In a Pensive Mood (but good pensive...)

today's modes of reading (english lit) lecture was taken by carol rutter, who i think is a really good lecturer. some of you might remember her as the one that had the face-off with that chinese engineering professor on the day she first lectured us. she was giving a lecture on Athol Fugard and "The Island", a play written about 2 South African Blacks who are imprisoned on Robin Island for burning their passports in defiance of the Apartheid and to keep sane, to prevent their spirits from being broken by the prision (which is the aim of the Whites), they put up a play and create a theatre of play in their cell. the whole metatheatrical (play within a play) and it works on 3 levels was intriguing to me while it put me in a pensive mood. the play has no happy ending and they are reinstilled into the institiution of the prison yet in reality, the play had profound political effects because it exposed to the Western world a lot about what was hidden in South Africa. John Kani and Winston Ntshona actually improvised the entire script with Fugard and the oppression in the play is what they went through in their daily lives.

which brings me to my point. I LOVE MY DEGREE. as much as i complain about workload and all, i wouldnt want to be doing any other degree. i feel that with every class that i go to, i learn something new, like i get an intellectual revelation. i am led down a road which i never quite realised was there and i am made or i find myself thinking about issues. studying an arts subject shouldnt be seen as a waste of money, no matter what most Singaporeans think. so to all of you who instinctively ask me 'what can you do with your degree', i will tell you that what i have learnt transcends mere vocational knowledge.

as i am reading about Jacques Demy, director of Les parapluies de Cherbourg [The Umbrellas of Cherbourg] (1964), i have the theme song with Catherine Denuve and Nino Castelnuovo playing on my handphone. it is such a beautiful song. just like "A Cry of Love" in Agnes Varda's Cleo de 5 a 7 (1961). By the way, did you know that the two directors were married? i feel like i am carried off to another world, to romantic france... to a world of the movies, of heightened emotions... sometimes when i step out of a film screening i feel like i am still in the world of the screen and it takes me a while to get down from the high and back to reality...

anyway, i was thinking about the english lit modules that i can take next year and i am really considering taking a class if carol rutter is teaching it. i heard from claire that emma mason is good too... i think i need an inspiring tutor to spark these musings...