Jobs and Books.
I feel that somewhat of a Journal post is in order, despite the lack of interesting things happening at this point in my rather dull life.
Been having rather lazy days inside the house, half of the time spent 'surfing the web' watching this or that. I am quite pleased and also rather excited that on Friday I am going to see a lady who has offered me a job (I still don't know anything about it really), all I know is that it will probably in some kind of museum, or somewhere else where tourists visit since she told me that she is the Vice-chairperson of a sort of organization called 'Heritage Malta', which basically takes care of Historical sites over here. I am so ecstatic and full surprised that a job opportunity came just like that, out of the dullest blue imaginable. I can only hope that I will be able to do the job, whatever it may be. The idea of speaking English and Italian (Yes, English is not my first language, Maltese is.) on a regular bases, especially with foreigners does give me a bit of preoccupation, since I tend to stutter quite a lot when under pressure of speaking either of the languages in a fluent and understandable manner. I will hope for the best.
End of silly rambling on possible job offer.
Been reading quite a lot lately, and since I really have nothing else of interest to say I shall dedicate the rest of this journal entry to quotes I really like from Books which I have read in the last few months. (Yes, I am one of those people who underlines their favourite quotes from books, for easy access in the future. The reasons for which I chose these lines vary, some because I completely agree with the message it conveys, others because that that particular paragraph or line shocked/ amused/ moved me, or just because I liked the choice of words used to describe a certain feeling or such.
'Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, Indoors or out of doors, In the bath or in bed- no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.'
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
'The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Resist, and your soul grows sick with longing for the thin it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.'
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
'Setting aside other reasons, I could not bear the idea of being separated from Cyril, that beautiful, loving, lovable child of mine, my friend of all friends my companion of all companions, one single hair of whose little golden head should have been dearer and more valuable to me then, I will not say you from top to toe, but the entire chrysolite of the whole world: was so indeed to me always, though I failed to understand it too late.
De Profundis, Oscar Wilde
'You retrieved the boater and you kept it. A shallow straw hat with a ribbon of blue. And afterwards you wore it, didn't you? In your bedroom. You're wearing it now. You are wearing it now, aren't you, you cheap, you creepy, you sad... And it doesn't work, does it? Your hair is too coarse to flop like a Wild Tay Salmon or a swatch of Sawle Row suiting, your hair bristles, like a bog brush, like a suburban doormat. In fact, you are not wearing J.H.G. Etheridge's boater (note the three initials... class), J.H.G. Etheridge's boater just happens to be on your head. The floor isn;t wearing the table, the table isn't wearing the diary. There's a gulf, a great gaping gulf of difference... that's why so often you jerk off into this straw hat, isn't it?'
The Stars' tennis Balls, Stephen Fry
'The first time we met you stood up when I entered the room, which was sweet, but it was the Hard Rock Cafe and I was coming out of the kitchen to take your order.'
The Stars' Tennis Balls, Stephen Fry
'On a sheep-cropped knoll under a clump of elms we ate the strawberries and drank the wine- as Sebastian promised, they were delicious together- and we lit fat, Turkish cigarettes and lay on our back, Sebastian's eyes on the leaves above him, mine on his profile, while the blue-grey smoke rose, untroubled by any wind, to the blue-green shadows of foliage, and the sweet smell of the tobacco merged with the sweet summer scents around us and the fumes of the sweet, golden wine seemed to lift us a finger's breadth above the turf and hold us suspended.'
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
'"Dear sweet codhoppers, if you knew anything of sexual psychology you would know that nothing could give me keener pleasure than to be manhandled by you meaty boys. It would be an extacy of the very naughtiest kind. So if any of you want to be my partner in joy come and seize me. If, on the other hand, you simply wish to satisfy some obscure and less easily classified libido and see me bathe, some with me quietly, dear louts, to the fountain."'
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
'And the daftness of things - that was keeping me awake too. You must have experienced one of those moments when life seems limitlessly absurd? Especially with your current sentence of death hanging over you. I find they come mos often when I am looking from the window of a moving car or train.You catch sight of something perfectly ordinary, such as it might be bluebells nodding on an embankment, or a family picknicking in a lay-by, and suddenly your mind can no longer support the notion of a whole world full of life and objects and fellow-humans. The very idea of a universe appears monstrous and you become unable to participate. What on earth does that tree think it is up to? Why is that heap of gravel sitinf there so patiently? What am I ding, staring out of a window? Why are all these molecules of glass hanging together so as to allow me to look through them? The moment passes, of course, and we return to the proper realm of our dull thoughts and duller newspapers: in less that a second we are part of the world again, ready to be irritated into apoplexy by the stupidity of a government minister or lured into caring about some asinine new movement in conceptual art; once again we become a part of the great compost heap. Our absence is so fleeting and our control over it so negligible that and act of will cannot reproduce the experience.'
The Hippopotamus, Stephen Fry
"'I began life as Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde - a name with two Os, two Fs and two Ws... It has a fine ring to it, does it not? But a name which is destined to be in everybody;s mouth must not be too long. It comes so expencive in the advertisements! When one is unknown, a number of Christian names are useful, of course, perhaps needful - but as one becomes famous one sheds some of them, just as a balloonist, when riding higher, sheds unnecessary ballast... All but two of my five names have already been thown overboard. In time, I shall discard another. The day will come when I'm known by five letters of the alphabet, no more: two vowels and three consonants - like Jesus or Judas, or Pliny or Plato. A century from now, my friends will call me Oscar; my enemies will call me Wilde'"
Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death, Gyles Brandreth
I hope you enjoyed that, despite the lenghtyness of it all. And I would be more than pleased to discuss any of the quotes and books I mentioned above.
