So, well. I just signed up for the job that Kai recommended, having waited literally the whole day for my father to fix the internet at home, to no avail. (woke up, dad was just out of the house with the modem in tow called him screamed at him dad, I need the net to sign up for- ahahahaha. wait for me to come home *click*- drat. wait wait wait.. mom, when's dad coming home? ..after lunch, he said. then he calls and says that he'll be home at three or four, which of course means five, and when he does come home he takes his own sweet time watching tv and when he does get to setting up the net again IT DOESN'T WORK. before DINNER it doesn't work after ten hundred million calls to various support staff it doesn't work eight of the clock it doesn't work; dad, I'm out of here.) ...er, so. I was a bit put off by that, as I imagine you can.. imagine.

So.. now I'm blogging. What to say, I wonder. It's not that there's nothing to say, but that there's too much to say. Hmm. Say I'll blog about reading Magaret Atwood's books. I haven't really read much of her work, but that will probably change. I first encountered it with "The Handmaid" in secondary 1, which was.. my god, nearly six years ago. And while it was fine, it didn't cause me to fall in wild, deep and voracious literary love, and so, one other book which title I cannot remember later, I didn't touch her until- last month, with another book which title I cannot remember now either. But I do remember its content; it was about a love triangle. The wife was something of an emotionally mixed up person; the husband was something of an emotionally sponge-like person; the third party- well, one half of the third party- didn't start out so much emotionally dysfunctional but serves as an example to impressionable minds (aka mine, ignoring the existance of people who might argue about the existence of said mind) of how the conventional, modern view of having an eros-type relationship really messes up your life.

I respected the book. I thought it was awfully intelligent. But halfway in, reading it started to give me headaches. I mean, I can see where these people stand, I can see why they're doing what they're doing, but.. boy, is it all ever so /dumb/. DUP- directly unproductive activity, and all that. Um. Well. I liked the book, but it isn't something I'd pick up again to read for leisure. Then, I thought to myself, that I would probably only read Ms (Mrs?) Atwood's work again sporadically. In a sense I was conceding defeat, because when I read a book, usually I don't just enjoy the story - part of the amusement I derive from the book is from figuring out the author's value system, his/her mindset, what he/she thinks about such and such a subject- or, at any rate, guessing at them. I mean, it's easy with, say, Mishima, with whom I was obsessed a while ago, or even Prachett.. Maybe that's partly why I don't like books that preach even if I'd agree with the preaching independently- that's giving up the material too easily. Anyway.

One thing that stood out about that book was that I could tell nothing really interesting about the author from it. For once, I'd encountered a story that was written with absolute neutrality- and I didn't really like it. Then, over the Chinese New Year I read "The Blind Assassin", and discovered that I can actually tell things about the author after all, even if what I gathered is jumbled into a vague sense not yet in words at the back of my mind.

Which is to say, I liked "The Blind Assassin" Isn't it odd that nowadays sometimes I discount a book because I feel it the main character to be Mary/John-sueish, but now I find a book that I like simply because of that? Not that the main character in that book was written like the author was fleshing out a private fancy.. but.

Lessee, once I got cheated by this swordie. Posing as a discount merchant (discount is a skill that may be learned by the merchant class) he swindled me of 9000z, and others of 40 000z, 31 000z, and.. well, he was nasty and he was reported, but I bet it'll be difficult for the gamemasters to catch him. All I thought was, I'm just glad that it happened in a game and not in real life. I'm not going to be so trusting of others in the future. (till that point, most of my transactions in RO- with the acolytes, for example, who provide warp services- had been most satisfactory)

Another time, I lent this wizard 1100z. I did it because he kept saying that it was urgent and wouldn't get off my back; also because I'm a bit of a softie and 1100z isn't that much. Of course, I didn't really expect to get the money back. Later I ran into that same wizard at argiope field, and went, hey, I lent you money once! The wizard went, did I? I went, yeah! So the wizard gave me three stone hearts, which are worth 92z each, less than half the amount he owed, but I didn't quibble. Then I mentioned something like, thanks, I didn't really expect to get the money back.

At which point the wizard and his mage friend went, hey, he's not so bad okay! and, Knights are bad! buly me!

I went "..." internally and walked off. Some people are just not worth dealing with. Knights are bad? Well, really!

Though, I did meet this knight once in that same argiope field who asked me in all earnestness if I wanted to go killing mages. That field is full of them, because argiopes are high level monsters (I couldn't take them until I was around level 57) and mages don't get hit because they don't close in on the monster, so it's a good place for mages to train. And mages with soul strike tend to lead their argiopes on a merry dance while they try to kill them, and they don't always look where they go, so the poor knight sitting on the ground trying to recover hp will more often than not get bites taken out of him from the argiope as it takes a short detour to p0wn him.. I can survive, but I don't like that when it happens. Especially as I can't hit back since that would be stealing exp. In RO they call that ks-ing, or kill-stealing, and it happens all the time, which is, I suppose, to be expected, but really irritating. So I can understand how that knight felt, even if I don't agree with how he dealt with it.

So. I don't have install privileges on this computer, so last night, after I got home, I got my dad to let me install the Christmas edition cd. But the internet was down (AGAIN!) so we couldn't run the program to see if it worked. Today morning, I get up at five to test the program. The internet is down again. Not so much down as the darned router refuses to be in sync with the line, and I've called Singnet's helpdesk so many times that they're probably sicker than anything of me, I want to scream, I want to shout, I want to kill something painfully and slowly but I can't shout at the people at the helpdesk, I can't be anything other than civil to them even though even the phone reception's crappy because it's not their fault, I can't shout at mom because it's not her fault and anyway it's not good to shout at mom, I can't even shout in my pillow because she'll think I'm ready to kill myself and yes I am, but it's not good to let her think that.

