That was a sequence from NHK ni Yokoso! An anime I finished watching recently that only just finished its run in Japan. I think its pretty damn awesome, but I've been known to be wrong. So watch it and come to your own conclusions.
I also really liked that song for a long time, it was stuck in my head for a very long time.
On a completely unrelated note, check this article out, and as an afterthought, this one too. Useful reading for those who aspire to be informed gamers/ internet policy thinkers :P
Declaration of my feelings for you Elaboration on those feelings Description of how long these feelings have existed Belief that no one else could feel the same as I Reminiscence of the pleasant times we shared And our relationship's perfection Recounting of the steps that led to our love's dissolution Mostly involving my unfaithfulness and lies Penitent admission of wrongdoing Discovery of the depth of my affection Regret over the lateness of my epiphany
(Chorus) Title of the song Naïve expression of love Reluctance to accept that you are gone Request to turn back time And rectify my wrongs Repetition of the title of the song
Enumeration of my various transgressive actions Of insufficient motivation Realization that these actions led to your departure And my resultant lack of sleep and appetite Renunciation of my past insensitive behavior Promise of my reformation Reassurance that you still are foremost in my thoughts now Need for instructions how to gain your trust again Request for reconciliation Listing of the numerous tasks that I'd perform Of physical and emotional compensation
(Chorus)
Acknowledgment that I acted foolishly Increasingly desperate pleas for your return Sorrow for my infidelity Vain hope that my sins are forgivable Appeal for one more opportunity Drop to my knees to elicit crowd response Prayers to my chosen deity Modulation and I hold a high note...
(Chorus)
Incidentally I thought this was funny too, so enjoy...
The day before Christmas eve... it was chilly out. The snow fell in big puffed up blotches of white that covered the sky and blotted out light. It was transient, a fragmentary moment, like a leaf that flutters in the wind, only to plunge after a sudden gust, plummeting to the dirty ashphalt of the street to be trampled and forgotten in the mists of five minutes ago. It was just another moment in time... yet somehow different...
The snow came furiously, in torrents, as if to make up for the dry spell that the Twin Cities had felt for the past three months I had been there. Faith was jumping excitedly, exclaiming "there's snow! there's snow". The rest of us smiled and contentedly looked on, going about the business of setting our new house up. Serene and tranquil, what better way was there to spend the weekend before Christmas? Probably something if I bothered to think of it, but I didn't, after all, I was content, that scene was enough for me.
It looked like the snow would go on for awhile, but I got up with a camera and took a shot anyway. A good idea as it turned out, for the snow stopped falling ten minutes later and didn't come again except in tiny flurries, almost insignificant in comparison with the snow storm before it. It was a funny feeling though, here was I, a young, inexperienced teenager living for the first time in a foreign land seeing snowfall for the first time and... everything was, well... almost disappointing. All of us have certain dreams, certain aspirations and expectations, certain ideal visions of what certain things are like. Like a desert Oasis, a paradise of shade and refreshment in the middle of searing sands and blazing sun. Or the picturesque sunset on a beach in Hawaii, with the sun setting in the distant blue ocean, casting lazy orange glows on the whole sky. Here was one of those ideal visions right in front of me, fresh billowy snowfall, only it wasn't so ideal, there was no soft dramatic music, or wonderful spell of insight. It was just an ordinary moment, a little colder mayhap, but there it was, and it passed without incident. Another ideal vision, crushed under the foot of reality, another hardening of the soul, a preparation for the underwhelming truth of life.
Yet, I was grateful, for it is in these moments that we learn what life is about. Hollywood schools us to believe in the 'Great Romance', and 'Grand Adventure'. Novels and Pop Culture make us look for our own 'Happily ever after'. A vain search it seems to me, because our lives will always be filled with a vague uncertainty. One that can only be filled with belief in God, and contentment with what his grace has presented us with. Mayhap, that is hard to swallow, maybe I don't fully believe it yet either, because in my heart of hearts, and maybe in all of ours too, we all want to believe the dream, even if we know it doesn't exist...
Perhaps one day I will learn to be content with the ordinary. Perhaps one day we will all see our hopes and wants for what they are, and see the world for what it is, not what we want it to be. The road is long and winding, but I'm taking small steps day by day, living out the ordinary moments of my life... because thats what life is about.
So another year passes by, and we come to that time of the year again. That joyous day which every fortunate child looks forward to with yearning and happy expectation. No presents for guessing it (you should be getting presents anyway, unless you're a sad, friendless, kinless and hence very sorry individual, you have my sympathies), its Christmas.
