Book Review: House of Leaves

To all you multi-taskers out there, here's so you can listen to my ramblings. Enjoy!

I finally finished reading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski and my eyes are crusted with dried tears. I quickly logged into my Goodreads account and rated it a full five stars and clicked on “Read”. Naturally, I checked out the book's page to read the comments to see if anyone shared the same thoughts as I had. There was one whom thought about it highly and I agreed with the comment by clicking the “Like” button. But then I saw a whole lot of other people's ratings on the book and calling it names, like “bullshit” and long paragraphs of how the book was pretentiously written. So now, I'm sitting down here before I lose this feeling and write about how I felt and these are my honest opinions that are my own, not owing at all to anyone else.

 

books galore!

Just found myself another reason to go book-shopping again. Tee hee hee... It turns out that I have another exam to study for (and I really mean STUDY!). And while I was looking through these terms in English literature, I just thought to myself: So today they'd probably be asking for the definition for something like "limerick" and it turns out that this is a fairly new term, which only dates back to the late 19th century. Hmm. If our current pop culture would survive a century or two, in the future would the question look a bit like this:

Define dubstep.

Definition by AllMusic: "...tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals."

Definition by most people: Bass drops and goes wub wub wub then seizures all around.

Listening to: "All I Need" by Within Temptation

Reading: "A World Without Islam"by Graham E. Fuller

Watching: cooking shows

Playing: ...
Eating: ...
Drinking: ...

Guess who got bored today?

I'm out of white paint so I decided to try my hand at drawing with pens this time. Only one color though, because I'm too thrifty to get several colored pens.

Unawakened

Might scan the original and put it to good use. Or not. I don't know, depends on the situation I guess.

Oh, and I just realized that I prefer listening to Eminem when I paint/draw/sketch.

Listening to: "Sing for the Moment" by Eminem

Reading: "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski

Watching: random concert clips 

Playing: ...
Eating: ...
Drinking: alkaline water

Despite the weather

Been sick for a few days and now I'm starting to get the sniffles. However so, I managed to get these done. I painted these at night because that is when everything calms down.

Mist

Breathe

I need a hug...

Listening to: "Brave" by Sara Bareilles 

Reading: "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski

Watching: paint dry
Playing: ...
Eating: ...
Drinking: alkaline water

Updates!

"Journey's End"

  

Okay, cheesy title or whatever you wanna call it, the title stays. But I apologize for the horrid quality. The camera completely ruined the colours and I'm too lazy to use/check on my scanner. Heck, my mom and sister could not even tell what it is when I showed this image to them. But then when I handed them the actual painting, they were like: "Ooh, that's what it is!"

Anyway, this is suppose to accompany the final stanza of one of my poems, "Amaya." 

"As the stranger's journey came to a closing

A warm light slowly came flooding

The beams against her trails complementing

Shadows disappearing, the traveler, too, dissolving

The bloody-like clouds seemed burning

No sooner they would turn cool and calming

All the while as she was vanishing

She made a promise of soon returning"

I love this one the most because it has a sort of special bond with me. Not only I wrote it within one night and recited it in public the next day, but I feel like there is something very personal, though universal, in those lines. Like I can find something to relate myself with everyone else.

So I'm going to do my best for this, despite being a side-project. I want to do it properly. Hopefully I can share it with as many people as I could.

Listening to: people talking
Reading: a bunch of books

Watching: paint dry
Playing: ...
Eating: ...
Drinking: alkaline water

Not so bad!

The examination that is. Turns out it's just like a 2-hour and 45-minute writing marathon. I've sat through longer exams before. Even up to 3 hours, no joke. However, it could have been nice to be able to get up once in a while because it was freezing in there for the first hour and a half.

I am sure that anyone would guess where I ran to after the invigilators told us that we could leave.

Anyway, it was quite a challenge since we had three papers one after the other but it was really comfortable in the exam hall (it was held in a hotel ballroom, and yes I have to admit that it's a first-time experience for me when usually I get a dusty classroom or a huge echoing hall).

Anyway, I have 12 days to wait for the results to come out. I am a bit nervous, especially for the Writing paper. Oh well, all I can do now is pray for the best!

