rechord the melodies

im getting the damn eve-of-history-paper-syndrome/shit again. i feel trapped, paralyzed even. i just can’t concentrate on studying. i read a couple of pages and start feeling sleepy, or feel like i need to read something else, or something like that. otherwise i feel like tearing up my notes, get extremely irritated whenever the highlighting goes out of line, or i just want to cuddle up and mope. this has been haunting me since sec4, throughout jc, and now in uni. damn it. how am i supposed to do a history minor like that? it’s always history! and only history! damn history!

i feel helpless.

(well, the worst thing about this is that the person i called up (guess who) to try and confide in said ‘but you haven’t even started studying’, to which i felt like cursing him, but i took the peaceful (well, more peaceful) way out by hanging up. men are idiots. all of them. how dare he accuse me of not studying! he needs to take english lessons. if i said ‘i can’t study anymore’, the word ‘anymore’ obviously implies that i have been [trying to] study. stupid fuck)

but i like history, i really do.

i thought the great gatsby was just another classic until i read this one section which really speaks to me. i think nobody is gonna take the time to read what i cut and paste, so…that episode in brief acutely describes how gatsby behaves just before and when he meets his lover. the detail which fitzgerald indulges us in through the narrator Nick is so fresh and so close to the heart that this passage is now one of my favourites.

from the great gatsby:

"What day would suit you?"

"What day would suit YOU?" he corrected me quickly. "I don't want to put
you to any trouble, you see."

"How about the day after tomorrow?" He considered for a moment. Then,
with reluctance:

"I want to get the grass cut," he said.

We both looked at the grass--there was a sharp line where my ragged lawn
ended and the darker, well-kept expanse of his began. I suspected that
he meant my grass. . . . The day agreed upon was pouring rain. At eleven o'clock a man in a
raincoat dragging a lawn-mower tapped at my front door and said that
Mr. Gatsby had sent him over to cut my grass. This reminded me that I
had forgotten to tell my Finn to come back so I drove into West Egg
Village to search for her among soggy white-washed alleys and to buy
some cups and lemons and flowers.

The flowers were unnecessary, for at two o'clock a greenhouse arrived
from Gatsby's, with innumerable receptacles to contain it. An hour
later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby in a white flannel
suit, silver shirt and gold-colored tie hurried in. He was pale and
there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes. "Is everything all right?" he asked immediately.

"The grass looks fine, if that's what you mean."

"What grass?" he inquired blankly. "Oh, the grass in the yard." He looked
out the window at it, but judging from his expression I don't believe
he saw a thing.

"Looks very good," he remarked vaguely. "One of the papers said they
thought the rain would stop about four. I think it was 'The Journal.' Have
you got everything you need in the shape of--of tea?"

I took him into the pantry where he looked a little reproachfully at the
Finn. Together we scrutinized the twelve lemon cakes from the delicatessen
shop. "Will they do?" I asked.

"Of course, of course! They're fine!" and he added hollowly, ". . .old
sport." . . . Finally he got up and informed me in an uncertain voice
that he was going home.

"Why's that?"

"Nobody's coming to tea. It's too late!" He looked at his watch as if
there was some pressing demand on his time elsewhere. "I can't wait
all day."

"Don't be silly; it's just two minutes to four." He sat down, miserably, as if I had pushed him, and simultaneously there
was the sound of a motor turning into my lane. We both jumped up and,
a little harrowed myself, I went out into the yard.

Under the dripping bare lilac trees a large open car was coming up the
drive. It stopped. Daisy's face, tipped sideways beneath a
three-cornered lavender hat, looked out at me with a bright ecstatic
smile.

"Is this absolutely where you live, my dearest one?" The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain. I had
to follow the sound of it for a moment, up and down, with my ear alone
before any words came through. A damp streak of hair lay like a dash of
blue paint across her cheek and her hand was wet with glistening drops as
I took it to help her from the car.

"Are you in love with me," she said low in my ear. "Or why did I have
to come alone?"

"That's the secret of Castle Rackrent. Tell your chauffeur to go far
away and spend an hour."

"Come back in an hour, Ferdie." Then in a grave murmur, "His name is
Ferdie."

"Does the gasoline affect his nose?"

"I don't think so," she said innocently. "Why?"

We went in. To my overwhelming surprise the living room was deserted.

"Well, that's funny!" I exclaimed.

"What's funny?" She turned her head as there was a light, dignified knocking at the front
door. I went out and opened it. Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands
plunged like weights in his coat pockets, was standing in a puddle of
water glaring tragically into my eyes.

With his hands still in his coat pockets he stalked by me into the
hall, turned sharply as if he were on a wire and disappeared into the
living room. It wasn't a bit funny. Aware of the loud beating of my own
heart I pulled the door to against the increasing rain.

For half a minute there wasn't a sound. Then from the living room I
heard a sort of choking murmur and part of a laugh followed by Daisy's
voice on a clear artificial note.

"I certainly am awfully glad to see you again."

A pause; it endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the hall so I went
into the room.

Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the
mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom.
His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a
defunct mantelpiece clock and from this position his distraught eyes
stared down at Daisy who was sitting frightened but graceful on the
edge of a stiff chair.

"We've met before," muttered Gatsby. His eyes glanced momentarily at
me and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh. Luckily
the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his
head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers and set
it back in place. Then he sat down, rigidly, his elbow on the arm of the
sofa and his chin in his hand.

"I'm sorry about the clock," he said.

My own face had now assumed a deep tropical burn. I couldn't muster up
a single commonplace out of the thousand in my head.

"It's an old clock," I told them idiotically.

I think we all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on
the floor.

"We haven't met for many years," said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact
as it could ever be.

"Five years next November."

The automatic quality of Gatsby's answer set us all back at least another
minute. I had them both on their feet with the desperate suggestion that
they help me make tea in the kitchen when the demoniac Finn brought it in
on a tray.

Amid the welcome confusion of cups and cakes a certain physical decency
established itself. Gatsby got himself into a shadow and while Daisy
and I talked looked conscientiously from one to the other of us with
tense unhappy eyes. However, as calmness wasn't an end in itself I
made an excuse at the first possible moment and got to my feet.

"Where are you going?" demanded Gatsby in immediate alarm.

"I'll be back."

"I've got to speak to you about something before you go."

He followed me wildly into the kitchen, closed the door and whispered:
"Oh, God!" in a miserable way.

"What's the matter?"

"This is a terrible mistake," he said, shaking his head from side to
side, "a terrible, terrible mistake."

"You're just embarrassed, that's all," and luckily I added: "Daisy's
embarrassed too."

"She's embarrassed?" he repeated incredulously.

"Just as much as you are."

"Don't talk so loud."

"You're acting like a little boy," I broke out impatiently. "Not only
that but you're rude. Daisy's sitting in there all alone."

He raised his hand to stop my words, looked at me with unforgettable
reproach and opening the door cautiously went back into the other room.