A Most Heinous Literary Crime Twice Committed

A man of privilege but without any appreciation for the humanities is not worth knowing. He's a walking piece of rock, a machine who sees the world as black and white. He can be the businessman who earns a billion bucks a year, yet does not know who Blake or Shelley is. Give him A Streetcar Named Desire and he'll probably only fixate over Blanche DuBois' brassiere. The Louvre for him is a stockroom of finished canvasses, and Notre Dame, a mere church on an island.

If I sound like a prude, it's because the subject's worth it. A pair of Intarmed classmates, graduates of the so-called premiere science high school of the country - not that this applies to all graduates of that school, because it definitely doesn't - once cornered me during second year and asked why our curriculum bothers to include subjects like Communication III (Speech) and Humanities I (Literature) and II (Art). I've since tried to not have deep and/or long conversations with them. 

That said, I publicly and proudly admit that I only lasted 'til chapter 10 of "Pride and Prejudice" before giving up and committing the horrendous crime of not finishing a book. What the hell was Jane Austen's problem?! The inconsistencies in pronouns and references gave me the worst literary headache I've ever experienced. Fine with me if the rest of the world wants to immortalize this... thing as a classic. But leave me be. 

Also, Steve Berry's "The Charlemagne Pursuit." Seven chapters in, and the plot - plots, with an 's', really - already reeked of "jumbled mess." What I gleaned from the little that I read before, again, committing a heinous literary crime, were something about a submarine, a cable car fight in a European ski resort, and a signature Berry historical flashback involving Otto III. Wait, there were two submarines, actually.

This afternoon, I watched "Liberal Arts," a 2012 Sundance film directed and written by Josh Radnor, more famously known as Ted Mosby of "How I Met Your Mother." I won't divulge anything about it, only that lovers of words and intelligent film should at least take time to see this. 

I'm reading Lionel Shriver's "We Need to Talk About Kevin." What about you? By the way, yeah, the second year of med school is over! 99-point-something percent of it, at least, if you count the comprehensive exam on Tuesday and the Pharmacology finals next Monday. The smell of hard-earned summer freedom consumes me. 

I've always loved flamingoes. Pink against green - very refreshing to the eyes. 

Ocean Park, Hong Kong, 2007.