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I’ve decided that this could quite possibly be the most beautiful song in the world.

*sigh*

If I could, I’d find some way to get the music out here too, but… I’ve always thought that this song was beautiful… but now that I have the translation… and after I saw Tomo’s reaction to it when I insisted that he listen to this “really pretty Escaflowne song” it holds much more meaning.

No one probably cares… but that’s ok. :) This isn’t for you, it’s for Tomo anyway.

My brain is fuzzy. Le Pacte des Loupe is… intense. That’s all I can say… I am still in this numbing state of mental and emotional shock. If you are someone who enjoys happy endings or if you are someone who prefers not to have your deepest fears and secrets revealed and thrown upon the big screen (or computer screen, or tv screen… whichever floats your boat…) do not see this movie It violates every unspoken tradition of “good” film-making. So much that perhaps it should be hated, or banned… it probably would be banned if it were published in a different era. 17th century France for example… Unless of course it was commissioned by the Pope himself for the purpose of frightening the populace into obeying a God he created. The movie was great. Frightening, deep, and horrible. Beautiful in the way that a stab wound or a fatal bite is beautiful.

In Other News: I’m completely miserable without Tomo. It’s quite ironic… I made this un-spoken vow that I would not fall for anyone… not fall seriously. I decided early on that I would learn to have “a little fun”… (and three days after I arrived… I did. but shhh.) Oops. A big oops. Too late. Past the point of no return. I can’t explain… I wish I could. It frustrates me… how things emotional never seem to happen the way you plan. I’m more than a little scared… Because I’ve felt this way before… and I’ve always had to say goodbye. And this time, I know that I will have to say goodbye… But I don’t want to think about that.

I’m happy when I’m with him. This is the bitter-sweet essence of life itself. This is the reason for this form of existence… And nothing else matters…

Ok… that’s all. my brain is going to explode now…. Off I go to get ready to clean up the pieces.

There once were crazy silly things
Which caused my heart to fly
And only crazy silly things
could hold my heart so high.
But all these crazy silly things
would drag me to the ground
‘Cause all these crazy silly things
Were never anchored down.

Well… I almost had a Chinese name. This is just one of the many difficulties of having two Chinese teachers.

Yesterday, I was so excited to receive the name my Chinese Conversation teacher gave me. “Na-Aimi” sounded great to me… and the characters, when she painted them in beautiful Chinese calligraphy style, were so wonderful… I was so happy and excited, it was quite ridiculous. I was a bouncy happy giddy silly mushroom emily… it was probably quite amusing, seeing as no one in the class was familiar with my little mood swings. Jing Wu (the teacher) gave me the calligraphy of my name, and she stamped it with her little stamp as well. I was so proud of it. I planned on putting it on my wall…

Then today, I went to my normal Chinese class and told my teacher that Jing Wun had given me a name. He has already been calling me “Aimi” because he has difficulty pronouncing Emily… so it was (I thought) a perfect transition. I showed him the characters Jing Wu had given me. He looked at the last character… “Mi” translates to “rice” and I guess using “rice” in a name adds a bunch of “old lady” connotations…. He kept saying “oh… no, this is naught the best. (pointing to mi) I find a bettah wan for yu.” then “Because yu are a young lady. And this charactah no good. Yes I find a bettah wan for yu.” um.. Ok.

So my identity is up in the air. I kind of liked being “The lovely rice”… But now I guess I am going to be something else. I looked in my Chinese dictionary and found these possibilities for “Mi”

Mi(1) = “mi mi” Miao, (a cat’s speech… ooh! I want to be a lovely meow!)
Mi(1) = to squint
Mi(2) = rotten, wasteful, gruel (heh heh… yeah… that fits me really well)
Mi(2) = to be lost, to be confused (Val is probably thinking “Yes! This is perfect!”) OR to be fascinated by (aka smitten… ha ha. I could be “That Lovely Emotional Bonk On The Head!”)
Mi(3) = a riddle, a puzzle, a mystery (I’d love to be a pretty mystery.)
Mi(3) = overflowing, to cover up a fault (nah… don’t wanna…)
Mi(3) = rice (status quo)
Mi(3) = to put down, to get rid of (no…)
Mi(3) = to secrete (oh yummy)
Mi(3) = a secret (related to mystery? the characters are quite different though…)
Mi(4) = honey (another possible food name.)
Mi(4) = dense, close, thick (I don’t think so.)

