声の形 Koe no Katachi (The Shape of Voice)

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Iggy and I went to catch 声の形 Koe no Katachi (The Shape of Voice) yesterday at Vivo. Despite my heightened expectations stemming from ratings and reviews from friends who've already watched it, the show didn't disappoint - in fact I do want to watch it a second time just to appreciate some of the scenes I might have missed out on in detail.

Koe no Katachi is a slice of life, motivational kind of movie with spring vibes (think soft, bright colours and tones) that focuses on the idea of bullying. Some related themes include how one's experiences in the past still affects them even up to the present, and how one decides to change from their haunted past. 

The main protagonist, Ishida Shōya, had led his elementary school class in bullying his deaf classmate, Nishimiya Shōko, and eventually caused her to transfer schools. When the school decided to crack down on the case, Ishida was singled out as a scapegoat responsible for all the class' bullying, causing him to be ostracised and bullied in turn. The severe bullying he experienced led him to become an introverted individual with a fear of or distrust in making friends, believing that they viewed him negatively as well. He becomes overcome with thoughts of suicide and decides to find Nishimiya to apologise to her before killing himself, only to forget about his suicidal intentions when he interacts with Nishimiya for the first time with the sign language he had been learning. He then decides that instead of dying, his motivation for living now would be to make amends for all the trouble and suffering he made Nishimiya go through. During this process of helping Nishimiya, Ishida also has to confront his own insecurity around people as he encounters old friends from the past and new friends.

When we stepped out of the theatre, my first question to Iggy was "Between Kimi no Na wa and this, which do you like better?" While he preferred the former, he said he did enjoy the Koe no Katachi as well, just that he was left puzzled over certain gaps and unexplained plot progressions throughout the movie. The show indeed had many scenes that were glossed over before moving on to the next, and isn't as solid or complete as Kimi no Na wa - however, I felt that it didn't impede the flow of the show. A reason for the gaps could be that Koe no Katachi is actually a manga series with 7 volumes (62 chapters) - hence it is actually a challenge for the film's script writers to extract the important parts and then string them in a coherent and consistent storyline. In fact, I realised they had to modify some of the scenes to suit the film, after noticing several differences between the film and the manga which I'm now reading.

I personally prefer Koe no Katachi over Kimi no Na wa, since the themes in the former are more relatable than the latter which identifies as a more supernatural, fantasy-like genre. Even though everyone was raving about how tear-inducing Kimi no Na wa was, I didn't cry at all because I was too busy being amazed at Makoto Shinkai's art - but for Koe no Katachi, I felt my heart being wrenched and my eyes stinging at some of the more emotional scenes, so score one for Koe no Katachi. 

I liked most of the characters as well, though the film couldn't expand on all of them due to time limits. My favourite character is probably Yuzuru, Nishimiya's younger sister, who's a strong girl fiercely protective of her older sister. She experienced bullying because of the fact that her sister is deaf, and stopped going to school, accompanying Nishimiya mostly to her sign language classes. Knowing that her older sister had suicidal thoughts, Yuzuru took and put up photographs of dead animals she found at home in order to scare Nishimiya away from such thoughts. From the manga (not in the film), Yuzuru sports a boy's hair cut, because when their mother wanted to chop off Nishimiya's hair into a boy's cut in order to make her stronger like a boy against her wishes, Yuzuru picked up a pair of scissors and began to cut off her long hair, shocking their mother - presumably as a declaration that she would be the strong one for her sister.

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I loved how the show made me question the motivations for what the characters and generally people do. When faced with the existence of a traumatic past or experience from a certain period of your life, there are many things we do. Some of us carry it with us as a scar that threatens the way we live our lives now, limiting ourselves. Some of us run away and feign ignorance by trying to build a new life, a new self. Some of us hold a grudge against something or someone whom we believe to have caused our trauma. Some of us might be haunted by what we could have or should have done to prevent that past. Or all of them. But what's important is that we find ourselves dissatisfied with being stuck or held back by our past, and eventually confronting it in order to move on in life.

