desiree

English Genius

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Take The Commonly Confused Words Test at HelloQuizzy

no truly difficult words here, obviously

and i just read through the remarks by the creator of this test - "intelligence"? any idiot can memorise spellings! and the words were basically the commonly-confused ones, which most people really should already know.

My first reaction to this was, "That was stupid."

Yes, of course we all have a right to walk where we want to, regardless of the time or situation; yes, the rapist is fully accountable for his own actions and cannot place any tiny bit of blame on her; no, she didn't 'deserve it' for tempting the wrong kind of attraction.

On the other hand, why, why would you want to tempt fate like that? You know it's dark, late, deserted, and far away from inhabited areas. Yes, it's a convenient shortcut. But it's still incredibly foolish.

Of course, in a perfect world, none of this shit would happen and we'd all be happily oblivious to the need for caution. However. It isn't! God. It just.. so stupid.

I know it sounds like I'm blaming her. I'm not. Or, at least, I don't think I am? That's what I wanted to know - I'm afraid that I sound like/am one of those people who blame the victim for the crime, whether subconsciously or not.

If you believe everything you read, better not read.
- Japanese proverb
(reminder to self)

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.
- Thomas Wolfe

History is a pack of lies we play on the dead.
- Voltaire

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know -- and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know -- even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction -- than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.
- Isaac Asimov

Man is what he believes.
- Anton Chekhov

what the hell, I can't count:
If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
- Anatole France

Bold those that are true for you:

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course (heh. no need. 1590 on first try!)
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up (due to lack of interest on their part, i guess)
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

thoughts: a lot of this is actually highly specific to western countries eg. cars, heating bills, but.. the idea is there, i guess.

also, very interesting. a lot of us have an attitude of privilege that is mostly unconscious; might this be the cause of a somewhat elitist pov? and, wow, be grateful. always.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (149)
Anna Karenina (132)
Crime and Punishment (121)
Catch-22 (117)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (115)
Wuthering Heights (110)
The Silmarillion (104)
Life of Pi: a novel (94)
The Name of the Rose (91)
Don Quixote (91)
Moby Dick (86)
Ulysses (84)
Madame Bovary (83)
The Odyssey (83)
Pride and Prejudice (83)
Jane Eyre (80)
A Tale of Two Cities (80)
The Brothers Karamazov (80)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies (79)
War and Peace (78)
Vanity Fair (74)
The Time Traveler's Wife (73)
The Iliad (73)
Emma (73)
The Blind Assassin (73)
The Kite Runner (71)
Mrs. Dalloway (70)
Great Expectations (70)
American Gods (68)
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius (67)
Atlas Shrugged (67)
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books (66)
Memoirs of a Geisha (66)
Middlesex (66)
Quicksilver (66)
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West (65)
The Canterbury Tales (64)
The Historian : a novel (63)
A portrait of the artist as a young man (63)
Love in the Time of Cholera (62)
Brave New World (61)
The Fountainhead (61)
Foucault's Pendulum (61)
Middlemarch (61)
Frankenstein (59)
The Count of Monte Cristo (59)
Dracula (59)
A Clockwork Orange (59)
Anansi boys (58)
The Once and Future King (57)
The Grapes of wrath (57)
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel (57)
1984 (57)
Angels & Demons (56)
The Inferno (56)
The Satanic Verses (55)
Sense and sensibility (55)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (55)
Mansfield Park (55)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (54)
To the Lighthouse (54)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles (54)
Oliver Twist (54)
Gulliver's Travels (53)
Les Misérables (53)
The Corrections (53)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (52)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (52)
Dune (51)
The Prince (51)
The Sound and the Fury (51)
Angela's Ashes : a memoir (51)
The God of Small Things (51)
A people's history of the United States : 1492-present (51)
Cryptonomicon (50)
Neverwhere (50)
A Confederacy of Dunces (50)
A short history of nearly everything (50)
Dubliners (50)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (49)
Beloved (49)
Slaughterhouse-five (49)
The Scarlet Letter (48)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (48)
The Mists of Avalon (47)
Oryx and Crake : a novel (47)
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed (47)
Cloud Atlas (47)
The Confusion (46)
Lolita (46)
Persuasion (46)
Northanger Abbey (46)
The Catcher in the Rye (46)
On the Road (46)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (45)
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything (45)
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance : an inquiry into values (45)
The Aeneid (45)
Watership Down (44)
Gravity's Rainbow (44)
The Hobbit (44)
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences (44)
White Teeth (44)
Treasure Island (44)
David Copperfield (44)
The Three Musketeers (44)

