the misadventures of the chicken dilettante

ho-hum

2008-08-23T11:40:00.003+08:00

i owe the following books a review:

pink slip
american gods
inflating a dog
plainsong
ang kagilagilalas na pakikipagsapalaran ni zsazsa zaturnnah
ncd series
the thursday next series
the birth of venus
paperback novel
hannibal
... and lotsa other titles i have to visit my makeshift bookshelf to remember.

shit.

what do you do when the music stops?

2008-01-11T20:55:00.001+08:00

you watch michael buckley on youtube.

this video is so happy and gay i just had to post it here. :D

What Now? - Christopher Mast

2007-12-30T13:56:00.001+08:00

yeh, wot now?

and nope, this ain't the CM vid i was talking about in one of my recent posts.

now i feel weepy. i better get back to the kids' papers.

damn.

random ramblings

2007-12-30T12:32:00.000+08:00

i've got papers to correct and grades to compute and i've got less than a week to do this and here i am watching you tube and reading blogs and writing a post as if i've got all the time in the world in my hands. everybody sing with me:

he's got the whole world in his hands (repeat four times)
he's got the little pretty baby in his hands (repeat three times)
he's got the whole world in his hands
he's got you and me brother in his hands (repeat three times again if you're as bored as i am and sheesh don't have anything else to do, which explains while you're sitting there and putting up with chicken crap)
he's got the whole world in his hands
he's got you and me sister in his hands (repeat three times again if you must, yadayadayada)
he's got the whole world in his hands

i so want to get out of my world right now. get a break from work (and by break i mean a year-long hiatus or something like that), meet new people, get my own place (i'm twenty fudging seven and am still living with my parents. i hate this culture-custom thing. in other places parents would kick their kids out of the house the time the kids reach 18. i would kill to have my parents kick me out of the house.), get laid, write, read, travel, and do stuff i had only dreamed of doing. i lead a very sad life. boo-hoo.

i could hear my two sisters arguing at the next room:
"i'm not a two-timer, and i'm not a slut."
"you are so a slut."
"i am not!"
"yes, you are. you just have a different kind of slutiness."

eff i am so bored. this post so reminds me of vlogs in you tube where people just go uhhh...yeah...well... and i so want to strangle myself myself right now for sounding just like them. i wish i had a legitimate cam to shoot myself with. duh.

i'd probably just get some sleep.

sheesh.

of yt and yt-ers

2007-12-29T01:35:00.001+08:00

yay, a new post!

i haven't blogged in ages because i was either too busy or too sleepy. most of the time, i just don't have any idea about what to write. well, yeah, i could always talk about how my day went on yadayadayada, but who wants to write about one's boring day, blahblahblah?

but tonight after a very tiring day of play rehearsals with the kids at school, i stumble upon ChurchOfBlow's "you tube is my life" video, and i couldn't not write about it (not that i have anything good and profound to say about the video except that it's funny, and "funny" is good, yeh, but not profound. i digress, yes, but noone ever reads my blog ever, so what the heck do i care?). so i'm writing about the video, but now i have just realized that i don't know what to say about it (just watch it, wilya?). oh yeah, at 00:08 of the vid i see the username PunchDrunkPussy and i go like, "what the fudge. i'm not the only punchdrunk being in youtubelandia." you see i'm punchdrunky, and whoever thought of the username PunchDrunkPussy is just cheesy cheesy cheesy. i mean, if someone wanted to have a username that seems similar to mine, then s/he should have thought of something more dignified like PunchDrunkC*nt, right? or something.... :P

watched a ChristopherMast vid (which i'm probably gonna post in another blog, not here because i might get branded as a yt sucker or something, which i think i might be) and laughed the whole time i was watching it. i love ChristopherMast, and the first time i saw him on youtube the only thing i could ever think of was ohmygawdheissogoodlookingisherobertdowneyjr.'stwinbrother? and that was just a few months ago. lately though,i have begun to notice how crinkly his face is... :( but what the hey, he's still as funny as funny could be, so.... :)

oh, and watched nalts too (this goes without saying, though). but nalts seems to have lost his touch. he's not as funny as when i foist saw him, and the more vids of him that i watch, the more disappointed i get. bummer.

could say the same about christine of happyslip. when i foist saw her she was so fresh and so funny i just had to subscribe to her. but just like nalts, she seems to have lost it. her new vids just aren't funny as her old ones. so is this phenomena a manifestation of the adage "familiarity brings contempt?"

