Musings of Arky, Thalia, the tempest outside and Hazel Grace (Simone)
It’s pouring with rain as I write this; the clouds outside are heavy and dark and spooky – ahh, and lots of lightning too!! My desk has a metre wide, ceiling-to-floor window right next to it that gives me some outlook into the world whilst on Facebook studying, and today it is covered in droplets of water. The rain isn’t really pitter-pattering in that Hollywood, romantic kind of way on the roof, but pelting down, a real storm. A tempest, to quote my old mate Shakespeare! (I promise I’m not Prospero summoning this tempest to get revenge on my evil brother and the king…). But the heat is still stifling, and so there is a fan on my desk too, blowing my hair around crazily. Typical Melbourne weather to have changed so drastically from a brilliantly sunny morning, to this!
Today has been a good day, a good one-of-the-last-days of this summer. I met two of my good highschool friends at the local pool, let’s call them Arky and Thalia, each also going to Uni Melb’s o-week next week. We did some, eh, incredible ‘swimming’ of a few laps (about 300 metres in total!), to feel we’d done our exercise (…for the week…), and to earn the junkfood we planned to eat afterwards, but basically spent the whole time laying in the water with kickboards under our arms to float, having an incredibly good time chit chatting about our excitement for next week – Arky, who has asked me to tell you she is from Noa’s ark (don’t ask!), is doing Biomedicine, and Thalia doing Environments. I will be sure to update you on our O-week adventures!
To change the subject really drastically, at the moment I’m re-reading vlogger John Green’s book The Fault in Our Stars, about this kind of pessimistic (but likeable) girl with cancer, Hazel Grace, and the boy she meets at a lame cancer support group, the lovely, funny Augustus Waters. It’s a great read – not a depressing, illness-recovery book, nor an unrealistic romance. It’s not Atonement, my 10/10 book, but I definitely highly recommended it. But it is sad. If there’s one good thing about reading a book like that though, it’s that it makes me reflect – in a kind of soppy way – about my own life, as an eighteen year old girl, about to begin at one of the best universities in Australia, the world my oyster. My family is well, I’m healthy, I have some really close, lovely friends. Reading a book like that… without sounding like I pity teenagers with an illness, because I think John Green made a point in that book about how young people like Hazel and Augustus really didn’t want to be pitied or anything… kind of opens up your eyes to the opportunties you have in your own life. Sure, you have a kind of bad job as a checkout chick and so you find yourself in an oversized stripey shirt at a supermarket three times a week, being yelled at by a customer for putting dishwashing liquid in the same plastic bag as oranges (god forbid!!). And, sure, you sometimes have little arguments with your parents, your younger sister. You wish you had some better clothes, with the transition from school uniform to casual everyday meaning you’re suddenly struggling for wardrobe choices. You’re nervous about starting uni, hoping you’ll make some good friends, you’ll like your course, you won’t fail, you won’t end up as a lonely cat lady in the end…
But in comparison to having cancer?! My little worries seem ridiculously trivial. Thanks, John Green; indeed I will attempt to ‘live [my] best life today’, as the social worker Patrick puts it.
I hope this post hasn’t been too reflective for you… let’s blame the hailing rain, and my reading a sad book! 🙂
What are you reading at the moment? I’m nearly finished and desperate for new book! Are their any particular books that have made you stop and think about something, or changed you in some way?
PS. Shoutout to my lovely, nerd-fighting friend (and fastmeandering vlogger, subtle plug much 😉 ), Mary, for her recommendation to John Green – this post wouldn’t exist without you excitedly showing me your signed copy of The Fault In Our Stars and insisting I buy one too!
I literally gasped in excitement when I saw Hazel Grace in your title!
And now I will bombard you with recommendations and reviews:
David Levithan – wrote Will Grayson will grayson with John, writes a lot on lgbti issues. Boy Meet Boy and Naomi and Eli’s No Kiss List (with Rahcel Cohn) are my favourites. He’s easy reading, with legitimate themes and messages. Currently reading Love is the Higher Law, about Sept 11 and just sitting in awe because I was too young to understand it at the time and have never fully comprehended what those people went through.
Melina Marchetta – Looking for Alibrandi makes me nostalgic because I remember watching the film at my brother’s when I was little. On The Jellicoe Road is one of the most amazing books ever, such subtle and intricate story-weaving. And t will make you cry.
Paulo Coelho – not a YA author, but my favourite writer ever. Very spiritual and inspiring, The Alchemist is my favourite book ever. (It even beats out Harry Potter my favourite thing of all time).
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – I’m a big Sherlock Holmes fangirl, from Guy Rithie’s, to the BBC (Benedict Cumberbatch get in my pants. Or into Martin Freeman or Andrew Scott’s), but there’s just something about the old canon. It’s such a fun mix of amazement at the characters’ intellect and entertainment at ther ignorance (in one story Sherlock had to look up the KKK because they were relatively unknown then. I loled because of course I know who they are).
Markus Zuzak – I’ve only read The Book Thief, but it was one of those awe-inspiring books that make you marvel at humanity in both good an bad ways. It was a gift from my number one friend and she wrote in the cover”May genocide always remind me of you” (context: the book is set in WWII Germany)
Also always good to read some classics, I love Gatsby and 1984 and am currently reading The Picture of Dorian Gray and loving it.
And your reference to John as a vlogger, I’m assumign you’re a nerdfighter but just making sure you have (or know to) read all of John’s books. Which is your favourite (other than tfios)? Mine is sometimes Alaska, sometimes Katherine’s. I like Katherine’s because it’s not so blindingly life changing (although, that is also why I love the others).
And I’m done.
Wow, did not expect that comment to be quite so long. But no regrets.
Hahah, thanks for the all the recommendations! I love hearing about people’s favourite books and films and all, it nearly always opens up you to a whole new world of genres and authors, some of which you’d never even heard of, that are amazing!
I loved The Book Thief so much too (a must read to anyone else out there reading this!). We had to read it for school in year 9 whilst studying the holocaust, but I never felt anyone enjoyed it in the way I did, so I’m so glad you did too!! Markus Zoosak is amazing, I’m so proud to say he’s a (relatively) young Aussie!
With regret I can’t really say I’m a Nerdfighter. My friend is a nerd fighting vlogger, and through her recommendation I’ve watched and heard a lot about John Green and his vlogs! She loves his books too – I don’t know why it’s never occurred to me not to read another of his before, you would said Tfios is the one to read? And if The Alchemist beats Harry Potter then i will definitely have to get it out from the library at some point soon!