i think i chanced upon a little boy crying a few weeks back.

this uncertainty is not a prelude to some ghost story. it is just a simple statement of doubt, for that boy had his face obstinately pressed against a corner of a garden wall. if i had seen his face, i wouldn't mince my words.

and so, on a sunny weekday morning, he was there, and i was there; him in his little world, me in mine. he was on his side of the road, the one with the garden, and i was on mine, the one with the train station. he had his wall, his sorrow, and himself; i had a train to catch, a sandwich to eat, and a lecture to attend. he was oblivious to my curiousity, and had no incentive to stay afloat; i was impervious to his despair, and had no reason to save him.

therefore, we two being so disgustingly and unflinchingly disparate, on he went, and on i went. i got myself to the platform in time for my train, only to hear the station master monotonously announcing train delays- the result of a suicide two stations before. this leaves me with forty unending minutes, which i spend sitting on a bench ruminating on various subjects. none of them are resolved, and the next train does not have enough space for sullen-faced everybody

i think i can imagine how lucretia must have felt like- that was one great, fat, loafing tarquinus superbus of a history exam that ran me roughshod in the third period. compound that with another gangrape masquerading as a japanese exam, and there you have it-i am, simply put, a very violated person, exhausted and not particularly happy. of course, i needn't point out that what's done's done- give me twenty four hours and i won't read this piece with much interest- but that dastardly set of questions in the second part of the exam just knocked my breath out. it was brutal, but in another weird sense, it was beautifully crafted, like a piece of art work one stares and fails to comprehend. again the alien nature of the language washed past me; or should i use the word 'wash'? much more accurate that they be seen as the waters that recede from my grasp every time i make a lunge. so back to my breath; it got knocked out, but i should add that i didn't have much to begin with in the first place- third exam of the day, with french and history being particularly malignant too.

so here i am bitching about life yet again. i should break this cycle, though i know it will naturally run its course come the end of july, after i finish that final paper that is chinese ancient literature... so yet again here i am, after a rather slipshod dinner with lc, sitting in the library tapping at the computer refusing to go back to my french notes. yes, i have yet another exam tomorrow, and i am not particularly happy about it... but that's the way things go. you plan your academic schedule at the start of the term, and when the exam dates start getting announced, much to your blank horror all the dates fall rather poetically on the same date. on one hand that means that you don't have to worry after the date's past; on the other, that just means a ton of hell before it, and quite a bit of navel gazing after.

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it's the time of the mosquitoes, he said, swatting one lazily floating above his head and another nibbling at his shin.

all through his movements there was no sign of the slightest murderous intention, and yet he never swatted in vain; before long he had laid out on the table a row of reddish pulps, rather proudly exhibited first from left to right. on the demise of the 9th mosquito, which took pride of place at the end of the row, he frowned imperceptibly. were he to kill another fly, he would have to create a new row; this, for reasons not particularly known, seemed less than aesthetically pleasing. so with the nonchalant obliteration of number 10 he endeavoured to stick it to the table rim; whereupon the former fly, being less than cooperative, dislodged and dropped a few limbs and a torso.

he scowled rather obviously; and then, realising that i was grinning at him, smote a mosquito sitting on the table for number 11.

after spending the last few days writing essays in three languages and preparing notes, last night ended up being a rather relaxed affair- in the sense that i skipped art class, came back early, had a hot bath and a good dinner, and then disappeared for my physiotherapy. following which, of course, my body was in such a fantastic jelly-like state, being massaged under the influence of alcohol, that i had no heart at all to do my history readings. and that damn lack of foresight allows that bit of malaise to carry forth from the night before, and so today i wake up late. things strewn around my bed, both alarm clocks having been smacked off their perch by a befuddled and rather somnolent me. when i regain consciousness i swear rather fluently; one look at the alarm clock tells me that i've once again missed my only lesson on wednesday- need i say explicitly that my timetable is stupid? nine in the morning till ten thirty on wednesday, and then i'm home free, except i'm not 'cause it's exam season and it's only socially decent that you study.

