Picture Perfect

For those who didn't know me when I was younger, this is me as a child. With the whole debate on whether photographs are a "irresistible form of mental pollution" (Sontag), both sides have valid arguments. It all depends on how you use it. For example, the photo above is used to document and preserve my image as a child. Therefor, one may argue that photographs and pictures bring a sense of truth and documentation that are important. However, the photo above is not me. All I did was search up "asian child" on google images and selected the first image of a boy. Those against photographs would then argue that images are deceitful. Yes, I agree. Pictures can be misleading, especially with photoshop readily available (but at a whopping $120+ a year). However, isn't life also deceitful? Whether it's news stories, magazines, or even friends and family, everyone and everything lie. That poptart you had for breakfast wasn't actually a poptart. It was a Toaster Tart.

Also, without photographs, I wouldn't be able keep my self esteem up every day.

Without photographs, cops wouldn't know who to look for when catching criminals. Therefore if you argue that photographs are bad, then you support crime.

Also without photos, this would never be possible.

Check out Andrew Yuan Photography @ https://www.facebook.com/AndrewYuanPhotography

While reading the Consider the Lobster, I couldn't help but to wonder what life would be like if humans didn't eat lobsters. First off, Red Lobster wouldn't exist. Also, buffets would be less popular, considering how many people (my parents) only go to buffets to eat lobster. There's an infinite amount of what if's about how the world would be different if humans didn't do certain things. However, those who eat meat, whether it's lobster meat or beef have already accepted the fact that their food was once living, moving just as they themselves do. If this wasn't the case, then they would simply refuse to eat meat and be vegetarians. Even so, us humans have assigned the task of butchering these once breathing forms of sustenance to others, just so we ourselves do not have to feel the guilt of killing an animal. Therefore, like Wallace himself admits that he hasn't "succeeded in working out any sort of personal ethical system" for which the issue of killing lobsters will make him change is eating habits. In the world, there are predators and prey to keep species populations under control. WIthout us humans, lobsters could possibly be so plentiful that they eventually outnumber us and enslave the human race. Therefore, us lobster-eaters are in fact saving the world. 8)

Tick. Tock.

With the whole idea of multiplicity, the movie The Hours, time itself is what makes the movie unique. By shifting between three different time periods, the audience simply gets snippets of daily life that seems completely unrelated (of course only to those who haven't read Mrs. Dalloway). However, through the contrasts of these three depictions, the same conclusion arrises. No matter how hard we try, we "still have to face the hours." Although Richard Brown tries to write about everything that happens in a moment, he can only get as minute as one single day. Also, Richard even tells Clarissa he "seems to have fallen out of time." foreshadowing his inevitable death. Virginia Woolf also lives a tragic life. As we find out in the movie, she moves to Richmond for her own safety, so her husband can keep careful watch of her. However, time must continue. Woolf's unrelenting desire for freedom causes her to fight with her husband, exclaiming, "You cannot find peace avoiding life." No matter how hard we try, no one can stop time. As tragic as it is, death is unavoidable. However, as Virginia states, "Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. It's contrast."

Ahoy Me Matey

"Suddenly Elizabeth stepped forward and most competently boarded the omnibus, in front of everybody. She took a seat on top. The impetuous creature-a pirate-started forward, sprang away. she had to hold the rail to steady herself, for a pirate it was, reckless, unscrupulous, bearing down ruthlessly, circumventing dangerously, boldly snatching a passenger, or ignoring a passenger, squeezing eel-like and arrogant in between, and then rushing insolently all sails spread up Whitehall. And did Elizabeth give one thought to poor Miss Kilman who loved her without jealousy, to whom she had been a fawn in the open, a moon in a glade? She was delighted to be free. The fresh air was so delicious. It had been so stuffy in the Army and Navy stores. And now it was like riding, to be rushing up Whitehall; and to each movement of the omnibus the beautiful body in the fawn-coloured coat responded freely like a rider, like the figure-head of a ship, for the breezy slightly disarrayed her; the heat gave her cheeks the pallor of white painted wood; and her fine eyes, having no eyes to meet, gazed ahead, blank, bright, with the staring incredible innocence of sculpture" (135).



