Eyes On Me

Y'know I'm pretty envious of people in the world who follow the Final Fantasy series from its early beginnings to the 14th installment, because there's A LOT of ground to cover here and damn, the game concept looks gorgeous.

Maybe after As I can try looking at gameplays for all the Final Fantasy games, but the graphics for the first few games are really old and pixellated, and that might just make me give up halfway because the other thing I look for in games is the game art (cue boos from the classic old gamers).

I chanced upon Final Fantasy VIII when I found the song 'Eyes On Me' by Faye Wong. It's an old song I recognized but didn't quite know of when I was younger because I've heard it play a few times in my childhood.
The next time I heard it was when I was in Sec 4, at the band concert of another school where Mr Patrick Wong, one of the few teachers I respect a lot in my life so far, conducted.

A trio of saxophonists played the song and I instantly recognized it. I looked at the concert booklet and for the first time I connected a name to this unknown melody. It was 'Eyes On Me'.

The song is really old but it's beautiful in a quaint way. I went to research on the song for the heck of it and I absolutely love the story behind it, which is kinda like a backstory for FF8 if I'm not wrong.

The song, according to Wiki, unveil the hopes of a night club singer for romance with a particular member of her audience. The main characters of FF8 are Squall Leonhart and Rinoa Heartilly as shown in an embrace in the FF8 logo, but this song revolved around the brief romance between the protagonists' parents.

Rinoa's mother, Julia Heartilly, was a beautiful and talented bar lounge pianist at the Galbadia Hotel who wished to break out of her role as a mute bar pianist and pursue her dreams as an actual singer. 

When she was 22, she met a Galbadian soldier named Laguna Loire who would often go to the bar lounge with his two buddies when off-duty. There, he was captivated by Julia and would return night after night to watch her perform from the shadows.

The part I liked most is this: Laguna was terribly shy and too embarrassed to speak to Julia because he doubted that someone as beautiful and talented as Julia would take notice of him. However, unbeknownst to Laguna, Julia also harboured a crush on him. This part is captured in the lines that I picked out:

I saw you smiling at me

Was it real or just my fantasy?

You'll always be there in the corner

Of this tiny little bar.

I kind of liked it your way,

How you shyly placed your eyes on me

Did you ever know

That I had mine on you.

One night Laguna finally worked up the courage to approach Julia, and the two began to talk in Julia's private room, confiding in each other about their dreams - Laguna's aspiration to be a journalist and Julia's to be a singer. She told Laguna that she wanted to write her songs but never knew where to start. Upon meeting him however, she finally found her inspiration. Their start came to their end as Laguna was called away on a dangerous mission the same night, and Julia never heard of Laguna again.

The two never met again.

Julia married a good friend General Fury Caraway and gave birth to Rinoa. However, she died from an automobile accident when Rinoa was 5 and from then on Fury and Rinoa became estranged as Rinoa ran off to join a rebel group and took on her mother's last name.
Laguna on the other hand was severely injured from his mission and was found by a woman named Raine whom he fell in love with and later married. There's a cutscene in the game ending below at 2:15 showing how Laguna proposed to her in a field under moonlight (OMG cuteness overload), the same field where she is buried.

He was away looking for their kidnapped adopted daughter Ellone (the lady waving at Laguna in the video) when Raine gave birth to Squall and died shortly after, unbeknownst to Laguna. (seriously why is it that the females are dying in this game)

"Although brief and likely never consummated, Laguna and Julia's relationship plays a major role in the theme of destiny, a central theme for Final Fantasy VIII. Although circumstances kept Julia and Laguna apart their love was reconciled through the romantic involvement of their children, Rinoa (Julia's daughter) and Squall (Laguna's son)." - Final Fantasy Wiki

I think one of the most relieving things that could happen in life is when the person you admire requites your affection. It's pretty amazing if you think about it, the fact that both parties had their sights fixated on each other among the millions of other people who cross their path. But on the other hand, i don't think that unrequited love is the end of the world. I believe in destiny, God's destiny even, that will show us the people we will meet who won't necessarily travel the same path with us.

