IT and the law class on wednesday opened up a whole new world to me. excuse me for being slow but world, do you realise the wealth that awaits us at project gutenberg?? (please keep it alive!) so anyway, i started reading jane eyre by charlotte bronte and nothing could tear my eyes away from the computer screen. strange since i do not have the stamina to keep up with these so-called classics whose average sentence spans 3 or more lines to a whole paragraph at times! and the next day, in oh-so-dreadfully-boring strategy class, i was all the while in this other world where jane eyre resided and while others were struggling to connect to msn or just to stay awake, my heart was beating excitedly as i hungrily devoured the words of charlotte bronte. i think i'm starting to blog that way too. it's so funny because when i was typing out my study plan for my exchange application, i found myself starting to sound as impassioned and long-winded as one of these novelists! how impressionable i am! and how i cannot stop typing this way now! shireen, return henceforth!!!

so this paragraph below talks about how jane eyre, a girl mistreated and abused before, is in awe as she watches helen burns being bullied and picked on by miss scatcherd. jane cannot believe that anyone can accept such injustice and abuse so calmly.

'The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl with whom I had conversed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace by Miss Scatcherd from a history class, and sent to stand in the middle of the large schoolroom. The punishment seemed to me in a high degree ignominious, especially for so great a girl -- she looked thirteen or upwards. I expected she would show signs of great distress and shame; but to my surprise she neither wept nor blushed: composed, though grave, she stood, the central mark of all eyes. "How can she bear it so quietly -- so firmly?" I asked of myself. "Were I in her place, it seems to me I should wish the earth to open and swallow me up. She looks as if she were thinking of something beyond her punishment -- beyond her situation: of something not round her nor before her. I have heard of day-dreams -- is she in a day-dream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but I am sure they do not see it -- her sight seems turned in, gone down into her heart: she is looking at what she can remember, I believe; not at what is really present. I wonder what sort of a girl she is -- whether good or naughty." '

later on, jane gets a chance to speak to helen and asks her why does she not speak up or defend herself and does she not agree that so-and-so are bad people and so on and so forth. helen shares what keeps her going and i can imagine myself in awe of her as jane would have been.

' "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you."

"Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless her son John, which is impossible."

In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve or softening.

Helen heard me patiently to the end: I expected she would then make a remark, but she said nothing.

"Well," I asked impatiently, "is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted, bad woman?"

"She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, -- the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man -- perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest -- a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end." '

wow.

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i also want to talk about one more thing. we don't have to keep defending ourselves and our egos. IT'S NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD. seriously. you can complain all you want to me, you can pour out all your emotions on me, you can call me and preempt me before the other party strikes. but i am not the judge or the jury and i don't care about who's right or wrong. all i care about is that you guys are willing to address this and work something out together. that's all.