"Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic."

I've recently fallen in love with the idea of blogging - sharing yourself with the world, via the internet. It's fascinating. Snippets of somebody's life far away in another country, which give me a feeling of how...stuff is there. For this reason I'm going to make an impossible pledge to post something on my blog every single day, even if it is about three words long.

Today I got more exam results back. That's not very interesting. What is interesting is that I'm going to Belfast (the capital city of Northern Ireland) for a little shopping trip tomorrow. There is one particular shop that I must always visit when I go to Belfast: Hollister.

"But Matthew! Boring, thoughtless, prosaic people shop at Hollister! Why would you want to buy clothes from a shop as dull and uninteresting as Hollister?"

Reasons for my love of Hollister:

• IT SMELLS AMAZING. There is not a font large enough to describe that immersing scent. I am in love with it.
• The clothes are bright, nice, easy to wear and the hoodies in particular are fantastic for throwing on whenever you feel like it.
• I am completely and utterly in love with this 'SoCal' lifestyle. Yes, feel free to hate me. In fact, a little part of myself died when I typed that. I apologise. I've been told by my friends and schoolmates that nobody likes Hollister any more because everybody loved it for a month (we got the shop in November 2009, I think) and now it's just old and plain, but there's just something about it that is endlessly pleasing to me.
• The shop is heaven to me (apart from the crowds - not so pleasant). Good music, warmth, luscious smell, hot shop assistants. I even love the pretentious low lighting that so many people complain about. It's beach-y. And my favourite part is the TWIN SCREEN LIVE FEED OF MISSION BEACH. Coolest. Thing. Ever

So that's why I'm a clone.

I'm about to start reading 'The Grapes of Wrath' for my book club. My friend assures me that it is sublime. High hopes.

Introspection

After over two weeks of intermittently sitting exams and revising for them, I finally started getting some results back today. I'm doing well, as I expected. I won't say any actual statistics, but there are lots of A's and A*'s flying around. It's terribly exciting.

This next paragraph is going to sound like I'm bullied or something, which I'm not. So immediately stop thinking that. In my year group I'm famously good at English Literature and French, to the extend that my classmates will eat me alive if I do anything less than outstandingly in tests and exams. French wasn't a problem, because I got 100%.

Brief moment of ecstasy.

WHEE. YAY. YAHZAH.

It's probably important to mention that I'm also a massive braggart. Unfortunately this was cut short in French today because my perpetual linguistic rival was...somewhere else. It was therefore impossible to point out that although we both got 100% MY RESULT WAS STATISTICALLY 0.3% BETTER THAN HIS.

I'm sorry for being obsessive compulsive.

So French turned out beautifully and I will be elated if I can do that well in my GCSE in June. English, however, was another matter. In my first Language paper I got 52/60 which is probably quite good by a sane person's standards, but since I'm a crazy elitist this was not good enough, especially since my friend Ruth got FIFTY-THREE. I could bear that, but Literature was just tortuous. I got 82/105 (three shy of an A* which is unacceptable in a subject that I want to PLACE IN THE COUNTRY IN), whilst Ruth and my other friend Ben got 83. Ruth was kind - she understands my neurosis. She assured me that in the actual exam I would smite her (which in a bizarre, narcissistic way made me feel better), but Ben was merciless. It was painful.

That's really just the background to this post. I had really wanted to discuss the high standards I set for myself. Now, ordinarily, since I'm so fond of shoving words where they don't belong I would have said 'impossibly high standards' just for a little added oomph. But they're not really impossible. I have a very porous mind and I'm naturally intelligent, and I'm meeting my goals in most other subjects, so if I had bothered to do any Literature revision I definitely would have come out with a better mark. I know for a fact that Ben re-read the two set texts before our Lit exam, which would have given him the advantage, for sure.

Oh dear. I'm being insane again. Why aren't I satisfied with a good mark in Literature? Probably something about literature being my 'identity' and if I don't have my high grades I have nothing. Oh well.

