Amryn’s Aimless Wanderings

You move between two states, awake then asleep in your mind. As you consciouness rocks back and forth your mood shifts with it like the wash of the tide over the whispering sand. First drunkenly happy, the next strangely soulful and reflective. The next swing is deeper–pensiveness fades to morosity, a deep black pool of empty sorrow.

vade mecum [vah-dee make-um]

Unfortunately it’s usually both lol I’m a…what’s it called? Pesco-vegetarian? I hate meat–I found out I don’t even like buying it in a store for someone but I love seafood. No animal-cruelty reason really–I just don’t like it….lol Which is how I am with most food–no reason, just don’t like it XP

Foods I’m particularly fond of: home-made angel food cake, Japanese food–esp. miso shiru & tofu, seaweed (I know–weird lol), mochi, beans like veggie chili, soy dogs, salad with crab meat, seafood (esp. shrimp), cereal (mostly kashi), bananas (I get violent when I don’t have one every day), mushrooms, grilled veggies with salt (the only way I can eat eggplant), whipped cream, nuts, spinach with egg substitute & salsa, white corn, daikon, oshinko, raw cucumber & tomatos sliced with a little salt (perfect after a run), and carrots

Foods I’m like & need to eat less of or avoid altogether: chocolate, carbs (at least I eat healthier, more whole grain choices), cookies, processed food, and sugar, sugar, sugar lol

Foods I need to eat more of: yogurt/dairy, fruit (I used to eat mostly fruit but I kind of got tired of it after awhile), soy milk, protein (my mom’s always bugging me about it *sigh*)

Foods I Absolutely Can’t Stand: Eggplant (ick–major ick), strong cheese (which is most of them lol), fried foods, cream, eggs (except egg substitute–I don’t like the yolk), mayo, all meat, sugary soda, beer, avacado, papaya, whole peaches (I don’t like the fuzzy skin…eww….), hominy (if you don’t know, don’t ask…it smells like an outhouse…), couscous, kiwi, oysters (eww….), tomato juice, and parsley

Sweet Indulgences: low-fat ice cream/frozen yogurt, ichigo miruku, daifuku, coffee cake (I get a craving for it once a year)

Or should I say current interests? Right now I’m reading Tarot Cafe–an excellent series. I’ve fallen in love again with Tokyopop–the freshness of their stories and the beauty of their art. The editors at the con panel were really knowledgeable and picked stories that were interesting and grabbed their attention–I’ve really liked their selection so far. Bizenghast is just incredible! The new one came out this week.

I’m trying to decide on a new loli dress, always searching for new sites (thank goodness for Japanese shopping assistants), and trying to find a new series to watch. Anime for me is like projects I’ve started in the past and never got around to finishing. It’s only the best ones that I see through to the end. I’m not as picky as I am with manga though. I just finished Eureka 7–excellent series, and the Bleach fluff episodes are getting more in depth which I guess is a good thing. Ouren host club is hilarious and I’m finally trying to finish Tsubasa.

Nothing else right now–just the constant stress of school. But what else is new? lol

1: Reader asks a series of cognitive questions and, through textual analysis, aims to resolve a problem in his mind. This is efferent reading, efferre (lat. “to carry away”) is what a reader takes from the information. It’s like archeology–the reader digging for information in search of truth and meaning.

2: A poem’s evocation of the poet’s feelings–focused not on grammer or syntactical relations but on sensuous images. This is aesthetic reading where the reader is interested only in what is experienced during the reading, paying attention to associations, feelings, attitudes, and ideas that the words arouse within him and gaining a holistic understanding.

“reader doesn’t pay attention to broad abstractions about jealousy and guilt and human tenderness that might be enunciated but to the actual moment-to-moment participation in Othello”

In Chinese literary criticism, these 2 different reading styles are designanted by the concepts jie shi and du shi. (jie meaning to interpret)

For example: what do you see in a painting? Do you notice composition, lighting, and the subjects? Or do you stand back and evaluate the overall feeling that it evokes?

Chinese critics rarely approach a poem as an isolated, self-contained object. Discussions are embedded in the author’s life experience, the social-historical background of the author’s time, and most importantly the reader’s evaluative and emotive response to the work. Shi yan zhi–the founding program (kaishan gangling) of Chinese literary tradition. (poetry expresses intent and emotion)

 For the Chinese, however, the author is where the meaning comes from because his intention or emotion is the origin of his poetry. Text is no more than a medium for the author’s mind, and the meaning of a poem lies in the author’s mind inscribed in the text.  Thus to know the poet (time & person) is to know the meaning.

On one hand, the poet, stirred by an emotion, expresses his feelings in words, thereby generating a poem. On the other hand, by reading the poem, the reader at the other end of the spectrum re-enacts the author’s feelings and thereby finds his own emotion expressed. fu shi yan zhi (“reciting poetry to express one’s intent/emotion”) and ting shi guan zhi (“hearing poetry recited to observe one’s intent/emotion”)

shi yuan qing (“poetry stems from emotion”)

In the Analects, Confucius exhorted his students:

“Why don’t you study the Book of Poetry? Poetry can help to stimulate the imagination (xing), to observe social conditions (guan), to associate with others (qun), and to give expression to complaints (yuan). It teaches you to wait on your father at home and serve the sovereign at court. It also helps you learn the names of birds, beasts, plants and trees. (185)”

Xing–to rise, exalt, evoke–this must happen first before the other functions can follow

Although the life of an age may have passed beyond our view, we may often, through reading its literature, succeed in grasping the heart of it.

Poetry is like ripples on a pond–the author expresses, writes words, the words flow to a reader who receives them and then works back to the feelings of the author, following the waves to their source.

The Chinese language allows a poet to group words into phrases that are in harmony with one another regardless of semantics or grammar (w/no tense or pronouns present)

“concealed expression” (hanxu) or pursuit of “the meaning beyond words” (yan wai zhi yi). Zhong Hong (fl. 483513) maintained that the best poetry is that in which “the words have ended and yet the meaning lingers on” (4) . Liu Xie preferred the quality of “concealment” (yin) to that of “ostensiveness” (xiu) in poetry

Therefore, the miraculousness of their poetry lies in its transparent luminosity, which cannot be pieced together; it is like sound in the air, color in appearances, the moon in water, or an image in the mirror; it has limited words but unlimited meaning

In Chinese literary criticism, the creative undertaking of the reader is also referred to as pin wei, or “to savor the flavor.” As the two words clearly indicate, the objective of reading is to apprehend the nuances of the emotive mood or atmosphere of a poem, and the way to do this is through a meditative and holistic comprehension.

Gaston Bachelard proposed that the great function of poetry “is to give us back the situation of our dreams” that lie dormant in the depth of the unconscious. Reading poetry is contemplative, experiencial, and meditative.

I’m in a bit of a funk—I haven’t done anything in a while since my Anthropologie training last Thurs. Except buy stuff >< NHL season is over, my plants are blooming though not with really noticeable growth yet (my pea gave birth!! XD), I’m chatting about AX, adding to my loli costume, reading about the Sung Dynasty, and trying to do EVERYTHING possible to forget I have to study for the GMAT. Which just means the more I try to forget the more I remember. I’ll study tomorrow—2 weeks and I haven’t opened it!! WAAAH! *cries*