which brings me to another favorite youtuber...blunty3000, nate burr (familiar but never contemptuous). i love mr.burr for a number of reasons: he's hilarious. he seems always ready to give hugs. he has a voice that is so ear-friendly (he's aussie but he sounds english)just hearing him makes people swoon. he talks with sense. he appears arrogant to some, but mr. burr suits me just fine. i just wish he'd do less of the rant vlogs and more of the cartoon-y stuff like the one that got banned because of angelina jolie's tits. and heaven knows when he's gonna finally read edgar allan poe's "the raven" on one of his vids and put an end to my misery (i wrote to him about this and i got nothing after two or three witty replies from him. i mean, nothing wrong with the replies; some people kinda like the exchange of messages, but i would have appreciated it more if he had ignored my message and did the video instead.

i could go on and on about stuff i watch in you tube, but i guess i have blabbed on too much already. nobody reads my blog anyways (sometimes people do repeat themselves; people do repeat themselves).

oh well. ta-ta.

ugh.

2007-12-17T22:17:00.000+08:00

it's here. again. that ugly gnawing feeling that seems to come from the great bowels of the earth. it sits heavily on the chest, dense and immovable, and not even giant chocolate frogs can lift this leaden load.

severus snape, if you can read this, please send me your doe.

fried brain cells

2007-12-17T00:13:00.000+08:00

spent, er, wasted another two hours in front of the pc doing nothing but making changes on here. it surely doesn't help to know that i've got work in the morning, and that there are still lotsa work-related stuff to do. i hate myself. gee, so what's new?

-------------------------------------------------------------

last thursday in class a kid came up to me.
"i'm not bragging, but i am a title holder in mma."
"and what is that?"
"mixed martial arts."
"oh. cool."
"yes, i spar with ryan."
"really?"
"yes, and mikhael too. we go to the same school, but he's got advanced classes."
"wow."

sometimes i wish i could be a kid again and talk to adults like this. so i could be angsty and not be called evil but hormonally-imbalanced. so i could get away with being irresponsible and insensitive. so i could be stupid and not be told to act my age. and then i wouldn't have to feel guilty about hastening the death of my brain cells.

*sigh*

i will play for you the banjo

2007-11-27T19:57:00.001+08:00

just when i thought i have had enough imports from youtube comes this video.

screw you, nate. you made me watch this, and i just had to cry.

boo-hoo.

oh, gayness

2007-11-25T17:27:00.001+08:00

sheesh. this is even more annoying than the gary brolsma thingy.

this time i'm not being ironic.

what has the world come to?

hair

2007-11-25T17:11:00.000+08:00

i'm seated in front of the mirror in a semingly obscure salon, my hair reeking of that pagoda cold wave lotion scent that is so reminscent of my childhood (i got a perm when i was 7 or 8. my mom thought it was really cute for her angel princess of a daughter to show up at that grade school pagant sporting curls).

"ack, help, save us!" my lungs scream, but there's nothing i could do. i was at the mercy of this homesexual goddess who runs the salon, and if (s)he says i need to carry with me this smell for some four or five hours, then so be it. it was i who came to her, after all.

ahh, the price of being beautiful.

which is not to say that i am ugly, because i'm not. everyone who knows me or have seen me would attest to how good looking i am. but they would be quick to add that my hair needs a fix. so here i am, in my yellow chicken little shirt, old mossimo pants and not-as-old tribu slippers, waiting for this ordeal, er, hair treatment thingy to come to its end.

i'm with stupid

2007-11-21T22:26:00.000+08:00

once there was a boss who was soooo smart she couldn't write a letter explaining to the hr department why one of her subordinates was returning to work two months earlier than the four-month leave of absence initially filed by the subordinate, so the boss did what sophomoric bosses do: she ordered her secretary to write the letter (a secretary's job is to write letters, yes, but isn't it a boss' job to tell the secretary exactly what to write?). now the secretary had a lot of other paperwork to do, but because the secretary was a good secretary, she left all the other paperwork.

the secretary, however, didn't really know how to write the letter, because the boss didn't tell her the details for it. the secretary didn't ask: the boss didn't like being disturbed with questions. so the secretary sat in front of the computer, squinted her eyes, and willed the words to suddenly appear on the white screen in front of her. after a while, the screen was still empty.

as if on cue, the employee returnee (who happened to be the secretary's good friend) entered the office, saw the look of consternation on the secretary's face, and volunteered to write the letter.

as er started to clack away at the keyboard, the telephone rang.

secretary: good afternoon, boss' office. may i help you? oh, yes sir. she is here. please hold the line. (to boss) ma'am, mr. x is on the line for you. will you take it?

boss: okay. (sits by the telephone, picks receiver up) hello, sir. good afternoon. yes.

