I just watched a music video clip of cutscenes from FFVIII on youtube and am rather surprise to realise that I actually like FFVIII more than VII, even given the advanced graphics and unsurpassing texture quality and realisticism, VIII, for that moment seemed a lot more likeable than what VII is what it is now. I find Squall's and Rinoa's facial expressions a lot more expressive. Despair and sorrow just pierce through your heart when Squall called out to what seemed like an illusion of the back profile of Rinoa, when he slumped down in fatigue and hopelessness on a dry cracked ground wishing he could see her and watched a white feather descend from the sky. Relief when Rinoa watched Squall in her arms come to seemed like liberation from a thousand woes. You can't help but move along with them in their emotions. I don't know if its correct to say this but, maybe the camera angles and sequence of shots or selection of scenes just made me think VIII was just artistically beautiful. It was just a beautiful quiet story told of its characters and how they reacted in the ever changing series of events and twist in plot. There seemed to be minimal distractions from flashy scenes with cool gadgets and mecha or fantastic stunts. Just space for the appreciation of character development and interaction.

Even a video clip of X, which I happened to chance upon again on youtube made me think the old FFs all had some kind of nostagical something that the current projects lack.

Another one of those long awaited (if any of you have even bothered keeping track by now) blog entries I'm writing now.

The weather has gotten considerably cold to the point no sane person would leave their doors and sliding windows open. It's been about 17degs thereabout average temperature and it's time to take those trenchies out of the closet.

I went for one of those things you gotta go for as a foreign student today. What they call an international student exchange la dee dah fancy name event where we got to have some kind Japanese people dress us up in kimonos and parade around for an hour or so, whilst at the same time popping in to check out what Japanese tea ceremonies, playing the shamisen (and that stringed instrument its name just escapes me) are like.

I'm quite a fan of the shamisen, thanks to anime, which does so well publicising its own country's history. The oh so cool olden day blind Japanese person who would nomad around playing his shamisen whilst telling a story with it, which historians say was one of the ways historical events were retold and thus passed down the eras. I won't forget the blind shamisen player in Samurai Champloo who almost got Jin and Mugen there with some very high skilled sword wielding.

Anyway, I did get the chance to play a bit of it, and it's pretty fun too. Just three strings brings down the complexity level quite some, I think. Apparently, depending on which finger you press down on the strings produces a different note when the string is strummed. Oh and did you know the highest quality, most expensive shamisens are those made out of cat skin? :(

Onward to rather sticky matters, all of us in school were made to write speeches for the Bunka sai (school festival cum open day) of which each class sends a representative to participate in the speech contest. And whoop de doo *twirls finger*, mine, rather irritatingly, about what might happen if a Singaporean made friends with a Japanese, was picked on by those terrible classmates and now I am stuck with a speech I haven't memorised yet. Pah.

The turn of the weather marks the occurence of a long awaited event, if which I could, usher it personally into dawning on myself. Realisation over self-criticism was the gift from God today. Realising and somehow somewhat therefore becoming more open to the idea of humility, which thus leads also to view people and the world around me less harshly, receive them with greater patience, tolerance and sympathy. And to a less burdened soul. Instead now I view 'them' with appreciation and part admiration as well, more than the shifty glances I used to give and strange bizarreness I thought was 'their' thinking and behaviour. It led to realising that maybe I should learn to appreciate the way of thinking that seeks to preserve one's self-interest, in the sense of respecting what's best for one's well-being and preservation of one's passion. Perhaps its time to leave seeking to create a soothing physical environment made of peers we can have fun and joy hanging out and talking with in the back seat and start putting in a bit more considerable effort into looking after myself.