strike

the public transport system will strike on friday, the day of my last paper.

i think strikes are immature. maybe the me in the past would have condoned it, would even have done something similar given a certain circumstance.

but not anymore.

i can understand where they are coming from. but who doesn't want more pay, more benefits?

amidst this financial crisis, people are losing their jobs, so i feel that timing wise, it is not appropriate, if there ever were an appropriate timing in the first place. in any case, now is perhaps the time where everyone should get together and work together to rectify the situation.

not the time to sit there and sulk.

that is why i absolutely cannot accept it.

what are they trying to prove, who are they trying to prove that to? the people making the decisions. unfortunately, the people making the decisions don't travel with public transport. the people who are most affected are the people who are not in a position to make the decision. in short, we are caught in the middle of their dispute.

alot of people depend on the public transport system to get to work, to get to school, to get to their exams. the last thing you could do is to let them down. selfishness, isn't it?

but i always believe in the ability of humans to find a solution. taxi, car pool, walk, leaving much earlier to factor in the expected jams, even going to the uni the day before the strike. we will do whatever it takes.

because we will not be defeated by such immaturity.

last friends, oyaji, kurosagi

watched 3 dramas recently.

as i watched the first 3 episodes of last friends, a few thoughts occured to me.

1) there goes an idea i have been mooting.

2) this is going to be a great drama.

3) in recent times j-dramas have changed in their concept. nowadays, the individual episodes are in a way stand-alone episodes that you can watch without really needing to know what happened previously. last friends went back to the old way- one continuous story.

4) some dramas are great because you just want to watch it quickly till the end. like proposal daisakusen. you can spend the whole night watching it from start to end. with last friends, this is not quite possible, because it is so disturbing.

nishikido ryo's portrayal of oikawa sousuke has cemented his place as the most hateable character in j-drama history. with regards to the ending, i don't know how else it could have ended, so i wouldn't say it was disappointing.

talking about ending...what is the ending to the cinderella story? this was a question put forth in kurosagi. we may think the story has ended, but for the characters, the people involved, maybe it has really just begun. and while we can move on to read the next story, the characters are still stuck in that story.

kurosagi is also a cool show. you can tell it has manga roots.

quotable quotes:
-things that you buy with money will eventually break. why don't you try cherishing something else?

-whereever you may be, whatever you may be doing, remember this: you are not alone.

what i like about kurosagi is how everything is woven intricately together, and how everyone has a back story.

katsuragi saying "humans are interesting" reminds me terribly of ryuk in death note.

oyaji is another great drama. rewatched it after 6, 7 years. how time flies.

maido ari.

eduardo

seriously when eduardo scored the first goal, i wondered what he must have felt.

right after the penalty was given, he immediately grabbed hold of the ball and went straight to the spot; you could see that burning desire in his eyes. there was not a single doubt at all.

here is someone who came back from the brink. i was almost disappointed that he was taken off after an hour, because surely he could have gotten a hat-trick, and that would be a fairytale comeback. but a year without playing is a long time, and wenger has to be careful. of course, the standing ovation was also a nice touch.

they are not too far off when they say this game is all about eduardo's return.

for the first time this year, arsenal played something that can be called football. yes, it is only cardiff city. but better than nothing.

eduardo's return can galvanise the team. it is an important boost both psychologically and on the pitch. because seriously, there is nothing much to choose between bendtner and adebayor.

bendtner did play well. but how he didn't get a hattrick was shocking. his link-up play was certainly better than adebayor's.

as for alexandre song, i can't believe they actually give him a 7 on goal.com, and praised his passing. they must have been watching a different game, because he was giving away the ball for free.

a dm who can't pass is useless. useless.

what i can conclude about the squad:
players who have no future at the team
eboue
song

players who are on their way out
adebayor
diaby
bendtner
almunia

i have nothing much to say about eboue, really. he played the best 30 minutes of his life against spurs and got himself sent off. i was against the boo-ing he received a while back, even though i don't particularly like him. but enough is enough.

