2001 More than words

It was just you and me sitting on the bench on those hot after school noons. We were talking and laughing about nothing in particular. It was just us stealing a chance to kiss for the first time in the darkness' arms, a kiss that brought by all other kisses and excitement trying to hide from the world. It was just us talking of how we were going to promise each other on the boat when we were older, how we would find each other again when the time came, no matter how long it has passed us by. It was just me and that song and the familiar pang in my heart for the memories of you, haunting me for this long ten years. Wondering when I could listen to the beautiful voice without having this invisible hands choking my throat and taking my breath away. But tonight I'm finally free from your ghost. I can wave goodbyes and thank yous for all you've given me. You still occupies a special part in my heart, for I will remember you with fondness and gratitude and even love, but it no longer hurts. It doesn't hurt anymore.

The Demented Genius Junji Ito

I LOVE HORROR, especially these with folklore touches and supernatural beings. I love Japanese horror movies and graphic, much more so than those of western, because of their originality and nightmare-invoking ability.

I've been reading several scanlated horror mangas from author Junji Ito, whose works had been translated into movies such as Uzumaki (Spiral), and Tomie series. Others will have a hard time trying to scare and impress me, but not this guy. His works are available here:
http://mangamature.com/manga/Flesh-Coloured-Horror
http://mangamature.com/search/?q=tomie
http://mangamature.com/manga/Mimi-s-Ghost-Stories
http://mangamature.com/manga/Uzumaki
http://mangamature.com/manga/Gyo
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/yami_no_koe/
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/shin_yami_no_koe_kaidan/

Before you go and start reading, heed my SUPER SERIOUS warning: this is not for you with weak stomachs or faint hearts, let alone you who always have nightmares. Also not for you with photographic memory or mental disturbances. THESE are MORE SCARY than "the Ring" , "the Grudge" and other "the-" something or other movies; MORE BLOODY and graphically disturbing than "Friday the 13th" (maybe still less than "Saw", but not by much).

This is a super-serious warning, since they left such strong impressions even for ME. So if you're ready to be immersed in his demented world even after my warning, go ahead and enjoy the reading.

Manga escapism

Many of you probably like to read manga, or Japanese comics that are so popular in Asia and other countries. Manga covers all kinds of genres, from friendship and love, to high-tech gimmic and mystery. You can pour all kinds of imagination you have into those sheets of papers and those tiny boxes of caricatures. That's why they are so entertaining and popular among young (and somewhat older) readers; they can be so intoxicating to some people up to a degree that they forget reality and spend their life daydreaming about the manga worlds.

Manga covers all kinds of genre, but some things they have in common are the emphasize of youth and (most of the time) male supremacy. The characters in manga are mostly high school age, with profession and capabilities of older people, and not to mention, impossible. Those youth characters are found as a professional gambler, detectives, CEO, swindler, or excellent students. Most excellence are shown by the leading male characters, and the leading females are depicted like a 'dumb-blonde' or just 'accessories' in the stories. If it was about love, it's almost always about an ordinary girl who fell in love with an extraordinary boy at her school, and rarely the other way around.

Male supremacy is something that's accepted almost wide-world, a touch of male supremacy can be found in every cultures or life style. What makes me wonder is the appeal of youth. What makes youth such an important factor in the story?

Of course manga is directed for young viewers. But in reality, youth goes by in a blink of an eye. Therefore it makes even more sad as the young readers get older, the fact spit in their face that you can no longer escape your age.

Are you afraid of the dark?

'Are you afraid of the dark?' is a TV series produced between 1991-1996, and 1999-2000. It run for seven season with 13 episodes each. The story evolves around supernatural and horror stories told by several members of Midnight Society, who were five or six teenagers with different backgrounds and lifestyles.

