Friend is the Family You Choose 3/27/2007 10:15:00 PM

Recently, a guy moaned about how our class mailing list seems to be lacking “warmth”. People seem to be more interested in posting forwarded e-mails or job ads rather than sending encouraging words or their own life-inspiring stories. People have their own reasons for doing so, like being so busy with their new life that they don’t have the time to write anything original, being contented enough by being passive member of the list, and so forth.

For me, and many others I suspect, the reason was plain enough: writing about my hopes and fears on the list just feels uncomfortable. Actually, I’m not the type of person who’s contented enough by keeping her own thoughts for herself. I don’t share them with just anybody, though. I only share them with my closest people: friends and families. Or to say it in other words, which would make me sound like a cold-hearted b****rd I’m sure, I only perceive most people on that list (my classmates) as acquaintance--snot friends. At least not “friends” in its’ truest sense of word.

Friends are basically the people you feel comfortable with. There cannot be a more adequate way to say it than the above phrase: “friend is the family you choose”. When you’re with family, you don’t hold back (at least that’s what it’s like in my family). You can say and do things (well, most of the things) freely without being afraid of making fun of yourself. And when you do make fun of yourself, you could care less because you know your family wouldn’t make a big deal of it (except at times, when they use those embarrassing moments as memento for their own personal pleasure :D).

In other words, your family should’ve known who you really are. So, there’s no point in restraining yourself against them. Being with your friends is exactly like that. After all, the only difference between friend and family is that you get to choose your friends, but not your family.

In the end of the day, it really can’t be helped, though. Some people treat everybody they know as “friends”, not just “acquaintances”. I’ll have to accept that I’m not that kind of person. Sorry for not being THAT friendly.

TSUBASA RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE chapter 146 (CLAMP) 3/18/2007 06:43:00 PM

“Arabian Nights” is a good example on how a story-teller should bring up her/his story. Keep the audience in suspense the whole time the story is being presented. Leave the story at the opportune place so that the audience would crave for more. I don’t think CLAMP would need to turn to “Arabian Nights” for guidance though, because they’re successfully doing so in Chapter 146. They leave enough (not too much, not too little) information for speculation and at the same time, leaving us curious to what will happen next. Just brilliant.

Chapter 146 consists mostly of fighting scene between Syaoran and the robot (automata). But that’s not the reason why it’s so interesting.

Reason no. 1: Fai, his mental state, and his interaction with Kurogane. Now that Ashura-ou had awakened (once again reminded by Chii), it seemed that Fai was thinking about running away. It’s not stated explicitly, but we can assume that from Fai’s thought and gesture. Then, out of nowhere (well, not really), Kurogane grabbed his (Fai’s) arm. (Fangirls would be squealing seeing it; I know I did ^_~)

This particular scene perfectly mimics the infirmary scene in Card Captor Sakura (when Yukito stopped Touya). It’s also equally as important. Call me crazy for overanalyzing things, but Kurogane doing so signified once again that he cares about Fai, that he knew something was amiss about Fai, and still, he didn’t give a damn about it (to make it fair, I’m sure that the rest of the company feel the same way).

The interesting thing was that how surprised Fai looked receiving the gesture. After what Kurogane (and others) had done for him, Fai should’ve known how much he cared about him. It looked as if Fai never had people truly cared for him his whole life that when somebody really did, he had hard time believing it.

Reason no. 2 (and this one’s substantially more important than “reason no. 1”): the future Sakura saw in her dream. I have to admit, I’m rather confused about it. In the previous chapters, Sakura declared that she wished to be able to cross dimension alone and choose which dimension to go because there’s something she wanted to change about the future. So, I always assume that the future she wanted to change would be happening in that particular dimension, not in Infinity. However, in Chapter 146, Sakura said that “The future I saw in the dream was something in this final battle. I won’t allow such a thing”. I’m completely at loss there.

But just lets’ forget my confusion for now. There’s something else about the dream, which is purely (my) speculation, but it’s worth to think about. At the scene where Sakura said that the future she had seen had been something in that final battle, glasses were shattered around her (it looked exactly like the scene in “X” where Hinoto mentioned about her dream). On those shattered glasses, there were faces of Syaoran and Kurogane. But Fais’ wasn’t there. Does it mean that the future had something to do with Fai? Will something bad happen to him during the course of the fight?

We’ll just happen to wait for next week to find out the answer. Hopefully, we’ll see what the future is (and whether Sakura could change it or not) and what Fai’s true motive really is (and if we’re lucky, more about his background).

In Dreams Begin Responsibilities 3/16/2007 07:29:00 PM

“In dreams begin responsibilities”. It’s actually the title of a short story (?) about a boy who had the most unusual occurrences--he later found out that it was just a dream when he woke up, on the morning of his birthday. It’s not the story that makes me hooked up (I never read the story in the first place ^_^, LOL), but rather, it’s the phrase itself: “in dreams begin responsibilities”. I’ll tell you why.

One would easily notice that I’m the kind of person who’s obsessed over the concept of “personal dreams” (or “goals”, whatever floats your boat). I have this strong belief: only by having particular goals (and trying to fulfill those goals) in life that we’ll be able to add meaning to our miserable existence. People might disagree with that notion and if you’re one of them, suit yourself!

However, it is not enough. We’re not alone in this world and it’s only natural if we consider others during the course of our personal dreams fulfillment. Without doing so, we’ll just end up like one of those selfish b....rds who are happily sucking up blood of the powerless. Those people can all go to hell and I certainly don’t want to be like them, thank you very much. We have the responsibility to share a bit of our dreams to others. The time when we start dreaming is the time we start to take upon THAT responsibility.

Still confused?

Imagine yourself as a kid who just saw a police officer for the first time. You’re very much impressed by the police’s helpfulness and friendliness that from that moment on, you decided to become a police officer when you grew up. Or imagine reading a book. A very impressive book. It’s so impressive that it made you want to be a writer one day.

From that moment on, is it too much if one asks you--the dreamer--to become a police officer who’s equally as heroic or a writer who could make a work that touches people’s heart such as the ones who had once inspired you? I don’t think it’s too much of a request to make. And if that’s really the case, I don’t think you would mind either. In fact, I’m sure that’s exactly the type of police officer or a writer that you want to be.

Just give the idea a thought. I’m sure you’ll find me right sooner or later (and if you don’t, who cares?). Until next time, sweet dreams!

Author’s Notes: Sorry for the foul words. I just feel like it.

Confession of an NEET Individual 3/13/2007 07:08:00 PM

The saying “the grass is always greener on the other side” is absolutely right. When I was still in school, I couldn’t wait until the next holiday came. However, when I was in an NEET (not in employment, education, and training) state--which means that every day is a holiday--I feel like I want to go back to those school days.

The problem is, my life after graduation is rather monotonous. Well, boring and unproductive are probably more accurate, but you get the point. My daily activity now mostly consists of watching TV, playing video games, browsing the internet, and reading books. Dull, eh? That’s why “distractions”--like the translation job that I got some time ago--are always welcome. Regardless of that, I suspect that once I’ve got a job, I would probably want to return to my current state of idleness.

My sleeping pattern is also significantly altered. These days, I go to bed after midnight nearly every day because TV programs are more interesting then. When everybody else is sleeping soundly, I feel energetic and not sleepy at all. On the contrary, it’s no wonder that I feel sleepy during the day.

This piece is pointless, really, and I only write this because I’m bored.

By the way, I think I’ll split this blog into some categories like “rambling”, “review”, “insight”, etc. Probably by doing that will make me less lazier to update--since I have the tendency not to update regularly if I don’t have anything “spectacular” to write about. See you in the (hopefully) near future!