For those of you who are lagging behind on news of current events, this is my first Christmas in the 'land of the free', also my first 'white Christmas', and well, to put a long story short, after the hectic bustle of my first term at Hamline University, the relaxed Christmas I have nearly finished spending here was a welcome change (despite the charged and energetic efforts of my Dad for it to be otherwise). The wind is strong, the fire pleasant, the sister sleeping, and the laptop working, for these I am grateful.
I even got a guitar stand out of the deal, awesome Christmas in my books : )
So, here's hoping yours was just as fun! Happy holidays, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
and now for the post-post messages:
-Happy Birthday to Jeanette in advance, hope you're having fun having a break from school in Singapore.
-Despite the glowing qualities a white Christmas is given in the song 'I'm dreaming of a White Christmas', I think it's kinda overrated. At least in St Paul anyway. The snow is thawing after a 'out of nowhere' rise in temperature. The wind is strong so its still freezing outside after windchill is taken into account, and everything, and I mean everything is closed, even walmart I think. Meh, oh well.
Been busy meeting my brother and slacking off instead of writing papers. Will endeavor to get to real work, which means even less blogging than now. Check back come the 21st.
If you're really bored, you can check out my 'electronic portfolio'. The username you can use is Sonali and the password is password. Happy holidays folks.
My buddy youwei has been talking about some issues on his blog recently, about cruelty and environmental concerns and general nastiness in society. I think its a worthy discussion even if not much is gonna happen even if we talk about it. All we can do is pray I guess : P
To expand on what he referred to as "the selfishness of man", it seems that often we quail in the face of the cruelty our fellows have inflicted on others. We hear the news about starving children in Bosnia, genocide in Darfur, devatsation in Lebanon but we don't do much about it. A reporter filming a grisly scene of war in a Hollywood movie (I can't remember the name) makes this comment after being asked whether the footage will help the suffering people in the war-torn 3rd world country they are in: "People will look at it and go, "oh thats awful". And then they'll sit down, have dinner with their families and forget about it."
We receive horrible news often on a daily basis, everyday there is a new tragedy for our sympathy and mourning, delivered to us in a crisp english accent from the mass media. If one pays attention, we realize that there is so much devastation and horror taking place as we speak that it is mind-numbing. Atrocities are committed faster than we can even think about and as such, we don't bother. The result of this bombardment of horror is desensitization and apathy.
Maybe part of the reason why we don't care is because we don't see any way we can help the aggrieved. Maybe thats true. Humanity has always shot itself in the foot in increasingly new and novel ways. We race to invent interesting ways to blow ourselves up, choke ourselves with inhaled tar and/or poison ourselves with pollution. With all this rot going on, its hard not to believe that humanity is bringing itself to ruin.
In the face of all this tragedy, it is easier to turn our minds to what we think we can change, like injustice toward animals! Instead of bothering with the hard problems, lets deal with the cute fuzzy-wuzzies and go on strike so we can make life harder for everyone. Lets cast into doubt all our sources of food, while Children in Africa starve, so we can feel better about ourselves!
It's not like I'm against animal rights or anything, but like I commented on Youwei's blog, in the face of cruelty we inflict and let happen to our own kind, the stuff we do to animals is inconsequential by comparison. I say save the oppressed in Darfur before the rabbits! Too bad nobody seems to care...
On a more cheerful note, Yunxing's birthday should be somewhere in the region of this week. Happy Birthday Yunxing!
You know those times when you look around and wonder how you got where you are. When you look back over your shoulder and see everything you once looked forward to, once hoped and dreamed for, scurrying away in the dust of time. When you wonder where in the world all that time you had went off to, and wonder again, in your heart of hearts, where in the world you're headed.
The future is always uncertain it seems. Who would have dreamed that my Oldest Brother would work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? Or that my Father would have returned after 20 years to teach in St Paul? Who would have dreamed that I would be enrolled at a University before even taking the O'levels!? Joy, happiness, excitement, relief and overwhelming pride. Who wouldn't feel that way? Yet the novelty wears off, and as much as being a 16 year-old freshmen in college is extremely prestigious and exciting and 'all that', it gets tired. Everyone around me is older, larger, I feel small, out of place in this big fast-paced world. Its not that I can't handle the work, the lowest grade I've gotten on work I've handed in is A-, far better than I did in Singapore. I'm ahead of most of my fellows, and on good standing with all my professors. I have friends who I talk to, a band I play in, a Christian fellowship and biblestudy I attend regularly, most of them don't even know how much younger I am than they are. Yet I feel awkward at times, as if I don't deserve to be there.
