I've started watching Grey's Anatomy, which simply is just the best TV show on earth. I've also read a lot of books - notably Uglies by Scott Westerfield. Let's talk about that for a while, shall we?
I gingerly approached the section of my local library allocated to teenagers, knowing that I would find nothing but melodramatic, romantic trash and needlessly violent spy "novels". Turning my head to 90 degrees as I usually do when scanning books, I came across this very interesting find. It's about a futuristic society where everyone is born "ugly" (except for the "natural-born pretties" that set my heart a-twittering) and are then operated upon at the age of sixteen to become "pretty". Although the prose was lamentable, I could for once forgive the author and simply enjoy the story.
As usual, one character breaks the norm and decides she doesn't want to be pretty. However, the frighteningly awful totalitarian government doesn't like rebellion so they conscript our protagonist into finding the rebel, or she will never become pretty.
It doesn't sound like the most terrible punishment in the world, but that's the magic of Uglies: you completely and utterly believe that this is the most horrid thing imaginable. I was wholly sucked into the world where aesthetics are the only thing that matter. There was such an urgency about the protagonist to turn pretty, that when she realized the beautiful people were only beautiful because her entire upbringing and enforced that hypothesis, I still just felt the need for everyone to turn pretty.
Then again, I'm vain.
Now onto the main theme of the novel. As you can guess, it's individualism. As the story progresses we find out more about what categorizes someone as 'ugly' or 'pretty'. Pretties are the absolute average of everything that only have very subtle differences to tell them apart. Uglies, on the other hand, are ourselves. It took me a while to figure that out, though I loved that the author didn't shout to the heavens the purpose of his novel. All of the uglies in the novel eventually become confident about their appearance and rebel against the government that forces them to conform. How lovely.
I think I'm making it sound like a very girly book. But it isn't. Despite its underwhelming writing I loved it because of its characters, its futuristic setting (did I mention that? The author just makes up devices) and its fantastic message for young people. It also talks about why we should recycle and stuff, which is a plus in my book.
I didn't mean to write that much about it. That makes it seem like I love it to bits when really I just enjoyed it. Although it should come with a warning sticker because for the first 100 pages I was convinced that image is everything and judged the poor students at my school. But then everything was uplifting and wonderful.
My surfing has progressed! I'm still not 'riding the face of the wave' (the man in the surf shop asked me that and I had to decipher its meaning on the spot, lest I look like a fool) but I'm getting up a lot faster and I want to start tackling drop-ins soon. I bought some new gear yesterday because my old stuff was either ripped or constricting the blood flow to my hands. There's a competition next weekend so I'm going to head up and watch how the pros do it. They sell little cups of tea at comps so it's all good :]
Also, I'm doing Drama for GSCE and it is the most awful thing imaginable. My essays are horrible, compliments from the teacher are like blood from a stone (a rather worn simile) and I have an OBSESSED friend that won't stop OBSESSING.
I think that's it. I half-rejoined my role-playing website and look forward to starting some open RP and just going nuts. Haven't written since NOVEMBER.
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