The spring that was

My life, for a bit, stopped before this spring. For reasons I'd keep to my faint heart, I ceased to join the blossoming of a new season. I had to realize many things for once, and before I knew it, the flowers have withered already. It seemed like I skipped spring this year, or spring skipped me.

It's 2 am now, and for the first time in months, I opened my window again today. The incoming summer leaves the wooden floor with this familiar scent, a waft of joy.

Spring is but a season, and it is happening now in my room.

A Sunrise

You, I wear all your beautiful words everyday.

Tokyo is green nowadays. It has been awhile, I guess.
Let's traipse slowly, gently into spring.
I'll try. For sun rises everyday in this part of the world, too.

---

"I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost."
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road)

I have a question (UPDATED)

Is it wrong to take photos of strangers when they are not expecting it like the photo above?

Update: I took down the first (original) photo I took after I read the first 7 comments especially that from Hiki-san. I've always wondered about this privacy thing since from my point of view, candid shots of strangers are always private. First, they won't probably know about the photo. Also, my intentions of taking a photo are as candid as the photos itself.

Anyway, I decided otherwise, since I've always felt that I, myself, would feel offended if I see a candid shot of myself somewhere, not certainly because of privacy but because of vanity! haha... In such cases, I feel that I just lost all control over what I want people to see about me. (Which, come to think of it, can be a little about privacy). That's why I hate it when people suddenly tag me in Facebook!

And also, after reading what Hiki-san said, I suddenly had cold sweats with this image of mad parents storming my house. haha..

Now, I hope this new one is more acceptable.

Anyway, mentioning about a photo of me, I saw this one taken like 2 weeks ago.
I think I need a haircut.

You are my heartache this lifetime

No surprises by Radiohead


Would you believe me if I tell you that we've met before, in the past, before these present lives?

I wish for carefree days

Ms. Natsumi tagged me the other week. So here it is. I'm telling 7 random things about myself under each random photos from the past 7 days that I was a bit away from my blog. Photos and text don't necessarily match.

1. I have a serious case of cramming. A bolt of lightning has to strike me to start on something.

2. I like minor chords. They make those lonely sounds. I like listening to madly sad songs.

3. I want to be a dad when I turn 30.

4. I'm seriously considering to go to art school after I get my PhD in Engineering (which I currently work on).

5. On average, I go down with flu and cold twice a year.

6. Contrary to popular belief, I am an extremely bashful person.

7. Sometimes, I feel that I give too much that at the end of the day, I feel hollow inside.

----

This week, just like how it was a year ago, is a bit of a mess. School feels like school, and I'll be doing little experiments grudgingly physical in nature.

Thank you everyone for dropping by the past days and leaving those nice comments. I just couldn't have the time to reply to everyone but I'm reading each of your comments and I feel glad.

Now, back to work. ^^

T*T

I owe you this, even if in the process of remembering you, I am sauntering closer to the realization that I will never have you again.

When was the last time I paid attention to your memory so closely that I could feel the immeasurable need to be with you? When I think about you now, there is an uncanny feeling that I am thinking about another person, perhaps due to an elapsed time where things have gotten used to a new everydayness. When I think about you now, is it really you that I am thinking, or is it because my mind is switching coldly to things I can perceive from things which I have never understood before?

I owe you this, this quite, sunny afternoon, to make you feel alive in the order of reverie, to feel once again the summer when I first met you.

Send this to someone who needs it

Diana left me a message

Spring 1940

Spring was always an awful time for me about work. I always felt that in the long boredom of winter there was nothing to do but study. But I lost the feeling in the long, dreamy spring days and managed to be in scholastic hot water by June. I can’t tell you what to do about it- all my suggestions seem to be remote and academic. But if I were with you and we could talk again like we used to, I might lift you out of your trouble about concentration. It really isn’t so hard, even with dreamy people like you and me - it’s just that we feel so damned secure at times as long as there’s enough in the bank to buy the next meal, and enough moral stuff in reserve to take us through the next ordeal. Our danger is imagining we have resources- material and moral- which we haven’t got. One of the reasons I find myself so consistently in valleys of depression is that every few years I seem to be climbing uphill to recover from some bankruptcy. Do you know what bankruptcy exactly means? It means drawing on resources which one does not possess. I thought that I was so strong that I never would be ill and suddenly I was ill for three years, and faced with a long, slow uphill climb. Wiser people seem to manage to pile up a reserve- so that if on a night you had set aside to study for a philosophy test, you learned that your best friend was in trouble and needed your help, you could skip that night and find you had a reserve of one or two days preparation to draw on. But I think that, like me, you will be something of a fool in that regard all your life, so I am wasting my words.”

-a letter from F.S. Fitzgerald to his daughter Frances

I'm drunk of missing so many people. I remember the last talk with Diana. That one was for the books.