This should be the new course I will be tutoring:

CLIT 2014
Feminist Cultural Studies
Lecturer: Dr. Gina Marchetti
Year 2/3 Level / 6 Credits / 1st Semester / 100% Continuous Assessment After World War II, so-called “Second Wave” feminism ushered in a new era of cultural critique. In the United States and Europe, feminists looked closely at the established institutions of beauty, women’s work, motherhood, romance, marriage, and heterosexuality. Building on related radical traditions, socialist feminism, third world feminism, lesbian feminism, among other voices critical of the patriarchal order, began to be heard globally. This course looks at the feminist critique of culture from film theory and psychoanalytic studies to the feminist intervention in cultural studies, postmodernism, and queer studies. Topics covered include: the social construction of femininity/masculinity, gender and performance, the beauty myth, the myth of romantic love, gender outlaws, women warriors, melodrama/the “woman’s film,” and female emancipation in the socialist imagination. Examples include clips from Hollywood films (e.g., All that Heaven Allows, The World of Suzie Wong, Mulan), European cinema (e.g., Ali: Fear Eats the Soul), Hong Kong cinema (e.g., He's a Woman, She's a Man, The Mistress), novels (e.g., Shanghai Baby, The Woman Warrior, Hong Kong Rose, Foreign Bodies), new queer cinema (e.g., Boys Don’t Cry, Far from Heaven), socialist/post-socialist cinema (e.g., Salt of the Earth, Portrait of Teresa, and Woman/Demon/Human), feminist experimental film (e.g., Daughter Rite), television (e.g., Dallas, MTV), popular music (e.g., Madonna), and the theatre (e.g., The Vagina Monologues).
Selections of Chapters or Exerpts from the Following (subject to change):Ien Ang, Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
Jackie Byars, All That Hollywood Allows: Re-Reading Gender in 1950s Melodrama
Michelle Citron, Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions
Dai Jinhua, Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinhua
Eve Ensler, ed. The Vagina Monologues
Molly Haskell, From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation
Sheng-mei Ma, The Deathly Embrace: Orientalism and Asian American Identity
Gina Marchetti, Romance and the Yellow Peril”: Race, Sex, and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction
Tania Modleski, Loving With a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women
Laura Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures
Linda Nicholson, ed. The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory
Janice Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature
Adrienne Cecile Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution
Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions
Sue Thornham, Feminist Theory and Cultural Studies: Stories of Unsettled Relations
Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women
Mayfair Mei-wei Yang, Spaces of Their Own: Women's Public Sphere in Transnational China

End of August, another attack of the menustral syndrome. I already missed my period last month, so I am less prepared today than usual. Perhaps driven by loneliness, I added back several people and deleted them all over again on my msn. There's one still remaining on the list - Mr. S. I guess I am tied to him as Boku is magneted to the ears of a girl he knows in Murakami's Wild Sheep Chase. He is always the one who could give me advice and talked about my academic path with me. He's really talented. Maybe subconsciously, I just want to be him. I don't, however, rule out any possibilities of jealousy hidden in the attraction.

He said something right. I just don't need to explain what I'm doing to the laymen. Sadly enough, I counted the people in my lives - 95% of them are laymen, so what can I do? I still have 1 year to go for my studies, after which I still have no idea what to do. To continue or to work? Mr. S said we have chosen the path of knowledge, which is very noble. Yes, it sounds grand, but it's also very lonely as well. One thing I am different from him is that he is really connected to the people working in the academia, media and the cultural hub. I basically know nobody. His talent is just at least 10 times more than mine. Maybe, his fate is better predetermined than mine as well. Looking back, being a 27 man, I still can't guarantee a better living for my parents. They have both done a lot to raise me as who I am. I just feel bad that I can't do anything much to return at the moment. If I am to go further academically, they may be dead already when I am able to secure their standard of living. By that time, only words of regret will remain forever in my heart.

It's a noble yet lonely path. How long should I keep walking? Frustrated.

Course to be tutored: Feminist Cultural Studies

Waiting for some news from Korea conference, Scope, Senses of Cinema and Xu Xi. Could the editors of scope and senses work faster? I am going to withdraw my submission anyway if I don't hear news from them within the first 2 weeks.

Ok Ok Ok. That's the end of my teaching life. I hate spending my time with kids that have no hearts to learn. I hate those Band 3 Kids. Just trash. Sorry for being too mean. But they are nothing but trash. You may say I am not a good teacher, yes. I can only teach smart kids, and make them smarter. For those trashy ones, sorry, no one can help you. Your life is so fucking over. Form 1 kids who don't know how to spell: shoes, black, white, neck, front (do not know the meaning of 'in front of' and girl).... what have you done in the previous 6 years? Don't cry when you get your HKCEE results because you simply deserve it.

Original dictation passage:

She is a slim, middle aged woman of about 50. She has long, wavy hair. She is wearing a necklace and she has her hands clasped in front of her. She is neatly-dressed in a black and white spotted blouse and a smart skirt. She is wearing black high-heeled shoes.

She is average height. She is a teenage girl. She has fair, curly hair with a bow in it. She has her hands by her sides. She is untidily-dressed. She is wearing a dirty, plain tee-shirt, old, baggy trousers and a pair of sandals.

Look at the following dictation passage of a F. 1 Band 3 kid:

She is a sleep, middle-eged rm for
She has long hair, She is wearing a necklace and she has her hand caps in front of her. She is neatly-dressed in a back and wited sbteed. hang and a smant girl. She is wearing back Ih heeled shoes.