have you ever looked at a city through someone's eyes, thereby understanding her a little better?

have you ever wonder what it would be like to grow up in a particular city?

have you ever wonder what kind of city was the city which she came from, which she grew up in?

what i quite can't stand is people walking in and expecting to play.

i feel that such people have the wrong mentality.

they either expect things from you because of their passport, or simply because they think the whole world owes them a living.

such days are over.

you have to prove your worth to the team.

free-loaders are disgusting because they come and use you, and dump you the moment they have no need for you. where is the sincerity in this world, my friends?

and there are some people who think you are not good enough to play on their teams.

with regards to such people, i only have one advice. prove them damned wrong.

i also can't stand people who don't have the guts to talk directly, but hide behind other people, and make themselves appear the pathetic victim, only to swagger when they have someone to back them up. you notice their change in tone almost immediately.

and you wonder what they are trying to prove.

songs

some songs just belong to certain periods in our lives, like whenever you hear them, certain images from your life immediately come to mind.

nakashima mika's glamorous sky, orange range's michishirube, otsuka ai's always together and 5:09am
songs that i listened to alot while in the first few months of army.

the melody's goodbye and cascada's what hurts the most
the cold Cologne in January, the platform of Hansaring station, the tracks leading to the service depot. when it turned dark before 5 am, and the sun doesn't rise before 8am.

gwen stefani's early winter
a warmer Cologne, the main shopping street Schildergasse in March.

yael naim's new soul
largely in holland, the naivete.

mongol 800's chiisana koi no uta
wandering around barcelona

a fine frenzy's almost lover
waiting in the wee hours at copenhagen airport, going out into the cold to see the sky turn light at like 3 in the morning

bump of chicken's tensai kansoku, darius' live twice, brian mcfadden and delta goodrem's almost here
these 3 songs belong to a period of confusion and regret. and many other emotions. it is the one thing that still haunts me. and it has nothing to do with someone

alexz johnson's voice is currently drilled into my head. i really recommend:
i just wanted your love(you have to watch the video.)
don't you dare
i still love you

I could say you that I don't care
But the truth is I'd follow you anywhere

we are all Barcelonese

with the lacklustre play of Arsenal and Ajax nowadays, Valencia's horrible defending undoing all the good work up front, and my praise for Barcelona's football, you may be forgiven for thinking i have switched allegiance.

i haven't.

liking a city does not mean supporting the football team as well.( Munich is the best example)

but all neutrals should stand behind barcelona, because the football Barcelona has been playing is out of this world. only their self-destruction will lose them the la liga. and looking at pep guardiola, i don't see that happening. with mallorca never really believing they can beat barcelona anyway, only sevilla or bilbao stand in barcelona's way for the copa del rey. either way, it will be tricky, but perhaps just 90 minutes will be all that decide if the copa del rey goes to barcelona as well or not. the hardest competition to win would be the champions' league.

if barcelona can reproduce their play in the champions' league, i won't mind them romping to a treble, because they have thoroughly deserved it thus far.

teams come to nou camp already half a goal down.

what will win things for barca this season is guardiola's character. i am most impressed by guardiola. you can say with a team like that, how can you not win? well, they didn't last season. and with barcelona notching win after win, people easily forget that after the first two games of the season, they had only one point and people were calling for guardiola's head.

full credit to him, because he sets high expectations and has refused to get carried away with the team's success. he doesn't talk as if la liga is theirs, as if they have won anything. he finds faults even when they win 3-0. and his players don't shout their mouths off, unlike some idiots we know.

normally, i espouse freedom. but freedom has to come with a responsibility. i feel that what they are doing in barcelona is just being sensible and focussed on the task at hand. telling the press you are going to win everything has nothing to do with freedom; it is simply being naive and immature.

