2 Dec.

Central Park

walking around the Astaka field, i had roughly drafted what i planned to write in this entry - alas i didn't jot any of it down and i've completely forgotten everything i wanted to say. but i do remember how i've always wanted to take a little stroll around this field - located right behind my high school. many times during gym class the guys would be found playing soccer at the field while the other not-so-sporty ones (like yours truly) would be ambling about by the side, either making small talk or walking around without any particular goal but to wait out the gym period to end.

this field also holds memories of my form six years. chicks and dudes who drove to school parked their auto-voitures here. there's always this image within my memory where i'm seeing one of my friends studying in his auto-voiture and my buddy and i would come up to him and made small talk before heading off. another time, my biology groupmates and i were digging up the soil in search for bugs (if i'm not mistaken) and counting the population of plants in a given space. we'd stay back after school to complete our biology experiments and made small talk during lunch.

quite some years have passed from those events and the images are still vivid within my mind - arbitrary and forever evolving with the passage of time - like the kinds of small talk i make with new faces or faces i wouldn't normally have regular conversations with. i'm learning to accept that sometimes it's better to make small talk rather than to not speak at all. i may always be the outsider - like one of the guys who walk around the sidewalks in the Astaka field aimlessly, not playing soccer like the other guys. but sometimes it's better to compromise, and make that small talk.

1 Dec.

1Q84

there's something about the way December feels - it feels like something is ending and the days seem a little bit more grey and melancholic. granted, December is the last month of any given year, so the feeling of hitting (or not) yet another milestone looms and before you know it, the new year rolls by. i thought i'd undertake a mini-project and document December of the year 2011 - for no apparent reason, whatsoever.

i usually associate December as the month of celebration - the only holiday i find myself able to relate to is obviously Christmas, hence it makes every reason for me to celebrate, be merry, and to adopt a "holiday mood" manner. this year i thought i'd try and complete this particular phase of my work and take the month off, making this completion of that phase of work parallel to celebrating the holiday season. i'm about a few days left of work before i'm out for the rest of the year - and here's hoping that i don't run into any complications.

--

i finished reading Haruki Murakami's latest book, 1Q84. at first i wasn't too impressed with the book's premise but as i passed the first half of the book, i was engrossed with how two seemingly unrelated, yet, parallel stories intertwined with each other. i was honestly rooting for the characters in 1Q84, especially Aomame, who was really well written by Murakami. at the end of the book, there was this huge feeling of catharsis and i smiled ear-to-ear as i finished up the last few chapters with pure excitement, glee, and satisfaction. the book was really well-written and engrossing. in the end, it wasn't so much the low fantasy setting that won me over, but the characters that you could relate to on a certain level and genuinely root for.

driving home in the regular rush-hour traffic, i was crawling through a section of the highway which was elevated and the shoulder of the highway immediately made me think of a pivotal scene in 1Q84 where Aomame climbed down the shoulder of the highway and entered the world of 1Q84. the bad traffic only made the parallel so much more vivid, and i could imagine myself stopping the car, getting off, and attempting to climb over the shoulder of the highway. the parallel of Aomame entering the world of 1Q84 through the shoulder of the highway, and me entering December and taking extra notice of that part of the highway made me ponder on what my December would be like in this "new world" (or "new month", to be realistic).

Never Let Me Go

4/5