On a side note, Laguna Loire is pretty hot. ;)

Foetus

Say hello to my nephew/niece!

Stella's expecting again after a miscarriage earlier this year, and we're all really excited. I've had cousins who've been pregnant before, but it all feels new when someone that close to you is expecting. I believe the baby, named "Little Chin" by my sister for now until the gender can be confirmed, will be born next April! I'll see you then, kid. :)

I had meant to write about Farewell last week, but I was halfway through the post when Dad asked to use the PC and when I returned he had already closed the page with my work UNSAVED. I just couldn't bring myself to write again, and besides, now that I think about it the Farewell was a little overrated since the week after we still had to come back to school for lectures and mock exams. Pffft.

No but it was still fun and memorable, I'll give it to the juniors who planned the entire affair. The other good thing that happened on Farewell day was that Dawn and I met up with her online Audition (some game) friend to watch 'Annabelle'. And you know just how much I love horror movies. I love it even more when I see people scared, and Dawn was just perfect because she reacted so strongly to every scare and even threw her phone to the ground. 'Annabelle' was good, but not the scariest I've seen. Oh and Dawn had wanted me to meet her friend, whom I will refer to as Lego because I forgot his name hahaha. Dawn got to know Lego online and she kinda likes him so she wanted to introduce him to me (to seek my approval? What am I, your mom?). I had fun observing them when I wasn't talking to Dawn. So nice to be in love :)

The title of this post is 'Foetus', and I'm not just referring to the literal foetus in Stella's womb. I wanted to title this as 'Baby' but immediately my mind was filled with how couples call each other and Justin Bieber's song so NO, I need a classier name for this.

I am the baby of my family because I'm the youngest. I'm not spoilt or anything because I do have my fair share of chores to do and my parents do reprimand me when I don't tidy my room or when I laze around. But that doesn't bereft me of my ability to whine and seek favour from my parents. Whine? Seek favour? What the hell, Sam? In school everyone describes me as "calm", "motherly", "mature" etc etc but at home I am the baby. Mom openly shows her affection towards me sometimes by hugging me and calling me 宝贝 (baby), but she doesn't really do that to my sisters. Dad would still often tease me just like how he did when I was a kid. And I like it.

I actually believe that everyone needs to have a balance. Dawn is the opposite for example. She's the oldest kid in her family and acts the authoritative older sister role but in school she becomes a total baby - needy and whiney.

I was doing some deep thinking (as usual) and I thought about how I will become less of the baby as time goes by, not just because I'm growing, but because my family is changing. I asked Mom this morning as we did the laundry together "Ma, do you miss 大姐(oldest sister)?" and she replied yes, of course she does, but even if she didn't want my sisters to marry and leave this household, there's nothing she can do anyway but to accept and move on.

I asked because I remembered how in this very house, three sisters used to live together and interact with each other, bickering and sharing. But now when Stella comes by to visit, it all feels so different. I know she is my sister, but it doesn't feel the same anymore. She still cares about my well-being and is concerned about my future, but there's this distance in between both physically and emotionally. It's been 3 years since she married my brother-in-law, but I only came to terms with the separation recently because Stacey's getting married next year. (Mom just came by to look at the picture and ask me about what I'm writing and now I'm tearing up like some wimp gosh).

Yeah my second sister is going to be married off soon. I've become much closer to her since Stella married because I interact more with her now, and she looks after me and talks to me a lot. But I'm quite sure that no matter how often she drops by in future, she will be physically and emotionally distanced from me as well. (Mom peeked at what I've written so far and said if I'm like that now how is she going to die in peace TOUCHWOOD.)