At seven-twenty-two we get reliable (reasonably) connection. I start up Ragnarok. But I can't play, because I need administrator privileges to get to the setup. ARGH!

So I go to the other computer. I start it up. It plays for a short while, before I get bonked off and just cannot connect again. So I remove the program and set about installing the Christmas disc. Guess what?

Halfway through the installation, I am informed that some file in the disc is corrupt, and the installation fails. I take out the disc. I look at it, and swear, plead, beg, contemplate violent and messy bodily action- but of course it's a disc. It's a computer game. It's consumerist and therefore evil. It listens not to my impassioned appeals. I take the disc and put it in the other cd drive and attempt to install it from there (surely it must work, it worked on this computer and I didn't scratch it or anything when I took it out) but the other drive can't even register the disc.

I put it in the first cd drive. It can't do that either. Windows informs me, very primly, that "one of the devices attached to your computer is not working". Well, no sweat, Jim.

Carefully I take a moment off to do the dance of the feet on smiling hot coals; I add in a snazzy track of my own to the tune of ARGHH! ARGHH! ARRRRRRRGHHHH! (all silent, of course, so as not to alert my mother who is eating breakfast downstairs) I take a deep breath. I find my first install disc, the one that I can't use after nine, and I place it in the disc drive. No! The thing can't read it again. I curse something, hopefully to death. I restart the computer. Then I come back to this one and bang my head, very slowly, against the wall.

Then I start this entry. The computer restarts. I go back, put the original disc back in, and lo! It installs.

Very slowly.

Too slowly.

I come back and write somemore.

OMG The thing! It ees back! I run to the other computer, almost tripping and probably risking deadly bodily injury in the process, and lo! ..it works. At least until 9.

I kill things. I run out of hp. I sit down, and I come back to this entry.

OMG more HP! I run over.

I run out of hp again! I run back.

..you get the idea.

Hunting hodes now. Is it me, or are they really.. phallic?

I feel horribly guilty about not studying, but on the other hand, I simply can't bring myself to anymore. Read, as of yesterday, six books in two days, all by C. J. Cherryh, who, I do declare, has become my favorite author of the moment.

Where shall I start about her? The very first book I read of her's was in the "fortress" series.. the Galasien novels, and that was a long time ago. For some reason it didn't make a very large impact on me. I read it, I didn't particularly dislike or like it, and I moved on. Much later I read Fortress of Eagles- and my interest began to be piqued. Immediately after I got my hands on Fortress of Owls,third in the series, and right now I'm screaming to get my hands on the next one- it ended in a sort of cliffhanger- but I haven't seen it anywhere, unfortunately. Thereafter, I picked up Finity's End.. and I was hooked.

C. J. Cherryh writes intelligent fiction. Her books are more science fiction than fantasy, as much as I've now read, but with them it really doesn't matter; they transcend genre, being well thought out, mature, and deeply interesting without being unhealthily indulgent. What do I mean by unhealthily indulgent? Well, I swore off reading books based on the story of King Arthur, as I swore off reading books about elves.. because most of the former boasted cliches and the same old, same old plot that after a while, just got.. old, and I couldn't stand the religious bits, as well as the self-righteous tone that most of the books that I read tended to adopt. When I started plumping for the villains simply because the protagonists were so /stupid/, I knew it was time to stop. And the latter? Well. Elves. Long, golden hair; beauty in truckloads, beauty in world-loads, beauty beyond recall; eyes every color of the rainbow and some probably not; ponce, ponce, ponce. Fantasy and indulgence. It gets a bit boring. C.J. Cherryh made me read those again, and enjoy them.

"The Dreamstone" is a book on elves. Though clearly derivative of Tolkien, in execution this work, in my opinion, far excels over the original. Though perhaps it is an unfair comparison to make; while "The Lord of the Rings" is an epic, "The Dreamstone" is a tightly woven story- every bit pertains to the main thread of the tale, and as the author never loses her focus, so the reader does not. At least I didn't, and this is a rare thing for me, not to break off while in the middle of reading, and go "hmm, this bit doesn't make sense. and what about..?". Though, upon reading the book again, there are bits that could have been expanded upon.. I look forward to reading the sequel, which I haven't yet.

..and I'd continue about the other books she wrote that I read, but I have my last paper in a few hours' time, and I really should study, shouldn't I?

I looked at it and went, "Ah Meng? You win."

My brain can't seem to let go of certain scenarios. Earlier I mentioned Edward Elric, of Full Metal Alchemist? In my brain, he and Roy have this Unresolved Tension Thing going. It's more to do with dominance issues (on Ed's part) and (ooh, cute) on Roy's than with, say, sexual tension, but it's definitely tension. See, Ed's young, but already in the me-against-the-world-stage of development. He's a precocious kid, a prodigy in fact, and he thinks of himself (with good reason) as the equal of any adult.. even though he's got a bit of a problem with his height. Besides being a kick-ass alchemist, Ed's sneaky and adaptable, and agile like a monkey. But Roy, I'm sure, is a fair bit of alchemist himself. He's twice Ed's size, can probably move like the wind if he wants to, and /sneakier/. So Roy at this point of time can probably sit on Ed if he wants to, and he probably does when he feels Ed needs it. Boy grew up without any authority figure in his life, after all.. but you can imagine how well Roy sitting on Ed would sit with Ed.