[Each line represents a different character… the parenthesized numbers are the four separate tones present in Mandarin pronunciation]

Well, those offer some possibilities. I’m sure my teacher will find something appropriate. I think I’ve earned his high favor… Which can be bad and good. Good because then he is nice to me and he remembers my name… bad because he is the kind of teacher who will just put an A on your paper and write “good job” even though you made like, a thousand mistakes that should have brought your test grade down to a C… (this is exactly what happened on my test in that class yesterday)

He’s a cool teacher though. He doesn’t understand English very well… but he can speak it clear enough to teach. He’s amusing and people take advantage of him the way we used to take advantage O-buuts Otsubo Sensei (*snicker*). It brings back memories… not all of them great… but memories nonetheless.

In Other News: I went to study with Tomo-kun in the library today… *does a little dance* He fell asleep in the study room curled up on my scarf for about a half-hour. Ha ha. He was soo cute… *sniff* That half hour is pretty high up there on my “highlights of the day” list. :)

And Tomoaki-kun… If you are reading this: HELLO!!!!

Na-Aimi

I had some horrible bits of dreams last night. nightmare-ish strange things…. The emotions were “uncomfortable”, feelings of deception and suspicion. Feeling the wrong emotion for the setting… confusion, delirium… as if I were being played by someone… or manipulated….

I dreamed that I had a baby… but I was only pregnant for a few months. The baby came out looking like a dog’s chew toy, but for some reason the doctors said that was normal… and so they tied two red ribbons on the two knobby ends of the “chew toy” and sent me home with it. I remember feeling suspicious, but mostly I just felt really worried. How was I supposed to care for this chew toy? As the weeks went by, the toy started to crumble, and it got soft and mushy… My dad took it away from me and hid it in the closet and I didn’t see it very much after that… that made me very sad. Someone gave me a kitten and tried to convince me that the kitten was really my baby. For a while I was happy, until I remembered that they don’t allow kittens in the dorms… So I spent some time trying to give the kitten away. Suddenly I remembered my baby sitting on the closet shelf. I opened up the closet and it was all decaying and crumbling. But as the “chew toy” crumbled away, it began to take the shape of a human baby… the head appeared as white crud fell from around it’s neck… and it saw that the arms lifted over the head made one of the “knobby ends” and the legs curled up Indian style made the other end. I began to unfold the baby… It was clear that he was dead. And also clear that he was a boy. I remember my dad crying. As if he had tried to hide the fact that my baby was dead the whole time. But I remember not feeling sad. I had already lost my kitten, and I felt guilty about caring for the kitten and not this “chew toy”… So I forced myself to cry so my dad would think that I was sad. But really I just felt guilt

I think that the “baby” probably represents all the things that I’m working towards achieving. I’ve had a lot of “baby” dreams since I started getting ready for college. I think I must be worried about having the fruits of my efforts fail, or having them not come out the way I expected them to. Or to have them stolen and be given something that really isn’t mine.

Last night I had a rather uncomfortable conversation with someone… ICQ is not a good way to converse with someone if your relationship is on “questionable” grounds. I was also talking to Val, and he suggested I just tell him to “fuck off” etc… But I felt very strongly that if I did anything like that, then everything I’ve worked for in regards to this other person (understanding, closure etc) would be all for nothing. We’d have to start at ground zero again. I also know that there is a good chance that no matter how hard I work at closing this relationship up and finishing it on a more permanent basis, something will happen that will make the outcome very different than what I hope it will be. The baby will be born, but it won’t be a baby. It will be a dog’s chew toy with two red ribbons tied on it to hide the fact that it really isn’t a baby. My subconscious seems to also be suggesting that I will only think that we have failed. That later, when my friends and family try to protect me by distracting me with kittens and hiding the real issue in the closet, and time goes by, I’ll come back to the closet and realize that we really hadn’t failed. I had failed in the end by not caring for the Chew Toy and unwrapping the baby (the closure and understanding) trapped within it.