I just finished reading composed entirely of diary entries and letters. It made me want to blog.

Dickens lives up to my Great Expectations

I sincerely apologise for what can only be described as the worst pun in living memory. It was just so obvious, and I jumped. I'm sorry, but it was inevitable.

'Great Expectations' has me, unfortunately, in two minds. The first one says, "This novel was FANTASTIC. I defy you to find more personalised, intriguing characters and description so lush you'd might as well be inhaling factory smog through your very own lungs."

The other side of me says, "Don't be fooled by the astounding few segments that this novel had to offer; you waded through countless irrelevant passages praying frantically for Pip to do something interesting. STOP TALKING TO MR. WEMMICK."

So, yes. My thoughts on 'Great Expectations' fall into those two distinct camps. Overall I think I'll have to side with the former just because the last couple of chapters were jaw-droppingly excellent (I'm a sucker for endings - they can be happy or sad as long as they leave a lasting effect) and the characters truly were extraordinary. Miss Havisham, especially, is one of the only characters I can think who, from the very first description of her rotten wedding dress and bitter demeanour, gave me a profoundly affecting visual image of her character. Herbert, Estella, Joe, Magwitch - all perfectly developed, perfectly unique characters. Even Pip, whom I despised for being so selfish and ungrateful was fascinating to learn about, even if i did want to punch him in the face.

Taking a step back, I'm going to discuss one of my absolute favourite elements of the novel. Let's be clear: Volume One mopped the floor with the other two volumes. One particular reason for this was Pip's fascinating narration as an adult who uses a diverse vocabulary and often quite complex syntax to convey the younger Pip's thoughts and actions. It may be a stretch to say that there was dramatic irony at work, but it was fascinating from two perspectives: the first is the later Pip's reflection on his younger self's actions, which always leads to a lot of self-deprecation et cetera, and the second was the omnipresent thought in my mind that the younger Pip, yearning and striving to be educated and successful, would one day reach that goal (well, partially) and reflect on his earlier actions. It's almost paradoxical, isn't it?

So, die Vorteilen:

• Absolutely fascinating characters
• Strangely brilliant writing style in the first volume (which does admittedly continue throughout the second and third volumes, but to a lesser effect)

That's actually only two things, but it made this novel very interesting indeed.

Now for the negatives. One of the main drawbacks of this novel to me was, that although Dickens could provide a beautiful, sensory description of one distinct scene (often a pivotal one), his description of more ambiguous places and lesser scenes was, frankly, shocking. I find it quite hard to visualise many of the places that he was talking about, especially in one of the last chapters when they are on the boat together. This caused me to not enjoy the final exciting climax of the novel, which was actually quite irritating.

I have brought this second point upon myself. Having read the title of 'Great Expectations' and nothing else by Charles Dickens, I quite foolishly prepared myself for a thematic work filled with nothing more than contemplation of dreams and expectation. I was quite annoyed then, when the plot of the novel veered off in other directions other than Pip's "great expectation", but, as I say, this is really my own fault. Since I had presumed it to be largely thematic, I found myself quite unwilling to enjoy the simple adventurous plot that took reign for a large portion of the novel, and to an extent it even stopped me from enjoying the fascinating characters in the novel because I couldn't stop thinking about their representations. I'm really quite angry with myself.

So, there you have it. I love and loathe 'Great Expectations'. And, most importantly, I have learned not to assume anything about a novel before I actually read it, because it invariably makes the experience less enjoyable.

I have been more than that since my absence, although I've kind of forgotten everything by now. There was 'Macbeth', and 'The Age of Innocence' by Edith Wharton (I really do think I prefer English literature to American) and probably some other ones that I've completely forgotten. Oh well. C'est la vie.

It's 11:39. I'm off to watch a BBC documentary!

I'm So Afraid

I was feeling quite guilty as November drew nearer and nearer, and I was still without a basic plot for NaNoWriMo. Alas, Sunday came and still I had absolutely nothing to write. I wanted to placate my self-loathing somehow, so I thought I would log onto ZU and start a useless little role play just so I could write without concerning myself with structure and plot.

