Flying Solo

Flying Solo: I. The First 11 Hours

2006-09-17T20:41:00.000-04:00

CHANGI - NARITA - O'HARE - PEARSON

First of all, a tip of the hat to my dear friend, you know who you are, in recognition of your bravery in charging into the airport and enduring the officially World's Most Talkative taxi driver with me.

Solemnly having had my last Singaporean bite which happened to be a Burger King ice-cream, I marched unhesitantly through the customs. I was thrilled to realize most people had already boarded, leaving an empty waiting lounge with a few idle security officers. A young, beaming, handsome officer stood by an X-ray machine. I hefted my bag onto his machine-a more than obvious choice. There should be more people like that in the service sector as it provides a genuine simplification to decision making on the consumer's part. That, of course, proved to be a crude generalization. Anything happens in Biology, anything happens in Changi. The officer pointed to my cardigan, in a voice eight octaves higher than mine he sang," Off, your jacket-o". If there is ever an action ears can do akin to eyes blinking, I did that, and certainly more than once. Apparently perceiving no perception on my face, he sang again, with more emphasis, "jacketo, jacketo, off." I debated with myself over whether he was speaking Singlish, Japanese or a hybrid of the two since it was a JAL flight. Smiling resignedly, I threw my cardigan into the examination tray. Even though I am for gay rights, such unexpected occurance is still a little unnerving.

The 7-hour flight is always the most enjoyable. The duration is just nice to catch a latest movie, read the Asahi Shimbun, socialize with the cabin crew, have a fulfilling meal, nap and play video games. I was strangely attracted to the screen of the guy sitting diagonally in front of me. After a frantic search through the menu, an euphoric me realized it was the "elegant" game of Shogi K extensively lectured me about. Trying my hand at it while refering madly to the complex rules, the game did not seem to match Chinese chess in mathematical elegance nor sophistication in simplicity. Nevertheless, it fared well in preventing me from slipping into a vegetative state for the majority of the trip.

With the touch-down, I lost an hour. Yet even with that, I was the first customer at the familiar Excelsior Caffé. The same café, same direction facing seat, same tea with lemon. An hour passed. A gentleman asked if the opposite seat was taken. I smiled a no and told him to make himself comfortable. Just different person.

The airport was apparently in full swing now, I nodded to my gentleman as I started to leave. Kicking myself for not bringing any reading material, I rode the skytrain back to the other terminal. An increasing transitting frequency familiarized me with this airport even better than Changi for without participating in an impromptu Amazing Race I located the bookstore. Putting everything I had learnt from the Da Vinci Code I deciphered the title of a book to be Beneath the Wheel by Hesse-- the irony of the summer. I hunted for the title in all possible locations in Singapore, NLB, Kinokuniya, Borders, Yahoo Auctions until I was convinced that there was no known copy on the island. Yet I casually found it here in Narita. After paying ¥324, hot tears of pride welled in my eyes as I became the sole Singaporean possessor of the book.

Now all I needed to do was some bird killing, with one stone of course. My coin charged wallet had the weight that would endanger the aircraft I was to board. It was also containing a hopeless mess of four currencies. I trotted over to a public phone.

"Good to hear your voice and know you're just twenty minutes away...," the other end of the line said. Good for me to feed the phone with a dozen ¥10 coins too. I finally realized why only Singapore has toll-free phones in the waiting lounge. Coins for us are never a liability.

Thus lightened my load, I stepped into a duty free shop without any hope of buying a good sake because of new security regulations. Suffice to just look at the exquisite sake cups then, I mused. At that moment, something caught my eye. Beside the shelf pasted a guide on how to heat sake, which began by saying "fill a third of the grass...".

A great comfort is that all JAL flights serve sake, probably even in those grasses. I held fast to that belief as I boarded my plane.

Expired

2006-08-02T09:18:00.000-04:00

Meiji diappointed me for the first time with the short shelf-life of their low fat milk. Totally unimpressed with the fact but secretly acknowledging its good taste, I aliquoted out 500 ml and chucked it away in the freezer, hoping at least the sub-zero condition will stall the bacterial growth.

Glancing at the approaching expiry date printed distinctly on the bottle, I was again alerted by the manufacturer to dicard the milk after that deadline. I debated with myself if forcefully extending the milk's longevity was at all meaning or necessary.

When food or drugs expire, their chemical composition is altered in a malicious way. When they are being disposed of, one might feel a flicker of regret in the conduct of disposal but never in the disposed per se. The reason is that they have already lost their former value. What has become of the once beneficial substance is just a heap of harmful compounds.

But what happens when a person expires in one's life? When he, like time, marches away on a unidirectional axis; or like one's favourite season, flees when it has to? There may exist a similar physical need for a person as for food and medicine. However, unlike the latter, the person does not necessarily go bad. Instead, he is likely to fully embrace his new destiny ahead and undergo great transformations which only add greater grace and depth to his already charming constitution. The fortune of being able to see these changes is gone as surely as the expiry date arrives.