Week 9

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It's Week 9 of school now, and ages since I wrote something! I wasn't really overwhelmed by submissions and assignments to the point I didn't have time to let off steam, but I just really didn't have time to mull over existential thoughts and reflections on life as often as I used to, now that I have more stuff to occupy myself with.

And maybe that's a good thing because it could mean I'm not as prone to negative, melancholic thoughts as easily as I used to. On the other hand a part of me feels a little uncomfortable about not documenting my state of mind in a blog or diary entry for my future self to read back on, since that's one of my significant motivations to write in the first place.

Things have been busy, but I'm fortunate to have circumstances work in my favour to complete stuff and produce consistent results at a steady pace. I feel like a little boat contentedly floating atop peaceful waters (and at this point a part of me is screaming "DON'T JINX IT!"). With each little success I'm blessed with, it gives me a little boost in my confidence to keep up the good work.

The top of my list of "little successes" which I'm really excited about is being selected to go on the annual Japanese Studies Field Studies module in Kyushu this May!

Yearly there's a lot of competition for this module since it's heavily subsidised by both NUS and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, facilitated by one of the coolest profs I've known (Dr. Mcmorran) and includes events in the itinerary like farm-stays and hot springs :D They only take 10 students each year, and since application is open to anyone across most faculties (even non-FASS), the response would naturally be overwhelming. Of course there are conditions one should fulfil to gain the upper hand, such as being a JS major or minor, having at least LAJ3 proficiency of Japanese etc. I had to go for an interview with Dr Mcmorran, which was really chill since he just conducted it like some casual conversation. So imagine my excitement when I got the email informing me I've been selected XD

I can't wait to go, especially since I've always wanted to visit the countryside areas of Japan. In fact, Hitoyoshi City, which is where Natsume Yuujinchou's location is based on, is in Kumamoto prefecture where we'd be going! Just thinking about all the greenery and fresh air, the pictures I will take to liven up my Instagram feed again makes me SO elated ^^

There are many other "little successes" that made me feel a lot better and confident now, but it'd be a hassle to write them all. Just that...I'm hoping this high that I'm feeling now won't crash and burn, and that I could tap on this current good feeling to spur me to do things I really want to do but never had the guts to. An example that is strong on my mind now is plucking the courage to strike a conversation with the senior from VJ whom I've had the longest crush on for. LIKE srsly just now when I crashed and took a 2 hour nap after coming home from school I had a dream about him (and it isn't the first time too)!? Yknow things like this makes me wonder "Is this a sign :O" and go batshit crazy just weighing the odds of fulfilling that "prophecy" HAHA.

3-4 more weeks to go before I'm done with Year 2 and prepare to go on my trip to Kyushu :> Let's press on!

Youthful Innocence

Yesterday morning, a cohort of 6th graders from the nearby Japanese Primary School trickled into NUS Central Library Forum in two lines, albeit disorderly as they chatted excitedly among themselves. We - the university students at least 7 years ahead of them - watched their arrival with anticipation from the stairs where we were seated, wondering which of the young curious faces looking at us were assigned to us.

As part of our Japanese 3 assessment this semester, we were supposed to plan itineraries for a university tour for these 6th graders, make a brochure, conduct the tour on the actual day and thereafter write a reflection (in Japanese!). My groupmates (Hanxi, Vivian and Sherlyn) all worked really hard on the brochure designs and all, so all was good ^^

Now projects in university are more often than not a chore, but this was fairly exciting to me because how often would you even get to interact with Japanese kid? I think it's pretty easy to meet a Japanese adult these days (I've a Japanese exchange student as a project group member for a linguistics mod now), but a young child? Not so much.

So when the children arrived and sat down in their rows in front of us, I found it really hard to contain my excitement (such that my groupmates were telling me to chill and calm my "pedophile" emotions). Just less than an hour before that as I sped to school in a cab, I was searching up on conversation topics, useful vocabulary etc. on my phone. 浜崎先生 had also sent the names of the children assigned to each group, so I was committing them to memory (HAHA is this a bit extreme?). We were supposed to have five students, but one of the 6th graders was absent. Our lovely 6th graders were Kawabata Jun, Kasahara Kairi, Adachi Haru and Shiozawa Kotone (and I'm typing all these out from memory!)

