Wonder Walker Wanderlust: January 2005

Let it Live

It was supposed to be different.
When I started a blog, I wasn’t expecting my blog to be this way.
I wanted to do something more creative, interesting and maybe little more intelligent, like discs/books/movies review and all. As I have written quite a few times before, I don’t like my-daily-life kind of blogs. Not saying such blogs are wrong, but I wanted to do something more inspiring. But anyway ironically my blog became just as what I never wanted it to be. You know I know that you guys now had enough of my ponderings and are getting bored with it. I'm bored with it, too. But I'm doing it again and not sure why.

My first blog was just a start, so it was kind of tester. Writing in English was a pain in a sense in the beginning (it still is sometimes). Anyway I stopped that one after a month and a bit because I left Japan for the States, and there I started a journal sort of blog. It was okay, but after all it didn’t go like what I wanted it to be, it became just like scattered pieces of frustration. Not a cultural frustration (if so, that could be interesting for the blog), but the frustration of loneliness. And now this blog. I’m not linking this one to the last two because I want it different… which hasn’t come out yet…

Why is all that happening?
You know I’m stuck at home most of the time. Recently I calculated the time I spend outside home. Let’s say I spend around 5 minutes (much less actually) in the garden of my house or to get letters from the letter box everyday. That’s 5 X 7=35. I go for a walk for an hour about two times a week, so that’s two hours. I also go to DVD rentals to get movies once a week and that takes around 30 minutes. So I spend my time outside approximately three hours a week. That is just 2% of a week. Which means I spend 98% of a week at home, inside.

That makes me miss normal life, I guess. So I write ordinary (what’s ordinary, though) stuff in my blog to make some balance. I don't know. Now you can ask me why the hell I’m in such situation. Well, I guess I have tried to explain this one before too. I don’t go to school, and I don’t hang out with people here much. There are three friends I hang out in this town, one is really rarely, other two comes like once or twice a month and spend around 3, 4 hours at my home chatting, which I'm not sure if you call that “hang out”. That’s it. I know it is stupid not hanging out people at all and saying it’s boring and lonely but I never had very good friends here. I mean I don’t really like having “so-called” friends. I have some real good friends in India, and I do email them sometimes, but they are far, far away now. My mom says you can never make friends if you don’t compromise, but well, fuck that.

I was chatting with a guy I became friends with in the States yesterday or something and he was asking me if I have ever been depressed. I guess he thought I’m a cool guy sort of you know, who has nothing to worry and just enjoys life. Well so I gave him a brief introduction of my life and then he stopped talking about it.

One thing I can say is that I have been trying to understand myself harder than most of the people would try to understand themselves. I know it’s pretty stupid thinking only about oneself and depressed, it’s a shame in the world that many people are suffering like hell. I always liked pondering/wondering/thinking whatever you call it since I was small (some friends in Rishi Valley used to call me “philo”), but now in this life with full of that, I realized that it’s just an insanity…

Wanted to ask you this.
Do you live to do what you want to do, or you do what you (want to) do to live?
And why?

Here’s the lyrics of the song which got me into rock music.
It’s by a band called Haven,
Let it Live.

“Can you be part of something
Without thought for self or mind
Still soul searching for the right line
Need no excuse to wander
Cos it’s more than you can take
Stay true
No one’s gonna pull you out
Let it live
Let it live
Let it breathe life today
Can you be part of something
Even though you’re still unsure
Stay true
No one’s gonna pull you out
Let it live
Let it live
Let it breathe life today”

Check the song here.

Check out my website on its way renewal too.

WWW (not about wild wild west)

Great guy.
And thank you for the inspiration.

Just click here

Alrite.
Here's the song.
Do you know what the worst thing is?
The sound quality just keeps going down by the process to put it on the web.
Oh well, that's just an excuse anyway...

Well, I don't like the song much, because it's using same old guitar codes that I use all the time. But for some reason, recording went pretty quick and good.
Lyrics is simple but I guess it isnt so bad.

Falling (working title) Demo

"Falling leaves are from the trees
I don't want to know why they change how they look

You walk on, look around and will know,
no one seems to care if you're there or not

When will I reach the star I'm looking for?
When will I get the answer I'm waiting for?

If I could
Throw away
Everything I have
Everything I want
Maybe I have seen
The end of the world
Maybe I have seen
Baybe I have seen... "

...Just to remind you... it's a demo for a demo...

Falling (working title)

Guess what!?
Was working on a recording of a new song (one of few I wrote in the States) and just finished!
For the first time it has second guitar part which I made on the spot, and weird beat of me banging the Beatles chronicle book! Wow, one and half hour quick recording, coming soon.

I know... after few hours I'll be like "damn this is a piece of shit!", just as usual.

A new picture.

New picture of myself, with a new purple shirt, and some effects.

You know I always look better when I don't really show my face.

Short comments

Five more days left this month. I have seen 27 movies so far, not bad huh? Let me write short comments on some of them.

Collateral
Watched on first of this month. Good start. I found Tom Cruise better in this than his last two movies “Last Samurai” and “Minority Report”. By the way a rock song played on a scene where Vincent and Max goes to some club was kind of annoying.

Kill Bill 1/2
Well, many people have told me it’s just nonsense, so I was missing a chance to watch it. It was great though. I couldn’t stop laughing half of the movie. Some Japanese people say Japanese culture shown in the movie was embarrassing and weird, but I thought this movie is cool anyway.

Sonny
About a man who sells his love. Beautiful movie I think. James Franco did a good job… but the scene where Nicholas Cage comes was weird, I mean his outfit…

Lost in Translation
Bull shit. Well, I’m not going to say so, but I found it much more embarrassing than Kill Bill movies. Performances were good, and I think story line itself was good too, but the movie didn’t show any real insight to Japan. Just a superficial image that foreigners have about Japan I felt. But interestingly, the picture reflects the atmosphere of Tokyo pretty accurately. By the way I had a crush on Scarlet Johansson (didn’t like her much before).

AVIATOR
Good movie. Little long but Leonardo’s acting is remarkable. It’s kind of “classic from the beginning” movie. I knew it’s going to get some Oscars, but I couldn’t expect the movie to get so many nominations!

GHOST WORLD
This movies rules (I don’t like using this word much but I think its right for this movie). Steve Buscemi was so great!

FIELD OF DREAMS
Let me say one thing. If I’m going to get married in the future, I want to marry someone like Amy, wife of Kevin Costner’s role.

BROTHER SUN SISTER MOON
Christianity is so beautiful…

INSTINCT
Really liked this one. Movie deals with an interesting idea. What’s illusion…

BRED AND ROSE
The actor of the movie “pianist” was in it. I’ve seen a movie “Sweet Sixteen” too, which was directed by same man. He’s so far so good.

HUMAN NATURE
Sexy movie! Funny! Patricia Arquette (the other actress was good too)! You should watch it!

I love movies!

I forgot to write yesterday, but it was snowing yesterday morning you know. It had been pretty sunny for last few days so it was kind of unexpected and nice. Well, anyway it was all gone by end of the day though.

A week back or so, I happened to see a live of Franz Ferdinand on TV while my sister was changing channels. It was one of their Japan tour gigs I guess (sadly my sister didn’t let me watch the whole thing so I just saw one song “take me out”), and quite surprisingly, I found them pretty good in that. I don’t really hate the band, just think they are too over rated but anyway their performance seemed really great. You know those guys were playing really seriously, I mean it’s kind of weird because their music sounds “rather” funny today but I guess that’s their style.

By the way guess what. I watched 94 movies through last April to the end of last year. I write down titles of films I watch most of the time, so that’s how I counted. Well, is it too many or too less or average? What do you think?

I like Colin Farrell

Seems like Alexander the movie is going to rule Razzie Award... Heard its not really good, but now I feel sorry for them you know...

I tried hard, but after all I ended up with this title...

Alrite.
Finally even I am getting bored with what I’ve been writing.
Always just a cycle of questions, wonders and bullshits.

I don’t really love writing about my private life.
I mean, it’s nothing great, it’s rather boring actually and that’s the reason, but sometimes I strongly feel I should write about it, since I’m doing home schooling sort of thing. I want to remind myself of what I am doing and what I am not doing.

It’s kind of interesting to me that I write more while on the journey. I did write a lot while I was in US, and was the same way with my diary when I was in India. I know it’s quite natural that people have more to write on their journey, but in my case, I mostly write about the same old wonders I have all the time, not about the journey itself (I do that too). Anyway why?

1) If I was going to school, or a work, I would have been so busy that I couldn’t have much time for wondering.
2) While on the journey, I’m not too busy, just a little bit, so I have some time to ponder but not too much so I can write about them.
3) When I’m at home, since I do nothing but only on my control, most of the time I’m thinking, and too much wondering takes my power to write.

To get away from this stupid jinx of wonder to oneself I’m trying to find a way…

My stupid mouth

Let me add one thing about what I wrote yesterday.

That is, even though I have found myself stupid making big deal out of me, I still would (like to) believe I’m special and fucking great.

I know, I know, how can I say? But at least I want to live and die dreaming bigger (I know, this kind of person can be really annoying).

Stumble and Fall

There are too many things I want to write here but well I don't have much time so just one thing Ive been thinking.

I always thought too many people are absurd because they find some deep meanings in shits. Like people who think there's some big deal going on in their lives when there's nothing really happening. I thought I can be more free from shits that society creates, thought that I can live a better life with my imagination. And maybe I could.

But what I realized now, is that while I was finding everyone else fool, I myself was trying to make myself a big deal. I mean you know, something like, I'm more of a free person, and I'm fucking great, so I'm gonna... brabrabra. Dreams. I had dreams with stupid confidennce. but now I know I'm just a same old fool like everyone else who thinks some big deal is going on in their lives...

Yes sometimes I, stumble and fall.

TOEFL

Unbelievably, I did pretty good yesterday. I am most probably gonna get better score than last time this time. To tell the truth, I haven't studied at all since I came back home so I guessed this one's gonna be worse than last time. You know I thought I flunked it while I was doing, especially in grammer section... Maybe the three months stay in US did really improve my English... I mean I know it did but TOEFL is kinda tricky thing so... mm... I don't know. Anyway the score of the writing section is not yet out so I need to wait for the real result to come. Two weeks.

By the way I got an email from the girl I was talking about the other day.
She said she appriciated my letter and got what I wanted to tell her.
She's gonna write back soon.
Thank god.

Forgive me I get too cold

So I did send a letter to her yesterday.
Couldn't think of anything better than that to do.
And I hated it.
My Japanese handwring isn't great...
also when I write, I myself get confused with the structure...
Oh fuck it.

Last night I emailed with the other guy. He lives in west and he has little bit different kind of personality. People of west(Kansai) are more kind of open and all. Anyway that was fine. I mean he is a nice guy and emailing with him helped me calm my mind.

Tommorow I have TOEFL.
I still have cold...
Haven't studied much...
God Damn it!

Three things made me depressed yesterday

I know my blog gets quite depressing sometimes
but I hope you have patience to read this one.

1) You know that I was sick yesterday. I had a slight fever, which wasn’t a big deal, but I had a sore throat and nose block as well and those were bad.

2) I don’t really like bringing up a topic what’s happening in my family here but yesterday was too much. I had an argument with my mom on the night I came back home. It was on “to believe or not to believe” sort of thing, and after the argument I knew I said too much. I mean my mom was waiting for me to come back for three months and all and I realized it was a mistake to start such a thing on the come back home night. Well, my mom and I argue a lot. But its (little) more like debate most of the time and it’s on something specific most of the time. Anyway so I tried to stay calm after that, I said sorry to her and all… You know, this isn’t an unusual thing in my family anyway. Well, so yesterday. After dinner, we started discussing about my entrance for college. Since I don’t go to school, I need to make special strategy and it was about it. My dad teaches in university so he knows quite well about this sort of thing. Anyway my mom started blaming me that after all I’m just too lazy and don’t work and brabrabra… I stayed calm. Because I didn’t want to upset her like last time. I just listened to her and didn’t really argue. But then… she didn’t stop. She kept on going and was saying the same thing that I don’t work and the problem was she was just interrupting the discussion and it was getting rather disturbing. Then I blasted. I couldn’t take that anymore. But you know, she isn’t kind of a person who stops just because someone gets blasted. And well, you know me blasting at her is also not really unusual in my family…

