Just thinking... (2)

On the way back home, on the bus, I had a lot of time to think about school. You know... this being the last day of school.(for more details on my day... check last post hehe) Anyway, I was thinking about what subject combination I should take, CCA too. Then I began thinking about the subjects I was currently taking, especially Literature.

I began wondering why I even took literature in the first place. I was only doing so-so in sec 2. Then I realised... I loved reading (mostly in the past). By the way, for those who didn't know... my humanities cost me my below 10 points for L1R5. Suddenly, for some unknown reason, a line from one of my literature set texts, The English Teacher, struck me:

"... the annotator's desperate effort to convey a meaning, and the teacher's doubly desperate effort to WREST a meaning out of the poet and the annotator, the ESSENCE of an EXPERIENCE LOST in all this HANDLING".

This was perhaps the reason why I get less and less interested with Literature as a whole with each and every passing day. Trying to analyse, trying to explain with words alone the wonder and beauty that is Literature. For me, true literature would be immersing ourselves into the world in which the book was set, experiencing with our imagination. Every time I read story books, I feel like I'm a part of the book, an invisible viewer who can just like any other character, use our five senses to feel/smell/see/hear/taste to 'be there'. Such experiences like many others, are priceless.

I just feel that learning the various literary devices the authors use like puns, irony, dramatisation, assonance, metaphors, similes, hyperbole etc are just very desperate efforts at trying to experience what could be done so easily with our imagination. Exams in addition to having to 'analyse' the texts just spoil this very experience. Notes/Common knowlegde tells us that ironic situations are so much more enjoyable when we do not have to explain the irony to anyone (or explain the effect it creates for that matter), yet we have to do just that during examinations. Ironical isn't it?

So, just to end this little post... Why do we take the subjects that we do take? Better prospects? It's the least boring choice? We want to do well and we therefore pick the 'easy' subjects? Strategic planning?

It's always interesting to know how the choices we make are governed right?

wrote at 5:56 AM
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