I've also recently pulled out all my diaries from before and started reading them. I saw how naive and unappreciative I was which was kind of embarrassing. But I was also impressed with how much I had questioned the things around me, and was fascinated with how I wrote my feelings. (I embarrass, impress and fascinate my own self, how cool is that!) So I took a few shots of my diary entries and decided to share them here:

 "For I do not care anymore. Why is it that I have come this far, I do not feel a sense of achievement, but a throbbing pain of regret and loneliness? I hate to look back and fervently wish to return to the long dead past. I dream of a future to look forward to.

But when the past is already a dead end, and the future is bleak, what can I do, but to feel sorry for my own plight and existence?"

Y'know I'm impressed with how I wrote this because it's so dramatic haha

" All the evils of the world have their difficulties, miseries, and sadness too, but no one really feels for them, and instead everyone is bent on finishing them off, ridding them out of their lives to make their world rosy. All they know is to flock to the beautiful, and destroy the ugly, but they know not how to pick up the ugly, and polish them to beautify the world. I don't want to hate anybody.

But why am I slowly being made to hate one that I once loved? Why is my world becoming so dark? There is no light anymore. Life is unfair, life is just so unfair.

But I don't want to be hurt and I won't be crushed. I have decided to give up on love, because loving someone will only make me more vulnerable. I'd rather invest my feelings into the non-existent, because my heart's desire will always be fulfilled."

I think during this time I was jealous of people whom I really liked before, and began to feel all antagonistic and of course, naive. I was only 15/16 so forgive me haha

"It's not like I want to be bad. It's not like I'm happy being called scary and being viewed with eyes that see nothing beautiful in me. It's not like I chose to be the antagonist. Everyone wants to have that Happily ever after life. But I'm not that lucky at all. If life deprives me of the live I want, I will fight back and continue without love until I die. 

No one can blame me for being evil, no one can blame me for being loveless, no one can blame me for my death. It is you all that pushed me to this stage. If it weren't for you all, I would be spared from this pain. Love is unpredictable and unreliable. I will do it without love. I want to be the strongest antagonist."

This is what I mean by naivety.  I had such an imaginative mind and I had sworn so hard that I would do without love haha.
 I can't remember the exact date of the entries, but I do know these were written during the very trying period of SYF 2012 near the end of sec 3 and the beginning of sec 4. I didn't have a very happy experience as you can see because I started feeling antagonistic. And up till now secondary school life has been one I'd like to avoid as much as possible. I only have a couple of friends from there that I keep in contact with because secondary school life was a time that i felt so much negativity so I want to distance myself from it.

Speaking of antagonistic, I was recently very interested in personality types. I took the 16 Personality Types Quiz and my result is INTJ.

This is the icon for INTJ types SO CUTE look i have a moustache and a monobrow!
INTJ is supposed to be very rare, forming 2% , and even rarer for females who form 0.8%! I remember the overview mentioned something about fictional antagonists being modelled after this personality type, and they listed BBC Sherlock's Moriarty (MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER) and Hannibal. I found the results pretty accurate for me, and I went around getting friends to do the test because I wanted to read up on their types and try to understand them better.

You should do the test! Click on the link and try it, and see if it's accurate for you.

With only 12 days to the A Levels, I'm feeling all emotionally unstable. But I will push through and finish it. I wrote a note to my future self at the last page of my diary from sec 4, and it ended with

I'll figure a way somehow.

Realte and Sognare

Sigh...okay I think I'm feeling slightly better than the time I was writing the previous post.
At that time I felt the urge to write, as always, but the more I wrote, the more chaos I felt inside me which is not usually the effect of writing. After all, I write to organize my thoughts and to keep my calm. Now I find it harder than before to write even though the urge is still there. But I must press on and be stronger.

It's nearing the A Levels and all I feel now is a subtle tinge of fear - not just because of the actual exam, but because I know once I get over this hurdle, I will enter a whole new world. I would be like a small fish swimming towards the river delta before finally being released into the sea, all excited, lost and scared at the same time. I can't wait to get out there, yet I'm also feeling some reluctance in leaving the safe boundaries I grew within the past 18 years.