She is averes hates. She is avteivn girl. She has cveon awe hair, with blow and eat. She has her hands by her sides. She is unthird dress. She is wearing a dirty, play T-shirt, old, blgay chites and pandy of studos.

My comments: What language were you writing in? Terrible.
32 mistakes --> 32x3. The dictation received 4 points out of 100. Fucking TWAT!

Besides this fucking twat, there is another cuntishly stupid girl. She is such a quiet girl, so shy that she only speaks one word when you ask her 10 questions. Maybe she is deaf. This is her work. I will praise her for being creative in making a new era of education more challenging to teachers:

She is slime, middle-aged womam, about 50. She has long wavy hair, She is _____ a _____ and _____ her hans ____ in form fo her. She is ______ dresser, She ____ in a bark and wither ____. is a ______. She is _____ shoes.

She is ____. She is a ____ girl. Sha har ______, Clavy hair, with u with _____. She has her _____, She is undirty deresser. she is a _____, _____ Isiter. old, ____ and a hair of c_____.

After reading the following news, I can't help posting a new entry for two of my most hated artists in Hong Kong:

【東方日報專訊】關心妍(新聞 - 網站 - 圖片)（Jade）前晚和鄧麗欣(新聞 - 網站 - 圖片)（Stephy）為葉文輝（啤梨）的演唱會作綵排，Jade收到啤梨送的Melody卡通公仔睡衣，但她嫌款式太老土 (What a tasteless gift! But does that mean Jade doesn't think she's 老土????? She definitely is!!!!)，Jade不諱言偏愛性感的透視喱士睡衣 (No, thanks. You can give it to yourself!!!!)，更不介 意和啤梨十指緊扣唱情歌 (YUCK)。

中国女排 is over?
周苏红 has torn her lingament! Sigh... I guess the team could not make it to the top 3 anymore in this year's 大奖赛.

The following is my 名单 of the official players:
Setters: 冯 坤 宋妮娜
Spikers: 杨 昊, 李 娟, 楚金玲, 王一梅, 张越红
Libero: 张 娜
Middleblockers: 刘亚男, 薛 明, 徐云丽
Back 2: 李 珊

Just let 李 娟 and 楚金玲 substitute 李 珊.

李 珊 is lucky this time. Cherish the chance and stop being lousy!

Also, as I predict, the top 3 team of this year's 大奖赛 would be as follows:

Champion: Brazil
First runner-up: Russia
Second runner-up: Italy
Fourth place: China
Fifth place: Cuba

話事人 and Everyday Life

Johnnie To's Election 1 and 2 are stories about electing the 話事人 within a triad group in Hong Kong named Woo Shing Society. It seems that 話事人 is only concerned in the circle of criminal activities and underground gangsters; yet, it's not entirely true. In our everyday life, we can't escape from the notion of 話事人 as well. Anson Chan and Donald Tsang are both competiting to be the next 話事人of Hong Kong in 2007. Whoever wins or loses can't certainly be predicted; or does it really matter when most of us believe neither could possibly make a big change in HK. Not speaking about politics, we all want to, or need to be a 話事人 in some occasions as well, not that we need to be the 'person-in-charge', but it's all about us being the one and the only one.

When Big D (Leung Kar-fai-) proposed to co-chair the Wo Shing Society with Lok (Simon Yam) at the end of Election 1, he was hit numerously by a huge piece of rock. The same crisis also appears in Election 2, when Kun (Lam Ka-tung) proposes to sit for the election against Lok by the side of the lake. Both men exchanged glances and let the silence tell the audience to reveal the hidden tension. The message is obvious - no man would allow anyone to compete with them. We all want to be the one and the only one. Isn't love also about this as well? Who would allow a third person, or even more, in their relationship? I am talking about love, as the pure passion, a sort of committment, by excluding sex as the simply seduction driven by lust. Lust allows multiple participants - the more, the better (simultaneously, or not). Love, however, heads for the oppposite direction. We don't allow any competitors in our romantic relationships. We won't (and can't) literally remove them by making use of a piece of huge bare rock. Sadly, we have to admit that there's nothing we could do. Electing a 話事人 in any organization is always wrapped up with a result, an ending, by which one is elected to be the winner while the others will be doomed to be losers, who could not do anything anymore, but admit that it's in their fate.

One of my close friends has resumed his relationship with his lover after a temporary breakup, all because of the over-understanding and misunderstanding of a third person. Though they are now officially 'together' again, the hatred directed against the third person, the competitor of being the one and the only one has never gone. I am just tired of doing all the counselling since my patience has recently run dry in almost everything. I'd better save some time and energy on my own rather than lecturing others about their points of view, not to mention mine is not always justified. All we can do is: ask ourselves if we could possibly handle another 話事人 in our relationship. If such a person really turns up, could we dare to eliminate him/her like Lok in Election? If we can't, perhaps the only solution is not being a 話事人 ourselves as well. At this moment, a line from a song appears in my mind: "據講戀愛　都只不過是氣氛". We are engulfed in the romance for the sake of romance. The first person and third person are merely titles with empty meanings. 話事人 is also one of such titles. When you could extract romance (and power within a group or an organization), why bothers having a title? All titles are stigmata, for which a mad person would go for.

"Every lover is mad, we are told. But can we imagine a madman in love? Never." (Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse)