Belong, Not

I come home and step into the society I was born in, grew up with, but they ask me: are you local?

Am I?

Aren't I?

"but you're... Different."

I suppose it can only mean that I come from a plane of existence known only to me, that I have lived 20 long years inside a world of my own creation and have developed into an odd two-legged creature who hasn't a place in what's known as the real world.

But is it necessarily a bad thing? I sit now in a wooden pondok erected out of place on a slope surrounded by oil palms for botanical research purposes, the cacophony of human chatter and shrill laughter behind me, in reality.

There are ducks waddling in the pond after the rain. It is hot again.

The Troubles of Going to the Cinema with a Friend

There is no need to make plans with somebody else when you want to go to the cinema for a nice movie or two, or three, or four... But, if it's a horror movie, it's only fun when you have somebody to hold on to and pretend-cover your eyes with.

 These days, my bank of movie partners have gone bankrupt, save a person or two, since I am living at the edge of civilization while most of the populace remain to populate the already populated places. With assignment due-dates closer together as we traverse through the semester with dying hearts, no serious persons in this university town would agree to go out for a movie. 90% of them don't even eat properly when slaving off on their essays. Thus is the educational system we are coerced into funding. By the end of my three years, I will except myself to live as usual with my unpopular opinion of the world while I sell ice-cream by the beach in Fiji. But of course, I will more likely be living in a studio somewhere in the Netherlands because my partner doesn't aspire to be an ice-cream seller on the beaches of Fiji. If I can't be an ice-cream seller, then I haven't another clue what I am going to do with my life. Ahh, who would hire me? I am 25% fluent in Japanese, 10% fluent in Dutch and 1% fluent in German. 

Enschuldigung, I have sidetracked. But ah, troubles are still troubles! 

... This entire post has been made irrelevant because my choice of friends are on point. I can always count on my horror movie buddy (yes, I really do have one) to say yes and we'll be on our merry way. Luckily, the distance that separates us isn't as great as I thought it would be and there is a mid-way meeting mall that is convenient for the both of us to commute to. Ah, this must be one of the most gleeful discoveries I have made since coming to Semenyih. 

"Gehen wir ins Kino?"

"JAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

I need more friends like that in my life. Or at least, I need to be physically closer to the other horror movie buffs I know that willingly flock to the latest screening. 

Instant Noodles

Marketing schemes are targeted towards potatoes like me. I deliberated between a pack of RM5 noodles and a pack that costed twice as much, plus a few cents. Sesame oil, ooooh!

They smell the same and taste quite alike: instant cancer.

There, I have splurged unnecessarily on an expensive pack of instant cancer when I could have bought 10 such little plastic sacks of the same disease. I try not to buy them at all in an effort to lead a healthier lifestyle, but as you know, I am trying to die. It doesn't seem to work though, dying. Ah, death is as equally difficult as life! Both of them despise me and I am accepted by neither, but rejected by either.

Anyway, my longevity has begun to annoy me. What, long-life? I am only 20? That may be so but I have had enough of functioning as a material subject and not being alive. I breathe, my heart beats, blood still flows and I am warm-- yes, yes, those are signs of being alive but it is automatic and I cannot control it. Well, I may be able to hold my breath for a minute or so before my body starts gasping for air on its own selfish account. I suppose I am just as selfish as my body is, and that, we cannot accept.

If I keep on eating instant noodles everyday, which I will not because they are disgusting and taste like factories, salt and wax, I might eventually have to suffer an insufferable hospitalization and beg for somebody else's kidney. Nah, I don't want that. By the time I've eaten enough instant cancer, I'd be 35 with a career and could actually try living, in my spare time.

Occasionally, I enjoy myself and I see how marvelous it is to be alive and well! Ho... Well...? Alive, but well? That is relative. We shall leave that for some other entry. For now, just buy the cheapest noodles stacked on the shelves because they are noting but cancer in cheap wraps of ideology.

Training: Thinking in Japanese

今日私は嬉しかった。私の大好き先生はお茶をあげました。そして、私たち一時間ぐらい話しました。あの時私の心ドキドキしました、ちょっと恐かったです。でもね、トーム先生はすごくやさしいひとです。先生の笑顔が大好き。あ、そです、先生の茶碗とても可愛いですよ。スターバクスで買いました。高いでしょう、先生に聞きませんでした。

そ、そ。今日の天気はよかったです、でも風は寒かったです。あ、ロンドン毎日もさむいです。私は好きでも嫌いでもないです。大学の生活ちょっとすまらないよ、それからたくさん宿題です。比較文学はすごく、すごく、すごく難しい。何で私はこのせんこうを選択した．．．何で。

私の日本語はどうですか。五月にテストをあります。

One small step at a time towards becoming a polyglot someday. One day, maybe: definitely maybe. 

Waiting, Let the Time Pass

When I was young, I told myself that when I get older, I'll have more freedom.

19 years later, in a foreign country, a city in which only those who grew up here could learn to love all its grey; alone, isolated-- my idea of being free? "more freedom" I thought. I laugh now, because freedom, there is none, and more of it, where will more come from when there is none?

Kafka's ape. He understood more than we did, do, and ever will, that freedom is nothing but a thought that takes shape in our wistful minds, a result of our borderlessly trapped lives. A way out, that is it, that is the only way. A way out, an escape, to escape. I've been pushing through doors and doors and doors, exiting, escaping, looking for a way out. Out, out, out... It is endless. Only in my mind do I see a way out, and when I step through the light-laden door, I find myself back on the other side, facing again, myself and my uncertainties. And so I cry while stuffing cheap Mr Kipling lemon swirls through my trembling lips.

When I get older, it'll get better, right?

I looked forward to growing out of my restraints and I am still waiting for the day I'm truly unbound. However, I fear that the day may only come when I breathe my last and understand that my whole life, I've been chasing for nothing but the end-- the end that I could have had at any point in life, so long as I wasn't afraid of a little pain, a little suffering.

She looked me in the eye and told me nothing is worth throwing away my life for, but I wondered, silently, why didn't she have children of her own?

At times like this, I wonder why people should get offended when one chooses to leave life. Who has the right to say that we should enjoy living, the gift called life? It is marvelous, miraculous, appreciate it! But when there is so much to be grateful for, so little to live for and no will at all to carry on, how do I go about enjoying it?

I spend days bright and dark alike under the duvet, waiting for time to pass because there is nothing else I want to do. Positive motivational speeches won't work anymore at this stage. Nothing, I think, would rekindle the life in me.

The future I wanted, I'll bid it farewell. As for the future we are planning for, I might have to abandon it as well. Though I regret having you, because you are just that one reason I couldn't bear to leave just yet.

Condemn me. Condemn me. Condemn me!