thinking since '98

standardised tests are one of the most ridiculous things that the education system has to offer. how is how i'm thinking and feeling on one particular day supposed to reflect a year or even more of my whole schooling career?

vce results came out yesterday. though i still have one more year of school, i did one vce subject. it was the only thing that i really tried hard at this year and in a classic turn of events, i didn't do very well. what a representation of my life.

but what really ticked me off were my 'results' for the general achievement test which is supposed to validate school-based and external assessments. i'm not gonna lie, i didn't really take it seriously at all and now i regret that because i realise it played a heavy part in my disappointing final score. but, c'mon, all there questions were begging me to make fun of them.

my gat results came in today. the gat is separated into three parts: written communication, mathematics/science/technology and humanities/arts/social sciences. my last two results were meh but let's talk about written communication. i honestly don't remember what i wrote for that part, but it supposedly wasn't up to par. apparently my "score in written communication typically indicates weaknesses in presentation, often reflected in a lack of coherence and an inability to use an appropriate style. there are frequent errors in punctuation and spelling, and vocabulary is generally limited."

well, alrighty then. not to toot my own horn, but i've entered three writing competitions and all three times i was published with honours. all of my school reports have indicated i possess really good literary skills. this blog isn't really a sufficient representation of my ability because i take it much too casually, but the icing on this very much lack of sundae is that in a very similar test earlier in the year, i was placed in the top 5% of the country for english. and yet, the gat is telling me that my writing skills are seriously below average.

how on earth is this one test an accurate reflection of what i can do? if this is the reason that i didn't do as well as i expected in my vce result, then i am beyond pissed. a whole two years worth of work down the drain because of three hours in one day?

the education system is flawed. i don't know how to fix it but i recognise that it needs to be fixed. and it's about time that the people actually controlling the system realise that too.

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)

(image courtesy of netflix.com)

master of none is really good. like... really good.

first off, thank god it's a netflix show which means i was able to watch it among netflix australia's very limited collection of shows.

but i think that the reason i loved master of none was because it was so devastatingly real. it wasn't like a shitty sitcom with dumb, eccentric plots that you know doesn't happen outside of a screen. it was like a literal snapshot into the life of a 30 year old in this day and age.

at least, i assume it is. i mean, i'm 17 so i'm probably not part of the intended target audience, but this show really made me fantasise about what my life's going to be like in thirteen or so years. i've never been in a relationship. i'm still brainwashed by disney's fairytale lifestyle. but master of none made me think about what real love is like and maybe what it'll be like for me. it's not always great, i get that. and i'm not going to lie, that's scary as shit for me. but dev and rachel taught me to enjoy the little things and i'm excited to do that.

a big part of why i enjoyed the series, though, was its honest insight into culture and racism. you don't see a lot about south asian issues in hollywood. as dev frankly put it, "no one cares". the episode, 'indians on tv' nailed the industry's fear of having too many south asian people in a film or show because they think it'll be labelled as an indian thing or whatever and narrow down the prospective audience. and 'too many' for them means, like, two people. and that's something that i've always hated about western media - never seeing anyone like me. i come from a sri lankan background but i don't watch sri lankan films. i barely understand the language! i've only been to the country twice. culturally, i relate more with hollywood than bollywood. so it's finally great to see my brown people represent.

also, his parents' acting skills were adorable and i really respect his decision to cast them on the show - it elevated the realness of the show to even greater heights.

i loved master of none's witty dialogue, diverse cast and honest outlook on the real world. amidst the heavy metaphors about the hardships of life, there'd be a seemingly stupid joke that was really a classy critique about our generation hidden underneath smart (and sometimes dark) humour.

but that ending though. omg, yessssss. treat yo self.

