Strangers

All of us in this world were once strangers to each other. Minus one letter and the word becomes 'strange', which means weird, unusual, queer. World population articles say that every second at least 3 children are born. So the world becomes three children more estranged, distant to each human being every time the clock ticks. We can't even keep up with that if we make an average of one, two or three new friends a week.

Try walking on the street, or riding on the train, or eating in a restaurant. We're all surrounded by strangers whose faces are generic for us to even remember. Everybody is busy living their own lives, thinking his opinion matters. Each person has dreams and has some family to go home to. Each person misses somebody, each person regrets something. Each person thinks of something at that instant.

Have you wondered how it would sound like if everybody thought out loud?

And, isn't it a also a wonder how we recognize the faces of people we know? We have a pair of eyes, a nose, a mouth, teeth and ears. Add to that some ornamental facial features like moles, eyelashes, and wrinkles. It's amazing how many permutations and combinations of those structures make us people barely look alike. I'm also impressed by a human's face recognition mechanism. It's just plain awesome!

In Alphabetical Order

So here's the list! A summary of things I want to do in the many more remaining years of my life, scribbled down my notebook while on the subway, in the library, in class daydreaming. Most of them are really pointless haha.

Draw on the wall.

Eat something moving.

Find the North Star.

Fold paper cranes.

Go fishing.

Laugh so hard I can't breathe.

Lie on the grass and listen to "Yellow". At night!

Make a perfect sunny-side up.

Own a lucky charm.

Ring someone's door bell and run.

Run over train tracks.

Skateboard.

Send a message in a bottle.

Shout.

Surprise someone.

Take a picture of a peacock.

Talk to my music soulmate.

Teach someone something.

Touch fire.

Work in advertising.

Write a will.

Weigh over 100 pounds.

Talk

Haha. It's not that I'm lazy to blog but these guys really said it perfectly. My song of the moment!

Talk by Coldplay

Oh brother I can't, I can't get through
I've been trying hard to reach you, cause I don't know what to do
Oh brother I can't believe it's true
I'm so scared about the future and I wanna talk to you
Oh I wanna talk to you
You can take a picture of something you see
In the future where will I be?
You can climb a ladder up to the sun
Or write a song nobody has sung
Or do something that's never been done

Are you lost or incomplete?
Do you feel like a puzzle, you can't find your missing piece?
Tell me, how do you feel?
Well I feel like they're talking in a language I don't speak
And they're talking it to me

So you take a picture of something you see
In the future where will I be?
You can climb a ladder up to the sun
Or a write a song nobody has sung
Or do something that's never been done
Do something that's never been done

So you don't know were you're going, and you wanna talk
And you feel like you're going where you've been before
You tell anyone who'll listen but you feel ignored
Nothing's really making any sense at all
Let's talk
Let's talk

Blackholes and Revelations

Notice the neatly lined stripes of train tracks.

That's what I do while waiting for the train.

One Night

If there was one night in history of time I would like to go back to, it would surely be the night of this Coldplay concert. Today I went to Saitama (this video happened in Saitama Super Arena), and it reminded me of how euphoric it must have been for each and every person in that stadium. It's my favorite song + my favorite band + my favorite country + butterfly confetti, what else could go wrong? This is the life.

If I had one ticket to the past I'd spend it on this one. Saitama Super Arena, February 12, 2009. It would have been the most euphoric 3 minutes of my life.

It can happen again eh? Coldplay please release your new album soon and have a concert here. And then when I'm old I would most definitely die happy.

Chores

I love getting on board trains. I love how the announcements or station songs sound like. It's one of those Japan sounds I'll miss when I leave for sure. But why am I thinking about the leaving part when I'm barely halfway through it, eh?

I should totally make a separate post on riding trains in Japan. The experience has a whole life of its own.

Anyhow, a friend and I were talking while we were on the subway on the way home last night. And the topic: how Japan has changed me.

People might think being here is all fun, having the independence and the time of our lives going around the city, those generic "wow, it's so fun, I bet you're enjoying" impressions. Well yes, I won't deny that it's one of the most fun I've had in my life, but I must definitely say that this experience right here was more than anything else, humbling.

Back home I never touched the sponge to wash dishes, neither did I ever need to sweep the floor or clean after my own mess. I never had to ride trains or walk home or plan what to eat for dinner. I did not have to find a way to fit all my laundry in the washing machine or consider not playing my music too loud inside my room. I could leave my clothes on the bed and they'd eventually end up folded neatly on the closet, stacked according to color.

At first I thought it was fun. In the Philippines, who gets a chance to live on her own at 21? Quite a few. But things took quite a big turn and now I have to do all I've never done home here. I say the whole thing was most definitely humbling because I had to do everything on my own. It took a four-hour plane ride and an hour time zone difference to live a sheltered life no more.

So now I know how tiring it feels like to carry a basket-full of wet laundry. It weighs like half of my weight and it's not even fun. It's not also fun to chop onion while pretending I'm not crying in our floor's kitchen. And it's not fun to walk home when the weather's 4 degrees. They are all not fun, but they keep on reminding me of how life in Manila was. There were people I forgot to appreciate and things people do for me I just so easily missed appreciating. And in some cold nights when I have to hang my clothes, I remember Yaya Liza (who was with us since I was born) and at that moment I just really wanted to hug her. Now I can proudly say that I now know how to use a can opener, and that I know the difference between onion, garlic and ginger! Haha.

I have weird scratches on my hands and now they're dry 'cause of the wind and detergent, and I occasionally get random bruises or wounds, but it's totally fine! They remind me that I have grown up a little more that I'm able to take care of myself. I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job with that (sometimes I just grab canned food when I'm lazy to cook), but it's sure a work in progress.

Another lesson learned.

How can there be places on earth like this?

Promise

First sunrise of 2010 in Chiba, Japan

Each of us wakes up to a January 1 every 365, to a fresh, crisp, crude beginning. In gradual one-hour time intervals, six billion souls go on hoping for a meaningful next few months. All emotional baggage are left to be thrown in the trash. The earth is new in our minds. We open our diaries and begin writing on the first page. The year is young once again.

On a book I was reading was the rhetorical question "What drives your life?". Questions like those are rhetorical in nature but definitely demand an answer. You can't help thinking about such.

My life is driven by the promise of the future. Tomorrow, next month, the next time I'll see my family, the day I'll graduate from college, and the many more things that mean something to me. Before I sleep I think about the things I look forward to, as if I were giving myself reasons to wake up. And it's amazing how those things never run out. Perhaps it's the promise of youth, maybe it's the hope that things will get better.

The future is a double-edged sword. That promise of more time can either make you worry or hope.

I don't know what waits for me in 2011. I just know that good things never run out. For everyone. For sure.

Photo taken by Luke Granada.