Waxin’ Lyrical

This is one of the songs I translated during Waxin’ Lyrical’s LONG period of downtime…

NANA, if you haven’t seen it yet, is actually a pretty damn good movie. The acting is very well done - the 2 leads, especially, carry the entire movie on the strength of their performances with aplomb.

The sequel is out in Japan right now too, although unfortunately there’s been quite a few cast changes, including Miyazaki Aoi being cut from the role of Hachi. I wonder if I can get someone to go see it with me in the cinema…

(more…)

and he mucked around with the Wordpress installation, and lo,
for he created a separate display page for posts in the lyrics category,
and this was done with a simple hack,
and the lyrics posting now work again.
And there was much rejoicing.

And even if there was not much rejoicing, xephyris doesn’t want to know, because in his head there was much rejoicing, and he wants to go slack off for now and play some games.

But before that.

I’ve accumulated some of my own Japanese smileys in all the time I’ve been playing MMORPGs, browsing 2ch and generally doing things with my time which could have probably been other more productive things, so here’s one:

ｷﾀ━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━ッ!!
One of the most important ones in my smiley vocabulary. This is used whenever something happens that one feels deserves mentioning, for example:

(On seeing an F grade in the results sheet) Fｷﾀ━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━ッ!!
(On seeing someone riding a horse in the street) うま、ｷﾀ━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━ッ!!

The possibilities are endless.

One of my favourite songs on the 夕凪LOOP album.

(more…)

I’d appreciate all advice regarding how I should implement the fields in WL’s lyrics section using Wordpress.

Right now I have the fields implemented as a set of custom fields in a post, but I’m not sure if there’re other better ways of doing this. I know of Custom Field GUI, and will be using that, but I’m open to suggestions.

Edit: This seems sufficient for now. Custom Field GUI doesn’t do what we need, but thankfully Wordpress itself has a very useable custom-field interface.

Visitors may notice quite a few changes while I break WL’s layout here and there so I can customise WL’s appearance, this is intentional - it’s part of my phase by phase WL upgrade plan, according to the software development methodology I studied in software engineering cla(ry

Ok, ok, I’ll admit it. It’s just me being lazy and working on little bits of WL at once.
べ、別に君のためにサイトの更新しているわけじゃないんだからな！勘違いしないでくれよな！

So I’ve spent the last 3 hours doing absolutely nothing while thinking I should eventually quit browsing weird sites and actually do work.

No such luck, obviously, for someone like me.

I thought I might as well just write some less angsty stuff here on Waxin’ Lyrical for a change.

———–

I like living in Tokyo. I really do.

Yes, it’s true that I still feel like a foreigner here pretty often, since my Nipponese skills are still far from fluent. Yes, it’s true that I still can’t think of this place as my home - I don’t know enough friends I can depend upon for absurd favors, I don’t know enough places to claim as a haunt of mine, and culturally some things still befuddle me.

But life here in Tokyo, right here, right now, is actually very comfortable.

Work is, quite frankly, a joke compared to the continual ass-raping I’ve recieved from Cornell. The students here as well in ICU, are a far cry from the self-motivated, dedicated to excellence smart gits that push me to my limits and beyond so often that surround me back there in cold Ithaca. And while the academic side of me once again realises the inherent value of the sickening amount of tuition my parents pay to Cornell, the more… laid-back side of me realises that this is more the kind of life that I would like to live.

There is time enough here, time and the accumulation of 12 million other people, that allows me to indulge myself every so often. Time to do crazy stuff like line up outside Akihabara for the Playstation 3 launch, time to sing Karaoke with a bunch of rowdy misfits till 6 in the morning. Time to sit on a grassy knoll and realise life isn’t all that bad. Time to appreciate the turning of the leaves, a crimson blaze framed among a sea of yellow. Time to spend on Sunday nights, in a smoky little jazz bar, watching somewhat bemusedly at the facial contortions my friend makes as she loses herself in the music of her twinkly fingers. Time to encourage others to not think so much about the future, to love someone here and now for all she’s worth, though that same philosophy hasn’t exactly served me well so far. Time to reaffirm to myself that I *am* a proud wolf standing alone in the dark. Time to sample the little pleasures, like getting hungry at 3am and being able to cycle to the 7-11 a block down from my apartment. Time to remember the magic I felt when I was young as my housemate brings back some dry-ice from Baskin Robbins’ and we spend half an hour playing with the stuff. Time to make my way to a faraway subway station with nothing but a map, my bicycle, and some sense of luck and direction. Time to attend a Noh performance and realise there really is nothing more to it than just people going “YOOOOOO~~~~” all the damn time. Time to propose a toast to friends, to mean it, and to drink it all down in a gulp. Time to wonder why the fnark people like drinking so much as my head pounds so much from all the alcohol I can’t even sleep.