As their leader said, 'we don't go to the same school, we have different friends, but what draw us together is, the Dark': each episode run a story told by one member, in front of campfire at midnight. Most of the stories aren't that original (featuring ghost, goblins, vampires, ghouls. haunted mementos, etc), however some are quite new in term of ideas. The most appealing things about it are the way the story told and how the it happened to average teenagers, just like us. Well, us several years ago ;D

I happen to stumble on this series and apparently I like it a lot. It's a refreshment in this era where everything is all about sci-fi, detective and forensic science, cover model vampires and werewolves, or mumbo-jumbo cougar ladies soap operas. This is like coming back when everything was so simple: classic.

10 hours that makes me stronger

It's been a while since my last update. Many things have happened and changed, some people have come and some have gone away. But one thing is still the same: this is me in the middle of the night, alone in my room right after finishing my first assignment for tomorrow, it's time to sleep, and guess what? At a time like this the urge to write is suddenly so overwhelming; always at a time like this. Why can't it come at a better time, like, in the afternoon when I have nothing to do and just dozing off waiting for dinner?

Anyway, I'm beginning a new step in my life, closer to whatever I'm chasing, and I'm happy I can finally get here. There are still things left to be done, but at least all the essential things are here. I'm one of the three non-Dutch speaker person in the 70-people class (well I do speak Dutch better than the other two, but still), and I spend 2 hours everyday discussing about immune system and such, 2 hours again to do the assignments and read for the next day, 7 hours to sleep, 1.5hours in total to cook and eat, 45 minutes to take a shower and get pretty, 30minutes to cycle back and forth, and 10 hours left to spend as I like. Great! I wish...

For a period of almost two years, which ended just less than a month ago, I was running around for 9 hours a day at work, 1 hour busting my ass off doing Game2move or Step or Zumba, 7 hours to sleep, 1 hour to cycle around, 1 hour to eat, 45minutes to get pretty, which left me 4 hours to watch TV or get more sleep. Somehow I should have buckled down from all the rigorous things I did, but I didn't. Just like wise people say, what doesn't kill you make you stronger, and stronger was what I become. I grew some muscle I didn't know I have, I learned many things I didn't even know was possible, I was happy to know I deserve what I earned, and I found new family and people I cared about. At night I slept tightly because I know I'd done everything I could possibly do for one day.

Back to the present. With 10 hours to spend as I like and nothing or nobody to spend it with, I am lost and confused. My routine is disrupted greatly and at night I am not tired enough to sleep. That unsatisfied feeling linger, feeling that I haven't done enough and there's still many things to do. I start taking paracetamol and ibuprofen to help me sleep, watching some TV shows I've never ever watched otherwise, and I even go as far as doing laundry by hands just to let the clock ticking by faster. The quiet and privacy are great, but I miss my sport classes and rigorous biking. For at least 1 hour a day I miss the people who used to surround me 24/7, and I miss our gossip lunch and my 9 hours ass-busting work.

However, God is great indeed. He never let us suffer beyond our capabilities. Just before I get crazy of boredom, He guide me to a university sport center 3 minutes away from my home. They provide 40 different sport classes, there's always something for me so I can go there and sweating for at least one hour everyday. He guide me to an old friend whom I haven't met for a long time, and we spend great times together going to IKEA, building chairs and bookshelves, cooking some fancy stuffs, and talk an idling talks. He reunite me with someone who used to mean a lot to me at one point and have moved on, and through it He made me realize even more that what doesn't kill you, make you stronger.

That way, He show me a way to spend the 10hours left in my day.

Lesson from cats

I don't like cats. Infact, I would never had one even though it was given to me for free. I'm always into dogs. I would have a big lean labrador dog in the house if it was up to me. But bad luck, my sister and mother were totally unagree with me. They LOVE cats, especially my sister. When we were still at home several years back, she got those little skinny smelly cats from somewhere in neighborhood where nobody wanted them. There were three of them, all could barely open their eyes because they were so young, and partly because of those dirty blob stuck on their eyes. Fortunately, my dad shared my believes about cats. We tried to prevent my sister from get them in the house by asking her hard responsibilities upon them: she should clean them up, feed them, bring them to the vet, trained them to behave properly. I thought it should prevent those wretch from being the part of the family, but how wrong I was.

