100 words to you

Maybe it is time to let go.
It has been a while, hasn’t it?
Surely I shouldn’t let it drag.

Yet it feels,
As though you are locked
In my heart
And the key’s gone.

Yet it feels,
As though you have become
Part of me,
Inseparable.

Every time I try,
To free myself from you,
The you in me
Seem to be crying.

And I am guilt-stricken.
And turn back,
Wanting to hold you.

But you aren’t there,
Not anymore.

Like you are haunting me.
Stalked by the past.
Forever bound to it.

Hey, won’t you let me go?

i am trying to come up with something.

random stuff: fictitious, inspired or otherwise.

And i thought,
if heaven were on my side,
you would be there.

You seem to have become a part of me,
locked in my heart.
When i try to open it again,
it seems as though,
the you in me
gets jealous,
and i am guilt-stricken.

Today, i woke up with tears in my eyes. Because i woke up from a beautiful dream to the sad reality. They say dreams are the manifestations of your thoughts before you sleep. But i could have sworn i wasn't thinking of you. Or was I? Suddenly, i wasn't sure anymore. If i weren't, was it God's way of reminding me of your existence? If i were, does it mean i still can't let go? It is a funny thing, really. It's like you are haunting me. This me just can't seem to let go of you.

Always Together

Always together,
Those words you wrote,
My notebook,
That fateful summer.

Young and naïve we were,
Spoke of our dreams,
Future together,
Wanted the world.

Still that summer,
You left me for good,
Though I was sure,
It was winter.

Time, that little bit
I tried to steal,
To no avail.
We simply weren’t meant to be.

Always together,
Didn’t you say that?
That summer vacation.
Never.

Teruyoki: maybe she will become someone i see once every two, three weeks. maybe even a month. she doesn't even seem to care. Kanna, she's always telling me this, even though i want that. like telling me to spend more time with my friends. when she's the one i want to spend time with. not that i don't spend time with my friends. it's different.

Teruyoki: let go? how do you do that when you play your mp3 and the songs just remind you of everything? and when you flip open a book, and inside is a card from her?

Teruyoki: she seems perfectly fine with it. maybe that's why even the drink tastes bitter.

Teruyoki: it's not that i didn't try...i did! but i got so scared, i just wanted to run away. like pulling out from a 50-50 challenge.

from norwegian wood

in the midst of life, everything revolved around death

he could charge forward, the optimistic leader even as his heart writhed in a swamp of loneliness. he lived in his own special hell.

watanabe: nobody likes being alone. i just hate to be disappointed

nagasawa:life doesn't require ideal. it requires standards of actions.
watanabe:what is the standard of action in your life?
nagasawa: to be a gentleman.
watanabe: what does it mean to be a gentleman?
nagasawa: a gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do, but what he should do.

life is a box of chocolates.

you were so nice to me when i was having my problems, but now that you're having yours, it seems theres not a thing i can do for you. you are all locked up in that little owrld of yours, and when i try knocking on the door, you just sort of look up for a second and go back right inside.

Kizuki was still 17 and Naoko 21: for ever.

Letters are just pieces of paper. burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay; keep them and what vanishes will vanish.
_________
back to all she was worth. ikumi and honda. that kind of relationship. makes you wonder. is it fair?

can you keep someone else in your heart when you are with another person?

i just finished miyuki miyabe's all she was worth. the ending was stunning. literally. just like that. it is really inconclusive. its up to u to determine how that confrontation will turn out. did kyoko shinjo really kill shoko sekine, as honma had deduced? but it was still a nice book to read, though i like seicho matsumoto's inspector yamanishi inspects many many times more. that was a very clever book. nevertheless, all she was worth does provide some insights into the mess that is our world. one particular passage stood out. its abt honda's wife ikumi insisting on him helping honda with the investigation, because she didnt want it to drag. you see, honda probably loves shoko all his life. ikumi is competing with a memory. she rather it be buried, concluded once and for all. and theres another thing abt this: honda and shoko prob never got together because they were too close, too good friends.

so i am now reading haruki murakami's norwegian wood. theres this line that just sticks to me. the thought fills me with an almost unbearable sorrow. Because Naoko never loved me.

this is bad, because norwegian wood is turnin out to be a compelling book, and i dun have much time left, and i dun want to bring it in, and i wun be out next weekend.

btw ogasawara scored a magnificent goal against finland. and they said ono and ogasawara in centre mid was a superb combination. and seiichiro maki and shinji murai did very well. hopefully zico will let more of the younger players play, because some of his veterans are clearly not producing the goods.

do you ever get the feeling that you are in the wrong place?

ignoring my postulation about the nonexistence of 100% in this world, what would you do, if given 70 percent of your effort, you could accomplish your personal goals, but putting in that extra 30 percent effort would jeopardise others' without changing your own outcome?

