English poets: what's so great about Southey? Lovin' Keats though

I finally see what Lord Byron meant in that excerpt from Don Juan.  Even the poetry book I'm reading the stuff out of (A Treasury of Great Poems: English and American, with the lives of the poets selected and integrated, by Louis Unlermeyer.  Printed 1942 by Simon & Schuster) seems to think Robert Southey's pretty lame.
On the other hand, I wonder why the Academic Decathlon competition didn't include Keats; he's way better than Southey.  I really like that first work of his, "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer".  I mean, I can totally sympathize with Keats's fascination with the Greek culture.  It's like me and Japan! >.<  LOL, except he was a much better fanboy, and I'm just a silly otaku.
Here's the poem I like the best so far:

"When I have fears that I may Cease to Be"

When I have fears that I may cease to be
  Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
  Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starred face,
  Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
  Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creasture of an hour,
  That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
  Of unreflecting love;-- then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

I ought to be looking into literature from around the time of the Great Depression instead of lingering into this era's work, but this book doesn't have a lot of that stuff anyway.  I mean, some of the poets which are recorded to have been born in 1885 are still recorded as alive.
It's amazing to think about that kind of world.  Most of the European countries were still monarchies back then, right?  And what with the Industrial Revolution and Neo-Imperialism... it must've been amazing to be rich.  Not much has changed I guess.
So Rebecca is playing some rather soothing songs on her guitar and I'm about to conk out from exhaustion.  I'm surprised I didn't fall asleep in class again. >.<  'Nite.

Obscure Dream extracted from Real Life and manga "Goong" and history class

So, I live in a sort of modern pre-Cold War magical monarchical Korea with a mainly desert geography, and we are being invaded by an evil huge country (I'm kinda thinking Georgia v. Russia right now, except this Korea is a little better off than Georgia). I happen to know the ruthless general in charge of the enemy army (the Dark Prince from Anatolia. Btw, the army is strangely German-like. I mean, I keep screaming "The Germans are coming! The Germans are coming!) and I find out that a traitor destroys are defense system and main army ("Mulan"/"300"). In attempt to help the citizens of the capital (which for some silly reason is right next to the border), I rush to my hotel room and warn everyone I can-- specifically: my sis Becca, classmates Jonathan, Holly, Nico, and Bio teacher Mr. Galang and his (false, because they were hot) roommates, and some random chicks next door who live in the hotel so I hid my laptop underneath their carpet so it could be safe from the bombs.
Well, everyone looks out their windows, and sure enough just outside the border (about 5 miles away from the city limits), there's a huge army fighting what little defenses we had left. Except nobody runs-- they just stand there, watching. Jonathan and I "fly" out of a window and run to the far side of the city, towards the palace.
During this race, Jonathan becomes a very hot tall bishie magical elf with long golden hair and eyes that turn from blood red to deep blue (think the main character from 1/2 Prince/ Yul from "Goong", except a thousand times hotter). >.< Please, people who know me and are reading this blog, don't think anything of how I saw Jonathan as a very hot bishie elf.  It's probably just my subconscious telling me that I should get together with him.  In fact, this character is so unlike Jonathan now that I don't even consider it Jonathan.  I get the feeling he's Elouiee, the hot Asian dude who got mad at me in the last dream I blogged about.
Anyway, we're running through the palace (it's very pretty and magical-elf-like) when we encounter the king, who's still just a little boy, being attended by an elderly servant (think the sick, perveted eunuch from "Goong").  However, Elouiee realizes that the eunuch is the traitor who destroyed our main forces and allows me to save the king.  However, we need to lure the king away from the eunuch, and once we did we planned to raise him as a normal child because we knew that Korea was done for and that the royal family would be slaughtered by my ruthless general friend.  Which means that because Elouiee and I saved him, we would have to hide him and prepare him to take back the throne.
Anyway, I get Elouiee to come to me by singing "London bridge is falling down" (from "Kuroshitsuji") as Elouiee fought a magical battle with the eunuch.  We race out of the city, chased by an actress/assasin sent by the eunuch to kill all 3 of us refugees.  Behind us, the capital is being bombed by an atomic bomb, so only Elouiee, the king, and I survive.  We manage to arrive safely in the next city, and after a long chase by the assasin in a major mall, we convince her to join our side (using our pheromones; kyaa~!).  Then, Elouiee says we must find others who can help us defend the king and become leaders to the eventual rise against the invading country.
People of this city have just witnessed the destruction of the capital, and are preparing to fight the invasion of this city, which will obviously be next.  Because people are showing their skills, it makes it much easier to pick who will be on our "team":
1. My old classmate Eldwin L., who I actually used to bully since my friends didn't like him, although I always thought he was a nice kid (lol, we're practicaly the same age).  The last time I saw him, he had very bad body coordination, and isn't very athletic.  However, in my dream he was a potential computer genius.
2. The really tall swordsman cosplayer that I saw at SacAnime, who was actually kinda nerdy and introverted like my old classmate Philip M. (lol, that's how I see him now; however, that kid was a genius, I swear >.<) except really tall.  Surprisingly, the cosplayer became really hot and was actually GOOD with his sword.  Why we would need a swords, I have no idea.  Perhaps to train the king?
3. My classmate Jimmy L (who I keep thinking is the creepy kid Raymond who I met at a summer math program and was the friend of my freakish boyfriend Kenny who I got together with during that summer).  I really DID NOT want him to be on the team because I didn't see what he was good for so he would just get in the way.  This is because he didn't have any awesome skills in my dream (sorry Jimmy); in fact, he was more of a clown (really sorry).  Now that I think about it, he would probably serve as the sacrificial decoy if we ever got in a tought situation (really REALLY sorry) and the king's secret attendant (more like nanny) who would teach him a sense of humor and good moral code (since I certainly don't have the morality to lead a nation, although I have the dream and skillzzz ;]  I don't think Elouiee-Jonathan did either).
4. Some guy (don't remember who) in my school who plays wallball, the stupidest game in the world.  However, it somehow honed his aim, so he was a really good archer.
Which reminds me, Elouiee wanted me to keep it a secret that he was an elfen mage.  Thinking about it, we probably didn't need more than me and him on the team because he was a really good warrior/archer/ninja/ whatever you want to call him, and we couldn't help having the assasin on the team (although she's a good addition in the end.  I think her name was Park Bo Young.  That's the only Korean actress I know), otherwise she would've pursued us to no end and we wouldn't be able to raise the king quietly without him realizing something sneaky.
5. Some 2 or 3 other guys.  I don't remember anymore, plus I woke up at about the time that the team was chosen.

