Friday, December 30, 2005
These past few days may have been exciting, but what a way to end them with a single depressing moment. I'll start with the great news. The last four days (at least three of the four of them) consisted of basketball practice and seeing this sweet-looking and -sounding girl there. Of course, I aggrandized my basketball skills a lot. And I'm getting thinner, haha. . . . little by little. I hung out with the kids from the basketball club (including said girl) and we created the start of a somewhat long-term friendship. Truly, I am excited as I was when I started help creating that friendship. Today and yesterday one of the club members went with me to watch the high school basketball championships. Man, were they awesome! Who knew that ryuugakusei (international students) were allowed to be placed on the roster! I have to tell you, the games reminded me of watching college basketball on television. . . . Who knows? I might be there to watch "March Madness" with you Americans when I come back from Tokyo!
And such was the happy news. What got me slightly depressed and moping was when I was talking with a friend, who's also on the basketball club. I told him that I liked the [aforementioned] girl (see last paragraph) and he replied, "Did you know she has a boyfriend?" to which I responded by asking, "who," followed by his response: "He's small. . . " (all right, so maybe I could beat him up, I thought) " . . . and he's also in the basketball club." (to which I stopped in slight bewilderment because I knew the girl and the nice guy named --- I won't mention his name --- were constantly joking around together. That's when I knew . . . my days were numbered. "They've been going out for six months," my friend told me, and my heart sank to a deeper level.
We were going to Odaiba to see a game show festival, but noticing that it would have been too late, we skipped back towards Ochanomizu to split, and on the way, I decided to ask him that question. It wasn't a good idea, but at least I got the truth out, lest I would make a complete, blithering fool of myself. I don't know, man, I constantly have the worst luck with girls I like. They're always taken. As quoted from my friend, "All the nice and pretty ones are taken." Amen, brother.
And why is it so? I sit here moping like a child who laments over the mere fact that he didn't get his choice of toy. I want to cry. I really do. Seriously.
Dear God,
I hope everything is all right with you. I've seen Bruce Almighty, and have discerned that you do a lot to keep the world in check. So far, you've done a heck of a lot for me and parents and my siblings to get us where we are today, because if we didn't have you, I wouldn't be sitting in the opposite side of the world enjoying this great, educational experience that so few that I myself know get to the opportunity to do. In addition to praying for good health and solidarity to the people that I know and love dearly, I want to ask you one small (though it may seem a little selfish) favor. You see, God, I've been in the slums lately because I've realized that for more than twenty-one years, I've lacked the kind of admiration that every other guy seems to receive, and I wonder, "why is it that I seem like the only one who" . . . "well" . . . "can't get any." No! My fault; let me rephrase that. I imagine that the girls at my current campus have at least some thing for me and are more than willing to get to know me a little more, so I ask you this one thing: please give me the courage, the strength, the compassion to start a kind of friendship with these girls and through that, I politely ask you to guide me in courting one of them. Of course, it's up to you, Lord, because you have done everything that I deserve, but I want to ask you this because you've seen many people as lonely (or even worse) as I am, and so, if you can find a way to forgive me in telling this truth --- that which seems selfish --- please do it. I ask you to give a courage and confidence and most importantly, patience, in understanding what girls are because, I am only a person of the opposite sex; I don't have a feminine brain or body or . . . yeah. Pray for me in this. I'll need it a lot because I'm somewhat inexperienced in starting these kinds of relationships. Thanks for everything you've done for me; I really am grateful. I hope to hear from you soon.
Yours truly, Jerome
Matt Groening said, that "love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath." If it hurts that much, then I'd be the first to volunteer! At least here in Tokyo. There are reasons as to why I think Japanese girls are more likable, but I want to make my blog less argumentative. All I'd want (besides having God in my life, my parents, a good education, and the clothes on my back) is a sweet, loving, acts-like-herself Japanese girl that could speak so-so English --- so maybe I'd teach her and stuff --- and then I would be "happy" (it really is a "yuppie" word). Lord, I'm really counting on you.
