Waxin’ Lyrical

I got asked to translate this:

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…

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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.

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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！

I HAVE INTERNET AT HOME YAY!

So anyway, inspired by a conversation I had with a friend recently, I thought it’d be fun to see a few smileys my friends here in Japan use. So much more expressive than just your simple everyday :)

～(｀O´)//┻┻

This is probably my favorite. It’s showing someone so upset he took the table and turned it upside down. XD

。・゜゜(>_<)゜
I’m not entirely sure what this one is supposed to be, but I like to think of it as someone having read something he didn’t like and crushing it and throwing it away. ;p

m(_ _)m
Pretty common, but I still like it - it’s basically someone kow-towing towards you. =)

Σ(゜Д゜)
ZOMG SHOCK! =O

I’m sure Xephyris has a few others he might like to share…

- Stranger

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