I just watched another episode of SAO, and honestly the series in the GGO arc hasn't been too exciting. But I really really like the other main character in the arc, Sinon aka Asada Shino. She's a girl bound by her past experiences and trauma, split between the two realities of real life and the virtual world. In the real world, she's lonely and afraid, living life holding back because of her past, yet in the virtual world of GGO, she's strong, fearless and confident. Although I don't exactly have a tragic past like Sinon, I can almost relate to the part where I find myself stuck in between worlds, holding back out of fear, yet desperately wanting to be stronger, to be the strongest.

I've always written in my posts that I want to be a stronger woman, and I've always looked up to fictional heroines like Ada Wong and Lara Croft. But I'm afraid that all of these are mere echoes in my mind and I'm essentially just weak. It's still difficult for me to confront my experiences in the past. Videos, photos and even just seeing the familiar faces make me feel all so bitter.

Hah, who do I think I am, a tragic heroine? It's stupid of me to be held back by something so insignificant, my objective, practical and highly cynical self says. Yes it's stupid but it's not easy for me to just chuck the memory in the trash and be done with it. If I could I definitely would, but unless you have a way for me to lose those memories, I'm still stuck. In SAO, Sinon learns that you can't forget the past, and you have a responsibility to remember and to accept it, to be truly strong. That sounds awesome but I don't know how real that can be.

Real. Reality. Realte. I've realised some time back that the reason why I love things like Sims, like horror movies, like dreams, is because I'm basically trying to escape reality.

In Sims, I have full control. I know every Sim's thoughts, and I can make everyone live the happy, perfect and controlled life.

In horror movies and games, I always find that the fears of horror elements are far less frightening than the horrors of the reality I live in. As much as horror elements strive to be unexpected and shocking, it can't be any more unexpected and shocking than life itself. When i watch horror shows and gameplays, that excitement and tension and suspense I feel briefly distracts me from reality. I'm more afraid of life than I am afraid of the scariest ghost.

In my dreams, sognare, I enter a world so real and personal, so precious, and unexplained by the scholars of reality. I am allowed to be impractical, be unrealistic. I'm not just talking about nice dreams. Even the dark lift lobbies with brightly lit elevators and their hanging bodies, and extensive Silent Hill-like toilets with horrifying elements, are all mine. My world. I always like how my dreams are bizarre and still familiar because they hold the warped but still recognisable elements of reality.

Okay I guess i should take a break from the heavy melancholy and write about happier things haha.
I can't wait for next March because I'll finally be going to the Land of the Rising Sun! My family's planning a trip to Tokyo before my second sister gets married in late 2015. I wanted to go to Kyoto though because I always prefer a more relaxed and rustic setting to a metropolitan city environment. But I guess i'll travel to Kyoto next time on my own perhaps, and enjoy the family time in Tokyo.

I haven't told Stacey, but I'm actually really sad to know she's marrying off soon. It only reinforces my aforementioned fear of my first family splitting up into other families. But I think my parents would feel more of what I'm feeling, because even now whenever Mom and Dad have dinner alone (when Stacey's still at work and I'm out studying), Mom tells me that both she and Dad feel lonely without us around. As much I have dreams to move into my own cosy abode, I really don't mind staying with my parents even into my 30s, 40s and 50s if I'm unmarried. It pains me a little to imagine my folks alone at home, and I want to be there for them.

This is one extremely long post! I'm glad i managed to get through it without just shutting the page. I listen to some of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's songs and recently I've got 'Kira Kira Killer' stuck in my head! Kyary is so cute and I love how bizarre and wildly imaginative all her music videos are, like 'Ponponpon', 'Fashion Monster' and 'Mottai Nightland'. But after a while the songs can give you a headache, so i think my my favourites (the milder ones) are 'CANDY CANDY' and 'Yume no Hajima' .Here's 'Kira Kira Killer':