Life's Brief Candle
by William Shakespeare
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Come to think of it, most of the stories/ poems were quite depressing.. There was a poem about a funeral.. err.. a short story about some guy planning live in the Isle of Capri till his money ran out and then he would kill himself.. but then he didn't have the guts to do it so... There was also a story but children being sacrificed to a "rain god"..
Man.. I actually miss those days when we had to study English Literature.. classic stuff like Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, White Fang, The Gifts and other stories, The Good Earth, Great Expectations... Even sastera was interesting.. especially Timulak Kapal Perang (think Paduka Mat Salleh, Andayu and Sabah!)..
Now I have to put up with Fick's Law, small signal equivalents, Michaelis-Menten kinetics etc etc etc... All I can say is.. bleh!
At least you don't have neuroanatomy, pharmacology, immunology or microbiology! But, in all fairness, these are the roads we have taken :)
ReplyDeleteTWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
come to think of it...those stories and poems were all really good no? i mean they were all pretty profound and provocative/strange in their own way. especially the creepy rain god one, bridge to terabithia n lotus eater
ReplyDeletebridge to terabithia owned man.
ReplyDeletethe dead crow in the longkang was absolute rubbish.. just my opinion HAHA.. i know its environmental and all but i didn't like the way it was written LOL. sorry a samad said.
ReplyDeletethe one with the kid obsessed with the cow was rubbish. or maybe i was insensitive
ReplyDeletei always wanted to slap that kid in the head
but i loved the poems and literature.
the outsiders! that was my fav :)
wad shih yang said is true lar... i guess we do pick our own paths..
ReplyDeletebernie.. man.. i totally forgot about bridge to terabithia.. it wad sooo sad..
edine, there was a kid obsessed with cows?? omg.. i dont even remember that..
oh oh.. just remembered bout Limpahan Darah di Sungai Semur, Terminal Tiga and Ekspedisi.. those also quite sucky la actually, right jo? hehe.
the cow one is pusaran: the kid's a bit too emo for his own good. probably never had a quarter pounder or big mac before!
ReplyDeleteactually Limpahan Darah had so much potential. its a war book for crying out loud! if they made it into a movie, it would have been like a malaysian, 'Saving Private Ryan' but somewhere along the line, someone screwed it up nicely and decided to put nilai murni in. like omg man.
wow, come to think of it, my memory of most of the literature we studied then has faded... I still remember the classical English poems here and there though...
ReplyDeleteIn a way, Mel, I don't actually mind studying what I study now, although it is true that sometimes I would prefer that my degree was given the option of taking an additional humanities paper as an elective.
Anyway, I have to be off to class.