Soul Phrase

When I first started paying attention at ACG characters, I have always looked at male characters who were short or child-like. That was approximately 10 years ago. Some of the characters that caught my interest at that time include Harry Potter, Yellow (Pokemon Adventure), Edward Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist) and Ruronin Kenshin (Samurai X).

My interest to cosplay short male characters was probably because I used to be a short boy during secondary school. During my first year of secondary education (7th grade), I am the shortest boy in class. I still remember my parents and grandparents were so worried that I would stay short for the rest of my life. Alas, I was constantly forced to drink traditional supplements such as old groundnut root soup which was believed to be able to improve height growth. During that period, I actually resigned myself to the fate of being a short person for the rest of my life. Likewise, I started to look up at fictional male characters that happened to be not tall. Perhaps I was just finding a role model, fictional or real, to guide me in the challenges I will face in the future for being short.

Heroes and Heroines- Characters' Medley

With only 5 more weeks before my maiden orchestra concert
I cannot help but to get excited about the event
It's been a very long time since I was charmed
by the fascinating music of Kingdom Hearts franchise
where I got to know the existence of the goddess, Shimomura Yoko

The Solvent of Life

It's been 6 days since I have started my work at the sewage treatment plant (STP) in the state of Kedah. Overall, the work that I have to do is really exhausting that I regret signing up for this in the first place. But I guess I need to keep to my words and complete the task as I have volunteered to do so in the first place - to carry out measurement of various water quality parameters at one-hour intervals for 24-hours, twice in a week's time.

Even before this task is being carried out, I was given a very short notice of the actual date to do this task. In fact, I only received confirmation to go to the site two days before the actual date. Upon receiving confirmation, I quickly book the flight tickets, borrow the equipment and depart to the study site - a STP with an advanced treatment technology.

So far, I have survived a 24-hour ordeal and I am living through another 24-hour challenge at the time of writing. It was truly tormenting both mentally and physically to stay awake and carry on with my tasks. But somehow, Gaia decides to sympathize with my plight and showed mercy in various ways: there was always an overcast sky to shelter me from the deadly sun laser and the pretty starlit-sky provides a temporal distraction from my fatigue.

As I am on an island, I thought it would be apt to be reading books about the sea. "My Old Man and the Sea" is the current book that I am reading, which records in detail the journey of a father-son pair as they sail around Cape Horn in a 25-foot boat powered by the winds and waves.

Final Fiction

There are two game plots that I would be referring in the upcoming write-up, namely Bravely Default: Flying Fairy (BDFF) and its sequel, Bravely Second: End Layer (BSEL).

Remaining Glow

 

It's kinda scary that I have live much of my life in solitude and I find great comfort in that solitude. As a result, I find it really hard to let anyone into my world. It's not that I do not have good friends and companions to share my life, but I do think that my introvert behaviour and my love for solitude are too extreme. Every now and then, I find it difficult to socialize with others, particular with new people, fundamentally due to my poor ability to comprehend and empathize others.

Looking back, the consequences of such introverted behaviours are far-reaching: Day-after-day, I continue to be consummated by my hobbies in solitude.

How did this happened? Was it a self-defense mechanism from emotional suffering? Perhaps over-indulgence in my hobbies? Or could it be a case of social ineptness? The answers remained unknown to me.

Anyhow, this reflection blog post was written as a respond to a failed Amagami challenge (link).

Song of Mana

wizard
· n.
1 a man age 30 years and above with no experience in romance.

monk
· n.
1 a man living under the vow of chasity

Somnus (Sleep in Latin)

Have anyone read the latest manga chapter (chapter 329) of Magi - Labyrinth of Magic? Not to speak too much and spoil the story for other fans of the series, but in this particular chapter, Sinbad decided to reveal his true nature, as a person who is greedy and ambitious.

Actually, this is not entirely a bad thing. In fact, I believe that is part of a human nature, to hoard resources in order to secure one's survival. Personally, I believed that a moderate amount of greed and ambition would help fuel one's motivation for self-improvement. In order to seek for a better life quality or high social ranking, we need to put in more thoughts and efforts than the other people around us. One such outcome is an increase in one's productivity. Furthermore, this may encourage others to cooperate or compete, if and only if the playing ground is level. Overall, this may result in socioeconomy progression of a community.

If we are too contentious of our existing lifestyle, we may soon settle into our comfort zone. As a result, we may lose any will or momentum to make positive changes in all of our works and effort. Personally, I suffered from this phenomemon quite recently. It took a lot of effort for me to make a jump out of that comfort zone into a new workspace. However, for better or for worse, I do see that some of my peers have fallen deep inside this pitfall.

Of course, reality is not all that ideal. In face of competition, many people may resort to under-hand tactics to undermine their competitors. On this issue, I believe the labour law and work ethics have been established to alleviate it. Nevertheless, the strict compliance to labour law and work ethics by the masses may still be poor. The ideal situation is not yet a reality.

As opposed, greed and ambition is bad when in excess. If one is consumed by greed and ambition, he or she may be too focused onto protecting their own self-interests and commit criminal acts with are against social order. Again, I would rely on laws and ethics to manage this problem, which may also be assisted through morality, religion and home education.

Allow me to write more on this topic later, when I have more time to read and understand about capitalism and socialism.