Today* I…

woke up after 2pm,

microwaved something I didn’t really want to eat but ended up liking it anyway,

thanked somebody I’ve got a crush on (gawd, why am I telling you this?!?),

did something naughty while taking a bath,

biked for like an hour (to and fro) to sing karaoke with friends,

had beef strips and egg with rice and miso soup at Matsuya (and was really full after),

drank two mugs of hot chocolate and tried tasting a friend’s version of “chocotea”, but didn’t realize there was chocolate in it until told,

watched a baseball movie with dormmates and ate okonomiyaki with kimchee.

Oh, simple life, simple simple fun.

*from 2pm of May 31st until the time I went to bed on June 1, ‘08 (Japan Time).

Both

Let me dream and hope and wonder like a child. Let me dream endlessly, boundlessly, as if I always command the wind and the stars are at my side. Make my hope fresh and unquestioning; and let me wonder wild and without ceasing, as if I have wings to carry me to the deepest parts of the universe, wherever I wish to be. Let me believe in all things good like a child, that my belief be pure, unstained, uncomplicated.

But, let me act like an adult. Make me work and shape my dreams like real grown-ups do. Let me always think that I am responsible, and that whatever my decisions on things may be, let me have self-trust, like what mature men have, to face what must be faced. Let me not run away when the wind howls, for this is not what adults do. Light my way as I face my fears. Let me have courage, but allow me to fear, that I would take heart more. For courage is not the absence of fear, but the wisdom to do things when in fear. Let me defend my hopes like an adult, reasonable, sensible, open-minded. And let me handle my wonders like grown-ups do—the real ones—dignified, enthusiastic but not loud, determined but not dirty. Let me hold my belief of the truths in and of the world like a seasoned man, thankful for the gray clouds that add to the beauty of the dusk and to the spreading darkness, instead of cursing them, like what they who pretend to be grown-ups do.

Let me celebrate beauty and goodness in all their forms like a child, but also, let me build and lead my life like an adult.

Let me possess a grown-up mind, and a heart forever young, too.

Ain’t dried up in the sun

“Son I come from five generations of people who’re slaves and share-croppers but there ain’t nobody in my family tha’ never took no pay from nobody that was a way of tellin’ us we wouldn’t fit to walk the earth.

They never been that poor… they never been that dead inside.”

Based on a broadway play of the same title by Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun [2008] tells of a colored family’s life in Chicago. Dealing with racial prejudice and other struggles of the African-American, what makes it stand out from other motion pictures of the same theme is that it goes on to identify itself as a movie that focuses more on the universal human aspiration to acknowledge the individual in all of us—that one, in a search for worth, must first find truth in the innate fact that self-actualization is not solely established in everybody else’s respect but that one must also have a deeper kind of that respect, sometimes even almost pride-like, in one’s self. It focuses more on that, than on the pigmentation of the skin.

Good cast, simple plot, real. And a beautiful message, that’s A Raisin in the Sun.

Watch it here.

Wet cravings

They planned it, and it was to be flawless. The three of them acted as if it’s the greatest boatride they’d ever have with me. And I believed every part of it—until we reached that spot of all crystal, dark-blue cold waters, a mirror dancing with a piercing, swirling, intoxicating peace of the bluest spectra. It was deep. And then they jumped out, the two of them, disturbing the already patternless sways and glides of the mirror’s dance. I struggled to keep balance, but the boat seemed to go against my will. The one left behind me, having a foot in the water, another in the now tyrannical boat, pushed me from the back and so silently dived into the un-peace that was the sea. When I was in it too, all hell broke loose.

But that’s how I learned to swim.

After accepting reassurance by the three of them, my three most adorable cousins, that I’m still part of the physical world, and after realizing that indeed I am living (barely, that time), I summoned everything left of the life in me and planned to kill them (as if the summoning didn’t use most of what’s left). But kids as we were, I ended up eating dinner with them and enjoying our popsicles after. All thoughts of spilt blood and broken necks forgotten.

But right now I so crave to swim. It’s a beautiful feeling to finally know that I’ve always loved swimming. I mean, I’ve always known I liked it (well after doing it the first time), but now I feel that it’s bigger, and I’m most drawn to it’s hugeness now more than ever to make me understand that I love it. It expands me somehow, yes, that’s what it does.

There’s this kind of freedom in swimming. When I swim I usually think of nothing. No, it’s not escapism, it’s resting, detaching the wires but knowing that I’ll soon have to attach them again. And in that moment of detachment, I regain optimal* connection with myself, and to my freedom.

originally uploaded by Djúli, www.flickr.com

But sometimes I still think of punishing my three cousins, not for making me learn how to swim by trying to kill me, but for making me want to stay in there as long as I can.

____________

*Right now I wouldn’t say full connection—it’s too limiting. And unfair to my growth.

ROR

Raffinggu-outta-rawdu (ror). That’s laughing out loud (lol) in Japanese. Okay, so let’s ROR. Watch this:

Helpful vocab:

Ojiisan-old man

Nemui-sleepy

Nomimono-drink

Even if you’ve seen this before, I bet you’re still lol-ing right now, or yeah, “ror-ing”.