would you put others or yourself first? is there any meaning in putting more effort at otehrs' expense? would you spoil the market? actually i think it is perfectly ok to go all out to spoil the market...but doing things that condemn others to defeat, without the need to actually do so...is quite a shame, really. and the best part is, sometimes we think we are helping, but we are making it worse. the problem of unintended consequences as highlighted by merton. ignorance, error, basic values, self-defeating prediction and the intentional ignorance of the effects to achieve the intended effects were singled out as the causes of unintended consequences. how true.

it is the same debate about efficiency and equality, isn't it?
how do we strike a balance between others and ourselves? they tried to avoid the debate by coming up with the term equity. giving everyone an equal chance. clever play, but they haven answered: where exactly do you draw the line.

i think you hold back if you are going to hurt others. of course not everyone is aware that they are hurting people. you cant really blame them, but if you know, you better don't. it's a crime.

would you want to teach the people around you to be thinking players? the good thing is that they won't kill you out of foolishness unintentionally or otherwise. the bad thing is that your edge over them would be eroded. it is something which i am still tryin to reconcile.

today was quite screwed up. wj, hq and i went hc to play soccer, but it rained, and we ended up sitting at the canteen talking. sort of reminds you of school, reminds you of help camp. then we went to modesto to eat and watch liverpool v man utd. den home after that.

so i neither played nor drunk, which were two things i set out to do today. at least my mp3 wasnt spoilt, as i initially feared. it was just the earphones which were spoilt. what a relief.
at least i got kobukuro's koko ni shika saka nai hana. this and their sakura are very nice songs. the kind that tug at your heart.

trying to get glamorous sky accoustic version is very very very hard. i still haven gotten it. even went to download the single, in the vain hope that it would be included. it wasnt, incidentally.

I would forever remember that fateful night. The night when the boys played like men. Like men possessed. In the chilly night of the imposing Santiago Bernabeu, the fable of a magical season was concluded. It was a night that would last forever.

This is the story of a team. A team that captured the imagination, hearts and soul of the entire football world.

There were of course doubters: a team of boys against a team of world-class superstars. But of course, that night, the boys found their places in the Madrid sky. Perhaps not just over Madrid, but the world.

Let me start from the beginning…

have you ever played football on a wet, muddy field in the rain?
the rain beating down on your face
the wind cutting your face
the mud holding on to you
but somehow you trudge on
pushing the ball forward
it is sort of liberating
like fighting through some barriers
that is what football is to me
liberating
finding your way
that is the feeling michishirube~a road home conveys

i asked myself what could i do for you. i couldnt even hold you when you are cold. i couldnt be there for you when you need someone. though i promised.

have you ever wondered what you were doing exactly a year ago?

will we look back on the past with an aching smile?

reading socrates in love by kyoichi katayama, while listening to songs like story, michishirube, hana, ocean, sakura(kobukuro), goodbye etc, can fill you with intense emotions. somehow, all these songs seem to go with the story. i havent watched the movie, but i heard that the movie got some parts about sakutaro's adult life, that seemed to be missing from the book. maybe they added it, after all, the book was the original. nevertheless, it's still a book that touched me from page one.

"And that was why, wheneveri woke up, I'd be crying. It wasn't because i was sad. When you return from a happy dream to sad reality, there's a chasm you have to step across, and you can't cross it without shedding tears. It doesn't matter how many times you do it."

there's something beautiful and subtle about katayama's language. i wish i knew japanese, so that i would be able to read it in its original form. somehow, it would be much more beautiful i guess.

about being subtle.
i guess life is a fine balance between the subtle and the obvious. it is like a dance. even as you do not want to show your intentions, you somehow still want the other party to know. it is sort of theatrical. but i guess that is how life is. a stage. a performance. our performance.

have you ever been in a situation whereby you leave an exchange, thinking you have won, yet feeling that you have lost? i think the other party must be very zai. the perfection of the art of balancing subtlety with the obvious.

the fool will kill the smart. because of their foolishness. remember this. being smart isn't enough if you are surrounded by fools. their foolishness will undermine you. remember this. be on your guard.

what is friendship? what is the meaning of the word "friend". i think this is a very sacred word, at least to me. one not to be used flippantly. please treat it with reverance, respect.

Michishirube~ A Road Home [ A sign pointing the way~a road home]
by orange range.
this song is fantastic. dedicated to all who are growing up, struggling to find themselves in the dark. may we find ourselves soon.

sometimes i am just breaking down.

i am torn between two.

between the "we are only 17, we need to learn to relax" (friday night lights) and the-world-is-flat-effect.