3) This is a long story. But I’m going to make it as short as possible. When I was in Nepal in the end of 2000, I met one girl and one boy. They were both Japanese. We met in an exhibition of Kids’ Guernica. The girl was two years older than me; the boy was a year older than me. We couldn’t spend much time together, but we became good friends. After we went back to Japan, we started writing to each other. And also met once again in summer of 2001. Then I knew I liked that girl. I guess that was the first time I “really” liked someone. I wrote her that I’m falling in love with her but she told me she wants me as a friend. But well she was matured than me and all anyway, and I knew she’s gonna say that so that was all right. Then we tried to be good friends again. I don’t know if that really worked. I really don’t know. I felt like she’s avoiding me, and maybe she was maybe she wasn’t. Yet we stayed friend. Then when I came back from India last year March, I emailed her after a long while. But then her replies were like you know, “I don’t give a damn” sort of… I mean not that she said that, but it seemed like she doesn’t really care about me as a friend either anymore. So I just stopped emailing her. Ten months have passed. She wrote me a letter once but I didn’t write back. I didn’t even tell her I passed the university entrance qualification examination, didn’t tell her I’m going to US. But I was still friend with the other one, the boy. And those two are doing fine so he told me to email her. And I knew I need to do it at some point. So I did. Her replies were nice, still friendly and all, but I went sharp, rather harsh and said we need to talk seriously because our friendship isn’t really meaning anything anymore. That was Saturday and yesterday, I got a reply saying;

“Dear Yuwa
Email from you was very rough and I am really offended. I think way of saying itself changes what it means. I think letters are better to describe the feeling. Why don’t you write a letter?”

Blame me.

no title is a suitable title (as usual)

Ugh.
Tell you what, this is a beautiful day.
It's almost like spring and cannot believe it's still middle of January.

Anyway, well, I'm sick and have fever so stuck in the house.
Actually I haven't been outside of my house since I came back home... (I did go to the garden though).

Boy, this life is so...

By the way check out the link in 9th comment of my last post.
That was not even funny.

Rockin' on album of the year 2004!

This is the rock music critique I really like.

1. Green Day "American Idiot"
2. Eminem "Encore"
3. U2 "How to Dismatle an Atomic Bomb"
4. Bestie Boys "To the 5 Boroughs"
5. Franz Ferdinand "Franz Ferdinand"
6. The Music "Welcome to the North"
7. The Libertines "the Libertines"
8. Kasabian "Kasabian"
9. REM "Around the Sun"
10. Brian Wilson "Smile"

Pretty similar to the one I listed before, isn't it?

1. HAVEN “All for a reason”
2. U2 “How to dismantle an atomic bomb”
3. BEASTIE BOYS “To the 5 boroughs”
4. THE MUSIC “Welcome to the north”
5. PJ HARVEY “Uh huh her”
6. THE STREETS “A grand don’t come for free”
7. REM “Around the sun”
8. EMINEM “Encore”
9. GREEN DAY “American Idiot”
10. KSABIAN “Kasabian”

Haven't heard "Smile" yet. Gotta check it out.

what to do?

Okay, this blog is supposed to be damn cool and all,
but I guess I should give up that ideal since Im not so cool.
My hair is getting nasty (too long), my skin is getting lil bit horrible.
Damn it, dry skin.

Anyway boys and girls help me out, take me out.
Life back in Japan is not so great...
I don't know many people here, I mean I just dont hang out with people of my age here at all and thats already making me bored and sad. I mean Im okay but its just not great, you know.

I also get little bit sentimental about US. People I met, places... not food maybe.
But I guess I became little less sensitive... I mean when I came back from India, I was pretty sentimental even though I was excited about my new life in Japan as well. But this time, I guess such romanticism is not meaning much to me...

Just an empty feeling fills me up sometimes,
that people just go and come and thats all no more.

Anyway life is maybe short but this moment is long and I got to move on.
I'll write more later.

Damn, so uncool.