(secretary goes to an inner cubicle to finish her other work)

er: (type, type, type)

boss: uhm, yes, sir. oh really? i see.

er: (type, type, type)

boss: sir? uhh... prostate cancer... uhmm... is that cancer of the bone?

er: (slowly getting up, trying very hard not to let on that her shoulders were shaking)

(er enters the inner cubicle. finds the secretary very red in the face, doubling up as well)

i need a change of careers. now.

of morons and stupid bosses

2007-11-19T23:23:00.000+08:00

she called for an emergency meeting, and man, was she frantic. one of the big bosses visited her turf and noticed something unpleasant. she brought it down on us in the meeting, and i had to restrain myself from laughing out loud while she stood in front of us, fuming, her puffed cheeks glistening with sweat (she was wearing a blazer, for goodness' sake. we live in a tropical country; go figure) or was that her oil glands working overtime?

heaven forgive me, but i could not not gloat. i have long wanted this to happen, and when she finally came face to face with her own mortality (note that all along she was delusional, and one could count with the fingers in his hands how many people held the belief that she was great) and realized that she hasn't really made anything happen, i wanted to die --- laughing.

she talked about people not doing what they were supposed to do, people slacking on the job, and as i sat there listening i wanted to spit her in the face - the nerve to order us to perform well (which we have always done, even before she assumed her post) when she couldn't even do her own tasks properly (her secretary and other people who work in her office would back this claim up). effing pathetic.

what is even more infuriating is that we have morons for big bosses. big bosses who seem to like her just because she talks to them all the time, and attends meetings with them. i mean, hello? haven't they noticed by now how dumb she is? haven't they ever noticed how much she tries to sound intelligent only to end up sounding stupid?

i have always wanted to quit this job, but i would always find something to make me stay. i'd tell myself i'd stay for one more year and wait till things get better. it has always worked for me, but today i reached the final straw. i have had enough.

but i'm not quitting. yet. i'll bide my time, and hand in my resignation at a most inconvenient time for her. she gave me hell, and it's but fitting for me to give hell back at her.

then i'll gloat. again. :P

help!

2007-11-19T21:36:00.001+08:00

how come no one from work shares my sense of humor? boo-hoo.

ooops, i'm doing it again.

2007-11-04T19:23:00.000+08:00

for the longest time, i've been trying to keep this blog level-headed by limiting all my rants and raves to my other (not blogger) blog , just so i could pass off as someone "cool," but i'm giving up. i now realize that if i am to attract readers and get internet fame, then i need to start writing something about myself, and stop getting delusional about passing for some intelligent being who comes disguised as a dilettante, when that's all i ever am: a dilettante.

i have come to the realization that i need to market myself. this i learned from nalts of the viral video genius fame. okay, it's not really nalts who taught me this bit of information, but it was he who made me realize that marketing oneself isn't really cheesy, because let's face it, everyone wants to be heard, and seen, and lauded - that's why people go to the internet. i've also heard a lot about people wanting to be part of a cyber community, so i'm not gonna follow that thread. there's been enough talk about that already.

so i'm now officially embarking on an advertising ploy - that is, to visit other people's blogs and websites, leave comments on their entries / sites, leave my url on their comments page, and go through a day's work while keeping my fingers crossed, wishing, desperately hoping and praying that these people whose sites i have visited would be kind enough to go to my blog and read junk i write.

which isn't easy, i tell you, because i've been there. done that. visited people's pages, left comments, got visited, stuff. but the people who visited weren't the kind of people i'd like to visit and drop comments. for a while i was glad i had two or three people dropping by my blog, but it became ****ingly frustrating when noone else would come, so i deleted my old blogger blog and started with this one, all the while telling myself that i am not gonna make this sound like the old one.

but i can't help it. to quote a yahoo messenger audible, it's lonely being me. so i'm just gonna go through the whole thing for the second time, and have enough conviction that this blog is going to see the light of day, no matter what. i guess this is going to be a good exercise on patience because getting an audience takes an awful lot of time. failure on this exercise would mean i would have to start from scratch again, because i know i can't accept that people don't find me funny or good enough to be read, which will result in yet another blog (aaaarrrrrggggghhhh, please don't let me do that again).

read me read me read me. i'll try to be funny. inspiring. reflective. you want anger? i can give you that, too. heck, just tell me what to write, 'kay? i'll write for you. i'll be your whore.