My sister was glued to them already, and she bravely said yes to everything we asked. So begin the Invasion of Smelly Tickle Cats; they went everywhere around the house, unrestricted, sleeping sometimes together with her, and were craddled most of the time in her arms. They jumped on the table when we had meals and sniffing around with those dirty wet noses. Can you imagine, those hairy smelly misreable cats walking around our gleaming floor? Had anyone ever heard of taxoplasma or e-coli or worm infection through cats? Nothing like vaccination have ever happened to them. I didn't even remember if my sister cleaned them up properly before bringing them into the house. I had to apply a court order for they not to get closer than 2 meters from me. But however good my sister was to them, one day one of them accidentally being crushed to death by my mother's car. My sister conducted an honored funeral ceremony on a hill close to home, attended by her friends and my mother and my gran. Have you ever heard of such a fuss being made over a dead cat??? Oh, how I hate those creatures!

Then something changed my view about cats in general. Several years ago when I first came to Holland and saw Holland's cat for the first time, I couldn't believe my eyes. Were those fat, fluffy cute animal the same kind with the skinny miserable wretch we had at home? Their price was more expensive than what my parents earned in one moth. Their size was like twice as big and three times as fat as our cats. They normally curled up comfortably in a sofa in front of the heater. Their foods were probably better than what my people eat at home; pure meats or cat biscuits supplemented with nutrition and all vitamins you could think of. They were always smiling and playing around, they looked exactly like the cats you see in book covers or Lucifer's box. I didn't even know such cats exist at all. I always thought those advertised cats were graphically made :D

On the evening, they troddle behind their proud owner who makes sure they were properly cleaned and fattenned up. During the weekends, they went to a special training place where they were properly educated and ensuring well-behaved. Vaccination papers and documents were lined up in order for each of them, and you can trace their ancestor up to probably 50 years back. You know, probably their great great grandcat have been the cat of the great-great grandmother of Queen Wilhelmina? How could I not love them when they purred and looked at me like Puss in Boots from Shrek??

You see, it is easy to take care of something trained, clean, and expensive. It's effortless to make friends with cats whose luck and lifestyle might be overly inhumane (yeah. with foods brought up to them and no work needs to be done except being nice to their old lady, what else could you want more??). But it is very difficult to love those cats I had back home, with their infected eyes and smelly fur. What beautiful was, all the nasty digusting things necessary to take care of the cats back home was done with pleasure by my sister. The last time I saw them, they were not as bad as before. They fattened up a bit, most of the wounds have dissappeared, no tickle anymore ( I hope), and their eyes were clean as a clean cat eyes can be. They were nowhere near Holland's cats, but everytime I remember them I was amazed (a little bit) by the magic of bravery and love; those of my sister for accomodating others who were in need.

I wish I was her

She smiles happily in the picture I saw on the digital web. She took one arm of her beloved and hugged it tight in her own. She graduated with a very satisfactionary degree from a top university. She work in a top finance company and earn enough to get her settled with her new family.

She once have had the heart of my dearest. They made the most beautiful memories I can never see. She could just walk accross next door anytime she wish to see him. He once said she was the one he wished to spend the rest of his life with.

Her house was big enough to accomodate 50 people. The door to her house complete with flight tickets are always available upon her requests. Winter and summer holidays with the whole family are written in the annual agendas.

She worships God our Lord as how He want us to do. She never misses one Sunday without praying to Him and thank Him for His grace. She never feels poor nor miserable because she knows God will always be with her.

She posed with mini skirt and cute top and high heels. Her long hair flew around her face and her lips parted in that sweet aquiescence. She was not pretty yet she was radiantly beautiful.

Let the waves of oath befall upon me for my envy and ungratefulness, for I wish I was her.