So the scenario is this: Ed's grown up.. well, eighteen or thereabouts, he's got his body back, and he and Alphonse more or less are engaged in an itinerant lifestyle, wandering about learning things. Occasionally they drop by the Colonel's jurisdiction.

What happens in my mind then, is Ed dragging the Colonel off to some cave in the country to Prove Something- or just to challenge him- I did say I thought Ed has dominance issues with Roy, didn't I? And of course, as their sidekicks, Alphonse and Lieutenant Hawkeyes come along. Ed leers at Roy, who is remarkably unruffled, they disappear into the cave, and, while from said cave the sounds of explosions, swearing, and whatnot can be heard, outside Lieutenant Hawkeyes and Alphonse are spreading a flowered mat on the floor.

*armageddon erupts within the cave*

"Tea, Lieutenant Hawkeyes?"
"Thank you, Alphonse. Crumpet?"

*flames belch out from the cavemouth, licking just close enough to Alphonse and the good lieutenant to sear the air*

"Aahh, the toast got too burnt."
"Well, at least the eggs are done.."

Because, you know, they would. And I maintain that the current Al, if he didn't possess a hollow metal body and unwavering faith in his older brother, would get heart attacks every few fifteen minutes or so, traveling with Ed.

Which fact amuses me more than it should, but.

The book in question was "Hail to the Chief". I didn't exactly do a detailed reading, but, from what I gather, it was very.. masculine. That was my deepest impression of the book. Masculine not only in that the wording was sparse- for some reason, I tend to associate that sort of writing with male authors- but in the dialogue, which was terse and tended to have the fluff and padding omitted. Also in the general feel of the book, the mindsets of the characters, antagonists and protagonists included. There were females, but it was easy to tell that they weren't written by a female; dear me, I'm waffling over this point, aren't I? It's an interesting line of thought that maybe I'll pursue in greater depth someday- the differences in style between female and male authors.

Well, catch me using Singnet when I don't have to in the future. I'm so moving to Starhub when I have the chance..

Perhaps that's why I feel so relaxed; I already know I'm done for, so no point in making myself feel worse, right? Ah well. Today was the halfway point- now I only have F Maths and Physics left. Both of which are difficult papers, though. And there are four papers for Physics and two for F Maths, which will be spread over the course of several weeks. Not that I'm complaining about my schedule; one look at that of the triple science people has convinced me that it could be much worse.

I guess it's true that comfort is relative, huh? Anyway, I just wanted to blog about the really odd dream I had last night. It started out with me, though I'm not sure if that's me proper or me-from-the-viewpoint-of-someone-who-was-not-me.. me, and Rico Banderas from Xenogears in a Suiko 1 style cave dungeon fighting monsters with the RO system. Don't ask me why, but all I remember dreaming about after that was Tezuka and Mizuki having BDSM sex in a nondescript room. At least, that's what I assume what they were doing, since Tezuka was handcuffed to a bed, and Mizuki was actually on top of him. My brain refused to generate the circumstances of their state of dress, and thus I cannot tell what (if at all) they were wearing, for which I am rather sanguine. (I mean, brain, TEZUKA AND MIZUKI. What were you thinking?)

Mizuki was thoughtful. Said thoughts ran something along the lines of, "hmm, I should really take those handcuffs off Tezuka, shouldn't I?" ..while I couldn't tell what Tezuka was thinking about at all. Which is probably all for the best. TEZUKA AND MIZUKI. Brain, what were you thinking?

Fitz, honey, Fool wants you. Yes, really. He /wants/ you. Only he's being something of a gentleman about it. And you, since you do get concerned about who happens to be in his bed, obviously feel quite a bit of attraction to him as well. Now, the readers all understand that, just as it wouldn't be nice to judge a homosexual for being homosexual, it isn't nice to judge a heterosexual for being heterosexual, or to judge a person who prefers not to admit to himself what he really wants for deciding that ignorance is bliss.

Except. Dude. How long has this been going on? How /old/ are you? How experienced? How many hints have obviously been dropped into the definite vicinity of your thick, dense, head? I wonder how this will be resolved, if ever. Honestly, Fitz is hardly an adolescent unversed in the ways of social behaviour..

Tezuka~~~~~

I am such a useless fangirl.

..but I certainly wasn't very detached when feverishly writing three essays in 2 1/4 hours. My fingernails kept pressing into the meat of my palms. Owww.

My main character in RO remains Jirou, Fujiko having been swallowed into the gaping maw of the RO servers, but I also have a Shishido and an as-yet unstarted Fuji-kun. Jirou is a swordsman who might become a knight soon if I don't have the patience to take him to job level 50, while Shishido is a merchant (a useful supplementary character, I've found) and Fuji-kun will probably be an acolyte.

I always thought that Meia's Ryoma-kun should have been the acolyte, because - "Heal plz!!!!1111" "..iyada." - scenarios would be just too fun, but he's a thief instead, about to become an assassin. Ah well. At the very least, the first chance I get, I'll try to aid Ryoma-kun in getting a cute and fluffy Karupin pet. The cute pet system of RO amuses me so. Kaori's Saeki should also get a yoyo (a monkey monster) pet, but before that she said that she would try to get him a Yuuta pet, who could then be passed to Fuji-kun when he finally got the Kentarou monkey pet.. this amused me so much when we talked about it yesterday that I missed my bus stop to Jo-chan's place and ended up getting lost.