why do i have this feeling that the previous paragraph sounds a little too desperate? i don't get it. :/

numa numa

2007-11-02T01:37:00.001+08:00

i just love myself. doesn't everyone? lol

hurt

2007-10-21T13:52:00.000+08:00

but in her eyes, you see nothing
no sign of love behind the tears
cried for noone
a love that could have lasted years

the day breaks
your mind aches
you find that after all
the things she said
will fill your head
you won't forget her

h0w does one go through a period of hell in his life? does he smash things, run hell? does he sulk in the corner, mutter to himself and wish he were dead?

what does one do to get rid of the load that sits heavily on his chest, so heavy it erases the last glimmer of a smile on his face? and he wanders all day, as if dazed, unfeeling, except for a dense darkness where his heart should have been.

nobody knows him. nobody dares to look past his easy smile, the nonchalant shrug of his shoulders, the slight stoop of his body. here i am, his eyes plead, look at me. nobody sees. i am hurt, his body screams. nobody hears.

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

2007-10-07T16:57:00.001+08:00

ain't the world just sad? :'(

the mysterious stranger

2007-10-07T16:54:00.001+08:00

finished brad whittington's welcome to fred last night. it was a good read, until i came to the ending, when the narrator, mark cloud, came to terms with God and religion, and burnt his copy (which wasn't really his, because he filched it from the high school library. okay so he didn't filch it. he borrowed it and paid overdue fees from his income from newspaper selling, but he never returned it. isn't that called stealing?) of mark twain's mysterious stranger.

no offense to anyone who's deep into religion (i'm roman catholic), but i think it was totaly unnecessary to burn the manuscript up. he could have just returned the book (it was an anthology, for pete's sake) to the library, therefore increasing the chance of other kids reading it and finding out for themselves how or why God exists. i mean, let the other kids have their own frigging epiphanies!

oh, yeah. have your own epiphany. watch the vid. it's cool. and sick. barf bag, anyone? mark twain is THE man. :D

sunshine

2007-10-04T01:35:00.000+08:00

hey you,

i'm leaving in two weeks time, and i just thought i'd write you a letter. nothing special - just something for you to remember me by. one month is an awfully short time to really get to know someone you meet for only two hours or so a day, five days a week, but i feel like i've known you for quite sometime already.

don't feel funny, okay? it's not like i have a crush on you or something, i just wanna say i enjoyed every moment you spent with me. i'd love to stay, but staying would be unnecessary. bummer (this is my cue to sigh).

when i entered this set-up, i didn't have the faintest idea that things would be this fun. and uber-fun they were, thanks to you. the information load was hands-down interesting, the funnies were a-plenty, and has anyone ever told you how jell-owy your eyes could turn gargoyles like me (you hafta understand that i'm a different breed, though, because i don't think you have the same effect on the others, haha)? i won't even try to describe how sunshiny and rainbowy it feels to know how we have a thing for the same stuff.

i guess you don't know half of what i'm saying here, but at the back of my mind, i know you feel exactly the way i do. the powers of the universe have once again conspired to do me in. i hope the cosmos does not take a whole lifetime to get to you. and when they finally do, i hope i'd still be here.

you'll be missed.

,
me

everyone should learn a bach prelude

2007-09-25T15:38:00.001+08:00

stumbled upon bobby mcferrin's wizard of oz in limewire. interesting, i thought - he started humming, no, singing (but without words) somewhere over the rainbow followed by the tornado, come out wherever you are; i went only as far as the lollipop guild and i knew i had to google him up.

youtubed him, and was hooked.

sigh. my life will never be the same again.

you never know just what might hit you

2007-09-25T13:58:00.000+08:00

she sits at the corner of the room, trying to appear nondescript. she succeeds - people hardly pay attention to a girl who doesn't bother to run a comb through her hair, much less apply some rouge on her lips, even when she's surrounded by girls who spend a considerable amount of time fixing themselves up. she hardly says anything, just sits there and listens.

i've heard other professors - my wife included - say how well she performs in class, and how obedient she is, and how much she keeps to herself, unlike some of her classmates who would most likely try to draw my attention on the first day of my month-long training class with them, so it didn't really surprise me when she took out her notebook, scribbed on it with her left hand, and did not meet my gaze.

there was something about her seeming shyness that made me uncomfortable, probably because i was used to having students making a beeline for my attention. in all my years of being a training professor, i have yet to meet a student who could give me cold feet - but here she was, living silently in her corner, barely breathing, but setting my gears clicking.

heck, i told myself. i'm as stubborn as she is shy. let's pry open that shell.