In many ways I do deserve it. I grasp the concepts flying around in my Religion class. Think deeply about whats going on (or at least I like to think so). In English, its clear from the discussions that I'm one of the more cogent contributors. My grades thus far have outstripped anyone I've cared to compare them with. Yet I feel undeserving, like everything I've gained is a flood of unbelievably good luck. Maybe it is, and I am merely overrating myself. Regardless, all of it doesn't matter, because slowly, I'm beginning to hate living here. I don't know how my older brothers managed it, living away from home. I even have Dad here with me and plenty of warm and friendly faces. However, I still can't stop myself from hating it a little, from missing home a lot. I can't stop myself from being so damn unhappy! America isn't all it's made out to be, I'm frustrated with its un-Singaporeaness.
My Dad told me that I may not be able to go back to Singapore in the Summer because of Singapore's strict policy toward pre-NS males trying to get University degrees. As much as I understand his good intent in saying so and appreciate the effort he put in to get me into University in the first place; as much as I love my Dad, I can't help but hate him a little for that, for this whole mess of Singaporean NS law and University life. It isn't his fault I know; everything is for my own good; I know that too. It doesn't make me like it any better, and the prospect of not being able to go home and see everyone I love and miss, just makes it all depressingly bleak, a cesspool of anger and irritance.
I'm not terribly oppposed to National Service. I buy the PAP rhetoric on it being neccessary for Singapore and whatnot. But at times like this, principle is clouded by the emotional and practical detriments incurred by it. Serving my country is all very well and good, but why can't I get a degree abroad before coming back to do it? Why must I stay away from my own country so that I can avoid being stopped from studying and bettering myself even though I have no intention of avoiding National Service in the first place. There are reasons for this I know, not terribly good ones, but justifiable ones nonetheless. Yet I feel the need to rage against them, to decide them to be undeniably evil and unjust so I point my self-righteous finger and curse them and shift my attention away from my loss. A temporary loss to be sure, but a painful one nonetheless. I wan't to see the friends I left, the home I grew up in, is that so selfish?
A part of me wants to say "no, you're perfectly justified in feeling that way, and fie on any who would deny what you know to be true". Another part screams "yes", a muffled scream, smothered by the strong hand of emotion. I want to go home, ironically, its not mine anymore. We sold it and now my Oldest Brother lives in an apartment in Serangoon (I think, I'm not even sure of that). It brings to mind buddhist dogma, "void is existence, existence is void" all time is transient, all endeavor meaningless, the belief in the cycle of the ages, the wisdom of futility. But I don't want to believe that, time has to be headed somewhere, life has meaning, purpose! We were put on this Earth for a reason, right!? To improve the lot of our fellow man, to bring peace where there is war, to spread the word of God and worship him as our lord and savior! Are these not what we are called to do? Why then am I so unsure about it? What can I do, in the face of indomnitable reality? Quail and cower, and live a meaningless life in the knowledge that all existence is so? What point is there in this dark and terrible world of "giving it your best" and "reaching for the sky"? I can't reach it, and I'm tired of trying...
Maybe this is just a rut I'm in, a little pothole in the long and winding road of life. I shall try to clamber out, and walk the narrow path. I shall work my way and slog my guts into a half-way decent GPA. Maybe tomorrow, if the sun is shining and the wind is pleasant, I will feel better about this whole nasty business of living in the world. Maybe tomorrow. Right now, I just wanna curl up into a ball and dream of good things...
because real life is so much harder than the movies...
The home stretch is starting, the finishing line in sight. It is the beginning of the end, the end to all homework and eleventh hour scrambling. It is the opening ray of the dawn that chases away the twilight; the holy light that drives away the darkness of winter. The burning fire that annhilates every vestige of despair. Peril must be faced to reach it, and none save the most valiant and stout-hearted shall make it through unscathed. But its glory overwhelms that. Our goal is in sight brethren! Look to it and weep, for it comes to liberate you!
In other words, my term ends in two weeks or so and with it come tons of papers, projects, last minute research, and nail-biting deadline-rushing. It'll be grand when its over.
You guys on the other hand should have plenty of time, so check out this electone player's music. I think its downright awesome what you can do with that synth she has, maybe Youwei should look into that eh?
