merry christmas '08

Here's wishing everybody a blessed Christmas in advance! It's the time to take stock of all the blessings we have had as the year is soon coming to a close. But Christmas for me has been gradually more subdued, as I don't send as many Christmas cards as before, or do not take the trouble of thinking of games to play for the Christmas Eve party. Had a blast at Melody's place during the honours class Christmas party, where I became a pro onion chopper! The food was good and the company was great and I got a cute present for gift exchange. Too bad I started sneezing towards the end. But I have to thank everybody for making the effort to come together to experience the joy of Christmas together. My family also just concluded our own Christmas Eve dinner and we ended up playing Blackjack! Well, CNY is around the corner, so maybe it's time to gain some luck before it really comes, which is like in a month or so. And also, results were released just yesterday. As always, there will be one module which will pleasantly surprise me and even though my CAP dropped, it wasn't as great a drop as I had anticipated. So it's time to work hard for just one more semester before I can say goodbye to studying and examinations for quite a period of time.

musician

There are already a million reasons why I love D.Gray-Man. But this song just adds another reason to that list. I can't help sighing and feeling this upwelling of emotion when I hear this song. Just listen to it, and even though most of you won't get the context, I think you can see why I love this song. My favourite part is when Allen sings to the lyrics at around 1:20 in the video. Sadly, I've already finished watching all the episodes and now I shall just wait to be filled with joy yet again.

d.gray-man

I remember during my ICT this year, one of my friends recommended me to watch this anime series, since I told him that I was quite hooked on Detective Conan. He proceeded to tell me the details of the story, of which I was mildly interested at the time, because in part, I just couldn't see any other anime which could possibly surpass Detective Conan.

Nearly 6 months later, I watched an episode of this recommended series. And I found another anime which I'm crazy about now. I think I need both of these animes to tide me through the holidays and the last semester in NUS. Both make me happy in different ways. Detective Conan reaches out to my love for detective fiction. It's happy, ingenious and the cases are most of the time interesting. D.Gray-Man, on the other hand, makes me happy in a different way. Quite strangely, it seems rather Harry Potterish in a way. Young boy discovers a supernatural ability, gets accepted to a new environment, makes good friends and fights evil. But beyond the rather formulaic premise, it is mature, dark and emotionally realistic. All of us want happy endings, but D.Gray-Man denies you that satisfaction. Time and time again, we as viewers are met with disappointment after disappointment. But that's life. That's reality. Character development has always been the most important to me and by far, these two anime have satisfied this basic and vital requirement. D.Gray-Man's Allen Walker is naive and idealistic, but I think Walker's naivete is necessary in order to prevent the anime from being too dark. The characters are unique, multifaceted and are constantly growing. Perhaps that's where Conan can learn from D.Gray-Man. People watch TV, read books to escape from the real world, but in actual fact, all of these, including anime, are reflections of reality. Rather than escape from it, I think we should learn to embrace it.

Have to thank my friend for recommending this anime. It has brought me great satisfaction, and alongside Detective Conan, I think I have come to seriously consider taking up Japanese in the future.

halfway through

The exams are finally over. And I'm halfway through my honours year. Sigh. At least I'm now away from all the readings and work and theorists, and able to welcome the spirit of Christmas! Not...I know that this will be the holiday which will feel most unlike the holidays when I have to slowly start researching for my HT (well, maybe not that slowly). But ever since the exams have ended, I've taken the time to really relax. Not much work done, and I pretty much rushed through my PMB proposal, which I will have to frantically edit tomorrow, since I only have a day to finalise everything before I hand it up to the department. I hope I get the grant. :P And how have I been relaxing? TV!!! Tons and tons of it. I still love my Detective Conan, but after watching an episode of D.Gray-Man on the telly, I decided to watch it online, and it's very different from Conan. D. Gray-Man is so gothic, dark and out of this world. Something I wouldn't think I would have liked, but it's very compelling and allegorical. I'm just blown away by the staggering creativity of the Japanese. And Mobtv has it for subscription, so I think I will just treat myself by purchasing the subscription for a month, and hopefully I finish all the episodes. Yar...I'm that crazy. And I think I will find it hard to do work when there are so many parties this month. Haha. Well December is always the month of merriment, and it's about time I start spending my Border's gift card. :P I'm just trying to enjoy myself before the exam results get released.