Anyways, I do believe the plan was:
-get out of Korea
-raise the king on a farm in the countryside as a regular kid (without formalities and without telling him that he was king)
-educate the king (without telling him that's what it was) in fighting, history, leadership, the arts, and everything else that'll make him a super genius and really good king
-protect the king from being found by my ruthless general friend, who I knew would never give up on finding him because somehow he knew that I saved him from the atomic bomb.

Thinking about it, why the enemy didn't die from the bomb when they were so close, I'll never know.  Perhaps my general friend was also a very strong mage.  Anyways, I really liked that world, even if it was weird and twisted.  I wish it actually existed! TT.TT

Anyways, I've gotta start my homework now. 'Nite everyone.

Dream I Just Had

I just woke up right now. Probably went to sleep for 3 hours. My dreams tend to be very long long and weird, but I think it's worth to write what I remember.

So it's Sunday and I'm rushing to finish my homework because Spring Break is ending, and apparently there's some kind of project Rebecca and I had to do that dealt with getting a guinea pig (not just figuratively; we actually had to buy 5 guinea pigs and a cage and whatnot). Apparently my parents were traveling so we had to hitch a ride with some other lady who not only had the bad temper of my mom when we boss her around but was a horribly slow driver (and we were impatient because we had a lot of homework).
After we FINALLY finished buying all the pets, we went home and arranged the cage (before they were just shut up in some box). According to my dream, guinea pigs are the evolutionary ancestors of dogs, and the original dog is a pit bull (my least favorite animal). So guess what? Some of the guinea pigs kept transforming into pit bulls and scaring the hell out of me by biting me.
While I was doing this, my next-door-neighbor's daughter's (who is in her mid-20's) friends were being really loud and I couldn't focus on my paper that I had to write next (something for AVID that somehow connects gangs and how my least favorite historical woman celebrity, Eleanor Roosevelt, helped do something about it). Well, it just happens that my neighbor's daughter (even though I'm supposed to protect the innocent, I'll tell you her name anyway. It's Cindy) was in a bit of rebellious stage lately (or so I heard from my mom), and in my dream, her friends are all drug-addicts, gangsters, satanists, and members of local rock bands. They also want to force Cindy's parents (an elderly couple that's getting pretty up there in the age department) to turn their house into a cafe.
For some reason, one of my classmates, Daniela, was one of those friends, and I had passively promised to be the sacrifice in the next satanic ritual at school before the break during my study hall period. I kind of feel bad for this, because after reading "Akuma no Eros", I've been lately thinking that I couldn't be TOO bad to participate in something like that, but after that dream I'm scared shitless. All of Cindy's friends hated my mom for some reason but liked my dad (even though he didn't like them) and whenever I knocked on the door to tell them to be quiet, they kept telling me to call my dad and see if he's all right (since he's a diabetic), even though I kept telling them I just called him. Well, anyways I DID call my parents, and when my dad heard the ruckus in the background he shouted at my mom because I was hanging out with THOSE kind of people.
After I hung up, Cindy's friends kept pressuring me to be the sacrificial lamb already and not only did I not want to be in that house anymore but I wanted to hurry up and finish my paper because I also had all of my questions/summaries for my Cornell Notes in AVID to do, and Cornell Notes on the Academic Decathlon Language and Literature Basic Guide. So I told them that I didn't want to be the sacrificial lamb anymore, and they got REALLY pissed off, and I got so scared that I just ran back to my house. However, I they kept being loud and I didn't want to end it there with them, so I went back to Cindy's house and told them how to make their cafe a success--