I guess this means that something is going to happen with this person… and that it will look like we’ve fucked up (again)… but I will just need to dig a little deeper to discover that everything will be all right. And I need to do that digging quickly, or the baby will suffocate… and then my friends and family will try to protect me and cover it up. Someone will hand me a kitten and say that I really did succeed… a kind of “too good to be true” lie.

Dreams are really weird. Especially ones which can be explained. At least I feel a little bit of hope. At least I feel somewhat relieved. I feel better knowing that it isn’t just me the Mortal Emily who is working on this problem. I’m glad that some higher version of myself is also working at it… sending me messages, holding my hand. Telling me what to do and warning me about the possible future.

*sigh* well, I think it is time for breakfast. it is 11:15.. ack.

Well ok. I’ve stopped crying now. No actually I didn’t cry much this time at all. Goodbyes seem to be getting easier on the outside… although maybe not all that easy on the inside. At least I didn’t throw up again. Ha.

I want to write all kinds of cheesy silly things… about how grateful I am to have a friendship like ours and about how my life has become gradually more and more worth living because of it. I want to make silly vows and promises about my future… Write sentimental schmuck-like poetry and tell everyone that I have glimpsed my life complete by watching us. Well, *gah* I’m such a dork. *slaps self silly*

*ahem* Changing subject:
I thought about a lot of things while Val was here… things about my future, my goals, my hopes and dreams. These last few weeks I’ve been contemplating the course of my future… like the more distant future. Not this “while I’m in College” stuff… For the first time in my life, the prospect of someday having my own family is attractive. Val and I had a conversation about family structures and traditions and values one evening… He told me about how the family is generally structured in Russia and we discussed a little and contrasted it with American family structures… I started to kind of develop in my mind how I’d someday like my family to be built, and how I’d like it to be run. Right now, it is all just sort of fantasy, playing around with different futures in my head, exploring different ideas. Reality will probably be nothing like how I’ve pictured it in my mind. But the significance comes from the fact that before now, I was actually repulsed by the idea of someday starting a family. The idea of a permanent relationship frightened me deep inside… but now, I feel like that fear is fading… and being replaced by a more natural subtle hope that someday my future will include all those things that I once thought I’d never want in my life.

I guess I’m growing up. :) It feels kind of nice.

Today has held many mixed things… I received a gift from a friend in Lousiana… and it brought me to tears because it was so awesome. (Thank you !!) I received a phone call from one of my dear ex-co workers from Nap’s… Alice wanted to wish me well, and give me her phone number in case I ever needed it. Our conversation brought me to tears for the second time. And then Val left… and I was crying again. “They come in Threes” my father likes to say. So I guess that means that I am finished crying for today.

Today was just a really awesome day. This whole week has been really awesome. I’m so grateful for how things are in my life right now. It is such a contrast to how things were back in Hawaii… suicidal, manic-depressive, constantly stressed out… I don’t think I weighed more than 100 lbs for more than a week at a time… (damn, I sorta wish I still had that metabolism now though!)

Anyway… Ok… this was a meandering and strange entry… The kind that I feel obligated to add a “Comment Topic Of the Day” to the end because I didn’t think it the kind of entry which would generate much feedback. But who knows. It is a New Year… No telling what might happen when I push the “post” button. :)

Is this my first post of the new year?

I Think So!

Vanilla Sky was very good. It was an awesome psychological thriller.

I got a lot out of that movie… The idea of hope and the fact that every nightmare will pass, and that every dream is worth having. The sour and the sweet are defined by each other.

It was beautiful. It gave me insight into my own life, made me feel calmer, and happier. I feel a deeper and calmer love for the people around me. And I feel so happy. Life is something different from dreams, but it can have dreamlike qualities. It is all within the power of the subconscious.