And what pet does Jirou want, you might ask? A picky Atobe pet. (a picky is a baby bird that is very small, very.. energetic, and apparently one of the most amusing in terms of cute declarations as a pet. it is also otherwise known as the minute bouncing bean that novices kill for easy exp.)

If the real Atobe doesn't kill me, I'll take screenshots when that happenes. ^_^

(Yes, my A levels proper start tommorrow. I am not thinking about them.)

Read two works recently in different media by different people, which disillusioned me about the authors in the same way. I found it kind of sad, because until I'd read those works, the authors were particular favorites of mine.

One of them is Sheri S. Tepper, and the book I refer to is "The Visitor". It's standard Sheri S. Tepper fare, perhaps too standard, which was what disillusioned me. I used to feel deeply moved by the themes that she explored in her work: the emancipation of women (in "Six Moon Dance", for example, there was a line about how women are predisposed to judge themselves more harshly than men because society judges women more harshly than men, which I thought was both true and yet not true, but which stayed with me.) gender issues, the degeneration of society, the slow ecocide (and thus suicide) humanity as a race enacts. To name a few. The first book I ever read that she wrote was "Beauty", in my opinion still a good book, but reading "The Visitor" tarnished my view of it somehow. And I had loved it.

Why did reading a separate book change my view of a separate work of hers, which is after all individual, immutable? Because of the way the same old themes were handled. One thing about Sheri S. Tepper; her villains are always easy to identify. She seldom makes an attempt to give them depth, and once they are revealed to be villains, they descend into a mono-dimensional morrass of sadism and destructive ambition which wipes out any interest I might have had in them. In "Beauty" she writes about pain and despair, the negative emotions, which the enemy both embodies and desires, as well a about the preservation of beauty. It was a masterful work, strong, well constructed, and the skillful weaving in of fairy tales such that they not only complemented the story but subtly enhanced it captured my attention for a long, long while. "The Visitor", in its own way, revisited these issues, but wasn't as well written. The villain this time worshipped pain, desired conquest, and as usual there were strong female heroines and post-apocalytic scenarios.. but somehow I felt that the story itself wasn't well developed, the villain somehow lacking and empty.

Her villains like pain, like destruction, like all of what could possibly be described as the dark side of human nature. Yet she never explains why, and the fact that this book wasn't written well enough to let me overlook this fact ruined the experience for me. "The Visitor" reduced the themes I mentioned earlier into a straightforward battle of evil against good, which cheapened them, robbed them of the wonderful complexity and insight which had originally captivated me.

Add to that, "The Fresco", which I didn't succeed in reading because of the cultural chauvinism that permeated it, a personal turnoff, and Sheri S. Tepper is now only marginally on my list of authors to read.

The other author I was thinking about was Yuki Kaori. Author, mangaka, whatever. Angel Sanctuary remains one of my favorite works, and I do like Count Cain, Poison Earl Cain, whichever you should choose to call it. However, reading book 12 (yes, it's out in Chinese and I have it XD) was a bit of a let down for me, because that's when I came to realise how much Count Cain was turning into a parallel for Angel Sanctuary. The father-son issue, if you consider "God" to have been the ultimate father in Angel Sanctuary, and in a sense he was, just not a good one. The issue of the betrayal of the one the protagonist most loved. Riff started off as Katan, but halfway through turned into Lucifer. It is perhaps this which disappointed me, that it was the old tunes of betrayal, love-and-hate-deeper-than-life and struggle against an unjust authority that were repeating in a rendition not so very different from the original.

That's a matter of opinion, I suppose. I still do like Count Cain as a series, and I'll continue reading it till I can get my hands on the end. But just an observation.

Or, at least, being lazy and not bothering to change his cd after I thought it had finished playing while reading in an empty room did.

Mr Ore-sama didn't give me the bonus track or ditty I was hoping for after the first song. I was only half expecting one, though, after the initial shock. Boy, does Suwabe Junichi have a voice. But you know what Atobe needs to do?

Get himself into hospital. This is a theory which has festered in my head ever since I read the jump chapter where it is shown that the Rikkaidai captain, too, suffers from some sort of medical problem. The Fuji voice in my head was going through a grimoire, cheerfully humming- "Appendicitis, pneumonia, a sprained ankle, a broken elbow, or, if all else fails, I can always get Yumiko-neesan to run him down~~~"

That would give him an excuse to visit Mr Ore-sama in hospital, too. The Fuji in my head is evil. But it was surprisingly fun thinking of ways to put him in hospital..

Randomly, you've laid hands on the Atobe album already? Through the technological wonder that is the internet, I suppose. Wow. I preordered the actual album over a month in advance and it's not even in my hands yet.

And the recording industry wonders about their losing business to mp3 rips. It doesn't make sense. Sure, I'm all for supporting the people who create the entertainment I crave, (which is why I order cds from Japan, after all) but there is something seriously wrong with the way the industry is run. Not only does it not make practical sense, it doesn't even make economic sense.

Economic theory teaches us that you maximise profit when marginal costs equal marginal price. (Though that is actually just common sense.) How much does it cost to burn a cd, with all the machines and economies of scale the recording companies enjoy? To be certain, there probably are many hidden costs of expanding the level of production beyond that, but I'll wager it might just not be as much as the amount spent on copy protection- or on legal 'protection', to say the least.

Not to mention the not-so hidden cost of said legal protection. People who download music for free from the internet might be considered thieves. But these thieves are also potentially customers. And what can the industry hope to gain by suing children for token sums? It might be a symbolic gesture, but such are wasted on the practical and, more importantly, empowered market of today. Music piracy is just so widespread, that there can be no effective legal action taken against the pirates unless viable legal alternatives are provided. The firms of the music industry might be giants, but how can even a giant hope to conquer the earth on which it survives?

Lower costs and larger production, as well as more varied or flexible media seems a far more desirable path, both in the interests of the music industry itself and consumers.

Though, okay, I'm just saying this because I smart from the pain in my wallet caused by the hole ripped to pay for that Atobe cd and other cds even though I don't regret the purchase but, really, something should be done about this.

But I feel justified because Kaida Yuki and Minagawa Junko were screaming too.

That probably says something about how he said it.

As for Okiayu Ryutarou.. words fail me. Let's just say that while he may be capable of a deep voice, he's not afraid to do falsetto. Nay, he appears to /enjoy/ saying things in falsetto. What can I expect from a close friend of Koyapi's? I really want the Fruits Basket drama cds now, if only so that I can hear the two of them going all ^__^ *sparkle-heart-heart* at each other. Shigure and Ayame are both saikou~! (favorite bit of fangirl Japanese at the moment, probably due to Jirou and his fanboying. but does that make it fanboy Japanese? hmm.)

..It's been too long since I've had a favorite character voiced by Koyapi.

It's times like this when I remember things like coming home at secondary four, and almost crying in front of my mom because I thought that I would be getting a B for Geography, which I didn't, in the end. Now.. I guess I'll just be crying. Getting a B for anything is like this impossible dream. Haha.

..Japan! You already have most of my money, what do you want me to do next, sell my soul to finance your BURGEONING BALANCE OF PAYMENTS DEFICIT?!

*sob*

And, randomly, the term 'anal retentive' takes on a whole different dimension entirely when you consider it in light of relationships which involve, primarily, anal sex. To me, it's an /amusing/ dimension, but..

Just finished the final boss battle of Suikoden 2. I've always had trouble with this battle, even with much preparation (which is to say, heavily upgraded weapons, super runes, rare armour, winged boots..), but.. this time, I /owned/ the boss. It was down with almost no trouble at all.. I hadn't even used up all of my best moves. And I didn't even prepare as much for this one as I did for the rest. I was still using the un-upgraded runes, lvl 15 weapons.. I didn't pay much attention to their equipment, either, considering my money was maxed out when I went through the final dungeon. Boy, I was almost sorry to see the boss go. Which was my mood for most of the boss battles in this particular playthrough. I've had, so far at least, spectacular luck. For example, normally I need to play chinchinchorin several times before I can fulfil the 5000 potch condition several characters demand, but I got them all within the first few tries. Even tripled my money once. And the boss battles that I said were easy? My record, I believe, was one and a half rounds for Neclord.

Perhaps the reason for my phenomenal luck is.. McDohl! This is the first playthrough I've done with him in the game. Oh, and he kicks so much ass. Literally. Although I do wonder at how quiet he's become- you always joked about the silent hero in Suiko 1, but Gremio seems to have become his voice here. Ask him how he is, and Gremio answers. When he suggests seeking medical treatment in Gregminster, it is Gremio who explains everything to you. Also, Gremio seems not to have outgrown his habit of treating his 'Young Master' as a child. When you go to recruit McDohl in Gregminster, he keeps saying, "Oh, Riou, come over to play?" and when you ask McDohl to fight with you, he says he hopes that the Young Master can be back before sundown.

In Suiko2, McDohl, I do believe, is twenty. Oh well. I also went "eeeeeeeeeee!!!!" at the last battle, because there you finally see him speak. But that.. perhaps, is not so rare an occurrence, as I've been mostly going "eeeeee" at the screen whenever McDohl comes along. Oh well, no prizes for guessing who my favorite Suikoden character is. ^^;;

Playing through early Rockaxe: Camus, honey, I love you, but you've got it bad. For Miklotov, that is. And speaking of Miklotov, I don't know whether I think of Tachibana-buchou when I look at him, or if Tachibana reminded me of Miklotov when I first heard his voice all along.

And it goes without saying, of course, that while I also love Jowy, you're an idiot.

*goes back to her ps*

Though I might have overdone things the past few times. From what I hear online, it seems that Luca Blight's really hard to defeat, but I beat him up the last few times without any of my characters dying- it felt so easy, in fact, that I think any of my parties might have defeated him alone. All my characters were above level forty- far above level forty, in certain cases. But right now I'm going for a minimum (mode?) of lvl 38. I'm lazy. Hopefully, I won't get annihilated. Of course, it helps that I know what to expect..

I'm particularly proud of Viktor. He, to put it frankly, kicks ass. I gave him a double beat rune, a fire lizard rune, and a fire sealing rune. He deals five hundred plus damage a round, easy, and when berserked deals about twice that, almost as much as a third level magic spell cast by a good magic user. Speed? Not a problem, when you have Nanami in the party with a spark rune attached. Viktor deals major damage, and he deals it /fast/. He da man.

OW. In an 'euw' sort of way. It doesn't really hurt.

On the bright side, one more paper tomorrow. Then freedom.

OW. In an 'euw' sort of way. It doesn't really hurt.