Listening to: "What About Now" by Daughtry
Reading: "Gadsby" by Ernest Vincent Wright
Watching: "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"(1937)
Playing: ...
Eating: ...
Drinking: ...

Uninvited guests

The sound of claws scraping against the rough surface, just like every night. The hours of which they could be heard would be earlier or later in the evening – brief seconds or prolonged moments – but they will be there without fail. Somewhere deep in my dark mind, I saw them crawling on the floor of which would be my ceiling. 

Craving for attention now, are we? So late at night and yet still so “lively.”I would beg for you to leave, dear nocturnal intruder, though it is not of my nature to succumb to fear of the night.

Once the scraping noises disappeared, I sighed in relief. Just like every night before, it will be gone in an instant so then I could continue my interrupted dreams. Until then...

...damn squirrels!

Listening to: "Who's They" by Daughtry
Reading: "Gadsby" by Ernest Vincent Wright
Watching: ...
Playing: ...
Eating: ...
Drinking: alkaline water

"Here's To Closure"

Got inspired while I was doing laundry just now. Isn't it just the little things that keep our minds well-fed with ideas? By the way, this is just the first draft. Worked on the melody of the chorus as I was writing it down. Gosh, I missed writing lyrics! 

VERSE 1:

hey, soldier boy

who gave you permission

to wreck a heart?

hey, baby boy

think you're a man

with those childish delusions?

took word from another

no different from yourself

what makes you understand

something you never had?

BRIDGE:

here's to the closure

that never happened

closing the book now

of an endless story

CHORUS:

you pulled yourself down

and now you've gone under

you tore yourself apart

as you let it crumble

all I can say now

is that I wish for the best

pray you won't break any more hearts

like you broke mine

VERSE 2:

hey, soldier boy

do you take pleasure

in giving false hopes?

grow up, boy

your juvenile crimes

of poisoning minds

left these hearts bleeding

for your uncalled-for judgments

think you know it all

when you were never broken

repeat BRIDGE and CHORUS

Fun fact: Soldier Boy exists.
Edit: And I don't mean by Soulja Boy 

Of old fears and newfound addiction

"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Title-changing Jinx

It is a major problem for me. Mainly because every time I decide to change titles, I tend to over-think, thus leading me to lose interest in whatever I was writing before immediately.

So, no more. I am just going to stick with the name Project L.C. for now at least until I can get the first draft done.

I need a bigger table. My pinkie and ring fingers are going numb, AGAIN because - the doctor said - the space I have now is too cramped for me to spread my elbows properly.

But, hey, a writer has to start somewhere right? I have been using this same, very small space to write for the past 3 years and I would have to say that the results were more than satisfactory. Or that could be the reason why I have tennis elbow in the first place?

...

Will ponder about this later.

Listening to: "BulletproofAngel" by Goo Goo Dolls
Reading: "Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We Can't Look Away" by Eric G. Wilson
Watching: "Castle" (Season 5)
Playing: ...
Eating: ..need...breakfast...
Drinking: alkaline water

Iris

The dawn is breaking as a life was withering away. There was a scent that filled the air, slightly sharp but relieving. A strange mixture of a delicately foreign note that is both addictive and unnoticeable in due time as it fades. The sun that will rise to bring forth a new day will be the end of the calmness of the night. The permeating heat will be the death of the cooling mist and along with it the life of this elusive creature.

"Organized mess" - that's what it was.

Never save what you can do today for tomorrow. 

Or in other words:

Never save your documents in one place, instead e-mail it to yourself, make use of those online storage websites.

Yeap, but nope. My recent works are gone. Down the electronic drain. Disintegrated into nothingness. Poof!
And I can't blame anyone else but myself. I had to reformat my laptop last week at the cost of my latest works. Well, I can't really call them "works", more like jumbled up pieces of what would be something worth calling that. When I put it that way, I become thankful that my baby decided to throw a tantrum and made me clear everything up in her system. Now I don't have to look at those pieces guiltily and I could start again.