if i were barcelona, i would go all out this season, go all out for the remaining 4 months or so, win everything possible, break every record possible, because if there is a best time to do it, it is this season. you don't know what will happen next season, so don't wait till next season.

another draw when teams like hull city are doing us a big favour.

i have said all that i could possibly say. it's always the same old thing. more talks of people leaving. leaving this sinking ship.

people want to leave if we are not in champs league next season, because they want to win trophies.

well, if you care so much about winning, why aren't you winning?

rather than hold everyone who cares about the team hostage, why don't you do something about the situation?

exams, spies and metaphors

there are 2 ways you can go about dealing with exams, which is more or less dependent on which category you fall into.

so if you are like FC Barcelona, you can go ahead, focus on your game, focus on what you do best, because nothing can probably stop you.

but sadly, most of us are not Barcelona. the good news is:

1) you don't need to be winning the game for 90 minutes. you just need to win the game when the whistle is blown.

2) scoring a penalty 10 times in training and then scoring a penalty in a real game is no different from scoring a penalty 1 time in training and then again in a real game, or better still, scoring a penalty once and only once, and that's in the game. i recommend, however, that you score at least once in training.

3) exams are like the Euro, or the World Cup- a 400metre race. it doesn't matter what happened in qualification or the group stage, as long as you progress. what is most important is to peak at the right time.

4) having said that, if you are playing brazil in the final, you don't need to think about whether you would have beaten spain. all you need to care about is to beat brazil.

i don't know how you go about preparing for exams, but things like how many questions will there be, how long is the exam, how the content can be broken down into the concepts to be tested are of vital importance to me. it is like studying the opponent, the pitch condition, the nutrition plans, the journey to the stadium. all these are just as important as the game itself.

you may ask, why can't you just get on with it, just go and play the game?

because, i am not barcelona. so i have to be able to adapt myself to the opponent's gameplay.

yesterday, we had a voluntary mock exam for the killer subject. i went in, knowing i am maybe 40% prepared. but i also went in, knowing that i absolutely have nothing to lose. i came out feeling like how derby must have felt when they lost to man u in the league cup. knowing that there is absolutely no pressure, somehow being able to lift your game, take the game to the opponents and come away having left a good account of yourself, regardless of the result.

training sessions is about what you can do.

friendlies are about what you cannot do...yet. it is about identifying the errors in your game plan so that you can correct them.

when you can give a good account of yourself when you are only 40% prepared, you are only going to feel encouraged, especially when the errors you have identified can be rectified, can be ironed out through drills.

on another note,

i feel like i am a spy who has infiltrated the ranks of the engineers and scientists.

to which melvin said it's just two sides of the coin. like how some people, upon seeing snow, write poems, whereas other people look at things like temperature and all. an apt way to put it.

speaking of apt descriptions, i came across this in an old Economist article.

"Sooner or later, everyone writing about intra-Belgian tensions uses the metaphor of a couple trapped in a loveless marriage, only staying together because neither wants to lose custody of their child. [...]
The metaphor suggests two more lessons, that we foreign correspondents should remember. First, just because someone spends their time criticising their family, doesn’t mean they enjoy it when outsiders chime in. And second, no outsider can ever truly understand a couple."

Love

She moved out that afternoon, when the sun was shining brightly, although the temperature was minus ten.

I stood by the doorway and watched, somewhat emotionlessly, as she directed the movers. We had lived together for 2 years. Watching the boxes carried out of my apartment, I realized there was a lot of stuff you could accumulate over two years.

I stood by the front door, shivering in my thin jacket as the moving truck drove off. She pressed the keys into my hand and smiled. "Take care."

And then she left.

After that, I went for a walk. I realized that walking alone was different. For a start, there would only be a set of shadow on the ground. Your hands would probably be tucked into your pockets, partly due to the cold, and partly because there wasn't another hand to hold.

Walking for perhaps a hundred meters or so, I realized that something was missing. Voices. Voices, voices, voices. It was too quiet. Unnaturally quiet. I looked up, and saw the sign for the Metro. Why not, I thought.