so out of the house and into a slow train, out of the train and into the school library, i furtively finish photocopying half a history textbook before i plop myself onto this chair. the screen in front of me seems a bit brighter than usual, or maybe it's just some leftover fatigue setting in? i ask myself, but i'd rather not know the answer. here i am on this blog with the exams in sight, i've got three magic decks in my bag and one history book on the table being willfully ignored. isn't there something irredeemably stupid about the entire situation? that i should be so persistent in looking in another direction, despite all that beckoning from all that is necessary that is going on right in front of my very eyes? it's still morning, and i can't be arsed to think; but i'll concede that 'stupid' probably isn't the word i'm looking for. the petulance of my mind is relegating the strange into the realms of the silly, so it's probably a bit less dense than that

went out to the ballgame with the seniors tonight- happened to be yakult swallows against rakuten eagles. the pundits all predicted a close fight, but the former slapped the latter silly with a handy 5-1 margin. while i was rooting for the rakuten eagles, i have to admit that they were quite comprehensively outplayed; quite consistently unable to cash in on their hits, and showing a singular refusal to bring their runner on third base home. moreover iwakuma, that famous wbc pitcher, was just not his usual self. there were flashes of brilliance, but otherwise he was too busy sending his balls too low or out wide, much to the horror of his fans. of course, i was seated in the tokyo yakult block, so all i could hear were the happy rumblings from those poking at poor iwakuma's form with an almost sadistic glee.

at any rate, i found the entire experience far removed from anything else i've gone through. the weirdness, for example, of all the people opening parasols around me and singing some song about rain when their team scores a point is just overwhelming. i suppose the 'rain' theme reflects the fan's desire that the points should bear forth like raindrops in a thunderstorm, but otherwise the entire scene is outlandish. all this, capped off by the traditional triple banzai shout at the end of the ditty, should make for some rather interesting footage for the foreigner with the camera... but he forgets, and he sits around as the grotesquely silent spectator in the stand.

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in other news- i've bought my printer, fixed my bookshelf, and got the wire extension for the unused socket behind my bed. i will dump my papers tomorrow (if i can actually muster enough barefaced cheek to offload it at the convenience store), and will probably get on with my work. i may also plaster a large map of the mediterranean on the wall, or start on the essay on japan's changing shoreline. i'll probably go play tennis, and then i'll mull over all i've done when i return at night. it's all rather tiring, i suppose, but it's a healthy sort of life, i think

i'm in the library, and i will start studying in approximately five minutes. i am, in fact, skipping french class in favour of studying for my japanese test today, and expect that i will be skipping the history of judaism lecture and the statistics class too. the only class that i shall attend is the history of the mediterranean one, for two reasons: 1) i have no confidence that revision can make up for absence from class, and 2) it's always nice to have ishikura to talk to, not only because he's very companionable, but also because he has the proficiency to respond to my questions- in english no less- when the teacher garbles on too much.

so anyway i am left with the unenviable task of facing down a list of 50 new japanese vocabulary and 4 past comprehensions, following which i will probably attempt to start my architecture essay. i have no idea how to start, but if tradition holds true, then the difficulty of beginning will be overcome by some kind of literary inertia a few hours into the process.

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have not been playing tennis very often recently. firstly, the weather has been singularly horrid, and even today the sky is a singaporean shade of thunderstorm grey, something i'm not used to at all. secondly, bro is here, and we've been spending most of our free time running around japan. yesterday we spent the afternoon under a very threatening sky at ueno, asakusa and akihabara, and finally the heavens decided to let loose on us while we were comfortably ensconced in the used game section of bookoff akiba. thankfully the adjacent store sold umbrellas for 300 yen apiece, and we were able to escape somewhat unscathed- unlike the madding crowd that hastily congregated under the leaky roof of akiba train station, her sodden singularities glaring at the surly sky.

anyway so here goes- the sky is still horrid today, and i've not got an umbrella. if it runs contrary to the advice of the weather reports i will be poured upon on my way home today, which is not a very inviting prospect, but one which i will have to deal with nonetheless. come to think of it, i will probably just will it away, and go back to watch the live scores page on roland garros. today i will start coming to terms with a scoresheet devoid of nadal, verdasco and ivanovic. but things change, as they should, and one hopes it may be for the better

again blogging from the school library.

there is something simultaneously soothing and unsettling about coming to a school before the first period, despite not having any lessons until the third. as it stood, i came early because i had to collect stuff from ishikura, and, supposing that waking up early's always a good thing anyway, met him outside lt13 at 0845 hrs. turns out that the other two things i intended to do before nine couldn't be done; the canteen isn't open until what seems like 0930 hrs, and the administrative office isn't functioning yet. thus leaving me in the library, tapping away at a small keyboard and peering into a gigantic screen, trying to assemble my thoughts for the japanese journal i'll have to write in approximately twenty minutes.

perhaps it's all true. i seem to be that kind of person who needs something to do to escape listlessness. i use the word listless just so to convey my present feeling- it is nothing heavy, nothing permanent, and nothing more than a disinclination towards tasks at hand. yet i fear this could transcend ennui; it is, at its root, a very light veil of sadness. the lighter the sadness, the more obvious its strangeness, and the less protection it accords against spring's happy slander.