Everyone (both my groupmates and the children) seemed a little shy and awkward, but I was suppressing all the excitement from earlier on I kinda just burst out with a happy 「おはよう！」Good morning! when we met them. We introduced ourselves and started on the tour. Our itinerary included The Deck, YIH, RVRC Hall and lastly Utown before having lunch there.

Along the way at the first part, the children were a little shy but politely answered our questions, like what their favourite subject is, what they would usually do after school etc. They became more open when talking about their interests.

In fact when while waiting for drinks at YIH's Gongcha (our treat for the children!), I learnt a couple of new things from Jun. He was telling me about this game called シーマン Seaman that he found interesting and wanted to try on his PS2 (he has a PS2!and here I thought kids these days don't appreciate the old stuff anymore). I searched it up on my phone and all of us watched a video on it. Basically it's an old game where you interact with this fish that has a human face, looking something like this:

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HAHA I can imagine your incredulous expression now, because that was me when I hit the search button after typing out the name in katakana as per Jun's instruction. Haru and Kotone took a look and were all 「気持ち悪いよ！」kimochi warui yo! (That's so creepy!) Yup totally agree with you girls. After a while I thought it was kinda cute, and that's when Jun taught me a new phrase 「きもかわ」kimo-kawa ＝「気持悪い」kimochi warui ＋「かわいい」kawaii. 

At UTown Green. From left: Vivian, Jun, Kairi, Kotone, Haru, yours truly, Sherlyn and Hanxi.

When we arrived at UTown Green, we saw another group tumbling down a slope from afar. I playfully asked the children if they'd like to do that too and while the girls and Jun hesitated, Kairi was all for it HAHA. We slid down the slopes (both 6th graders and pathetic university kids like myself). I think this was when the children all loosened up because they started engaging us in a game of catch (that I couldn't catch up with *badumtss*). We decided to combine with the other group, who happened to be in the same tutorial, and proceed with the rest of the tour together before having lunch at Food Clique.

The 6th graders were given a worksheet with interview questions for us, so during lunch Haru (who insisted that I sit with her for lunch) asked me questions like why I was interested in learning Japanese, which part of Japanese culture is my favourite etc. When she asked what was my favourite Japanese character, of course I said Totoro and Naruto - to which one of the boys from the other group reacted with interest.

Gathering back at Central Forum. From left: Sherlyn, Hanxi, Kairi, Jun, yours truly, Haru, Kotone and Vivian.

After we gathered back at Central Forum at 1pm, we took a last picture with our kids. Jun commented that the time we spent was too short. Yes I feel that way too, Jun :( Haru was the most attached among the children, so she kept playing around with us. Before she left she exchanged LINE contacts with us :') (Guys I've a 6th grader as a friend!!!)

Hanxi, Vivian, Weiling (who was in another group) and I went to chill in the JSS club room after it was over since we were going to attend a language workshop by Waseda University students later. It was kinda tiring after frolicking around with the children, so I just lazed around on the couches in the room:

And that was when Weiling who snapped this shot commented how Vivian's my kagebunshin (shadow clone - Naruto's jutsu). I thought it was pretty cool so after the Waseda workshop we just had to take a picture together HAHA

Twinning wtih Vivian!

I really really enjoyed interacting with the 6th graders yesterday. They were so full of energy yet they were also polite! It heartened me to see how many things associated with childhood innocence don't really change that much even with different generations. I had this mindset that kids these days are growing up too fast - that is, gravitating towards more adult-like pleasures like make-up and brands too quickly. 

That's probably more reflective of Singaporean or more westernised kids, maybe, but then again it all depends on upbringing. The Primary 5 children I used to teach in Sunday School would be talking to me about the expensive clothing brands that I'd only briefly heard of, or critique how I should wear more trendy, colourful clothing (because I only wear basics in the same few colours). But watching the 6th graders run unrestrained on the field playing an old game of catch instead of using smartphones, or talking about weird old PS2 games really made me happy somehow, as if transported to my very own distant childhood memory myself.