I boarded the train, without checking which it was. I had time; I had no destination.

The guy opposite me was nodding to a beat, a beat that only he could hear, because it was coming from his headphone. And I wondered if the girl beside him was listening to the same song. I was about to shout out to them, to take off their headphones and put their mp3s on speakers or something, because I needed some noise.

That was when the two ladies beside me started their conversation. Or maybe they were resuming it. Maybe they had stopped when this guy me entered the train.

And I realized I couldn't understand a single word they were saying. Was it Greek? Turkish? I wasn't sure. But at least it was no longer eerily silent.

I listened to them ramble on for three, four stops (I lost count). Amazingly, nobody alighted, nor did anybody else board the train. Surely, someone living there would have to go somewhere right? Or perhaps, no one was living there. I imagined the area above the stations, dominated by trees shrouded in mist. I half wanted to get out and verify for myself.

The two ladies suddenly stood up. With their luggage. I hadn't noticed their luggage. Central Station. They alighted. At the very last moment, I sprang from my seat and leapt out of the train. I followed the two ladies up on the escalator to the surface terminal for the regional and international trains.

The platform was filled with people rushing about. For a while, I stood there, the only constant, as people came and left. Then I went to one of the platforms, chosen randomly. I stood there with the rest of the people waiting for their train, an imposter. An announcement was being made, and the people around me looked up, as if they could see the person making the announcement. As I laughed at their naiveté, I realized I was exposed. The announcement in question had to do with their train. There was to be a delay for 30 minutes. The girl beside me, with a beanie over her blonde hair smiled, and her gaze lingered somewhere on an imaginary plane on the cold frosty air, below returning to her book.

How could she smile? How could she possibly smile when her train was delayed? Wherever she was going, surely she was going to meet someone important, someone whom she had been longing to see? I wanted to grab her and shake her, demand to know, how could she smile?

Then I noticed she was reading a Murakami book. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Ah, I had read that before. There was a story about spaghetti in it.

Thinking of spaghetti, I realized I was hungry; I hadn't eaten since morning. So, I left the platform and the station, and the girl who smiled when her train was delayed.

I went for sushi. I knew a place around the corner. I had been there often enough to have struck up a friendship with the chef and owner.

"Hey! You haven't been here in a long time," he greeted me when I entered.

He was right.

I took a seat.

"The usual?"

"The usual."

"Mentaiko? You will be happy to even have decent sushi around here," the man at the next table was gesturing animatedly to his disinterested companion.

He caught me looking. I smiled; what else could I do?

"Excuse me, mister. Can I ask you a question?" I ventured.

He nodded.

"What is love?"

"Inedible shit that you can't eat."

My sushi platter came. I looked at it, weighing his words. This wasn't love.

"Everything all right?" the owner asked.

"Never been better," I replied, before tucking in with gusto.

Stepping out of the place, I realized I needed something. Dessert. Or maybe a coffee. I went to a café down the street, ordered myself a latte macchiato. I sat at my table, sipping my latte macchiato and feeling self-satisfied. The meal was good, the latte macchiato was good. I couldn't have done better, I thought smugly.

Then I noticed the unoccupied seat opposite me.

Just then two girls came in and took the table beside mine. They seemed to have been in the midst of a serious, heated conversation. They waited till the waitress took their order and leave, even managing to flash rather innocuous smiles in the process, before returning to their discussion.

"And I let him go…"

"Just like that?"

"I shouldn't stop him…"

"Excuse me," the waitress interrupted again with their orders. They froze as the waitress went about her job. Then she left.

I interrupted before they could unfreeze themselves. "Excuse me."

They turned and glared at me, as if I had spoilt everything.

"What is love?" I had nothing to lose.

"Love is when you let someone go…"

"Nonsense, that isn't love. You let him go because you don't love him enough. If you love him, you wouldn't have given up. You would have stayed to fight!"