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there was a very interesting conversation i had with emily a few weeks back. she asked if i felt that the japanese around me were very young. with that word she meant a less damning degree of 'infantile'. at that point, though, i felt that the people around me actually constituted a breath of fresh air. after all, for all that moderation the japanese profess to be, their lives slide towards the edges. faced with a choice between stuffy salarymen against shibuya-style students, i'd very much the company of the latter. so it was with some misgiving that i happily answered in the negative.

yet everything exists in degrees of veracity. transiting from high school to the army, and then falling out of it into another world, what one is forced to countenance is a barefaced flashback; back to those days of high school, except in grotesque caricature. everybody still talks about CCAs, but there is no shame in the pursuit of the opposite sex; the rabble, already clamouring, finds all their noise empty (as they should), and clamours even further. this clamour, of course, dies a very natural death when the conversation shifts to academia. while i do not advocate studying for the sake of studying, and am aware of that eros that must lord over our teenage selves, an institution consisting of such aforementioned individuals cannot, in all sincerity, be called a university. it is, strictly speaking, not academic enough to deserve that title.

clearly i am too strict with my words. i have had the pleasure of meeting a lot of people who know how to work and play, and i am aware that the noisy may not be a majority at all. yet i cannot treat the above as a rant. when one writes one tries to give a body to a truth, no matter how fragmented it may be. this truth may not exist in the near future, but at the time of writing it is as relevant as any scientific law or economic model. so it is my rather profuse hope that, a few months down the road, i will come across this entry and have a good laugh at how naively incorrect i used to be

have to write some kind of journal for my japanese class. considering how much time i take writing a single entry in english, and considering how crap i am even at my purported second language (chinese), what chance do i have with my unwieldy third? but anyway i arm myself with a nifty electronic dictionary and i plough along

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taking advantage of that golden broadcasting time on wednesday that is hexagon (at seven) to the red theatre (ending at eleven), i managed to wrap 50 dumplings. my freezer is now a veritable dumpling store, and i look to that hoard to tide me through till the middle of next week. my friends know enough about my culinary skills to not ask for their due portions, and i am not proud enough to share my accomplishments with them- it will therefore be a boring but very thrifty week ahead, if i ignore the fact that i'll be shelling out 15 grand yen for a weekend getaway with the tokyo tennis club. bugger all, life works itself out for me- where i save i'll spend in due time. as you can very well tell, at this point, i don't know whether to be profound or profane

it's the start of summer. it's 26 degrees in the afternoon, and the nights aren't chilly anymore. going out in a suit drenches my shirt, and i've got quite a bit of ironing to do. knowing that i never needed to iron anything for the past three months, and sensing that slight density one comes to associate with summer air, one surmises that change trumps yet again as the only constant.

had ying jian over for a few games of magic this evening. as he didn't bring his own decks he borrowed mine, much to our collective amusement. my decks fit him as much as a square peg does a round hole; turns out he's a wham-bam aggro kind of player, while my decks are all of the tinkering johnny breed. it didn't help, too, that my decks were unusually slow tonight- had i played my decks against his, i'd probably have my face plastered on the wall off first turn mogg fanatic and lackey beats. as it stands, though, my decks didn't like him, and he was mana screwed too often to be funny in the retelling.

anyhow, i expect that i'll be playing against him sometime soon, whether in toudai or again over at my place. it's always good to brainstorm over magic- it forces one to consider problems within the framework of a game, which makes the experience at once trivial and forgiving. of course, triviality is not necessarily negative; it is the refuge the mind seeks when the journey winds too long.

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if it's a particularly silent night, i can hear the drunkards outside screaming at each other, and the train roaring in the distance. it is a good sound; it is the implication of a disconnected chaos, and all life seems so much more peaceful in its presence. yet as the night progresses the street falls eerily silent. my lighted house stands too far away from an invisible another, and my thoughts are as inscrutable as the starless sky