- How on earth could anyone not finish Quicksilver?
- I just never seem to get around to reading the unbolded ones; some have been on my to-read list for years but, well.. *shrugs*

i) The Immortals were fucking NOT sub-human/supernatural entities; they were just an elite group of Persian fighters! God. And where the HELL did all the damned monsters with metal implements for limbs come from? The oliphants? The rhino?! (Though that part was fucking awesome, I was squeeing like hell. XD)

ii) Xerxes!! Why, for the love of god? Seriously. WTF is the whole monster v. human thing?! They're Persians. Persians. Arghh.

iii) I didn't really like the voiceover. Wenham is cool and all, but some of his lines just didn't flow well and kinda contradicted the Sparta I know. Hmm.

iv) Loved the effects. The whole larger-than-life sheen to the movie? Awesome. Especially the shots with the Gates as the background. And the fight scenes were brilliant!

v) On the other hand, personally, I didn't feel any emotional connection with the characters at all. I don't know if that's a failing of the movie or my own fault, but for all that the score, actors and effects were fantastic, it just didn't click for me emotionally. The Battle of Thermopylae I know is all about
Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
Here, obedient to their laws, we lie
and I guess I just didn't get the sense of gravitas and honour and knowledge that they were going to their deaths and would never back down through it all. Even though Butler acted his ass off with the facial close-ups, he had some truly appalling lines that just totally distracted me and detracted from his performance and the battles themselves.

vi) During Wenham's final speech, I was reminded of trinityofone's comments about how 300 was strongly pro-Iraq war. I definitely understand where she's coming from, but the thing is? These arguments have probably been used since the dawn of time - or rather, of war - to encourage armies. Yes, it seemed to strike very close to the grain in present times, but it was appropriate for the Spartans then too.

Overall, very cool movie with the fight scenes, but. I don't know. I expected more, I guess? I mean, it's the friggin' Battle of Thermopylae, for gods' sakes! Thankfully much better than Troy and Alexander, but, still.. Bahh.

1. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
2. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
3. Dune by Frank Herbert
4. Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
5. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
6. Valis by Philip K. Dick
7. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
8. Gateway by Frederik Pohl
9. Space Merchants by C.M. Kornbluth & Frederik Pohl
10. Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
11. Cuckoo’s Egg by C.J. Cherryh
12. Star Surgeon by James White </b>
13. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
14. Radix by A.A. Attanasio
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
16. Ringworld by Larry Niven
17. A Case of Conscience by James Blish
18. Last and First Man by Olaf Stapledon
19. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
20. Way Station by Clifford Simak
21. More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
22. Gray Lensman by E. E. “Doc” Smith
23. The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
24. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
25. Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock
26. Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
27. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
28. 20,000 Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne
29. Heritage of Hastur by Marion Zimmer Bradley
30. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
31. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
32. Slan by A.E. Van Vogt
33. Neuromancer by William Gibson
34. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
35. In Conquest Born by C.S. Friedman
36. Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
37. Eon by Greg Bear
38. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
39. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
40. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
41. Cosm by Gregory Benford
42. The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A.E. Van Vogt
43. Blood Music by Greg Bear
44. Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
45. Omnivore by Piers Anthony
46. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
47. Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
48. To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer
49. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
50. The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
51. 1984 by George Orwell
52. The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
53. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
54. Flesh by Philip Jose Farmer
55. Cities in Flight by James Blish
56. Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
57. Startide Rising by David Brin
58. Triton by Samuel R. Delany
59. Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
60. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
61. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
62. A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller
63. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
64. No Blade of Grass by John Christopher
65. The Postman by David Brin
66. Dhalgren by Samuel Delany
67. Berserker by Fred Saberhagen
68. Flatland by Edwin Abbot
69. Planiverse by A.K. Dewdney
70. Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward
71. Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh
72. Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
73. Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein
74. The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
75. Forever War by Joe Haldeman
76. Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison
77. Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky & Arkady Strugatsky
78. The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge
79. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
80. Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
81. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
82. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
83. Upanishads by Various
84. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
85. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
86. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
87. The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
88. Mutant by Henry Kuttner
89. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
90. Ralph 124C41+ by Hugo Gernsback
91. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
92. Timescape by Gregory Benford
93. The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
94. War with the Newts by Karl Kapek
95. Mars by Ben Bova
96. Brain Wave by Paul Anderson
97. Hyperion by Dan Simmons
98. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
99. Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch
100. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

I really need to start keeping notes about those I've read; can't remember the plots of half of them. Or I read them way too long ago and so need to reread 'em.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov*
3. Dune, Frank Herbert*
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein*
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin*
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury*
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett*
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card*
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams*
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin*
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny*
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick*
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein*
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

Hmm. Some sound really familiar, and I just can't recall if I've read them before. And others? I'd love to read them, but the damned Singapore libraries don't have them and I just can't find them anywhere else. Bah. The rest, I've just never gotten around to.