I left them to argue among themselves and stepped out from the warmth of the café to the cold outside. I strolled along the main boulevard of the city, pausing now and then to look at the window displays of the fashion boutiques, restaurants and other fancy shops that line it.

I decided to enter a chocolate boutique. "How about some chocolates for the special one, sir? Valentine's is just around the corner," the smiling sales assistant asked from behind the counter.

"I just ended a relationship," I said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

She looked startled, and her face flushed.

"Do you believe in love?"

She looked even more startled by my question and looked at her chocolates, as though the answer was there, as though suddenly everything she had been told was the truth had been proven wrong.

She looked up, like an oracle done with her divination. "Yes…"

"Have a nice day," I said and took my leave.

I reached the university, and came across a student lying on a bench outside the main building.

"Hey, do you mind telling me what love is?"

Without even looking at me, he replied, "What is love? I have no time for such frivolous discussion! I am just here to get some sun, and fresh air into my system, and then it is back to the books. Talk about love? Please."

A few meters away from us stood a girl by the statue of the founder. She was staring at her cellphone. There was such a sad look on her face that I didn't have the heart to trouble her. I walked past her.

I was back in my neighborhood. A teenager was juggling a football at the football court.

"Hey!" I called out.

He looked up and the ball dropped onto the ground.

"What is love?"

He pondered for a while, before replying, "Love is when you are playing side by side."

He hooked the ball up and resumed his juggling, while I continued on my way, pondering his words.

I entered Ashes and Wine, a bar just around the corner. I happened to know the proprietress well. I walked down the narrow steps and pushed open the creaky door. She was behind the counter, wiping the countertop with a cloth.

"Business as usual?" I asked.

"It's a little early, but come on in," she smiled.

I took a seat. "A Macallan."

She nodded.

"She's gone?" she asked as she placed my Macallan in front of me.

"Thanks. Yeah, she left this morning."

"So everything all right?"

"Never been better," I said, taking a sip.

"Welcome to the club," she said.

"Maybe we have been looking for love in the wrong places."

"Maybe love doesn't exist in the first place."

"Maybe," I said. "Say, is there a place where people can go to become happier?"

"I don't know. I would like to know."

"Somewhere in this big city, there must be such a place."

"Indeed."

"I will find it, and let you know how it goes."

"That will be nice."

I went on my way again, stopping at the bus stop. The old lady was there, as always. Rain, snow or shine, come what may, she would be sitting at the bus stop, every single day. She seemed to be waiting for someone. But she had probably been waiting forever.

I suddenly thought about the girl at the station, the girl who smiled when her train was delayed. I hoped she got to her destination, because if I were the person waiting for her at the other end of the railway track, I wouldn't want to be waiting forever to no avail.

I reached home and pushed my window wide open, gazing out.

"Hey!" someone called out from the street below.

I looked down; it was my neighbor.

"Everything all right? You look so serious. What are you thinking about?"

"I am just thinking about what love means. What is love?"

"What is love?" he smiled. "Interesting question. I have never thought about it. What about you? What do you think?"

"I am nowhere near an answer. "

"…Midnight. Is it the end of a day, or the start of a day?"

I pondered his question.

He laughed, "It's just a matter of perspective, isn't it? All right, I am coming in. It's cold. Don't catch a cold thinking too much."

I gave serious thought to what he had just said. The lights all around were starting to come on; it was getting dark. And I had the answer to my own question at the bar. I shut the window and drew the blinds. I would tell her first thing in the morning. For now, I had to sleep. I hadn't slept properly for the past few weeks. I collapsed onto my bed and shut my eyes.

The place is the city itself. Do you see the flower, or do you see the bare tree? Do you see the crying girl, or do you see the smiling girl?

What about love? What is love?

I don't know. It seems to me a complicated thing, love. I'll think through, and tell you about it some time. But for now, I need to sleep.