paamayim nekudotayim

it’s twenty minutes to 5am. Goddamn.

This is the first night I have become so restless since I moved in to this new flat three months ago. Goddamn.

True there has been some minor painful rekindling with memory during this past week, but I managed. If I were to indulge myself I would say I surprisingly managed.

But that was before tonight. Goddamn.

I need all my favourite instrumental mp3s.

Five years ago, I would easily circumvent this kind of situation by hacking some new template for my journal. Heck, during my early years of blogging, new templates always be followed by great excitement, new spirit. But those were days when I would be blogwalking around the blognet a dozen times a day, and visited my own blog three times as much. Now days could pass without me firing up the browser to view my journal, or others’. As a matter of fact, I tried that old trick, that is hacking some new template, but barely ten minutes into it, I gave up.

I should only settle with my favourite instrumental mp3s tonights. Goddamn.

The past is one million pieces strong of jigsaw puzzles. If you could just identify two correct pieces at a time, you would be content two times more content than you were before, and in the end you would be content as content could be, and you could be wiser twice as much.

You don’t need to assemble the whole million of them. Two pieces are worth a lesson of a lifetime, although I’m not sure if it’s proper to congratulate you on this, for you don’t seem to be excited about it. I myself am glad, though.

there must’ve been a little too much heat on my face because these ice cubes, they melt quick as I use them to trace my forehead with.

I practically slept over the entire Sunday. I didn’t even know whether it’s a bright, gloomy or bloody sunday.

Monday now.

Not that it has any meaning for me, though, for with only one subject this semester, I am virtually on holiday. The rather long overdue freelance project has now entered testing stage so I can relax a little. I perhaps will go up that hill this morning.

ah, the hill. Did I not promise myself to go on hiking that hill? Well, last week I’ve gone there three times. And it’s quite a walk! The hiking routes are just right, not too easy nor too difficult. It’s much more fun than jogging on the streetsides.

First time I went there, it was 6 in the morning, and boy it was dark. And since I’d never been there before I didn’t know where to start. It’s really dark, except for the entrance. But lucky for me there’s a middle-aged adult wearing a white shirt and going uphill, so I just followed him wherever he went. His white shirt was my only guide, otherwise I can see nothing else. After quite some time, there were more white shirts showing up, in the opposite direction. What time did they go up, I wondered.

The main route turned out to be a little easy, so after going back down to the entrance gate (by this time it’s not so dark anymore and I can see the path I was on earlier), I decided to try another longer route leading to the same summit. And it’s much tougher, I was only walking, and it was already killing me. By the time I was near the summit I was completely out of breath. Expected, though, for I never did exercise of any kind for God knows how long.

On my second and third visit I decided to walk along the longest route which practically cover the perimeter of the hill (not really, there’s a longer route on the perimeter for biking trail).

It’s a good, healthy walk, and I can see myself treading that route again later this morning.

I like playing 3D pinball space cadet, and as such I am at one of my happiest moments of my life whenever I break my record for the highest score.

this time, it reads 28,255,250. In fact, I broke my record twice within the same day. The previous one was months old (and the one before that was years old! -not the one shown on the following screenshot, though, things got reset when we reinstall windows).

My target, actually, is more inclined towards getting promoted rather than high-score. So far I’ve only managed to be promoted to Lieutenant Commander, still a thousand miles combat before the coveted Fleet Admiral.

(I hide the names to avoid offence to my dignity)

By now I have finished reading that Indu Sundaresan’s The Feast of Roses, and have read two more novels after that; The Shadow of the Wind, and Sister of My Heart. That makes it four books within this past month. I am not much of a reader; I bet I only averaged one novel a year if I date it all the way back to my childhood. So to read four novels within a month is quite a major improvement on my reading interest.

I plan to keep on this reading habit (or perhaps improve on it), and today I’ve borrowed another book from library, My Name is Red, by Orhan Pamuk. It’s a good thing to be able to read more.

This, and my part time assignments, leave less time for me to see movies. The last title I saw was that Goldfinger I posted about few entries back. But nevertheless I still managed to spend quite some time with movies this past week, although not with new titles. I’ve been watching the Band of Brothers again. I just can’t see enough of it. The miniseries always reminds me of my once adventurous soul. Looking at myself now, I’m quite disappointed to see that I’m far from the hectic heyday of adventures. Those short years full of outdoors activities (albeit the light -and quite phony- ones due to our young age), I’m longing for it. Nowadays I always thought I could settle with the comfort of staying home, befriend my computer as I’ve always done for the past six years or so.

One of these days I should hike up to that hill down the road. This I promise myself.

On a different note, my friend went home rather late tonight. Being the only person who is home all day long, I tend to take note about which hour my flatmates would slot the key in to our frontdoor announcing their coming into the flat. So when it’s way hours beyond the expected hour, I called her to find out her whereabouts. Her mobile phone was unreachable. I wondered whether there had been something going on which I was not aware of. I have to admit that lately I barely showed up to the living room for a nice short chit chat, so I could’ve missed out on things.

But all was well when I dialled a phone call to her office. She was still there working on some report. An hour later she came home, and after a couple of chatty words I barely heard of her existence in the house. Must’ve been a hell of a long day at work.

On a second different note, my friends back at hometown got married earlier this week. To be honest, the news caught me by surprise. I have not heard much about them, but the very little news I knew was direct from the source (the bride now). And all I knew was that they broke up quite a number of years back, and since then most of the stories had hinted nothing but improbability of reconciliation. Boy am I dead surprised when recently she text-ed me saying they were getting married.

I am, of course, happy for both of them. I know the groom -we’re from the same high school, all three of us-, and I know he’s a great guy. God bless your going back together, and what a reconciliation; under the sanctity flag of marriage!

I read about a sudden decease of an apparently well-known and loved blogger. She died at a very young age. May she rest in peace, and God bless her soul up there.

I’ve never known her, and never been aware of her blog, –well given the vast world of internet-blog nowadays–, yet there’s something got into me. A moment ago I read her last blog entry (I was yet to learn that it’s the _last entry_), which dated only a few days back, an entry full of euphoria of happiness of a family with two little children, all joy with the visit of grandmother who just arrived from oversea. Before I even thought about whether they’re at the moment cherishing the get-together occasion, my eyes soon caught an important line at some other blog, and I was struck with shock. She passed away yesterday.

I just can’t imagine how cruel it is to the family. One moment we were all smiles with presents from hometown, and then the next thing we know,… well,…

My condolences. I wish for the family to remain strong and will soon be able to pick up where the mother left off, and continue living the family towards the dreams she might have wished for while she’s still alive.

I learned that the family live not far from here. In fact, we share the nearest train station and bus interchange. And the name of street where they live is so familiar to my ears. I happen to know by heart the names of some streets** in this area, having just moved in and having to find my way around by trying different bus routes.