August 10, 2005
Isolation in numbers
Well, first off, a small recap of recent events.
My finals went fine, I think. The first took maybe an hour, as well as the second. In some sense I'm kinda sad I'm done. I liked the professor and my classmates and the material was quite interesting at times. Now that I'm done, I get to go back to the math and mechanics of EE projects.
The plans for my birthday were small and relaxed: a dinner with a few friends at Sushi Nobu and a going-away potluck for a friend of mine. As it turned out, another friend of mine was in town that night and her and Sean were hitting the bars. I figured since it was my 21st, I might as well go.
It's a strange thing turning 21. It's one of the last ages that has any meaning in some sense. The next one will be 25 for renting cars, and then I can look forward to 65 for my senior discounts. A depressing thought altogether.
Anyhow, we started off in the G Street Pub where we unexpectedly ran into Ave's sister. We hung around there until Ed met up with us, at which point we went to Bernardo's. Apparently, you're not allowed to relax and have a few beers on your 21st, so I was bought a WikiWackyWoo (sp?). From there we went to Sophia's and hung around for a while until I "decided" we should leave. We then spent some time at another friend's place for yet another friend's going away party. Sadly, I crashed out pretty quickly after arriving, and so I didn't get to talk to the leaving friend too much. There's always e-mail I suppose.
The following day I tutored. I was, luckily, not too hungover since I evacuated most of the alcohol onto some plants, but it was hard to eat much of anything that day. I think threw up a little in my mouth when I tried to eat too much.
As a sidenote, I'll put up some pics from the birthday in the near future. I still need to get a photo editing program on this new Win2k install.
Now, Saturday, I went to SF. Had some dinner at "Nirvana" near Castro. The food wasn't bad, but I can't say I thought it was particularly awesome. We then went to Ann's place and hung around for a while. It was nice being around friends and such, as it always is. The party was not nearly the drunk-fest I anticipated it to be, but I think that was at least partially a result of a few people still recovering from Thursday's activities. All the same, fun was had, and eventually we went to sleep. At least, I tried going to sleep while Ave and Sean sat around saying "You shouldn't'a done that, he's just a boy" for two hours. Christ.
The next day saw everyone giving fond farewells as we slowly drifted out of Ann's apartment. Diana and I went off to go to Stern Grove Festival, at least, that's where we intended to go. We ended up getting semi-lost along the way due to a misunderstanding about 19th STREET and 19th AVENUE. Luckily our misunderstanding still put us in the right part of SF, so it only took us a phone call and fifteen minutes to get where we needed to be.
I'd never been to Stern Grove before, and was kinda in awe of it at first. It reminded me a lot of visiting Yoyogi park; a verdant sea of calm and nature surrounded by manmade sharp corners and noise. We went in, found some friends, and sat down and had ourselves a good ol' time. I ended up buying some mediocre garlic fries and a piss-poor quesadilla with salsa for way too much cash. I hope some of those proceeds go to the festival 'cause the food sure didn't deserve it.
I think I might consider people-watching a hobby of mine. Watching what other people do and how they interact with one another is an interesting way of observing humanity in general. You can learn a surprising amount of information about a person just by seeing how they carry themselves and treat others in public.
I remember once when a friend was giving me a ride to school during HS. As we pulled into the parking lot, I saw a classmate of mine holding a notebook and pencil sitting on some thing or another right next to the parking lot entrance such that he could look into the passenger side of each car as it went by. He leaned forward and looked me right in the eye and I looked him straight back as we went into the parking lot. Later I asked him what he was doing there, and he replied simply, "Eh.., it's just how I get my kicks". I still don't quite get what he was doing that day.
Anyway, as the music started, people up front got up and danced, there was an older lady in purple who danced as she sat on her bench, there were others who camped out up in the trees to watch the goings-on, families ate lunches on the picnic benches, friends gathered on picnic blankets and cracked some beers. All sorts of interesting folk came to check out the festival. There was one person who caught my eye though; a single girl wearing all white with a large-ish bag who was sitting all by herself towards the back of the arena. She reminded me of time spent in Japan on my own, wandering around parks and doing a bit of people-watching. I would walk around the city surrounded by people and an intense loneliness; all these people around me were going somewhere, had somewhere to be, friends to see, and I hardly had a place to sleep for the night. She was sitting all alone in a puffy white jacket to beat the chill; she stood out against the gray skies and the muted colors of the scene.
I recall wandering around the North side of Ikebukuro one evening. I'd semi-tailed one person through the crowd just for the hell of it and I ended up alongside a small-ish park in the city. I saw couples being together, vagrants sleeping, salarymen smoking, and slices of many walks of life in general just relaxing in the park. I sat down to take a break and the surroundings. And then, it stank. It just reeked of sweat, grime, trash, and god knows what else. I looked around and saw a young vagrant, probably around my age.
He had a twisted leg and walked with a painful looking shuffle. He looked at me for a moment before shuffling over to the smoke tray maybe a few meters away from me and awkwardly pulled out a packet with just one cigarette and a lighter.
I looked at him and thoughts ran through my mind; I felt pity for this poor soul and yet I lamented of loneliness. I would probably never have it as bad as this kid, and I felt horrid for even thinking such a thing. I fished around in my pocket for a 500yen piece and gave it to him before walking off. He said "arigatou gozaimasu" as I walked away, but I can't say I felt much better as I made the long walk to wherever I could find a bed that night.
I wanted to say hi to the girl. Some of the more enjoyable times I had in Japan were spent with Asami, a friend I might through inexplicable chance at Ikebukuro West Gate Park. I wanted to talk with her, but I can't really say I know what I wanted to talk about. I guess I wanted to empathize in some sense, to say that I knew what it was like to feel so isolated despite being surrounded by an endless sea of people. Not that saying anything along those lines would have really done more than scare the crap out of her. Proper channels would have to be cleared first, we would need to get to know eachother, spend some time together, get comfortable with eachother, and then, just maybe, it would become appropriate to discuss such a thing.
I suppose it was all quite impulsive and immature. We grow old, we learn etiquette, manners, tact, and simply blurting things out without proper introduction and proximity goes against much of that. I could say more but I guess this has gotten far too livejournal-y as is. Long story short, she pulled out a Japanese/Chinese guide (Couldn't see the front cover well enough to see if there was any hiragana/katakana) to SF and wandered off.
The rest of the night was spent watching 24, eating Zachary's Pizza (which was quite good), playing with the 3-dimensional version of those flat pieces you put together to make various shapes, watching Deep Impact, and finally going home. I now have about a month and a half before school starts, so I suppose I ought to make the most of it.