catatonia

2007-09-12T19:48:00.000+08:00

"My name is Leonard Lowe. It has been explained to me that I have been away for some time.
I'm back."

i hate touchy-feely things. i'm through with stuff like that. being touchy-feely when one is young is okay. wanting to paint the world with rainbow colors is okay, but only up to a certain age. one can't see life through rose-hued glasses all the time, for all eternity. youth fades and washes away idealism and all the things one would have learned in kindergarten. one grows old - one morning he wakes up, and bam! he's jaded.

i should know. it has happened to me. my take on it? well, cynicism is cool. it allows one to detach from the world around him, therefore giving him space to look at things objectively - without biases, without the usual emotional crap which i am so sick of because i used to get pretty emotional when i was younger. now i'm just angry and bored.

this morning i sat through awakenings, a movie about post-emphysemic patients who have been catatonic for twenty or so years of their lives, and almost died from restraining myself from crying. it was not enough that robin williams was in the film as the nerdy dr. malcolm sayer (i have loved williams since i was a kid, and though i am older and jaded now, i guess some habits are really hard to break) who went against the hospital's view that their patients with sleeping sickness were incurable and were going to stay like vegetables till they expire. robert de niro had to be leonard lowe, the patient who gets to be dr. sayer's "guinea pig" that would spark hope that there is, after all, a cure to the disease.

i admit that the fact that dr. sayer, a neurologist who never had any previous hospital experience ( the only achievement he could ever lay claim to was that he proved that myelin could never be extracted from earthworms - and i have to chuckle every time i remember this), wanted to make a change in the lives of the psychiatric ward patients in a hospital in the Bronx was a bit sappy, but the sentimentality worked for, not against the film. robbie williams played dr. sayer with just the right amount of hesitation, eagerness, excitement, and fear, which was a perfect match to robert de niro's stirring performance as the catatonic leonard who awakens for the first time after being "asleep" for twenty (thirty?) years. to say that de niro's portrayal of someone who sees the world for the first time is superb is an understatement, because de niro did not portray the role. de niro was leonard lowe. de niro made me feel how leonard did when he, again, after many years, holds a pen in his hand to write his name, or when he sees his face in the mirror for the first time (the last time he saw himself in the mirror was when he was eleven or so), or when he spends an afternoon with a girl (whose father was in the same hospital) he has began to fall in love with, or when he has to sit with the doctors and ask if he could go out of the hospital alone, just to take a walk. how refreshing it was to watch leonard look at the world with the wide-eyed wonder of a five year old kid being brought to the zoo for the first time, and how heartwrenching to see him (and the other patients as well) revert to his uncontrolled spasms and tics, as the drug's (which dr. sayer administered to him and the others) effects wears out.

the most haunting scene is that where leonard realizes that his "awakening" time is up and that he has to say goodbye to this girl he has fallen in love with. he meets her for lunch, and tries despairingly and unsuccessfully to talk straight and control his spasms. he takes her hand and they dance in the cafeteria - their first and last dance - as she holds him the spasms stop, and for a very brief moment the whole world seems to stop, too. i wanted to stop the film right there, and just have the girl hold leonard, and make him stop hurting.

but the dvd spun on, leonard and the others went back to being catatonic, and i went back to my old, ranting, angry self.

heck.

noontime

2007-09-11T01:49:00.000+08:00

"Besides," he continued, "I don't owe Lynne the way I do you. You notice I don't lie and say I don't love her at all. She's meant a great deal to me. But you're different. Loving you is different ---"
"Because I'm black?"
"You make me feel healthy, purposeful---"
"Because I'm black?"
"Because you're you, damn it! The woman I should have married and didn't!"
"Should have loved, and didn't," she murmured.
And Truman sank back staring, as if at a lifeboat receding in the distance.

i have yet to find out what happens in the end to lynne and truman and meridian, but i can't bring myself to read through to the finish. maybe i don't want to finish the book because i don't want to start another (and i cannot not start on a new book after this one because i'm going to be soooooo bored just lazing around). or maybe i don't want to finish this book because i'll be feeling withdrawal pains, and would be looking for walker-induced hurts in the book that would follow.

to say that alice walker is one tough act to follow is an understatement (well, except of course if the next book is a novel by toni morrison, but this is the farthest i would go at digression). this is my third walker novel, and although i cannot say that i did not like the color purple and the temple of my familiar, i have to say that meridian is, by far, the best i've read. i am not doing the novel any justice though, by writing about it in general terms, so i'm going to have to stop rambling at this point, wait till i finish the book, and come back for an un-poseur like post. :D

for venancio

2007-09-11T00:24:00.000+08:00

i was rummaging through my files ( i know i'm supposed to be doing noteworthy things, but i am a great procrastinator, apart from being a lazy bum) and found a folder that contained papers i have written for some of my courses in graduate school some years back. now what follows is a paper that holds a very special place in my hypothalamus, for this is my first gs paper, which i submitted to the legendary v.m., a kick-ass professor who has a very uncharming way of worming into graduate students' consciousness - and yes, hearts.

