Spielberg ended his involvement as artistic adviser
to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, saying that 'conscience will not allow
me to continue with business as usual.' Mr. Spielberg could not continue to
work with a government that is not using its influence to end the Darfur
crisis; and like many Canadians, I agree that China should be doing more to
usher an end to the violence in Darfur.

China has an international obligation to engage the Government of Sudan on
the crisis in Darfur, given its role on the UN Security Council overseeing
international issues of peace and security, and its close relationship with
Khartoum. The Sudanese government is complicit in ongoing attacks against
civilians in Darfur, and in obstructing the full deployment of peacekeepers
to the region.

The Sudanese regime has changed its Darfur policies under Chinese pressure
in the past, most notably in accepting UN Resolution 1769 to get
peacekeepers into the region. China must now use its influence to get the
mission fully deployed as soon as possible, to protect vulnerable
populations.

By encouraging China to use its influence with the Government of Sudan,
Canada can make an important contribution towards ending the Darfur crisis.

Sincerely,

X

Dear X:

On behalf of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, I would like to thank you for your e-mail, in which you raised an issue which falls within the portfolio of the Honourable Maxime Bernier, Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Prime Minister always appreciates receiving mail on subjects of importance to Canadians.

Please be assured that the statements you made have been carefully reviewed. I have taken the liberty of forwarding your e-mail to Minister Bernier so that he too may be made aware of your comments. I am certain that the Minister will give your views every consideration. For more information on the Government's initiatives, you may wish to visit the Prime Minister's Web site, at www.pm.gc.ca.

L.A. Lavell
Executive Correspondence Officer
for the Prime Minister's Office
Agent de correspondance
de la haute direction
pour le Cabinet du Premier ministre