I'm struggling here to say if it's changed a lot, or if it hasn't at all. In my time the OoC was a constant hotbed of activity, as it was now; I'm ashamed to admit that I spent 90% of my time in that thread instead of writing, but then again so did everyone else. This had never seemed a problem to me before (probably because I didn't care at all about writing), but it has become a big one now. I posted my story (which was in my opinion one of the easiest things to reply to in living memory) and was quite taken aback when nobody replied. I do have one comrade now, but I left it open to others and nothing came of it.

This disturbed me. When I joined ZU there was an open RP once in a blue moon, and when there was one people immediately sprang upon it. Now I can see a couple floating about totally unheeded. I don't want to brag, but my opening was well-written and I'm just quite shocked at the dilapidation of the place.

Of course, the OoC Thread is still buzzing on as it was: lightning-quick posts between the oh-so-cool clique of elite members, followed by a torrent of new members 'laughing' along at the various in-jokes; it was a bit disgusting to think that I was once groveling at the feet of Altamira, insanely et al. Once in, I decided to advertise my little RP (because everyone reads the OoC Thread), and nobody even made reference to it.

Distressing.

As I just about had one successful RP going, and craved more to sate my NaNoWriMo withdrawal, I then requested someone to send me a message concerning another prospective role play, which was once again ignored amongst a sea of irrelevant chat.

I also found it very unprofessional how the tournament that I had participated in was simply left half-finished to rot forever. Not pleased.

Overall, the BA (sorry, The Escapists' Haven) needs a serious overhaul. From what I've seen there really is nothing to appeal to anyone who is serious about writing, or indeed role playing of any kind.

What's more, I loathe Power Shot.

On another note, I'm reading Great Expectations. This novel fills me with squee from head to toe. Expect a full review in the near future.

Early Morning Blog Post Just Because I Can

I never know where to put the capital letters in my blog titles.

Anywho, I have to go to school in twenty minutes, but I just thought that I would check in with the dear old blog. I don't like how old my last post is.

I've been reading various classic, thought-provoking-type novels recently, so I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up a teenage novel last week. It was good. I'm not feeling the blog today. Bye bye.

Slumming It At The Beach

I've been having fun since Thursday. A few friends and I took the train up to the seaside and went to the beach and pushed each other and generally frolicked. In the evening we made melted Mars Bars that took so long to eat that we missed the train.

Which turned out to be a good thing (random new paragraph!). We went to Barry's, which is a massive amusements full of roller coasters and rides and things. Major fun. Then we got doughnuts and sat on the beach, watched the sunset. It turned out to be a rather lovely day indeed. 

There was another train around nine so my three friends got that and left me at the beach. I was going to stay at my friend's apartment, but apparently he didn't know that and he was quite surprised when I showed up at his door. But it was all cool. We went inside and watched 'The Beach', the second time this week I've seen that lovely, disturbing movie. 

Friday was terrific fun. We did nothing until the afternoon when we went to a sea pool called the Blue Pool. Back in the '30s or something there were diving boards and everything and the water was really deep, so I could jump in from really high up. I'm bad a gauging distances but I'm guessing it was about 25 feet. It turns out jumping from that height hurts quite a bit, but I still loved it. I was falling for about a second, but it felt all slow, the way everything does when you're exhilarated. Then, just before I hit the water, a streak of panic tore through me for about a millisecond. Should I have jumped? But it was always fun. I plummeted into the water really quickly, like a bullet, and then the water just grabbed my whole body and held me in place for a few seconds. I jumped lots of times because it was fun.

That night we went to the theatre and saw a play. It was a silly little farce about a robot and relationships and things. I enjoyed it.

Since I've been so busy I haven't had any time to read, but I DID dream about books. The first was about Les Miserables, and the West End cast were coming to my town to put on a special performance for a select audience. Unfortunately, they were late so we had to watch the animated cartoon (what?) instead. The second was about American Psycho and I was Patrick Bateman and I wasn't as buff as I had imagined. I think it means I'm insecure. Maybe.