Transference and Counter Transference in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night

Already with thee! tender is the night,
* * * * * * * * *
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
-John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”

A silent but unsettling darkness pervades the novel, Tender is the Night, the story of Dick Diver, a promising young psychologist who falls from fame as he lives with his wife Nicole Warren, a wealthy and beautiful schizophrenic patient.

The Author
The analysis of the novel would be incomplete if not seen side by side with the biography of the author, as Tender is the Night, just like most of Fitzgerald’s works, is autobiographical as much as it is psychological. Looking into the novel, one would find a lot of parallels between the life of the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald and the lives of the characters, especially that of the Diver couple.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, in St Paul, Minnesota, and was sent to local Roman Catholic boarding schools. At Princeton University, instead of concentrating on formal study, he opted to receive his education from writers and critics. In 1917 he was commissioned to the army, and, while in training camps, wrote the novel This Side of Paradise (1920). While at a camp in Alabama, he fell in love with 18-year-old Zelda Sayre, who later became an integral figure in Fitzgerald's fiction, which paid for his and Zelda's extravagant society lifestyle.

In 1924 the Fitzgeralds left their Long Island home for Paris, where they met Gerald and Sarah Murphy, who took them to the French Riviera. Here Fitzgerald finished The Great Gatsby (1925). Although the novel is generally regarded as his masterpiece, it sold poorly, marking the end of his writing career, and the beginning of the degradation of his life. Despite Zelda's slide into insanity (she was hospitalized periodically from 1930 to her death in 1948) and his into alcoholism, he continued to write, mostly for magazines. It was not until 1934 that Tender is the Night appeared.

Fitzgerald recovered sufficiently to become a screenwriter in Hollywood, where he met Sheilah Graham, who tried to save him from his alcoholism. He died of a heart attack in December 21, 1940 without completing The Last Tycoon (1941), his most mature novel. Even so, the book's brilliance prompted critics to re-evaluate Fitzgerald's talent and eventually to recognize him as one of the finest American writers.

Transference and Counter-transference
The novel is analyzed through the concepts of transference and counter-transference, two important principles in psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy is the process of interaction between a therapist and the patient. This therapy is aimed at dispelling distress arising through disorders of emotion, thinking, and behavior. (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2003)
Transference is a phenomenon that occurs when patients displace onto the therapist feelings of love or hatred which they had previously attached to a significant other, often a parent. (Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992)

Counter transference refers to the emotional response of the analyst to the patient. It may be seen as an impediment to the therapeutic process, as the therapist’s unresolved conflicts are introduced into the relationship with the patient, reducing the therapist’s objectivity. This type of counter-transference is known as an “abnormal” or “proactive” counter-transference.
Alternatively, emotions elicited in a therapist who has retained objectivity can be thought of as induced by the patient. This pattern of relating, which is often derived from the patient's past, may then be the basis of interpretation and may be used in the service of the therapeutic process. Counter-transference of this type is termed “reactive”.

Reactive counter-transference may further be divided into complementary and concordant types. In the complementary type, feelings are matched; for example, the patient feels afraid while the therapist feels protective. In the concordant type, the therapist feels the same feeling the patient feels—for example, the therapist feels afraid when the patient is afraid. In the latter case, counter-transference feelings occur from the therapist's identification or empathy with the patient. (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2003)

Life, Love and Loss in the Tenderness of the Night
At 29, Doctor Richard Diver has everything going on for him - He has had a Yale education and has been a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford in 1914, has attained a degree from John Hopkins University in 1915, and has written a psychiatry book in Vienna in 1916. In 1917, he is drafted to France for the war, but is given orders not to take up arms but to finish his degree and to be part of a neurological unit. In 1919, Dick, discharged, returns to Zurich and meets up with Franz Gregorovius, a colleague. As they make their way to Doctor Dohmler’s clinic, Franz tells Dick the history of Nicole Warren, the beautiful and wealthy schizophrenic patient who undergoes treatment at the clinic, and whose progress Dick has influenced indirectly through their exchange of letters – which, according to Franz, was “the best thing that could happen to her. A transference of the most fortuitous kind.”(p.9) In these letters, the principle of transference has started to take effect, as Nicole begins to displace to Dick the feelings she has for her father, who has been advised to stay away from her. The letters gave Nicole “somebody to think of outside,” (p.20) and the doctors an insight into her wellness.