"You guys are too loud, and your music sounds like crap [to this they got really pissed]. Personally, I LIKE your music, but my sister Rebecca [they liked Rebecca. In reality, Cindy and her friend, who are really sweet girls, have always found Becca adorable since she was little] is a GENIUS when it comes to music [this is true. While she sucks at playing it, she's good at finding good music] and she says you guys suck. What you need to do is play some slower, softer music, but not some 80s soft rock crap, and as you get more popular you can have live bands play! [I was thinking of a Hard Rock Cafe or something, I don't know]"
You can imagine how scared shitless I was. I mean, I JUST pissed off these people and now I'm telling them what to do. But you know what? They laughed and said I'm just like Mickey Mouse or whatever. "Did you REALLY think we were gonna make you participate in a satanic ritual?" I got kinda embarrassed that I fell for their "April Fool's" joke and that they thought I didn't have it in me to be a satanist, but I was glad they didn't want to kill me, so I just left.
And you know what time it was--ONE O'FREAKING-CLOCK. A.M. As in Monday morning. Now I had to write that stupid paper and do all my homework within 6 1/2 hours or else I'm doomed. I mean, I'm often in this type of situation, but I was REALLY pissed off that I had to pull an all-nighter at the end of my Spring Break. But you know what happened? I FELL ASLEEP. That's right. Asleep. And I didn't wake up until 4 A.M., at which I thought "O Fuck. Now I'm never going to get it done". For some reason Rebecca and I had to go to this house in the northern part of the city where some old friends of my parents used to live (it's also nearby the house of this guy I almost got together with). Now, the houses there aren't PARTICULARLY nice, but for some reason it was transformed to awesomeness.
Anyways, we had to move all the guinea pigs, my backpack, and my huge 5-inch AVID binder into the house, and that place had A LOT of dogs. Even one pitbull. Remember how I said guinea pigs are the evolutionary ancestors of pitbulls, who are the original dogs? Yeah. Refer back to that. But there's another reference here, and it's to an experience I had in real life. When I was about 10, my oldest sister was cleaning the cage of our 2 guinea pigs and she left them in a huge laundry basket outside while she was washing it, and she let ME hold our huge, 2-years-old Labrador retriever by the leash. Of course, I couldn't control it so she got loose and killed one of my guinea pigs. After that, I couldn't stand to look at the guinea pigs again so I let it starve.
Anyways, imagine how tormented I was, when I kept having to hold the cage up high as the dogs tried to get to them and their owners tried to pull 'em off me. When I finally got everything inside, my oldest sister and my mom were there for some reason, and she was getting shouted at by them that even though she should have changed her habits now that she was in college in Missouri, she's still up all night talking to guys on the internet. Mom was telling her "Why are you still doing that, Caroline? You know that whatever happens, your dad's gonna blame it on me." At this time, I REALLY felt bad for acting the way I have this Spring Break, because that IS a problem between my mom and dad...
Anyway, there's a bunch more to my dream, but it's kinda hard to explain so I'll just skip to the end, which is on our way to school (and I still haven't finished all of my homework).
We're driving in a white Jeep (kinda like my cousin Katie's) to the metro area (like in Tokyo. Which is weird, since our city doesn't have a metro area), and I'm talking to this really hot Asian guy sitting next to me, and he's telling me about a friend-that's-a-girl named Alex Mana or something like that, which for SOME reason is considered a really lame name, and I made fun of her, calling her "Alex Chihuahua". And he gave me a really evil glare, because lots of people tease his friend Alex Mana that way. I tried to explain my way out of it, but he was still mad at me, I could tell.
And it ends with us getting on the train to school (I know what you're thinking. "The train?" IDK, just deal with it. You know how I read a lot of manga) and everyone got of on some station except for me and the cute Asian dude. However, as soon as everyone else was gone, he didn't want to sit next to me anymore and instead stood next to that girl Daniela from Cindy's house.

