deus ex machina
I don’t know if there’s something cranky about me today or what. I found lotsa things funny. And this wikipedia entry is one of it:
In fiction writing, deus ex machina has been extended to refer to a sudden and unexpected resolution to a seemingly intractable problem in a plot-line, or what might be called an “Oh, by the way…” ending. Some critics think that a deus ex machina is generally undesirable in writing and often implies a lack of skill on the part of the author because it does not pay due regard to the story’s internal logic and is often so unlikely that it challenges suspension of disbelief, allowing the author to conclude the story with an unlikely, though more palatable, ending. A well-known modern example of deus ex machina occurs in the Michael Crichton book The Andromeda Strain: the pathogen referred to in the title is suddenly rendered non-lethal by a random mutation which apparently affects every existing virus particle instantaneously.
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In an episode of the animated television series The Simpsons, in which Homer is the only human being to ascend to Heaven after the Apocalypse, he begs God to undo what he did, and in doing so, God exclaims “Deus ex machina!” as a magical incantation and literally reverses the end of the world. The Simpsons has been known to end many of its episodes with a deus ex machina.
New Workspace!!
I got super excited when my dad decided to change the kitchen table. I have been eyeing it the moment it got carried into my house! Now it’s MINE!!! 
) Now I feel even more like staying home and doing ‘work’.
My new favourite corner in the house!
You know what’s sad about it?
The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness.
It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.
Street Names
The Panda dispensed interesting nuggets telling how street names come to be!
“These synonyms follow British tradition and each has a specific meaning. Avenue, a main road with trees in each verge; Close, a short cul-de-sac or dead end; Cresent, a curved street as the crescent moon; Drive, from the private road leading to a mansion in its own grounds; Grove, from a small group of trees; Heights indicates raised ground with a view from here; Lane, a minor and narrow road; Place, usually a city street which may also be a square, as in Raffles Place; Square, an open space or park with houses on all four sides; Terrace, a street of linked houses; Vale indicates a small valley; View, there should be a view from here; Walk, a very minor suburban street, perhaps pedestrianised; Way, a word with a 1930s ‘garden suburb’ feel, is similar to avenue. Rightly, there is no Sunset street because street indicates an urban road”
The Sky
I inherited a beaverish character from my dad and mom. I find it hard to not do something about the state of my room once in a while. Either I will start tidying and cleaning every nook and corner (a vesitge of my obsessive-compulsive complex about cleanliness from young) or I will start shifting furnitures to feel different about the place. Today, I did the latter. I finally rid off the old cumbersome CPU that is taking up so much space on my study desk and shifted my table to face the Windows. It’s an amazing change. The whole day I just kept staring at the skies. Occasionally, I saw the clouds floating by and the skies changing colour. Now, as I am writting I see the orange hues in the farthest corner of the nightsky. The view out of my room provided a lot of joy to my essay-trouble soul and now as I typed away, I do not feel so much of a hermit anymore. From my small and messy room, I have a piece of the Sentosa sky!
P/S: SY, here’s a belated photo of how my room looks like btw! It’s non-comparable to yours, esp in terms of tidiness! =p
The window-grills are out for now because Mum's convinced that people do climb into HDB flats through windows at night till this day.
An uncommon definition
It is to Socrates and Plato that we owe the idea of “Platonic love” — that notion of a love that stares through and past its “object” into the eternity of Ideals and misses, therewith, both the erotic energy of the lover and the true ownership of beauty by the beloved.
Vanilla Wind
There is a sweet whiff of vanilla in the air and the wind caresses playfully. It smells like many yesterdays ago when we were young and when we were running around the reservoir, in high spirits. The vanilla from the Gardenia factory and the wind from just above the waters. A time when everything was simple and life wore a gentle blush. Now, the sun is setting and nostalgia envelopes like the incipient night.
Life’s prettiest moment
Listening to Fann Wong’s ‘Stay’ has the strangest effect on me. Especially on rainy nights like this. The chilly air and the orange skies. So very pretty. My favourite part of life. I would die on a night like that.
There is one more day before the exams will be over. Everyone’s talking about the emptiness felt at the end of that long struggle.. I am not sure if I would really know how that feels like cos I’m not sure whether melancholy will take charge. Or maybe it’s just like what Shuohan says, it’s coding specificity so it would be over once the circumstances end.
As the days roll by I’m getting more and more confused about who I am and why I am even doing what I am doing. When I sit down and look at myself in the mirror, the feeling is almost surreal. It’s like if I try saying ‘hello’ to myself, the sound would not even be formed.
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