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)

(photo credit to www.comingsoon.net)

i'd like to write an articulate post on the aspects of mockingjay part 2 that contributed to create an ultimately pleasurable viewing experience, but, screw that, i'm just gonna sit here and fangirl for a minute.

here is an accurate insight into my thought process while watching the movie: AHHHHHHHHHNOOOOOOHAHAHOOOOOOOOAWWWWAHHHHHHWHYYYYY*UNCONTROLLABLE SOBBING*

actually, that's what i thought i'd be feeling but in reality i was a lot more dead inside. i don't know if that was because i'm guttered that this franchise is coming to an end, but also i feel like mockingjay was anticlimactic. definitely not in the negative sense of the term, but more like there wasn't just one pivotal point that the film built up to. it was a roller coaster of ups and downs and i felt like i was just coasting along. even the end of the war didn't stir up a myriad of emotions. it happened and then something else happened and then something happened after that. the plot kept moving along, which overall was good because i never got bored (something that rarely happens)

my whole hunger games experience has been weird. i first read the books when i was like 13 and i received them for christmas. i use the term 'read' loosely; i devoured them, wrapping up the series in two days and emerging from the cocoon i built as a changed person.

around the time i finished, the trailer for the first film came out. i was very much excited. the hunger games was the first book-to-movie adaptation that i was really interested in. and, boy, i was not disappointed. i watched it at the cinema with friends and i loved it. i even studied it in grade 9. but between that and the release of catching fire, i didn't think much of the series. the trailer came out, i fell in the hype for a day and then i plateaued again. the movie came out, i obsessed for a week and then i moved on. that cycle repeated for the next two films. my life didn't revolve around the hunger games - or at least as much as other series i enjoy - but when something happened in its world, i remembered all over again why i fell in love with the series in the first place.

and i think a big part of that is because i still don't feel like i'm old enough to appreciate suzanne collins' work. the hunger games isn't like other YA dystopian franchises because it's much too real. maybe we're not chucking our children into arenas and forcing them to kill each other, but our universe isn't that far off from the one inside the pages. corrupt governments, imbalance of power, manipulation by the media. these are all things happening in our world.

and i just don't know how it's going to play out for us.

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)

(photo courtesy of instagram)

i have not gone a day in months without seeing or hearing something to do with the kardashians. i've never actually watched an episode of kuwtk, but they have leaked out of tv screens and have somehow embedded themselves into my daily life.

i've seen a lot of disney shows in my time, but girl meets world is by far the strangest.

i spent a solid 20 minutes last night watching shia labeouf sleep. it was only around the 21 minutes mark that i began to question why i just spent a solid 20 minutes watching shia labeouf sleep.

i love shia labeouf. when i was in fourth grade, we had to read holes and when we watched the movie i loved him in that. then, i loved him in transformers when little ten year old me had a little crush. when i made my first instagram account and - like everyone else - i thought i had the most amazing eye for photography and i was trying to be all artsy and creative, i loved when he wore the paper bag on his head because i thought i could recreate that and help break society's walls. and, of course, i will always love actual cannibal shia labeouf.

#allmymovies was awesome. such a simple idea but, damn, it was cool. i have a lot of respect for him for doing that. maybe it's different for actors, but i cringe whenever i see myself in videos. hell, i can't even read over my own writing without wanting to douse it and myself in oil and burn away the lame.

at the same time, why did i even care? why was i watching this dude laugh, think, sleep and - for the most part - just stare blankly at something that i couldn't even see? i don't know, but it was a good way to spend the time that technically i should be using to study for the exams that i am currently undertaking.

i can only imagine what shia labeouf would have been thinking as he watched himself become younger and innocent and wonder why he started acting in the first place. and i respect him even more for putting in the even stevens movie. that's dedication.

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)

one of my least favourite tropes is that whole idea about girls being against girls. like the protagonist is only friends with dudes and she's kind of tomboy but every guy she meets basically falls in love with her and she doesn't have any girl friends because all other girls hate her because they're jealous and they spill their asparagus juice on her or whatever. also, the protagonist is against anything slightly perceived as feminine - scoffing at girls that want to go to prom, rolling her eyes at girls that wear make up and waving her middle fingers erratically in the air at girls that slightly upturn the corners of their lips at a boy.

like, nooooo. i thought this was the generation of feminism? the rise of the sisterhood? we're all queens. we shouldn't be putting ourselves down; we should be helping each other up to the throne.

being a feminist is not about disregarding anything that has had a history of being linked to femininity. it's about the equality of females, males, and anyone else. it's about destroying gender labels. it's about letting everyone be who they want to be.

if you like wearing a dress, cool, wear a dress. if you don't like wearing a dress, cool, don't wear a dress. having opinions on harmless things is not a crime.

and, girls, support each other. fight the patriarchy together. we're awesome.

