Waxin’ Lyrical

Has it only really been just a month?

Of course, I’ve known you for much longer than that. In the few months I’ve been here, you’ve grown from being just “that cute girl in Lit class”, to “Jamie’s friend”, to “Jamie’s friend who played Chrono Trigger and Xenogears zomg!” to “Jamie’s ‘friend’ “, to “girl who asks dreadfully pointed questions that threaten to pierce that veil I always put on”, to “late night/early morning email buddy” to “girl sleeping on my futon” to “‘Oh gawd am I just feeling lonely and on the look out for a rebound’ girl” to… what you are now. Someone I truly love, someone whose eyes I gaze into and think “Ahh, but to look at you till the stars themselves go out…”. Someone whose hand fits so nicely in mine, someone whose pointed chin I always welcome atop my head, someone whose embrace never fails to send waves of pleasure coursing through my veins. Someone whose smile remains ever bewitching and capable of reducing me to a quivering mess.

Someone whom I hope remains here, smiling at me, for the rest of our lives.

Indeed, sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that we’ve come so far together. All of it really did start that day, a month ago, when you decided to come over to cook me a meal in return for that mishmash of meat, scraps of vegetables and left-over rice I call fried rice that I cooked for you. As you lay there on my futon, so unabashedly defenceless in the presence of a guy you only kind of knew, something clicked, some mechanism in the fibre of my being fired up, and the possibilty of me falling in love with you became a question mark, as opposed to an impossibility. That question mark slowly lost its curious arc, shedding its tail and solidfying into a full stop as you and I exchanged emails through the night, as we traced the outline of each other’s psyche, probed this way and that on past loves, family, spectacles, life, death, and everything in between.

As a rule, I generally don’t talk much about things I don’t know. One of the things I *do* talk a lot about, however, is myself - after all, who really knows me better than myself, right?

And yet somehow, in the midst of your questioning, your inability to let my oft-rehearsed answers brush aside your need for understanding, I found myself reexamining the things I’ve accepted as part of my being. Things I’ve held onto as central to my being for years now have had their layers of lazy reasoning peeled away by your inquisition, and as I struggled to defend my position in faltering Japanese, I began to recognize how much of it was just pure word games and lofty language, and how much of it remained firm and unbending in the face of critical inspection. Still, it’s a refreshing feeling, having to justify the crazy hotch-potch of half-baked ideas and naive philosophy I hold dear as my own. It’s a refreshing feeling, to know that you really do care, that you really do want to understand why I think the way I do, why I view life the way I do.

That you seem to already know me so well in so short a time surprises me as well. You catch me off-guard when you seem to see right through me, telling me I’m afraid of losing your love, predicting that I wouldn’t know how to respond to a dirty joke coming from a girl. I’d even go so far to say that sometimes it seems you might know me better than I do, as you call me out as being someone who craves affection, despite me normally regarding myself as the direct opposite. You might know me better than I do, and yet, even now you still say “I still don’t know much about you”.

I am naked in your presence, all my flaws and shortcomings lay bare, bereft of the protection of the armor I usually wear to keep the world at bay. The poses, pretences and canny one-liners that normally work so well at maintaining an arm’s length distance slide off you like water off a duck’s back. Your smile, that mischevious glint in your eyes only further serve to further disarm me, till I can do little but hold you in my arms and hope you never leave my embrace.

You are my one girl in all the world. And I hope that never changes.

I’m back in Singapore for a few days as my brother gets hitched over the weeked. Holy crap, but it’s been, what, 10 years now since he got together with his soon-to-be bride. ^_^

Will be busy with wedding stuff and whirlwind rushes to meet old friends.

I’ll be back in Japan soon, but until then, 元気でね。

A friend had an assignment where he had to prove that RTTs and ping were affected by distance.

I noticed an obvious solution and proceeded to explain it to him. This is because I’m a nice person.

