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[yuuago]

Feeling kind of frustrated at my lack of background in history. I know that the only cure for it is to read more nonfiction, but it's still a pain in the ass. It's kind of embarrassing just how much I don't know about big historical events - I'm talking things that are considered common knowledge, I guess - and I just, argh. I don't know.

It's not just the "not having the background" part that bothers me; for some reason it's really difficult to read things and really, truly understand what is being said. I can't just read something and understand what's going on the first time. I need to read about the same thing over and over and if I'm lucky, it'll click. But usually it doesn't click, and I end up thinking that I understand what I'm reading, but actually I'm reading it incorrectly, and I get things wrong.

At least this is a problem that can, theoretically, be fixed. I have a lot of books, and if I read them, and try to keep reading until I actually understand what I'm reading, then maybe that will help things.



I guess it's not that big a deal, but I've been feeling kind of self-conscious about the stuff I write lately. It's a really frustrating situation.

Anyway, leaving that aside, lately I've been thinking about my trip to Halifax. I kind of hope that while I'm there, I might get some inspiration to work on an old story that I had planned out, but never started writing. It's an original story, set in Halifax, about two brothers who work in a haunted restaurant. It's kind of inspired by the Five Fishermen restaurant (which has great food, by the way), though more from the general idea of that setting, rather than the stories about that specific place.

So, I'm hoping that while I'm there, I'll be able to soak up the atmosphere a bit and decide how I want to go about writing that story. Get a feeling of Halifax again, remember the atmosphere, maybe head to the library to do a bit of research, and - of course - take lunch at the Five Fishermen. Purely for writing purposes, of course. ;)

It'll be interesting if I do manage to get this thing written, or at least started. Horror is definitely not a genre that I usually write, and I tend to write things that are more character-driven than plot-driven. But... with luck, this will be both challenging and fun. That is, if I can get started.

Anyway, as far as Hetalia fic goes, I found an old one that I wrote in 2010, finished sometime in 2011, and then promptly forgot about. I read it over today, and it actually isn't that bad, so I decided to clean it up a little. It definitely isn't as good as some of the things I have written, but that's all right. It's kind of an unusual story for me in that it has something resembling an actual plot (and without porn, even!). I don't write a lot of things like that. So, it'll be fun to work with, even if it's not as good as some of the things I've written.

Comments

[yuuago]

Hmm. You might be on to something there. I probably wouldn't turn to art, because I'm not very visually-oriented, but it might be worthwhile for me to look to literature more, since that's something I'm familiar with, and it's helped me get some understanding of some small bits of history.

My main problem is that in school, I didn't have any formal historical education whatsoever. We literally did not have history class. We did have social studies, but it focused more on political and economic systems. For example, when we studied WWII, we learned a ton about fascism as a system, and very little (if anything?) about what actually happened during WWII. I learned about the Holocaust in English class. There just seems like there's something wrong with that....

[tatoeba-tadayou.livejournal.com]

haha, wow. I mean, there is some excellent literature about the Holocaust, and both world wars from all sides of the conflicts*, but still, that's... haha. On the other hand, the only thing I learned about political systems in grade school was "THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY IS" and we got told how horrible everything else was without actually explaining any of what it is. Hell, I took a comparative politics class in college and I'll be damned if I gained anything valuable from it. Pretty much the only things I remember are Denmark once paid its citizens to move elsewhere during a financial/jobs crisis, and clips we watched from a Bollywood movie called Devdas. :D

* - most of the books I read from those periods were based in fact, but they were also very human, individual accounts, and not really descriptions of the wars themselves. But I suspect that if you read the right accounts from the right people, you'd find a wealth of information about specific battles and key players therein.

[yuuago]

Yeah, it's absolutely ridiculous.

I'm sure tomorrow I'll feel better about all this, but right now I just feel like a dumbass who knows absolutely nothing about, well, anything. Sob.

On a completely unrelated note, you just reminded me that I've been meaning to watch Devdas for years, but haven't gotten around to it *_*

[tatoeba-tadayou.livejournal.com]

bwahaha. I've never watched an entire Bollywood film (FOR SHAME... unless you count Roadside Romeo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Romeo) but... FOR SHAME) but I had the song Bairi Piya (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMrRVEYf1Lc) on repeat for weeks after I saw the clip. ♥

and don't worry, even if you were a master of History, there'd probably be some other topic you suddenly felt yourself woefully uninformed of. I have these moments on a regular basis. :[