L'chaim. May this new and upcoming new year bring tidings to each and every one of you! Don't be sympathetic over this blog-thing; I'll be fine. Take care, y'all.
posted @ 12/30/2005 11:03:00 PM
2 comments
Monday, December 26, 2005
Greetings, and I hope you've had a pretty good Christmas. Or for you American students, a pretty good semester. I pretty much had a decent semester and my Christmas was pretty cool, too. I'll tell you about that.
Yesterday, some friends and I decided to catch up during the vacation to celebrate a bachelor-style-Japanese Christmas. "Well, what the hell is that?" you might say. Well, as I've explained before to some of you, on Christmas (more like its eve) couples get together and eat fried chicken and possibly get some action by the end of the day. Of course, being friends with the others, we decided to simply eat fried chicken and just hop around town.
The first stop was KFC. Yes, they do have those here in Japan. And the chicken is good, to your ever surprise. However, by the end of the meal, me and friend, Yutaro, found ourselves hungry, so when we decided to drink champagne at the local McDonald's, Yutaro and I decided to buy some sandwiches (which again, were good) and we got free drinks with them! One by one did all nine of us go inside McDonald's and, all of us being gaijin, we were stared at as if we were some sort of enigmatic phenomenon. . . . But we went through our business and then proceeded to Tokyo from Ochanomizu to look at the nice Christmas lights entitled the "Tokyo Millenario."
I have to admit, the Japanese are quite showy of their ability to generate tons of electricity for what seems to be a simple structure. I don't have any pictures --- though my friends might --- but for one thing, many people came to see the Millenario and having walked out of the station, you already knew where it was. That was the funny thing. We were only there for like five minutes; despite the brevity, it was worth it because we would have been stationery for hours on end just to go through the whole entire spiele. So, the nine of us got out of that "traffic jam" and proceeded in the opposite direction towards Shinjuku. It was time for karaoke.
But before I digress about karaoke, I received (in Tokyo Station) some "evil eye" from a decently pretty-looking Japanese girl. And the only reason why I received such was because I had my back facing the edge of the escalator and didn't know that a second (and opposite-directional moving) escalator was there. So, it was the girl and I, and when we were going our opposite ways --- me going up and her going down --- we exchanged glances for what it seemed to be like an hour. Had I been paying attention, I would have fell in love with her, but fortunately for you and the other eight people, I didn't --- rather couldn't --- make a move. All right, so to the karaoke!
We purchased our alcohol and went in. One of the clerks there, she had a beautiful face. And when she talked, it was as if she smiled. And I asked myself the question, "How could such a pretty young lass like her work on Christmas?" If anything, she had the face of an angel, and . . . . damn, I'm rambling again. All right, we hid our beers --- because it's "illegal" --- and started to sing our songs.
I don't really like karaoke because it's not real. I'm so used to singing with real instruments being the very background to my vocals because they sound real, but here, the karaoke accompaniment was decent. I liked it. I sung a really short rendition of Phil Collin's "You'll Be in My Heart," and Billy Joel's "The Longest Time," after which I said that I like singing sappy songs. . . . I do. You have a problem with that, I'll fight you! . . . with my kanji skills.
. . . that comes as a reference to one of my friends, Pete, who sung a Japanese song and didn't know some kanji. When I corrected him, I got a beat down. Haha, it was pretty bad.
I wanted to sing Simple Plan's "Addicted," but we ran out of time. However, we made them up when me, Pete, and another friend, Brent, sang Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me" in front of three young Japanese ladies who smiled and laughed as we proceeded to Shinjuku Station. Proceeded home in front of multitudes of couples. Not feeling lonely, but happy because I felt I was temporary reliqushed of the responsibility that boyfriends and girlfriends have to tolerate in a relationship: each other. But that doesn't ultimately mean that I don't or won't want a girlfriend, I do. I just need to be ready for it, that's all.
And that was my Christmas. A happy Christmas. Hope you folks have a lovely New Year's, too!
posted @ 12/26/2005 07:12:00 PM
0 comments