That's all that's happened in the last few days of my life. I enjoyed them. Tomorrow I resign myself to a week at the caravan with my arthritic grandfather who does nothing. At least I'll get a lot of reading done.

Goodbye!

Assigned Summer Reading That I Didn't Know I Had

I don't think I like Pride & Prejudice. When you don't care about the protagonist (Elizabeth bores me to tears) I don't think you care about her marital struggles. We were made to read this in English Literature class and at first I was thrilled and I kept batting my hand, exclaiming, "OH, Mr. Bingley!" Then I started reading the book and it got rather tiresome. I'm some 100 or so pages through it now. 

I discovered tonight that I have to finish this book by September, and, after spending an hour or so poring over positive and negative reviews on Goodreads.com (which I recently bookmarked!) I have a feeling that PaP might get somewhat better. I can only hope. 

In other news, I finished 'American Psycho' by Bret Easton Ellis a few hours ago. I haven't written a review in ages and I'm in the mood. 

The first thing that struck me as I read the book is the protagonist's attention to detail. The book is written in the perspective of Patrick Bateman (our titular psychopath) and he pores over clothing, hair, drinks, designer labels, credit cards and a number of other material things and treats all of his creepy killings almost as little asides that break away from his 'real' life which involves nothing more strenous than making reservations at various upmarket restaurants. And there are lots of them. At first I was struck by this reversal of interest between the reader and Bateman, where we focus on the gruesomeness of the murders whilst he gets infuriated by asking to 'please hold' making reservations and talking to his vast number of girlfriends. Later it gets quite annoying.

Excerpt:

"He's wearing a linen suit by Canali Milano, a cotton shirt by Ike Behar, a silk tie by Bill Blass and cap-toed leather lace-ups from Brooks Brothers." 

In this particular scene Bateman begins by describing his friend Price; he then goes on to describe, in detail, what he and his two friends Van Patten and McDermott are wearing. For the first twenty pages I could bear it as it was making a point about the materialism and obsession with style that was nurtured by the prep generation, but after 380 pages I was ready to strangle Mr. Ellis. I began to skim through these descriptions of clothing just because they bored me to death, and if I'm being honest a lot of the book just goes round in a loop of girls, clothing and reservations. 

But it's interesting. As the novel progresses Bateman becomes more and more unable to quell his bloodlust (BUT THANK GOODNESS THE POLICE DID NOT INTERVENE I WOULD HAVE CUT SOMEONE IF IT HAD BECOME A CRIME NOVEL) and it was extremely interesting to see how he began to unwind and his friends didn't notice - didn't care. In one scene towards the end he calls a friend and completely confesses all of his grisly murders and the friend laughs, completely unwilling to burst the bubble of self-indulgent unreality that the entirety of Upper Manhattan is living in.

One thing I liked is that he has several chapters that go by the same name that allude to the tautology of Bateman's life. 

(I had another thing to say and I just forgot what it was.)

Oh! In several scenes throughout the novel Bateman is referred to by his friends and colleagues by different names, and Bateman, once again too afraid to cause a scene, simply goes along with it. This poses a question: are all of these people who they pretend to be, or is everyone just following a facade out of politeness? This question became another core element of the story when Bateman murders a colleague, then finds that said colleague has been seen in London, and that his friends have eaten with him. Who did he kill? Who is Paul Owen?

Unfortunately, some of the murder scenes in the novel are just disgusting. Prepare yourself for some disturbing stuff to happen. 

I'm to-ing and fro-ing a lot in this review. Overall, I really enjoyed American Psycho, but I think I'm enjoying it more now that it's over. It allows me to think about the main theme of the novel without wading through designer labels and lunch dates and parties and a million other things I don't care about. 

I'm reading my friend's novel next. And on Sunday I'm starting Les Miserables, which is my August reading project. I must say I'm rather excited.

Oh one more thing!

XOXO Gossip Girl