Been having rather lazy days inside the house, half of the time spent 'surfing the web' watching this or that. I am quite pleased and also rather excited that on Friday I am going to see a lady who has offered me a job (I still don't know anything about it really), all I know is that it will probably in some kind of museum, or somewhere else where tourists visit since she told me that she is the Vice-chairperson of a sort of organization called 'Heritage Malta', which basically takes care of Historical sites over here. I am so ecstatic and full surprised that a job opportunity came just like that, out of the dullest blue imaginable. I can only hope that I will be able to do the job, whatever it may be. The idea of speaking English and Italian (Yes, English is not my first language, Maltese is.) on a regular bases, especially with foreigners does give me a bit of preoccupation, since I tend to stutter quite a lot when under pressure of speaking either of the languages in a fluent and understandable manner. I will hope for the best.
End of silly rambling on possible job offer.
Been reading quite a lot lately, and since I really have nothing else of interest to say I shall dedicate the rest of this journal entry to quotes I really like from Books which I have read in the last few months. (Yes, I am one of those people who underlines their favourite quotes from books, for easy access in the future. The reasons for which I chose these lines vary, some because I completely agree with the message it conveys, others because that that particular paragraph or line shocked/ amused/ moved me, or just because I liked the choice of words used to describe a certain feeling or such.
'Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, Indoors or out of doors, In the bath or in bed- no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.'
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
'The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Resist, and your soul grows sick with longing for the thin it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.'
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
'Setting aside other reasons, I could not bear the idea of being separated from Cyril, that beautiful, loving, lovable child of mine, my friend of all friends my companion of all companions, one single hair of whose little golden head should have been dearer and more valuable to me then, I will not say you from top to toe, but the entire chrysolite of the whole world: was so indeed to me always, though I failed to understand it too late.
De Profundis, Oscar Wilde
'You retrieved the boater and you kept it. A shallow straw hat with a ribbon of blue. And afterwards you wore it, didn't you? In your bedroom. You're wearing it now. You are wearing it now, aren't you, you cheap, you creepy, you sad... And it doesn't work, does it? Your hair is too coarse to flop like a Wild Tay Salmon or a swatch of Sawle Row suiting, your hair bristles, like a bog brush, like a suburban doormat. In fact, you are not wearing J.H.G. Etheridge's boater (note the three initials... class), J.H.G. Etheridge's boater just happens to be on your head. The floor isn;t wearing the table, the table isn't wearing the diary. There's a gulf, a great gaping gulf of difference... that's why so often you jerk off into this straw hat, isn't it?'
The Stars' tennis Balls, Stephen Fry
'The first time we met you stood up when I entered the room, which was sweet, but it was the Hard Rock Cafe and I was coming out of the kitchen to take your order.'
The Stars' Tennis Balls, Stephen Fry
'On a sheep-cropped knoll under a clump of elms we ate the strawberries and drank the wine- as Sebastian promised, they were delicious together- and we lit fat, Turkish cigarettes and lay on our back, Sebastian's eyes on the leaves above him, mine on his profile, while the blue-grey smoke rose, untroubled by any wind, to the blue-green shadows of foliage, and the sweet smell of the tobacco merged with the sweet summer scents around us and the fumes of the sweet, golden wine seemed to lift us a finger's breadth above the turf and hold us suspended.'
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
'"Dear sweet codhoppers, if you knew anything of sexual psychology you would know that nothing could give me keener pleasure than to be manhandled by you meaty boys. It would be an extacy of the very naughtiest kind. So if any of you want to be my partner in joy come and seize me. If, on the other hand, you simply wish to satisfy some obscure and less easily classified libido and see me bathe, some with me quietly, dear louts, to the fountain."'
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
'And the daftness of things - that was keeping me awake too. You must have experienced one of those moments when life seems limitlessly absurd? Especially with your current sentence of death hanging over you. I find they come mos often when I am looking from the window of a moving car or train.You catch sight of something perfectly ordinary, such as it might be bluebells nodding on an embankment, or a family picknicking in a lay-by, and suddenly your mind can no longer support the notion of a whole world full of life and objects and fellow-humans. The very idea of a universe appears monstrous and you become unable to participate. What on earth does that tree think it is up to? Why is that heap of gravel sitinf there so patiently? What am I ding, staring out of a window? Why are all these molecules of glass hanging together so as to allow me to look through them? The moment passes, of course, and we return to the proper realm of our dull thoughts and duller newspapers: in less that a second we are part of the world again, ready to be irritated into apoplexy by the stupidity of a government minister or lured into caring about some asinine new movement in conceptual art; once again we become a part of the great compost heap. Our absence is so fleeting and our control over it so negligible that and act of will cannot reproduce the experience.'
The Hippopotamus, Stephen Fry
"'I began life as Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde - a name with two Os, two Fs and two Ws... It has a fine ring to it, does it not? But a name which is destined to be in everybody;s mouth must not be too long. It comes so expencive in the advertisements! When one is unknown, a number of Christian names are useful, of course, perhaps needful - but as one becomes famous one sheds some of them, just as a balloonist, when riding higher, sheds unnecessary ballast... All but two of my five names have already been thown overboard. In time, I shall discard another. The day will come when I'm known by five letters of the alphabet, no more: two vowels and three consonants - like Jesus or Judas, or Pliny or Plato. A century from now, my friends will call me Oscar; my enemies will call me Wilde'"
Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death, Gyles Brandreth
I hope you enjoyed that, despite the lenghtyness of it all. And I would be more than pleased to discuss any of the quotes and books I mentioned above.