As a person expires, no amount of freezing or preservation can beguile the certainty of parting. And indeed we should not hinder the greater journey he is to set forth upon. Likewise for the normal flora in the expired milk, who knows if a particular strain might not evolve into an invincible superbug after the baptism of multi-antibiotics flushed down the sewers?

2006-06-28T13:16:00.000-04:00

I hope you will always find what you're looking for.

He Says She Says

2006-06-01T13:50:00.000-04:00

A few of my friends have raised questions over how the two genders think. I can offer no explanation even though Í'm supposed to be a biochemist in training because I really am no more enlightened than they are. What I do have, though, is the product of the wisdom of one of the "world's greatest living novelists". One excerpt is the reflection of a guy. The other is part of a letter written by a girl to the guy.

He says

" I really couldn't blame Midori for being angry. What with all the moving and fixing up and working for extra cash, I hadn't given her a second thought. Not even Naoko had crossed my mind the whole time. This was nothing new for me. Whenever I get involved in something, I shut out everything else."

She says

"Do you realize you did something terrible to me today? You never even noticed that my hairstyle had changed, did you? I've been working on it forever, [...] Don't you think that's awful? I bet you can't even remember what I was wearing today. Hey, I'm a girl! So what if you've got something on your mind? You can spare me one decent look! All you had to say was "Cute hair", and I would have been able to forgive you for being sunk in a million thoughts, but no!

Which is why I'm going to tell you a lie. It's not true that I have to meet my sister at the Ginza. I was planning to spend the night at your place. I even brought my pyjamas with me. [...]

But don't get me wrong, I'm not totally mad at you. I'm just sad. You were no nice to me when I was having my problems, but now that you're having yours, it seems there's not a thing I can do for you. You're all locked up in that little world of yours and when I try knocking on the dorr, you just sort of look up for a second and go right back inside.

So now I see you coming back with our drinks - walking and thinking. [...] Now you're sitting next to me drinking your Coke. I was holding out one last hope that you'd notice and say 'Hey your hair's changed' but no. If you had, I would have torn up this leter and said 'Let's go to your place...' But you're about as sensitve as a steel plate. Goodbye"

--Adapted from "Norwegian Wood" by Haruki Murakami

No One is Sober Tonight

2006-04-14T01:25:00.000-04:00

Why should there be? It's the eve of Good Friday, the last day of class, the day I met the Belfast Irishman and the day I witnessed the fading of the cherry blossoms.

PART I:

The holding area on the sixth floor of the Health Sciences buildings is unexpectedly adorned with an elaborate wall sculpture. He was gazing at it, both admiringly and critically. Ere long, he asked cautiously," Do you happen to know anything about art?" I shook my head apologetically, confessing I am a Biochem major.

"It resembles Medieval Irish tribal art. I'm Irish..." He then pointed out the collection of historical events the sculpture depicts, hightlighting the omission of the Dark Ages. "The sculpture lacks perspective so I'd say it's ancient," I ventured, and again apologized for only being able to offer a mathematical viewpoint. He smiled through his befitting green eyes.

Upon asking him whether Irish coffee is truly Irish, he answered,"Coffee is from the New World, but there's alcohol and that's all it matters." John's words are so true, there's alcohol, and that's all it matters.

PART II:

The party has been going on in the Trinity quad ever since 7pm, leaving the residence buildings empty. Feeling claustrophobia creeping in, I fled the room. Bloor, regardless of the milder weather, was empty. I waited till the green man (actually yellow here) started to flash did I remember to dash cross. Usually the cold wind holds a cleansing and uplifting effect but tonight, it seemed to be failing me.

Not giving up, I continued to walk around University College, realizing that I had never looked at those buildings at night. Finally I sat down in the Garden of Remembrance on one of the two benches that enclose a central floral plot. A single stalk of nameless yellow flower quivered in the wind.

I shivered too and had to move on. Back in Trin, the entire quad was filled with the smell of ethanol and pounding music. Just by inhaling I felt intoxicated. Everyone who passed by did not walk in straight paths. Should I join them? No, for weeks I need not drink alone and I did not want that good fortune to end yet.

It was almost 1am. The fountain should be deserted so I treaded softly there. Fire and water are two fascinating things that one can keep looking at them for an eternity and still feel mersmerized. I could not remember how long I stood by the fountain. I could only remember the fact that only Isabelle knew one could drink the moon and the grass moved when one wasn't looking. When Isabelle changed to Geneviève, nothing could be the same again.

Do I, then, mind being Ludwig the philosopher? I figured I do, if given a choice. I have no intention of committing the grandest fallacy of today: indulging in melancholy and thereby feigning philosophic depth. I'd rather be superficially happy. But I am not offered such a choice. So Ludwig I am, and shall remain so for what it seems now an indefinite duration.