"attitude reflects leadership, captain." from remember the titans.

pain is good because it lets you know you are alive. but too much isnt good.

sometimes i am too tired to even be swept along by the flow, by the currents.

that chung-lee-siang-you-gotta-be-kidding-me-style-to-death look. it ought to be mastered quickly.

talk to you soon.

here i am, crying out to you, asking for that little bit more time, more time out.

the season pretty much sums up how things have been going. can't wait for it to be over. for arsenal and ajax. maybe valencia can pull something off. maybe. hamburg too. and ought i feel relieved that at least nigel de jong went hamburg, rather than some team which i hate? still, i will miss him in the ajax shirt.

went back nj just now
the familiar journey
the familiar place
not that i miss the institution,
but i miss the time i spend there,
with the people.

orange days. i keep thinking of this drama. and one line in particular. "we will all move on, into society. maybe we will meet up once in a while, for drinks. but we will all have our own lives." it just keeps resounding in my head.

having lunch wif matt, vince, junrong, goi, dingod, eileen and their ct ms ling. funny. but nice. it will be a while i guess.

what if one day i lose you?

looking at the rest of the people ard, the j2s, the j1s, so carefree. makes you envious. makes you regret. not cherishing.

i can just picture us there.

a few more hours left. less than 3 in fact. back to that place. shudders.

maybe it is just as well, that i din go to those places. would have been reminded of us.

there are so many books i want to buy. was browsing thru kino yest. so many. the metaknowledge advantage by rafael aguayo, how we compete by suzanne berger, multitude by the 2 guys, one is called hardt, the otehr i dunno. these are the more serious books. the fiction books: sayonara, gangsters by genichiro takahashi, crossfire by miyuki miyabe, the alchemist by paulo coehlo, 100 years of solitude and love in the time of cholera by gabriel marquez, out by natsuo kirino...sooo many. oh and the end of nation states by kenichi ohmae, death of economics, butterfly economics by paul ormerod. and the professor, the bk on arsene wenger. ARGH. can i have everything?

hope is the absence of reason.
faith is just blind hope.

stubbornly clinging on.

no way. muri. impossible.

it just feels so incomplete.

your shadow just hangs over.

there's always the easy way out.

tell you about it sometime.

5:28: A Hangover

5:28
in the morning
woke up with
a hangover
grasping at
the fading dream
you and I
run to the sun

5:28
the morning aft
woke up with
a hangover
asking why
won’t you won’t you
let me go?

5:28
in the evening
got hit by
a hangover
happy days
soon be over

5:28
writing to you
this practice
a hangover
yet unsent.

5:28
reminiscing here
memories
a hangover

5:28
regretting now
my those words

5:28
Am missing you.

5:28

no organisation should be dominated by a climate of fear.

10 songs
5.09 a.m. otsuka ai
the word is dawn. that kind of feeling when you just wake up, needing someone to be there. and this yearning just sort of explodes. that is the feeling this song evokes. and i am still very enamoured by the title. its somehow so special to me. cant explain it. just that it's brilliant.

planetarium otsuka ai
stars. you know, like stars shining on in the dark sky. that kind of faith. it's present in this song. and the lyrics are very nice. just realised.

glamorous sky nana
a very restless song. hey, the nicest part translates as :they dun sleep. but infused in glam sky is this longing for the past. a happier past. sometimes u yearn so much you get restless. i can understand that well. but lyrics aside, glam sky is the kakoi song of 2005. ok its a close fight wif hana. but nakashima mika was damn cool as nana.

hana orange range
the other kakoi song of 2005. the rap parts. everything. and the naze boku ha koko ni irun darou, naze kimi ha koko ni irun darou, naze kimi deaetan darou, kimi ni deaeta koto sore ha unmei part.

boku no kimochi wat
the kind of young pple song, when u r at the stage thinking, do u want to tell her ur feelings. the initial uncertainty etc. but of cos its quite optimistic. as in it isnt a sad song or wad lar. and the pv is quite nice

sign mr children
i tink i said before, abt it being a journey, not tumultous, but can still be wrenching at times.

cherish otsuka ai
i like the rock feeling infused in it. if we can think deeply, that someday, time will end here, i thought that i will always love you and i will be holding out my hand to you. this year the happiest thing is being by your side. love is such a scary thing, thats why we run away as we search for it.

always together otsuka ai
the title said it all.

ocean b'z
the best ballad since konya for b'z. umizaru umizaru, thats what this song conjures up-images of umizaru. senzaki and kanna (hideaki itou and ai katou). u noe when u hear it and tink of the movie, and drama if u have watched it, i haven, u sort of feel that faith. esp that part: always be with you

story ai
theres this part in the song, its the background vocals. "you don't have to worry". i tink its damn nice. that part. budden the whole song is damn nice. one of the few songs which catch u on teh first try.