At first Nicole is “a perfectly normal, bright, happy child,” (p.16) but later her sister Baby notices that Nicole “isn’t right in the head,” (p.15), so her distressed father brings Nicole to Doctor Dohmler, who later discovers that the father and daughter have figured in a case of incest brought about by the death of Nicole’s mother when the girl was twelve. The incident brings about Nicole’s schizophrenia, which does not manifest itself until she becomes 16.

After eight months of correspondence, Dick and Nicole meet. Dick visits her regularly, until Franz and Dohmler tell Dick that getting too close with Nicole, who has apparently fallen in love with Dick, might interfere with her treatment. The doctors are afraid that the situation will manifest the principle of counter-transference as Dick might begin to see Nicole as a lover, and not as a patient who needs therapy. Dick, indeed, has fallen for Nicole, but he is first a doctor, who sees it fit to terminate the budding relationship, difficult as it is for both of them. To divert himself from Nicole, Dick begins writing his second book. Nicole gets discharged from the clinic, having been declared cured.

By chance, Dick and Nicole meet again. This time he meets her with her sister Baby, who over dinner talks to Dick about buying a doctor who would also be a husband for Nicole. The idea seems to Dick absurd at first, but he and Nicole eventually marry – not because of Baby, but because Dick decides that he loves Nicole enough to marry her. Nicole gives birth to two children, Lanier and Topsy, whose births almost trigger her illness again. They build a home, the Villa Diana, on the French Riviera with Warren money.

Rosemary Hoyt, a budding American actress famous for her first movie “Daddy’s Girl” comes to the Riviera with her mother, Elsie Speers, for a three-day vacation. On the beach Rosemary meets Albert and Violet McKisco, Luis Campion and Royal Humphrey, and Mrs. Abrams – a group of people she desperately wants to get away from, and the group of Dick, Nicole, Abe and Mary North and Tommy Barban. Young and idealistic, Rosemary falls in love with the Divers, especially with the attractive, enigmatic Dick.

The Divers throw a party – one “where there’s brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette” (p.84) - for their guests at the Riviera. Violet Mckisco finds Nicole babbling incoherently in the bathroom. She runs to tell the group what she saw, but Tommy Barban shushes her up, and later finds himself in a duel with Albert Mckisco. Alone with Dick, Rosemary confesses her feelings to him. Dick dismisses the thought, and laughs her confession off.

Drawn to Dick, Rosemary decides to extend her and her mother’s 3-day stay on the Riviera, and comes along with the Divers on their trip to Paris. Rosemary offers herself to Dick, who, not wanting to hurt Nicole, nor destroy Rosemary’s innocence, politely declines. But Rosemary is persistent; Dick eventually admits being in love with her too, but he could not promise her anything.

“Nicole mustn’t suffer - she loves me and I love her – you understand that.”
She did understand; it was the sort of thing she understood well, hurting people.

She knew the Divers loved each other because it had been her primary assumption.

She had thought, however, that it was a rather cooled relation, and actually rather

like the love of herself and her mother. (p.136-137)

But Dick’s perception of Rosemary’s innocence is smashed when Collis Clay, a guy whom Rosemary used to date, nonchalantly tells Dick that Rosemary is “not so cold as he’d (Dick) probably think.” (p.150) Apparently Rosemary and Hillis, Collis’ friend, had an argument with a train conductor because the two, wanting to be alone, locked the door and closed the curtain of their train compartment. The uncertainty of Rosemary’s virginity repeatedly plays in Dick’s mind “as a kind of refrain,” (Poston, 1974) the lines

-Do you mind if I pull down the curtain?
-Please do. It’s too light in here. (p.150)

mentioned six times in the novel.

Dick’s succumbing to Rosemary’s charms ignites a spark that will begin his deterioration, and which follows through with his acquiescence to Nicole’s suggestion that he call Maria Wallis’ sister instead of following Maria to the police station. Maria, an acquaintance, suddenly shoots an Englishman in the station where the group is seeing Abe North off for America. Dick finally does himself in when he tries to save Rosemary from being implicated in the murder of a Negro whose corpse is found on Rosemary’s bed. He places the corpse on the hotel hall while asking Nicole for a change of sheets for Rosemary’s bed. This incident sets off Nicole’s madness, and this time Rosemary sees for herself what Violet Mckisco saw in the bathroom in Villa Diana.