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)

i love maggie stiefvater. if i could be a sixteenth as creative as her, i could die happy. she probably vomits art.

i first stumbled across the wolves of mercy falls a couple of years - at costco actually - but i didn't pick it up then because i was still trying to convince myself that i was a rock and didn't enjoy sappy love stories. jump ahead to this year and after being bombarded by pretty fan-made collages and fanfiction on tumblr, i decided to give it a go. well, technically, i really wanted to read the raven cycle, but someone told me to read twomf first so i could see how much stiefvater improved. more on that later.

i liked twomf. it was sweet. sam and grace were cute but i was much more of an isabel and cole person myself (i kept picturing cole as a taller, buffer, matty healy tbh). i'll probably read it again on a lonely day when i'm abruptly aware of my singleness. though, even then, i might just go straight to sinner to get my angsty-love fix.

reading twomf was definitely not a chore, but by the end i did feel like hurrying along just so i could hear about the raven boys that everyone was raving about. and, boy, was i not disappointed. did stiefvater improve? holy shit, yes she did. her writing is so poetic and ethereal that i can only dream of reaching it through big words and crappy alliteration like 'belligerently benevolent' or 'phantasmagoric phengite'.

and for the first time in my life, i fell in love. with five people at once but whatever. blue is everything i want to be. gansey is everything i want to have. i love adam's bravery, ronan's confidence and noah's devotion. these characters were so intricate and real that i never wanted to leave them alone.

even the whole premise of the series is so... majestic. it's set in a modern world touched with welsh kings; a quiet town with deep roots. it bleeds intrigue and mystery with dark secrets and unnamed characters. speaking of names, they all blossom gorgeously in your mind. glendower and cabeswater - they roll around in your head and settle in your thoughts.

for the most part, i forgot i was reading about teenagers. they had kind of reached an immortal level. as a teenager myself and being surrounded by teenagers on the daily, i've learnt a thing or two, and blue and the raven boys'* capacity for deep thought and constant maturity is not a behaviour that my species always demonstrates. but, in its own kind of way, the raven cycle is like an eccentric coming-of-age story. there's the whole thing about finding your friends, finding your purpose and being told that you'll kill your true love with a kiss. all common teenage dilemmas.

after seeing the legit stunning cover for the raven king and fully realising that the final book in the series will be called the raven king, i am beyond excited. it will definitely be my priority when it comes out rather than doing VCE.

*they should totally start a band

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)

hello. my name is dinushka and just like every other member of generation z, i have lots of opinions and i want people to hear those opinions. so here i am, ready to shout out into the void.

thinking since '98 will be my place to store the thoughts that don't need to be hidden in the covers of a journal. it is an idea that i've thought of for a couple of months and decided to go ahead with in a couple of minutes. why now? why am i here writing on this lonesome friday night? well next week i have exams and next year is my last year of high school so i figured that at this crucial crux of my education would be the perfect time to create another way of procrastinating. really, at its essence, that's what thinking since '98 is meant to be. it's supposed to be made from the fruits of my lack-of prioritising skills. it's supposed to be another way for me to escape.

i'm not going to get all deep and touchy-feely, though. and i'm not going to be pulling out all fancy terms like film noir and epistolary. no, i'm just going to say, 'i like this. here's why.' or, 'i don't like this. here's why.' trust me - i'm barely pulling above a B in my literature class.

that's it, i guess. maybe you'll stick around. maybe you won't. maybe no one is reading this and i'm just a girl talking to herself. whatever. i'm ready to start something new.

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)