    Elizabeth, being a yee little lad, is constantly surrounded by older people. By coming from wealth, she's expected to act classy and mature. However, her trip on the omnibus reveals her hungarrrr for adventarrrre. She describes the bus as being a pirate, yet it acts more of a pirate ship, "rushing up Whitehall." With Miss Kilman almost forcing her love onto Elizabeth, Elizabeth just desperately wishes to be free. She's almost living a double life; on the outside she lives a rich, civilized life, yet she desiarrrrrs for freedom and adventure. Avast ye, Elizabeth describes the fresh airrrrrrr as being "delicious," so freedom itself is what sustains her, Savvy? Shiver me timbers! By living a life of multiplicity, the lassie feels isolated, "having no eyes to meet"-almost as if she's trapped in Davy Jones' Locker. Being a pirate is generally seen as a manly occupation, yet Elizabeth wants to batten down the hatch and be free like a pirate. She doesn't carrrre about society's gender roles, but rather what her harrrrrt desires. Therefore she represents the "incredible innocence" that once existed within every person.

    So in a time like today, we should not allow society to kill our inner pirate. Arrrrggghhh! Fight for freedom, fight for justice! Don't let anyone tell you you can't.

Septimus

"Was he not like Keats? she asked; and reflected how she might give him a taste of Antony and Cleopatra and the rest; lent him books' wrote him scraps of letters' and lit in him such a fire as burns only once in a lifetime, without heat, flickering a red gold flame infinitely ethereal and insubstantial over Miss Pole; Antony and Cleopatra; and the Waterloo Road. He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink; he saw her, one summer evening, walking in a green dress in a square. 'It has flowered,' the gardener might have said, had he opened the door; had he come in, that is to say, any night about this time, and found him writing; found him tearing up his writing; found him finishing a masterpiece at three o'clock in the morning and running out to pace the streets, and visiting churches, and fasting one day, drinking another, devouring Shakespeare, Darwin, The History of Civilisation, and Bernard Shaw" (85).

    This passage brings to light what Septimus used to be before the war. It's nice to see how Septimus was capable of loving someone, of feeling. However, this also makes this current situation with PTSD even more tragic, for he does not think of  Rezia as beautiful or impeccably wise. Instead, whenever Septimus is with his wife, he's thinking of death, war, or Evans. Not only did Septimus lose his friend Evans in the war, but his ability to feel and his grasp on life.

    The mentioning of Antony and Cleopatra is quite interesting. Having pretty much the same ending as Romeo and Juliet (seriously the ending is ALMOST THE SAME... love causes them BOTH TO KILL THEMSELVES...), Antony and Cleopatra may be foreshadowing to something tragic later on in the book. Since Keats is giving him "a taste" of the play, and being the woman he loved before the love, the idea of the play should be somewhat imbedded in his mind. Whether it's him killing himself after his wife leaves him or dies from misery or him killing himself from survivor's guilt, the future of Septimus does not seem bright.
 
    Another detail beautifully crafted into this passage is the idea of how ordinary Septimus's life was before the war. Not the boring ordinary, but rather the normal, correct ordinary. This passage presents the idea that he would often experience all of the ups and downs of life. He had a crush on Keats, whom lit a fire that burns "only once in a lifetime." Also, he experiences the struggles of his poetry career, sometimes tearing up his writing in frustration, sometimes running out to pace the streets in satisfaction. His devouring of plays (Shakespeare), science (Darwin), history (The History of Civilisation) and journalism (Bernard Shaw) illustrates how he was involved in all aspects of life prior to the war, which ultimately emphasizes the tragedy Septimus's current state of mind.