On the bright side, one more paper tomorrow. Then freedom.

I ordered cds from cdjapan almost a month ago, but they're still not here, even though they use airmail. (They'd better, after what I paid for transportation.) So I got my dad to send an email to them asking why, and while we were on the subject, check the order form to find out which version of Atobe's album it was that I ordered. Which turned out to be the normal one, and not the limited edition.. but after looking at this, I suppose it's just as well. I mean, really. Atobe? ..nevermind.

*Wanders off muttering Shinji-style about fourteen-year-olds who call themselves 'ore-sama'*

(Because, if his birthday is on 4/10, he is most probably a fourteen year old when we see him. MY.)

My cd player keeps pulling up Tezuka's two songs, which as I have already mentioned, keep putting me to sleep, especially when I'm doing maths.

..my cd player loves Tezuka. But it hates me.

I cannot speak Japanese. But on good occasions, if I am beaten over the head with the obvious, I can make out one or two things here and there. Or to put it more specifically, I can mangle one or two things here and there. Tezuka's phrase, "yuudan sezu ni ikou" seems to mean "give me all you've got". (though probably not literally.) Just as Ryoma has his very versatile "mada mada dane" and Kikumaru has his random nonsensical but extremely cute phrases and Fuji has his "Tachikiru!"

So I was thinking on "yuudan sezu ni ikou", on the fact that Fuji never seems to play his best, for whatever reason, and on the radio drama where Fuji mimicked Ryoma to great comic effect, which led to me dreaming up a scenario where Tezuka, about to play Fuji, tells him, "Yuudan sezu ni ikou." And Fuji, with that smile on his face, leans forward and tells him, a la Ryoma, "Iyada."

The look on Tezuka's face would be.. Ryoma, watching, doesn't know what to do, so he pulls his cap down to hide his own face. On one hand, if he laughs, he might be made to run laps. And Fuji sempai stealing his phrases isn't entirely something that pleases him. On the other hand, it isn't everyday that Tezuka-buchou looks like..

When Fuji loses- and he always does, against Tezuka, he says, in that voice of his, "Tezuka.. mada mada dane."

But he buys Ryoma lunch afterwards to make up for it.

Ibu, apart from being Shinji's surname, also means 'mother' in Malay. This is probably, like most things, more amusing to me than it should be.

He's currently sitting on the back of Beethoven Bach Beethoven on my bed now. I think they look cute together. Now I just need a cranky looking giraffe which I can call Shishido..

But fifteen minutes before my three hour paper ended, it started raining. The concourse of my school, that rickety old bastion of fine education, is completely flooded- I was in the hall above it taking the paper (of course) sitting right in the middle, seven columns in, and I could still feel the spray. Going to Kino? Out of the question right now. I can't even get out of school. *cue /more/ anguished and outraged screaming*

Hey, world! Yes, you! You! owe me something! You owe me a living! And this and that and this and that! Gimme gimme gimme! You're sooo unfair! My life sucks! Everybody hates me! Even the sky hates me! *pauses as the school computer hangs* Damn, even this school computer hates me.

..don't mind me. Letting off steam. I'll just be here in the school library until the sky decides to stop falling down..

Anyway, I've been listening to a lot of tenipuri stuff recently. Had to skip the radio tracks when they came on, though- I found myself concentrating on making sense of what they were saying rather than on my work. (Momo and Kaidou's respective seiyuu are on crack! Kaidou's seiyuu doesn't sound like Kaidou at all. So.. hyper. And expressive. Plus the two of them seem to get on really well.)

..but then I got to Tachibana's voice message. I think.. that I have a secret voice fetish. It's my guilty secret. Or not so secret, as most of the people around me probably already know. Even my friends in class.. they were all o.O;; at my fervent gushing over Snape's voice in the first Harry Potter movie.

(classmate: You like Snape? For his voice?
me: *happily* yeah. *proceeds to quote his very memorable introductory potions scene*)

Anyway, Tachibana. (I haven't watched the Fudomine episodes of the anime yet.) There's something very relaxing and yet sensual about listening to a man's voice of that quality and timbre just talking, even if I don't understand what he's saying at all.. (I just used the word 'sensual'. I need to kill me now.)

..I must needs find out more about Tachibana's seiyuu when I finish the prelims.

Towards the end of my three hour maths paper, my stomach was growling like a rabid beast, even though I'd already had a full breakfast. Must be the stress, I guess. Many of my classmates were also acting a little odd today.. and, reading through this entry, I realise I must have been too. Ah well. If I keep up this blogging every after-paper thing, I suppose I can come back and read this when my prelims are over (oh, sweet thought!) and have a good laugh.

Was at the library to study yesterday, but stopped by Seven Eleven first to get Men's Pocky and water. (The food outlet at the library near my house is a Starbucks, and I don't like the stuff they sell.) There I had a civil conversation with the lady at the counter- nothing much, really, just an exchange of pleasantries, but it put me in a good mood later. Getting a smile from random strangers always does, which I don't understand since I see myself as quite anti-social. Ah well. Maybe I have secret urges to be accepted or popular, or something.

But.. she asked if I was a teacher. Random people have no idea how much such a question delights me, because I've been looking younger than my age for a long, long time- it wasn't so long ago that I boarded a taxi with Meia and the taxi drivers asked if we were in primary school (to which we went 'o.O;;; ..no.' at) ..and, basically, it made me happy. It helped that later I went to McDonald's to get my sister food and the counter lady turned to my sister about the student discount, not me. And I had a conversation with a professional counsellor where she said that I was good at analysis and that I should try to study psychology.

