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ravenI spent the day walking round the garden following the sun, an ultimately pointless exercise as it dipped below the sea.
I can't write. I can't write a three-side essay about this or any other topic. If I hear the words "attitudes and values" again, I will scream. I can't work in attitudes and values and linguistic features and link it to the damn question in forty-five minutes, and I can't write legibly either. I've never read Utopia all the way through. Never have. Notes are useless. They always are. Notes are a useless, uselelss, fucking useless device to make you feel like you're doing something useful when nothing will get you through an English exam other than actual talent and ability to, I don't know, write.
There is one poem in the anthology, entitled In which the Ancient History I learn is not my own (from Eavan Boland, In A Time of Violence), and part of it runs as follows:
We have no oracles,
no rocks or olive trees,
no sacred paths to the temple
and no priestesses.
When I read it the first time I thought it was beautiful. The child in the poem is quoting her teacher, teaching her about Ancient Greece and the oracle at Delphi, and I wrote that this quote is ironically appropriate to the fate of the Irish in England at the time, and I thought the words were resonant and beautiful and I recited them to myself about a hundred times while reading this poem, most of which I thought but did not write.
I got it all wrong, apparently.
I know, I know.
Interpretations. And this is not the time for self-righteous, self-indulgent rage at the world.
But I can't remember why I thought it was beautiful.
And I can't write.
I'm writing a story at the moment. A piece of derivative, which is the posh (specific language choice - "posh", colloquial, indicative that speaker is both British and righteously pissed off) way of saying it's fanfiction, ie involves characters and settings that are not and were never mine, and I still can't write at all.
On Tuesday, I will have to write for three solid hours and prove to the nice people at AQA/NEAB that I really have done AS English Language and Literature (B) and possibly may deserve an A, because as I long to tell these people, I care. I really do. I didn't take English for an easy option, because I was too bloody thick to consider science or maths, or even because I sort of kind have read half of Pride and Prejudice, and it was, like, good. I've read it all the way through and hated it more than I have hated any other book, for the record.
Interestingly enough, I took English because I love it. (use of humour apparent in lexis - incongruous adverb choice; emphasis added by placement at opening of paragraph, conveying attitude that author believes loving English is necessary to study at AS). I do.
Maybe I'll do the writing meme. That ought to cheer me right up.
I can't write. I can't write a three-side essay about this or any other topic. If I hear the words "attitudes and values" again, I will scream. I can't work in attitudes and values and linguistic features and link it to the damn question in forty-five minutes, and I can't write legibly either. I've never read Utopia all the way through. Never have. Notes are useless. They always are. Notes are a useless, uselelss, fucking useless device to make you feel like you're doing something useful when nothing will get you through an English exam other than actual talent and ability to, I don't know, write.
There is one poem in the anthology, entitled In which the Ancient History I learn is not my own (from Eavan Boland, In A Time of Violence), and part of it runs as follows:
We have no oracles,
no rocks or olive trees,
no sacred paths to the temple
and no priestesses.
When I read it the first time I thought it was beautiful. The child in the poem is quoting her teacher, teaching her about Ancient Greece and the oracle at Delphi, and I wrote that this quote is ironically appropriate to the fate of the Irish in England at the time, and I thought the words were resonant and beautiful and I recited them to myself about a hundred times while reading this poem, most of which I thought but did not write.
I got it all wrong, apparently.
I know, I know.
Interpretations. And this is not the time for self-righteous, self-indulgent rage at the world.
But I can't remember why I thought it was beautiful.
And I can't write.
I'm writing a story at the moment. A piece of derivative, which is the posh (specific language choice - "posh", colloquial, indicative that speaker is both British and righteously pissed off) way of saying it's fanfiction, ie involves characters and settings that are not and were never mine, and I still can't write at all.
On Tuesday, I will have to write for three solid hours and prove to the nice people at AQA/NEAB that I really have done AS English Language and Literature (B) and possibly may deserve an A, because as I long to tell these people, I care. I really do. I didn't take English for an easy option, because I was too bloody thick to consider science or maths, or even because I sort of kind have read half of Pride and Prejudice, and it was, like, good. I've read it all the way through and hated it more than I have hated any other book, for the record.
Interestingly enough, I took English because I love it. (use of humour apparent in lexis - incongruous adverb choice; emphasis added by placement at opening of paragraph, conveying attitude that author believes loving English is necessary to study at AS). I do.
Maybe I'll do the writing meme. That ought to cheer me right up.
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no subject
on 2004-05-24 02:46 am (UTC)So I sympathise. I know this isn't much comfort, but I promise you that it will all be over one day, and no matter what happens, your A level grades will not ruin your life. It'll be OK, it just feels really, really shit at the time.