My Existence

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Today's cover picture is from Studio Ghibli's production of When Marnie Was There - based on a novel by Joan G. Robinson. It's my latest Ghibli film so far, and has become an addition to my list of favourite works by the famed studio. I highly recommend it - both the film and the book - if you haven't tried it, especially if you're looking for a book with a quaint, peaceful plot to wind down and while your leisurely hours away. Then again, who actually has leisurely hours to begin with...

These days I've been in quite a daze, as if I'm just drifting along with the motions while the sounds around me get blurred out. Maybe it's my way of unconsciously trying to lighten the burden of reality. I get assignments and chores done as I go down a systematic checklist, but I'm not really thinking... about things like future plans, personal desires - the things that should really get me motivated to push on in life.

I daydream a lot - random old faces surface every now and then and I wonder how they're doing, what it'd be like if we were still close etc. Or I imagine myself with different personalities (like what if I were secretly a sleeper agent, or a mutant), just to keep myself entertained. I'd wonder about how I appear to the stranger sitting opposite me in the train carriage, or try to imagine what kind of lives the people I watch from my seat on the bus lead as it drives them by. As I lie on my bed in the darkness and turn to my side, I think about whether I would go to bed alone like this every other night for the following years to come, or whether I would sense the warmth of another living person next to me. Whenever I hold Skippy and look into his eyes with those slight cataracts, I let the cold realisation of his impending departure wash over me for a bit before I shake it all away...

I feel like nothing.

But that's something.

And even in this lonely, peaceful existence that I revel in, I want someone to notice who I am. I want to be wondered about. Maybe that's why I write, and write and write. I don't write useful, intelligent or even controversial articles that stir the sentiments of people who would eagerly pounce on them to share on social media. That's because I'm not looking for recognition or popularity, or any of those fleeting things. But I want people to know I existed somewhere, some time in this world. That one day in the distant future someone would read my words and know who I was.

I picked up my pen to write the first of many years' worth of diary entries in Primary 6 after I was inspired by The Diary of Anne Frank. She was a figure from the past, but she was real. She was human, with all her dreams and fears. I didn't meet her, but I know her from her own words. Not just Anne Frank - shows like Natsume Yuujinchou and When Marnie Was There with the similar plot of knowing someone from the past get to me as well.

I don't have to invent something or perform some miraculous act for me to claim a place in someone's thoughts when I've expired and gone from this world. I can just be the ordinary but very much existent person I am.

I never had that many friends growing up

So I learned to be okay with

Just me, just me, just me, just me

And I'll be fine on the outside

I like to eat in school by myself anyway

So I'll just stay

Right here, right here, right here, right here

And I'll be fine on the outside

So I just sit in my room after hours with the moon

And think of who knows my name

Would you cry if I died

Would you remember my face?

So I left home, I packed up and l moved

Far away

From my past one day

And I laughed, I laughed, I laughed, I laughed

I sound fine on the outside

Ha ha ha...

Sometimes I feel lost, sometimes I'm confused

Sometimes I find

That I am not alright

And I cry, and I cry, and I cry....

Ha ha ha...

So I just sit in my room after hours with the moon

And think of who knows my name

Would you cry if I died

Would you remember my face?

Insecurity

http://www.zerochan.net/53964#full

When the voices start to chime in one after another, they coalesce into an intense blur - and all I want to do is to throw down whatever I'm doing and run down a quiet, deserted path where I can lose myself and all sense of the reality waiting.

But even in the silence, I am restless. Even though I can't hear their voices, I see their faces in my mind and our every past interaction surging back. On each memory I cast my doubts and insecurities, and they shuffle along. I can see them looking at me, whispering among each other. But these, vivid as they are, play out only in my conscious. If only I could scratch these useless feelings away and get rid of them.

I am extremely insecure. Most people, to varying extents, are. But I feel it cling to my being like an unwanted disease. I feel it the more I try to hide it, to suppress it. I don't show others how afraid I actually am, but still insist that they do not hold back. And yet even so, I'm not satisfied or appeased. Unsettled, I think about how they're still not completely honest with me, how they'd turn away and reveal what they truly think of me without me there.

