It gets so lonely sometimes. I get so inspired so often here... even though it doesn't always lead to a flurry of creative output, it does usually provide a creative catharsis... a mental and emotional participation in the fascination and wonder of things that intrigue and excite.

Been watching rental dvds. It gets boring when you're not doing schoolwork and don't really have many friends and don't really know where to go and what to do. Cooking has been my escape, but it doesn't happen when you're tired or lazy.

Watched Adaptation and Lost in Translation... truly inspirational. Received the final brief for my aftereffects class. The big one. The final project. 6 weeks to work on it. I looked at the themes and a flurry of ideas came. I'm kinda lost. Ultimately there is the great desire to awe. but it's kinda jumbled up what i'm thinking of atm.

Today's Mapping the Post-Modern lecture and tutorial was about feminism and feminist artists. But this was a study of old school feminists. Today's women are either perfectly well adjusted, or abuse the idea of feminism. These abusers pull out chapters of the feminism theories whenever it's convenient, imagining injustices that just isn't there and re applying it whenever it's to their advantage. Truly, very few of my friends do that, but those who do really annoy me.

In fact, i think men have become the weaker sex. Men are subjected to resisting their biological urges in order to maintain normality in society. Men are always on the losing end in sexual persecution. It's always assumed men are the evil ones. And there comes all these rules, especially in heterosexual men, of behavior. Among the opposite gender, the same gender, and in society. I kinda envy gay men to be free from some restrictions i have, but then again, the grass might only look greener on the other side of the sexual preference, it might not be better. I understand gays and lesbians intellectually, but i have to concede i cannot totally. But who understands ME totally?

The Post-Modern art tutorial today involved two presentations, both feminist artists. One of them, Jo Spencer, documented her experience with breast cancer. From the onset, diagnosis, a series to western treatment, disappointment and turning to eastern methods, and finally leading to her death. She was not the archetypal idea of feminine beauty, but she took photos of herself battling the disease, almost always topless, her breast in various states of decline, and her face, her spirit, fighting to find her humanity and placement of body and soul.

I really admire her courage and the way she communicated her femininity. This is the kind of feminism that involuntarily draws out my respect. Not those rubbish chicks who live cushy lives and say men deserve NS, and look for rich guys, men to sponge off on, while fighting for their supposed 'rights' to avoid hard work. Probably all the girls that read my blog know a few of these psuedo-feminist chicks. Women's rights bullshitters.

When the presenter handed out more pictures of Jo Spencer's series of photos, many women winced. Btw, my class is predominantly female, out of twenty or so there are only 3 males, a 40+ yrs old post graduate, a caucasian australian and me at the early twenties. The rest of the class range from aussie women, argentinian, african american, singaporean (NUS theater grad, bah! haha), hong kong etc.

The women in the class winced when they saw the ordeals Jo Spencer had to go through. Countless mammograms, breast exams, markings made on her breasts, the eventual mastectomy, her questioning of her womanhood. My classmates winced. As if they could feel her pain. I saw their expressions and found it amusing. Wow, women can do that, i thought only men did.

Like how Eddie Murphy put it in his stand up comedy Raw 2. Don't violate the penis. Men are sensitive to the penis. You so much as show a man getting kicked in the balls in the movies, and all the men in the audience will wince and say "oooohh... that gotta hurt..." Coz they can feel the pain. They can relate to that. That's why it's a sensitive topic. The most terrifying and horrific thing you could say to a guy is probably "i'm gonna cut off your penis!" and if you do it convingcingly enough, he'll wince and be scared (or put on a serious tone and say "DONT YOU EVER JOKE ABT THAT AGAIN.")

And here i was, a gender minority, in an art history class, sympathetic to Jo Spence the artist, but finding the women wincing at her pictures, something hard to relate to, something i'll probably never be part of. But i thought of Eddie Murphy and if the photos were of a man having prostrate cancer, undergoing countless tests, questioning his manhood, eventually undergoing vasectomy or even castration, and still leading to his death... and then i understood my classmates.

Perhaps our genders aren't so different after all, we're all of the same species.



Feeling very shitty atm. tried to put down some revelations wittily, but i still feel so lonely. so alone.


anyway, check out
http://www.youtube.com/?v=9NkB_3v8RJg
and
http://www.youtube.com/?v=fF3owxm8yAY
vids i took of the band performing at the cofa spring fiar. very funny! hahaha