Incredibly Busy Inactivity

But now that he had apparently made every preparation for death; now that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon there seemed no need of the carpenter's box; and thereupon, when some expressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the cause of his sudden convalescence was this;- at a critical moment, he had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone; and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet, he averred. They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word, it was Queequeg's conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.

~Herman Melville, Moby Dick.

So I haven't blogged for more than a week. Guess where I was all this time, to the extent that I couldn't leave a short message to my friends and readers? The answer is, absolutely nowhere. I've been right here in the comfort of my hometown all this time. So why the extraordinary lack of activity, if the internet never left my fingertips the whole time? I'll tell you why in three words: "BUSY BUSY BUSY!"

Remember the Malay Debate competition I mentioned as my excuse for the lack of activity last post? Well, we lost in the first round. We went to the opponent's school, expecting to pound them into pulp and return home to prepare for the next round. Instead, they ripped our arms and legs of, wrapped them up in a pretty pink bow, and handed them back to us and sent us home.

Since I'm now the English Language Chairman of my class, I cannot miss this oppurtunity to bring out the proverb, "We went out for wool, but came back shorn."

Actually, that's a Spanish proverb, but that just means bonus for anyone who includes it in their essay.

As I said, we lost in the first round. That was on Thursday. This is the following Tuesday. So what's been holding me back all this time? Once again, the one magic word repeated three times: Busy. We had been preparing so hard for the debate competition on Thursday, that for almost all of the first four days of the week, we spent our time in the school library, poring over statistics and data that would help us in the debate. As a result, I pretty much accumulated four days of missed homework assignments that demanded closure before I was allowed to waste my own time. Even now, I'm still not done with my homework... But I've been away from blogging so long, I had to at least leave a "I'm very sorry" note on the kitchen table.

Plus, something happened yesterday that, in a way, reignited my desire to write. The short version of the story is, my essay was so good, so allegedly "good", that my teacher had me read it in front of the class. At least, she had one of my friends read my essay in front of the class, since I was to shy to read it myself. That's the short version of what happened. You can read the long version, and the even longer essay, on the new Essay of the Day page that I've opened on the blog.

I'll probably continue to be absent for a while, so for the time being, feel free to analyze the little snippet of literature quoted above, and I guess you could read my Essay if you want. TTFN.