When this happens, I start to desire for either one of two things. To disappear and be done with people, to not care about what people think, because it's so much easier to tell someone not to care than to actually disregard the insecurity yourself. The second thing I desire is the ability to read minds.

If I think about it rationally, reading minds isn't actually as great as it sounds for so many reasons. But the way I see it, knowing each and every single thought of everyone I meet would probably give my insecurity a rest. Not because I want to change myself to be the kind of person people would appreciate.

The way I am now, I look at people and think about how they perceive me. Each and every single action, word - anything - I'd give more consideration than necessary and try to determine if they like me or hate me. When I come to know about something that I feel I ought to have known earlier, I'm haunted with many "Why"s. If I could know how they think of me, favourable or unfavourable, at least I don't have to go on a fruitless process of uncertainty and questioning. At least I could deal with it faster and with more resolve. At least I don't have to feel so worthless and hateful about myself.

And I know it's hard to deal with insecurity. It's so easy to tell myself to grow a backbone and deal with it. What can others say? If they knew, they'd be even more careful with the way they interact with me, and that's even worst because they'd be hiding even more from me. This insecurity be damned.

Tension and Negotiation

http://www.zerochan.net/440405#full

The last post I mentioned how the scent of lavender has calming effects on me especially when I'm stressed out...and now I'm thinking about how I really need a whole truckload of lavender now. Or maybe I just need to get on that truck and drive far away from all the bullshit that has happened, lavender sprigs flying everywhere.

Now I personally don't like to rant online in a way that appears as if I'm launching an underhanded, indirect and cowardly attack on someone that I didn't confront personally first. Having been slammed by people I knew in secondary school without them getting their facts right (beyond trashy gossip) was scarring enough, so I don't think it's wise or mature to do anything that comes close to that. But after (finally) calming down and pondering about whatever just happened yesterday made me realise a few things about human interaction that happen all the time but seldom get pointed out. And that is what I will focus on writing about today, without losing control and eventually launching into an angry tirade (I'll try).

So what happened was this. I'm involved in a school event held by the Japanese club in my university as a scriptwriter for the concert component at night. After listening to what the PDs wanted roughly and getting ideas from my two lovely assistant scriptwriters, I finally drafted a script that was more story-based than your usual/ordinary emcee script. The draft was sent out a week ago to everyone on the storyboard group, including the two emcees, to have a look and voice any concerns they might have so that I could refine it better. Initially, there didn't seem to be any particular problem save for remarks about the tone and expression of the lines. These were pretty minor, so I continually revisited the script and tried different ways of speech that'll be more natural for our emcees to perform.

UNTIL.

The morning of Friday the 13th yesterday during my seminar class, I opened my Telegram chat to find a barrage of comments by one of the emcees (whom I will refer to as Person X) that basically voiced strong disapproval about the script and sought for it to be done all over again. And we had scheduled a reading of the original script in the afternoon on the very same day. Now here's where the situation gets sticky.

Person X wasn't all disapproving without justification - meaning he did give reasons as to why he felt the original script wouldn't do - reasons that made sense. Even in the midst of my indignance at the time I was going through his comments, I recognised the validity of his points.

I had many gripes about this. My main gripe was the (rude) way in which he put forth his opinion, which I will elaborate on later. The next was the whole timing of it. We were only a week away from rehearsals, and now we had to make a major revision to the script as quickly as we could and give time for the emcees to practice. One of the PDs informed me that X had personal matters to attend to that week thereby accounting for his late comments, which I accepted (albeit grudgingly). Third - if X saw these valid flaws in the script, why in the world did nobody else notice it and point it out earlier!?

That afternoon I turned up at the clubroom in low spirits and tried to make sense of the situation with the PDs and other scriptwriters in the clubroom. I asked them if they honestly had identified with what X pointed out earlier. When a couple of them admitted that they did think it was a minor cause for concern at the beginning, I almost lost it and asked why they didn't say so earlier. Anyway to sum up, we came up with another premise for the script, and I spent HOURS (that I should've spent doing my bloody readings) rewriting the whole script today. Don't get me wrong, I definitely know revisions are inevitable in scriptwriting. But I would have GREATLY appreciated these call for revisions much earlier and not less than a week to the rehearsals. ><

Right here's the part that I wanted to focus on, really, apart from that seething summary of events above. A friend of mine told me that most interactions between people are basically negotiations - where interlocutors observe and make judgements of the current interaction before deciding on the kind of stance or contribution they would put forth. Different parties may have different motives and expectations from the communication, but through this process they eventually meet in the middle even if it means compromising a little of your opinions or true feelings.