..so.. well.. happy. Vaguely. But back to the books.

Yesterday, I met with Jo-chan to study.. okay, okay, to pass her twenty-two volumes of Hikaru no Go. Spent most of the time talking with her, although I did manage to get a bit of work done- talked a lot of crap in the middle of a Macdonalds surrounded by studying O levels students. I can't really remember a lot of what we talked about- elitism, the school system, etc, etc. I made her read The Little Prince, and used the term "hit by a chicken stuffed full of lead" to describe the effect of its allegory, had the style not been so endearing. Something's seriously wrong with me. I just wish I knew what.

Oh well. I probably won't be blogging for a while. Until after my prelims, I hope. I might have been able to study in front of the computer and fritter away most of the year on band and still get all As for the O levels, but it's clear I can't do that for the As. I'm not even sure if I can pass the prelims, which is really sad. I mean, given my school and what I've done to get into it and all, and what my schoolmates will probably get. And what happens to me if I don't do well. (It's not the end of the world, I know. It's just a waste.) It's just.. inertia. Ennui. Whatever it's called. What's the whole point of all this? What's the whole point of studying so hard for the O levels, just to get the chance to take the A levels, and why take four subjects when you only need three, and why have the prelims if they're more difficult than the actual paper, and why.. why live, at all. I'm not suicidal. Just depressed, I guess.

Why do we fear death?
Krishnamurti's answer:
Do you think a leaf that falls to the ground is afraid of death? Do you think a bird lives in fear of dying? It meets death when death comes, but it is not concerned about death, it is much too occupied with living, with catching insects, building a nest, singing a song, flying for the very joy of flying. Have you ever watched birds soaring high up in the air without a beat of their wings, being carried along by the wind? How endlessly they seem to enjoy themselves! They are not concerned about death. If death comes, it is all right, they are finished. There is no concern about what is going to happen; they are living from moment to moment, are they not? It is we human beings who are always concerned about death - because we are not living. That is the trouble: we are dying, we are not living. The old people are near the grave, and the young ones are not far behind.

from Think on These Things

I have no idea who this person is, but I disagree with him, both on the little details and on the main points of his essay.

How, pray tell, does he know that the average bird in the sky or otherwise, is not afraid of death? Any animal, when faced with danger- especially the danger of death, will show signs of fear. Admittedly, sometimes fear is superceded by other emotions, such as rage or the desire to protect, but it is there nonetheless. Hold a wild thing in your hand and squeeze it. It will squirm and wriggle desperately, in its urge to get out, to survive.. that is fear. Very few living things will, when faced with impending extinction, say that "it is alright, I am finished".

Why does he seem to imply that being afraid of death is wrong? I think that fear of death serves a purpose- it brings meaning to life. It implies that we want to live. If you are not afraid of death, it either means that you don't want to live, or that you have something you value more than life. If you are never afraid, you are either God, or very stupid. (I am rather undecided about both the existence and nature of "god", so take this in the generic sense of an omnipotent being.)

In the sense that living is relative, we need comparisons, contrasts, to support what we know as words. (What is hot? Something that is not cold. What is evil? That which is not good. Really, words are descriptions rather than definitions.) The problem with the previous statement lies in that there are seldom complete boundaries between extremes; only degrees. But death and life do seem the exception to the rule. Either you're dead, or you're alive.

Or maybe it is something other than that. (Who can tell? Not I. I have never exactly died.) Maybe living is simply a result of an infinite number of chemical and physical processes, atoms joining and parting to produce a state that names itself conciousness. There is no soul, no spirit, no immaterial part that 'lives' on after 'death', only atoms, electrons, neutrons, quarks, transmuting to other forms. But fundamentally.. does it matter? What matters is that we do experience something that we may call "life", and if we cannot put proper words to it, it makes no difference to the experience except that we let it.

To that end, what this particular person terms as "living" and "dying" are really the same thing. What trouble is there about it?

Perhaps what he should have said, or what he meant, is that it is no good being consumed by overexcessive fear of death, that a preoccupation with death serves no positive purpose. By presenting his case this way, one wonders if he is not overly concerned with death himself.

What I wish to say: This is on crack! Fluffy, psychedelic candy crack. Yuuta, you sound too happy to be singing about not being a genius. Did Mizuki feed you something? And who's doing the instrumentals? The rest of St Rudolph on a pedal happy electronic organ high?

What I'm actually saying: ..damn, I like this. It makes me giggle!

Given the music tastes of the rest of my family, and the nature of my musical upbringing, I think I must be a changeling or something to like this kind of music. But. I enjoy listening to them. Not so much for the music factor, but for sheer amusement value. So.

I also like Tachibana's song, "Victory Road", but for entirely different reasons. To me, this song sounds like.. bottled testosterone. Bottled, refined, testosterone. The nice type. (if there is such a thing.) I think I would call it.. uh.. chivalry, yes. I could imagine Miklotov singing such a song.

I suppose I should probably stop posting my study mumblings in my blog. And I suppose I should learn not to smile when I'm using the computer, as that is a dead giveaway to my parents that I'm not using it to study, which is bad. Not using the computer to study is bad. Perhaps I should lock myself away from the computer, only I do actually, on occasion, do constructive stuff on it.

I should stop posting my study mumblings on my blog.