Here’s my solution:

[21:09] me: let me give you the easiest proof
[21:10] me: i attempt to ping the moon
[21:10] j: no no. they say must be us site. w
[21:10] me: it’s farther than england right
[21:10] j: er, europe. w
[21:10] me: so it’s very far away amirite?
[21:10] me: and the ping never comes back
[21:10] me: amirite?
[21:10] j: chuddup. no pc on the moon for u to ping

Obviously he wasn’t convinced. But I’m also a very patient person, so I provide another proof:

[21:10] me: also you can try to ping the sun
[21:10] j: i tried pinging krypton. Host cannot be resolved
[21:10] me: but you must be very careful when you ping the sun
[21:10] me: if you try to ping it in the daytime, the packet will burn up
[21:11] me: because the sun is very very hot
[21:11] me: so, you must ping it at night

I was even nice enough to give him precautions, but he goes and tries to ping Krypton instead.
Hmph, obviously that won’t work - we all know Krypton doesn’t exist!
I’m not THAT nice, so I’ll let him find that out by himself, hah.

Wrote up these two reviews for the Orochinagi forums, in a spate of boredom/running away from actual work. ^_^

(more…)

So. I know I often complain about my life, and me, and the suffocating madness that threatens to overwhelm me.

But sometimes, I get reminded that my life isn’t that bad.

It’s the New Year.

Happy New Year, everyone~. May 2007 turn out to be a good year for you.

As the title suggests this is going to be a lot less focused than what I normally write, so don’t worry if nothing makes any sense.

Nana 2 is a mess. Don’t bother watching it. The subtitle for the movie should probably go something like “Hachi sleeps around and makes a mess of things”. The music is also noticeably poorer than the first movie, which is a huge let down. As for the acting… Miyazaki Aoi turned in such an inspired performance as Hachi last time I kept thinking during the entire movie “Urrgh. I don’t like this new girl very much”. The other replacements are a mixed bunch - Ren just looks like he’s pissed off 24/7, but the replacement for Shin was very welcome, as his youth brings back what was missing from the last actor. Nakashima Mika, however, still gives a very strong performance as Nana, but, as can be guessed from my suggested subtitle, there really isn’t as much place for her to shine this time. Overall, to re-emphasize the point - this isn’t worth seeing. Give it a miss.

So I also went out to town to see if there were any sales around. It turns out that unlike Singapore, everything (or a lot of stores anyway) friggin’ close on New Year’s Day, and the sales start tomorrow, on Jan 2nd. Already there are lines forming outside places like Shinjuku’s 109 - so who says only gamers are crazy enough to queue up in the blistering cold for hours, hmm? :P I reckon I’ll pop by the Zara store tomorrow to see what they have too, I guess.

I like fish. A lot. And Tokyo is a great place to be if you like fish. Waiting till 9.30 at night and pedaling on my bike to the nearby Ito-Yokado for 50% discounted sushi/sashimi/fish etc is something I do pretty often. Like I was telling Xephyris just now:

” You know what? This is remarkably shallow, but to me, right now, happiness is 2 packs of nearly expired Tuna sashimi bought for 300 yen, with 2-day-old-left-in-the cooker-rice for dinner.”

*20 minutes later*

“Uh oh.

I feel rumblings in my stomach already.

Watch as half an hour later my happiness turns into “Oh gawd, why was I so stupid to buy nearly expired sashimi. AND TO EAT IT WITH 2 DAY OLD RICE”

I still haven’t finished FFXII yet. Why? Because I’m nearing the end game and the GAWDDEMN INSANE AMOUNTS OF FARMING THAT NEED TO BE DONE ARE PISSING ME OFF RARRRGGGHHH!!! RANDOM TREASURE CHESTS ARE BAD! BAD BAD BAD BAD!!! YOU WILL GIVE ME THAT DAMN EXCALIBUR AND STOP MAKING ME RUN ACROSS THE FRIGGIN’ MAP!

I think deep down I’m actually a pretty simple person. I don’t spend my free time thinking deep thoughts, and while I can appreciate people taking the time to reflect upon things, I’m too much of a believer in the “Let people think whatever the hell they want” school of thought to care too much about any single person’s opinions, especially if they differ from mine. So yes, you can tell me you’re a complex person, but there’s little you can do to make me think your point of view isn’t complete and utter garbage.

In other words, yes, I am hopelessly self-absorbed and think I am always right MUHOOHAHAH.

The end.