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on the Written Word - 2004-11-07
I remember this feeling: my hand hurts, my wrist seems dislocated, my thumb has a blister and my middle finger has a groove just below its first joint; every movement I make with my right hand seems to smush my bones together, and it feels like they ought to be making a creaking sound, like a rusty gate in need of oil. Mmmm oil. I've been writing notes for my exams. It's that time of the year again. My only consolation is that once my exams are over I can go home. Home! I spend half the day with my hand clamped around a pen, scribbling away about Glycolysis and the Citric Acid Cycle, Metabolism and Membranes, Proteins and Enzymes. The door to my wardrobe is covered with yellow postits. When I'm done I'll take a picture. I remember this feeling - writing and writing and writing and writing till my hand felt like it was going to fall off. It's a common feelings, particularly towards the end of the year, at exam period. I remember sitting in the exam hall for my Literature O Levels and getting distracted as the girl diagonally opposite me dropped her pen and shook her head out vigourously. But what I remember is enjoying this feeling. I must have been 10 or 11 (because then I didn't have my own computer, and I wrote down everything with pen and paper. Ah, those were the days...). I think I was writing a story about I think that with the advent of technology in my life I've gone and forgotten the magic of my pen against paper, scratching out letters which turned into words, which turned into sentences, which was magic of another kind. And I think I need to go back to basics, because when I'm armed with a pen, the words flow. They just take a lot longer to take down.
- - 2006-05-29 |