(Escapism? Vicarious living much? I dunno. I would definitely not want to live any of their lives- name me an Angel Sanctuary character with a happy past, for starters. But.)

My current obsession is Prince of Tennis (okay, so /that's/ obvious) ..and what I love about this is really the characters. The atmosphere of levity and intensity intertwined that is the essence of this series.. unless, of course, you want to argue that the essence of PoT is really Konomi-sensei's not-so-secret self-insertation wankery thing that is the ryoma (reference-sakuno, racket, cat, fanclub, habit of kicking ass while being an arrogant brat etc etc). But I don't want to go there, and I like Ryoma.

He's not my favorite character, though. That would have to be Fuji, elder, and as much as I deeply, deeply admire his character I deeply admire his seiyuu, Kaida Yuki. It might be the fact that she voices him, and does it so well. It might be the one radio show I have of her on Tennipuri "Onza Radio" where she.. I have no words for it, verbally steals the show. It might be the inherent feeling of 'evil' that I get from her, the sort of ^_^ evil that Fuji is made of.. but she is definitely my second favorite seiyuu.

After her? Perhaps Ueda Yuuji, who voices Jiro. I like Jiro, the only person in the entire series who can play an entire match in his boxers and NOT NOTICE. (and probably not care, too.) Who fanboys. Who would sleep through avalanches, earthquakes, and The Final Apocalypse. (it might be a Japanese thing, Tokyo constantly being destroyed in myriad nihilistic fantasies every now and then, and all. desensitising.) But I like Ueda Yuuji as well. He and Kaida Yuki, I would postulate, based on what I heard of them in that one radio show, not only get on very well together, but have a very good chemistry.. nothing with them around would be boring, that's for sure. Plus, I listened to his voice message on Jiro's single, and it killed me. It won me over.

..I'll get to the point of this post now. The point of this post was.. I looked at the summary of that AS drama cd, saw Ueda Yuuji's name, and went "...!!". Him. In. Angel Sanctuary. Jiro.

Guess who he voices?

..Katou. Yue Katou.

I'll just be in the corner here dying now.

Hmm. I think I was going to blog about the conversations Jo-chan and I always seem to have when we walk past this particular stretch of road on the way to the bus stop near her home; we always, for some reason, seem to talk about animals. In particular, what the Prince of Tennis regulars would be like if they were animals.. cats and dogs mostly. Am too stoned to recall the conversations now, but I want a Fuji cat. ^_^ . "She would," you'd probably think if I've been rambling about PoT at you recently. And I do. ^_^

(I've also acquired the urge to ^_^ at people until they find it creepy. Overly obsessed? Me? Dumb? Who cares I? I do find it slightly disturbing, however, when I find myself talking to someone and having the urge to express the way I feel about something with an emoticon. I've never yet had the urge to use ^_^ offline, though.)

And now for something completely unrelated. There's a little patch of trees I pass on my way home from a particular bus stop. Too small to be called a grove, but a space full of nothing but trees nonetheless, and quite pretty to me even though I doubt that other people would feel the same way. They're flowering trees, you see, not bouganvillea or any of the flowers that are so common in Singapore, and I have no idea what they're called, but the flowers are beautiful, and they smell nice. Recently one of the trees split. I mean that it just split through the trunk; you can see the white bits beyond the bark and all, and the branches brush the ground, covering the path.

This happened, oh, a few weeks ago? When I first discovered it I was a little upset, because I thought that it meant the tree would die. But it hasn't yet, although I think the flowers might be smaller- what does this mean for the health of the tree? I don't know- and I hope that it'll live on, because I really do like that tree. I only ever seem to pass by that place when it's late and dark, and it never fails to make me feel, somehow, special. It's an odd feeling to describe- perhaps it would be best to say that it's the type of place that I automatically slow down when I approach, even if I'm really late? I dunno.

I have the feeling that the field opposite the bus stop from which I take the bus which brings me home from Jo-chan's house will become one of those places to me too. Well, not the field exactly- it's quite an unremarkable field, except for the fact that it often carries the stink of animal excrement- but the sky above it, the way it looks when the sun's beginning to set, blue melding into gold with the faintest shading of mauve in between and white clouds drifting across a frame of trees and buildings. Later, when it's dark, the streetlamps are lit against a backdrop of deep green leaves. It's quite a beautiful place, really. I sit at the bus stop and look at it and swat at mosquitoes.

..so one of my friends had cramps during GP block, which, incidentally, happens to be last lesson on Friday and a single period to boot, so no one ever takes it seriously. (The econs teacher of the class that combines with mine always steals this period for her class to have extra lessons.) Personally, I'm of the stoic-but-come-near-me-and-you-die type of person, when I'm having my cramps, but my friend's cramps this time must have been really bad, because she was complaining loudly to the whole half of the class in that GP group, including the boys.

This resulted in them (all three? four?) retreating enmasse out the door, not to show their heads until they were fairly sure that it was over- although not before she'd succeeded in telling them she "didn't want to be a girl" and more details about how bad the pain was. All this time I was thinking, "wussies. You think hearing about this is bad? Try having to suffer through it. EVERY MONTH. How do you think you'd feel if you had to live through blood-covered cells dripping out of your penis every month, huh, huh? How'd you want to wear diapers every month, huh, huh?" No wonder they say that women have higher pain tolerance than men.

This is highly biased, I know. But if you have to go through this, you'll understand this, and if you don't, you won't unless you want to try having blood dripping out of your unmentionables twelve times a year.