I don't remember anything from there on. Pretty weird dream, huh? I'm just glad that it's still Saturday morning and I don't have to rush quite THAT much. And I haven't screwed everything up in life quite to THAT extent. Although I have done some pretty bad shit.

Well, good night all. Enjoy the last weekend of your Spring Break, for any SECA-ans out there.

Reflecting

This Spring Break was what most would call fruitless. After all, I spent most of the daylight hours sleeping, and the whole night on the computer, wasting my time with pointless things when I have so much to catch up on: piano lessons, school work, all of it. For a while now, I've been shirking my duties as a student, friend, sister, and daughter. But I've been thinking: so? Why am I so obligated to do things I don't want to? Who is forcing me to live a life full of endless laughter? Why should I put effort into something so routine that it's become detestable?

This kind of reasoning is the lazy man's justification, I know, but I'm still thirteen years old, what can I say? I'm realizing just how insignificant I really am; that the odds of actually achieving my dreams are practically non-existent. It's infuriating to think that everything I work for might never happen, that when I die, nobody will remember me.

I read a weird manga earlier, where a girl is cheated on by her boyfriend with a girl who doesn't even like him. I'm sure the author intended to sympathize with the "victim", but I saw myself in the bitch of that story. She saw the world as pointless, her always-laughing "friends" as simply people she hangs out with, and herself as a totally boring, common person. And you know what? She doesn't get a happy ending. She continues to live her life as she is, completely and utterly alone. It's so fucking hilarious, that feeling of hopelessness I had when I finished reading those three strange chapters of "3D Material". I don't know if I liked it.

Well, I don't have much to offer to anyone who bothers to read this. I don't know how to draw, I'm not good enough on the piano where'd I'd actually want to record myself and post it online, and my face isn't pleasant enough to post pictures. What I write isn't all that special, and all I talk about are whiny, self-centered topics. Still, if there's anyone out there who shares these pathetic feelings, then it can't hurt to share something with you. Here's a passage that I read from the poem "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" by Walt Whitman:

To the tally of my soul,
Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.

Loud in the pines and cedars dim,
Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,
And I with my comrades there in the night.

While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
As to long panoramas of visions.

And I saw askant the armies,
I saw as in the noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags,
Borne through the smoke of battles and pierc'd with missiles I saw them,
And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody,
And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence.)
And the staffs all splinter'd and broken.

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,
I saw the debris and debris of all slain soldiers of the war,
But I saw they were not as was thought,
They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not,
The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd,
And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd,
And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.

I'm not quite sure if I understand what it means, seeing as I didn't even bother to read the whole poem. All I know is it gives me a very melancholic feelings, more deeper than the one I already have or the one I got after watching the 24th episode of "Kuroshitsuji". It it an insult to Walt Whitman if I compare his work to a manga series? It doesn't matter, even if it does. The poet is dead and I revere both works.

There are other things I'd like to share but I'll save them for later. Now I'll open my blog to the public. It's pointless to write them otherwise.