“It’s you! It’s you who come to intrude on the only privacy
I have in the world – with your spread with red blood on it.
I’ll wear it for you – I’m not ashamed, though it was such
a pity. On All Fools Day we had a party on the Zurichsee
and all the fools were there, and I wanted to come
dressed in a spread but they wouldn’t let me – “ (p.174)

Rosemary and her mother finally decide to go back to Hollywood, but before they do Mrs. Speers meets up with Dick to thank him and Nicole for accommodating her daughter. Dick reveals to Mrs. Speers that he is in love with Rosemary, and he himself is surprised at the revelation. But he needs to preserve both his and Nicole’s sanity, so he has to let go of this love for Rosemary. He is Nicole’s doctor and husband, and these roles he has to play, no matter how empty and tired he has become.

Dick further crumbles as he allows himself to again be “purchased” by Warren money. Upon Franz’s suggestion and Baby’s funding, he agrees to put up a clinic in a ski resort. Dick can finally practice his career again, but he realizes that Franz offers him the project not because of his capabilities as a psychologist, but because of the easy capital he can get from Baby, who was once able to buy a doctor for Nicole, and now is buying a clinic for her.

The clinic pushes Dick’s self-esteem downward even further – he has to work full-time with his patients and be on guard with Nicole, who is very dependent on him, feeding on his strength. Counter-transference is at work - Dick’s unresolved conflicts are introduced into his relationship with Nicole. The concordant-reactive type of counter-transference is seen in this situation – Dick and Nicole are “so involved with each other that he cannot see her broken and suffering without becoming so himself.” (Poston, 1974) He begins to take alcohol at greater amounts.

Nicole again loses herself to madness when she receives a letter from a former patient who says that Dick has seduced her daughter. This time the madness occurs in a carnival, when Dick decides to take the family out.

Exhausted from Nicole’s swings of insanity, Dick leaves for a psychiatric convention in Berlin. On his way he meets Tommy Barban again, he who knows nothing but war, and learns of Abe North’s death. Dick’s father dies, too, and he returns to America for his father’s burial. He also meets Albert Mckisco again, who is now a very successful author. Then he meets Rosemary again, now more mature, lacking the innocence he has thought he loved her for. Dick gains the realization that it is Nicole he really loves, and his infatuation for Rosemary has caused Nicole’s frequent outbursts and his destruction.

Dick’s final straw comes when Dick and Nicole encounter Tommy Barban in a trip. Dick goes on a drinking binge and makes a fool out of himself, while Nicole seems to be in control. The complementary-reactive type of counter-transference is suggested here; as Dick plunges to oblivion, Nicole gets reborn. This sudden rebirth also brings forth Nicole’s sudden liking for Tommy Barban. He seduces her, and she agrees on having an affair with him, while Dick seeks to busy himself with finishing his second book .

Nicole attempts to save their marriage, but Dick drives her away.

“I didn’t come over here to be disagreeable.”
“Then why did you come, Nicole? I can’t do anything for you anymore. I’m trying
to save myself.”
"From my contamination?”
“My profession throws me in contact with questionable company sometimes.”
“You’re a coward! You’ve made a failure of your life, and you want to blame it
on me.” (p.319)

When Tommy comes to take Nicole away, Dick gives her up without a fight. Nicole wins. Dick no longer has his patient, no longer has his wife. He leaves the Riviera and starts a new life in America, no longer the Dick Diver he once was.

off to bed

2007-09-09T04:48:00.000+08:00

who would have thought i could find a minimalist yet cool look for my blog? and only two hours after i created it? now maybe things wouldn't be so humdrummy after all. but it is getting ho-hummy here. i better hit the sack, the roosters are beginning to crow.

first things first.

2007-09-09T02:08:00.000+08:00

i need someone to design my blog for me. poseurs can never function efficiently if they work from where i do. unfortunately, my seeming lack of technical skill about html's is gonna be my - and this blog's - downfall. i've been reading about html's, but i never understood the stuff completely. i have yet to find a dumbed down explanation of how widgets and all those other thingamatechies work, and until i do, i expect a humdrummy existence in this bit of the cyberspace. so if some kind soul wanders by and sees my s.o.s., feel free to drop me a line or two. i need an original blog design. one that reeks of pretentiousness - i'm the dilettante. never should anyone forget.

ta-ta.