There is time here, for all of these things, and more. This is the life I wanted - the kind of life balancing both school work and time for friends, for myself and the crazy acts of insanity I make myself do so often to convince myself that I am not nobody. This is the kind of life I had at Cornell during that first magical summer, before regular classes took over and decided it was time to kick the ass-raping machine into high gear and never let up.

Indeed, now that I look back at it, life back at Cornell was actually pretty bleak, save for one person being there for me.

Before I came, I asked her several times if I should come. I told her if she were to say the word I’d abandon all thought of coming here to Tokyo. She told me to go, and so I did. Now that she’ll no longer be there, I sometimes dread thinking what it means to go back to Cornell.

But those are dark thoughts for another day, another time. For now though, there is time aplenty - time enough to convince me I might make something of myself yet. Here, there is still time to live, to dream. Here, there is still time to appreciate each day as it goes by, simply, slowly, gently. Here, there is still time for me to wonder what I’ll make for dinner tonight, for me to look forward to Nodame Cantabile on Monday nights. Here, there is still time for me sit leisurely in a cafe watching the world pass me by, clad in fashion most fine.

Here, there is still time to dream.

-Stranger

Panadol Cold Relief > 1000mg Vitamin C + Zinc supplements > Chicken Soup.

-xephyris.

This post should conclude the series of me coming to terms with the breakup, I guess.
———
(Originally written on Dec 2nd.

After my ex sent me her reply following me confronting her on MSN, I called and asked (actually twice, since I’m a friggin’ retard) if she would come to Japan for Christmas.

She said no.

I asked her to tell me something. She asked what.

“Tell me you don’t love me anymore.”

“…I don’t love you anymore”. )

“I don’t love you anymore”.

Cold, sharp, cutting to the bone. I didn’t have any doubt that she would say it, not with the way things have turned out between us. But I didn’t expect it to still hurt as much as it did.

“I don’t love you anymore”. No trace of hesitation, said without a hint of stumbling, in a scarily bright, cheerful voice.

Her life is now hers once again. Nothing I say, do or feel will change that, ever again.

“I don’t love you anymore”.

It hurt, but I needed to hear her say it.

———————–

Epilogue (written today, here and now. ^_^):

I’ve over-indulged myself over these past few days, writing for far too long on this topic. While it may indeed take me much longer to fully get over her, I hope that at least whatever’s written here will stop focusing solely on that.

In the end, though she has changed into, what I think, is a pretty horrible person, I find myself unable to truly hate her, as much as I might want to. I am, after all, far too sentimental a person. Some chunk of my heart has her name carved upon it, like an elaborate scar pattern. Some days I can’t help tracing over it, remembering better days.

For now though. I really should get over her.

Only happy songs to be played now, please.

-Stranger

Part 4 today. Part 5 should be the last, unless I feel the urge to write an epilogue again.

There are happier news I could be reporting on, but I don’t really want to sully this piece with out-of-place brightness.

——–
(Originally written on December 1st, just before I do something really really stupid again. Which I’ll write about in Part 5, I guess)

Sometimes I wonder how it feels like on the other side.

Love is a many-splendoured thing, of that I have little doubt. The smell of her hair, her gentle unfurrowed face as she lies asleep, unaware of my looking at her - those are the things that remind me how utterly disarming being in love feels like. Your daily pretences, the little lies you tell yourself and everyone around you to get through the day, all cast aside in the presence of her being. Your guarded responses, your deliberate replies lose all meaning when she’s around, and you bask in the purity of her love.

Past experience, further fortified by recent events, have, of course, reminded me that this feeling is not necessarily mutual, however much it may seem so.

What is it, then, that the other half feels?

Romantic, sentimental, naive, clingy. All adjectives that fittingly describe my present state of mind, I guess. After my inital wary defences have been dismantled, after I’ve reassured myself that, hey, this time around she could be the one, I can say, with nary a hint of hesitation or reserve, that I love with all of my heart. I love with a passion. I pour my all and everything into the relationship, giving it everything I possibly can. As the inital days of bliss turn to weeks, months and years, my love remains steady, resolute, unflinching. I say this, again with no trace of shyness or attempt to qualify, merely because this is who I am, because this is what I do. I love with a passion, and the passion smoulders ever on, even in the cold darkness of the nights when you’re away.

I love, but she no longer does. What does she feel then?

What does it feel like, realising that you’re the one to be held responsible for killing off the relationship?

I pose this pointed question, admittedly in part because some part of me still blames her for her unfeeling remorselessness, but also because I genuinely would like to know, because this isn’t the first time this has happened to me, and also because asking around has revealed, rather discomfortingly to me, that quite a few girls do exactly the same thing.