I've met many people with strong personalities in my life before, people who are assertive and have firm principles - which is admirable. Good for you, that's what I think.

But when you bring that with you into an interaction with someone else (especially if you haven't met or spoken with this person before), you can't really expect to always have everything go your way, or keep up with that assertive personality of yours. This isn't to say you should go out of your way to pretend to be nice and all. But following that negotiation process, someone would have to accommodate you when you insist on just dumping whatever you like unreservedly into the conversation because "this is who I am, whether you like it or not." That's not admirable anymore - that's just being self-centred and ANNOYING.

I've never interacted with Person X even once before all these happened, so I was in for a rude shock. Maybe he believes being brutally honest without beating about the bush is effective and is in his personality. But since it's my first time talking to this guy, I don't really care what kind of "amazing" person he is apart from what he has to offer in our interaction. I ended up feeling shitty as I had to hold back from retaliating, which in that way was me unwillingly accommodating with his bigotry.

The finishing blow was when he "offered" to, as I quote "bang out something" (a completely new script). Whether or not he intended it, I took it personally as an insensitive challenge to not only all the time and effort I poured into my work, but my pride and responsibility as the scriptwriter. I firmly (and indirectly) replied back on the same group chat that "we haven't confirmed that X would be going to write another draft for us yet." In the end, X didn't have to "bang out something" because I made a completely new draft today.

Sigh. I really don't like being angry, and losing control of my composure because of that. I rarely do - in fact I do like to think that my threshold of tolerance was quite deep. As I stormed into the clubroom yesterday, some of the club members were trying to console me. It was really uncool because I was still raging and a couple of the Year 1 guys in the room inched their way behind one of the PDs like "halp can we hide behind you". I was struggling to be professional about it and focus on getting out new ideas for the script so I could complete it well before next week's rehearsal.

URGH.

Year 2 Sem 2

http://www.hdwallpapers.in/lavender_flowers-wallpapers.html

School just started a couple of days ago, and it's a relief I haven't barfed from apprehension when faced with the menacing deadlines of my CA-heavy modules throughout this new semester. 

The first week of school is when you shuffle awkwardly into your lecture/ seminar room, inconspicuously surveying your classmates - some of whom would be your potential project mates. Maybe you give yourself an inner fist pump when you notice that eyecandy whom you haven't seen since the start of winter break is also taking the same module as you. You chatter away with the course-mates you've sat in lectures with in the past few semesters, gossiping about your new professor based on what you heard from your seniors, or grumbling about how you're going to struggle with multiple deadlines from all your different modules etc etc.

By now, most of us in the second semester of our second year might feel a little jaded - going through the motions as we've done for the past three arduous semesters. But the anticipation and adrenaline you feel doesn't really change, just like how a runner might feel as he waits for his cue to take off at the starting line.

I'm really looking forward to breaking out of all the ennui I was immersed in from the past winter break. I'd been feeling really listless and removed from the world around me, as if plodding numbly through the days. Of course there were times of fun and excitement, but with their brevity I wind up lapsing into melancholy again. So hopefully with school starting I might be jolted back into action, into reality again.

Anyway, I thought I might write a little about my choice of the cover picture for this post. Most if not all of my posts' cover pictures have some sort of connection to, or capture the vibe of my feelings or thoughts at the moment I write the post. This time it's lavender fields, because the scent of lavender is one of my favourites. I have this little aroma burner in my room which I'd light up and put a few drops of lavender oil to create a more relaxing atmosphere in my room, especially on days I feel anxious or stressed out. It also helps that the lavender was the iconic flower used in 時をかける少女 The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, making it all the more favourable. To me, it's become a sort of remedy or visual cue to calm down whenever I may be experiencing anxiety - which would pretty much be what I'll feel for this new semester!