Good news, I don't have to start from scratch because I have some of the first drafts written down on paper before I rewrote them on the computer. They're not much but I can work with this. Most of them are from before I tried to imitate some of my favourite writers. I lost my way with insecurity and even though I kept telling myself that I should just let go of things that are not mine (concerning more than one thing in my life), my desires spoke of dreams that were already claimed and realized by someone else.
But they were not mine.

So now whether I like it or not, I have to let go and move on. With these scraps of paper, I shall mold the story back together. Only this time, I will make it mine.

Listening to: "Everything But Me" by Daughtry
Reading: "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski
Watching: "Hyōka" (TV)
Playing: ...
Eating: ...
Drinking: alkaline water

LOVE IS A STRANGER

love is a stranger

misunderstood

often blamed for crimes

never committed

for the fear

and the hate

inside the hearts of the weak

the truth?

love is the only hope

in every weeping soul

in every broken heart

a thunder-less rain

calming

comforting

giving rest to the weary

after the lies

the broken promises

the rejection

the faults unforgiven

for those are what scars us

what we had mistaken for love

ever innocent

ever pure

ever true

that is love

- February 17th 2013 (1.19 pm) 

I have been wanting to write this one for some time now but I haven't had the urge to put it down on paper, until now.

This poem was written while I was listening to this on loop:

I'm Only Human

I can only take so much.

-->

There are two reasons that would make one cry: the first is to not being able to do what he or she wanted, and the second is to not being able to figure out what to do. However there would come a time, a rare point in one's life that would probably be the turning point of his or her life, when these two factors would collide thus leading to a time when one would have to decide on what to do next. This would then decide what would happen next in their lives. Would they be able to follow their dreams or otherwise. 

I am currently at that point. 

Announcements..

..for anyone who cares. Those who don't have the right to shut up.

After a whirlwind of projects and reports, I'm finally here on this day feeling...
..happy. Yes, I am happy. And it's all God's blessings upon this soul.
However it would be simple-minded of me to think that the struggle is over. I'm still far from it.

And now, the moment we've all been waiting for (or at least what I've been waiting for), a preview of an upcoming project. A solo project by yours truly.

Yes I intentionally made it blurry (...liar~!...). Hopefully everything will turn out well, insya Allah.

P.S.: I forgot the dates of those poems (cuz I'm lazy when it comes to details), so some of them are really old while others are quite recent.

Listening to: "What About Now" (acoustic version) by Daughtry
Reading: "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" by Haruki Murakami
Watching: "Fight Club"
Playing: ...
Eating: ...nope, not yet..starving though..
Drinking: H2O! (no, really, it's good for you)

THE FORT

When a house is not a home

There can be no safety, no security

There is no liberty, no peace

Thus this structure, remains a cage

Trapping the souls crying for freedom

Freedom

Without it one cannot feel joy

For the suffocating air of toxic

And noises that was mistaken for music

Down, down the soul would drown

In the ocean of the forsaken

NAMELESS #04

Never in my life

Have I felt such confusion

A whirlwind of emotions

In the madness

Of the essences of laughter and tears

It is a clear to us

The end

I would still take

Such great strengths

To push ourselves back to reality

But it would still take

A stronger will

To leave something that has

Been loved for so long

This is a strange feeling

Indeed, to want to let go

Of the love that has been

Nurtured for so long

For now, it shall not be forgotten

NAMELESS #03

Being here now feels like being absent

My mind is pulling me into the distance

All that I know of becomes different

Deformed into a blurry yet vivid presence

NAMELESS #02

I'm falling but the gravity pushed me higher

I'm gliding in the wind

I'm drifting among the clouds

I'm afloat pass the currents

I'm flying, soaring under your wings

PATCHING THE BROKEN

The things that has occurred

That I never thought would happen

Once again, a painful cry unheard

By a girl of a lesson never learnt

A dead seed should remain dead

A wilting flower would still wilt

Words flowed can't be unsaid

This torn up heart would break still

Lying on the floor, between down

By an unseen wave that came crashing

Still believing in being found

Wishing to be someone worth saving

Alone in a solitary corner

Still cold, worn and scarred

In the night, I said a prayer

Of having a room in someone's heart