If you know that the reason why your relationship ended was because you’ve changed into someone else, someone who no longer needs that love you once thought you couldn’t live without, someone who has no qualms breaking the heart of the one who used to mean so much to you - how do you look at yourself in the mirror?

Is there not a trace of guilt, of shame, of regret?

“It’s not you… it’s me… I don’t deserve you… I hope you find someone more like you”, says the cold unflinching monster she’s become. If that’s really true, what’s with all the attempts to justify your actions as something I would have done as well? What’s with all the bullshite excuses you give, with the boldfaced lies thrown in my face?

Do you not realise what a horrible person you’ve become?

Are those lies you tell for my sake, or for yours, to somehow convince yourself you’re still a decent person? What does it feel like, knowing exactly what you’ve become?

One day, I will love again. One day, thought it may be far away, I will rise up again, be willing to risk everything and all for someone else again, this I know. One day, I will love again.

But you?

Can you possibly know the same? Can you possibly think that you will be worthy of love again? Can you possibly believe that you will meet someone else whose love you will not grow tired of, though you once professed the same to me?

How does it feel to be like that?

That’s what I would like to know. But it seems a moot point, really, because if she were the kind of person to feel that way… we’d still be together, wouldn’t we?

-Stranger

This is getting to be a daily thing…

The 2nd half of this Part 3 was actually written on the same day as Part 4 (which, I guess, judging from trends, will be posted tomorrow) The reason why I’m splitting it up is because, not only is Part 4 really long, but it’s probably the one I feel deepest about, hence I believe it probably should get its own section.

———–

(Originally written around November 25th or so? What happened between this entry and the last was, well, the aforementioned dithering. She began leaving suspious status messages on her MSN account (in FRENCH, no less), and while I hated doing this roundabout “I’m not really talking to you but here’s what I think hahahaha~” game, I was (and probably still am) too much of a sentimental fool to leave that alone. I responded in like kind with messages that could easily be read as responses to her messages.

Some time around this period I also found out she had sent a mail to one of our mutual friends, whom I’ll call A. This was kinda significant in that this Awas someone I had talked to who was, and still in, a similiar predicament, in that A is thinking she should leave her boyfriend of a few years for nearly the exact same reasons my ex was giving me. A never told me the specific contents of my ex’s mail, but apparently my ex wanted to talk to “a friend of my ex-boyfriend”.

This, coupled with the above silly MSN games, made me think that she wanted to get back together. And then she sent a mail to that effect, saying she still missed the times she spent with me and had thought several times about asking me to take her back. I recieved this email on my Monday morning, her Sunday night. I hummed and hawed, and the second I told another friend of ours I was going to call my ex she appeared online. I asked her if she was free to talk and the reply she gave me was basically “I’m sorry, I have a lot of homework due tomorrow and a test I have no idea who’s going on about in on Wednesday. Is Thursday alright?”

Understandably, I was more than a little pissed. I obviously still felt a lot for her, and she just sent me an email saying she still thought about me. And then she told me “Hey, I’ve got homework. Would you mind waiting 4 days?”. I basically told her off, before telling her I still missed her but couldn’t be with her anymore if she was going to keep putting other things before me. She apologised, asked for time and wondered if I would pick up when she called. I said I would.

She never called, but she sent a letter.

This part comes from after reading that letter. )

A month and a half now.

You looked back once. Or at least, you pretended to. Or, perhaps, you thought you wanted to. It matters little now.

You looked back once, but you turned your head back again, quickly. And I, for my part, continued playing the role I play so well, tried to let your gaze linger, tried to make you see what you had been missing, what still lay within your grasp.

You looked back, but other things caught your eye.
——————-

(Originally written on December 1st)
There are times. Times when everything seems like it’s going well, when it looks like I have, in some way, put to rest the events of the recent past. Times when it looks like my pride, while hurt, broken and bruised, seems relatively intact, egging me on to live my life, her frivolous heart be damned. Times like those come a lot easier when I’m with friends, when their concerned questions of “How’re you taking it?” demands a cool, composed “Eh. I’ll get over it.” Times when the olde swagger in my step harkens back in my footfalls, when my disdainful eyes cast passing judgement on all I see, times when I walk, tall, proud, and unyielding to all. Times when I think “Fine. She’s chosen her path, and my path was decided by me a long time ago”, and I work actively, decisively in bringing that path to fruition.

And then there are times that just creep up behind me, on feather-fleet tiptoe. Gently, softly, so it goes, until the knife is thrust deep into my heart, and I feel the blade turn, and twist, carving its bloody, messy path whichever way it pleases. Times when I can physically feel the pain of loss, times when the agony climaxes in a pulsing crescendo, and I am bent over, unable to speak, unable to do naught but hurt.

Times like today.

——————-

-Stranger