Can't focus when you're here. Yet can't get motivated without you here.

Samsa in Love-- From Dreams to Reality

Murakami's new short story, 'Samsa in Love', recently has been translated and published in the New Yorker and that has caught my attention.

I chanced to read this at the campus lounge on a Friday evening while waiting for a friend.

This short story, like any other, is gripping, mysterious, and a real casual page-turner.

Supposedly it's about a man who wakes up on an impulse and finds out that he is Gregor Samsa, the protagonist in Frank Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'.

The concept is pretty much the same from Metamorphosis, except that in Murakami's novel the protagonist wakes up to find himself as Samsa instead of a venomous insect.

Samsa, in Samsa in Love, is seen as dreary and has not the slightest iota of what happened during his extended sleep session. He finds himself in awe, as he sluggishly gets accustomed to his surroundings.

While reading this it reminded me a little bit of Plato's Allegory of the Cave in how the prisoners see the real world after escaping from the cave with artificial, minimal light. Once they escape, they are now accustomed to that real world with real, natural light from the sun, and, their memories of the conditions in the cave, in due time, fade away from their recollective memory. 

Going back to the short story, Samsa wakes up and sees himself in the real world and escapes from his dream world. He has no idea where he was, why he was there, where everyone was. But the more he aimlessly goes about his duties, he gets used to living in this mysterious, rather lifeless world. 

Two gem quotes I thought were worth noting:

"'Everything is blowing up around us, but there are still those who care about a broken lock, and others who are dutiful enough to try to fix it. . . . But maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.'" 

"'If you think of someone enough, you're sure to meet them again.'"

Overall this is worth reading if you've got the time. Whether you're taking a break from studying, got a gap between your classes, working, or just waiting for someone, like me, go ahead and take the time to thump over this little piece. 

MIT taekwondo tournament

The Sean triple threat at the MIT tournament. We fell short but gave it our all. We will win next time. 

come through

We were sitting in the benches outside the dorms on a Sunday evening late at night.

"There is something I need to tell you," I said.

"What," she asked. 

I made sure to choose the right words. 

"I like you."

"Aww," she said. "For real?"

"What you think I'm joking?"

"I believe you," she leaned her head against my shoulder. "What do you want to me say."

"I don't know you tell me."

"No you tell me."

"That you hate me?" I frowned. 

"I like you too."

And so it began on the early morning of October 14, 2013. 

College life in pics

Lunch date with friend. 

How's tricks. Since when is it October? How's college you say? Well it's going fairly okay, minus the stress from classes and the bruises and soreness from taekwondo. Late this month I am inevitably competing in a tourney at MIT. Our black belt team consists of three, all of them which are named Sean. Hence the Sean trio, which is actually pretty cool.

Now the taekwondo club consists of mostly undergrads, some with prior experience or none at all. Below are photos of five of the many neophyte practitioners posing in their crackling new doboks.

They later on photoshopped this photo
to paint their belts black... 

One of the disadvantages of living off campus is the need to take the bus every time I commute. This isn't NYC, where there are options to take a subway or hail a yellow cab that literally makes up most of the city's road population.

Last weekend I missed the last bus both nights and I ended up sleeping over at a friend's place, sandwiched on the bed with two women, jeans as my pajamas.

At this point the bus drivers probably recognize me by my face.

The other day my friend and I went to the mall to get a haircut. It was a weekday just before noon thus it was pretty deserted. I was worried at first whether or not I would not get the cut I preferred, but I showed the brunette barber in heels a picture of a style I intended to get and in ten minutes it was done. My friend got his, seeming dissatisfied, however. The back seemed more short than the sides, which did not look terribly bad.

"I need to get it like yours next time," he said.
"Just bring in a picture of a style you like," I said. "It's not a bad cut."
"You know to be honest you look kind of the same."
"This ain't no plastic surgery."

Also, I accidentally kind of joined an acapella group on campus. The first thing we complained about was the fact that the club met on a Friday night. But later on we didn't mind. A friend's friend dragged us along to the general interest meeting and we all had to eventually test our voices and find out where our ranges were. The president, a reserved, yet passionate piano aficionado told me to sing a couple scales. This whole thing was totally unexpected and I kept on asking myself how did I get here. While I didn't mind singing in the shower, singing, in general, was not really my forte. Eventually, I was a tenor. At this point, blurting point blank that I'd like to quit seemed rude. For now, you can say I'm unofficially in the group. Plus if they need a beatboxer I can certainly do something.The second meeting because my friends were going I went as well. We practiced in a large empty lecture hall, two hundred something seats all unoccupied as the twenty of us sat on the stage. We went over some tongue twisters, sung aloud Green Day's Time of Your Life, and mingled. Afterwards, it was a weekend full of parties.




Now the haircut, although hard to tell, is like this.

 

Mornings usually consist of a copy of the NY Times and some sort of food. 

some jokes and riddles

You're at a ballpark watching the game when a vendor comes by selling beers around the top of the third inning. As a safety requirement, most major league stadiums don't sell beer after the seventh inning. The vender yells,

"Last cold beer!!"

But the way the vendors say it leaves the fans but to only hear,

"Last CALL beer!!"

See what they did there?

A friend has two buddies who are both named Miles. Both smoke marijuana. What do you get when you put them together? 

Two Miles per hour on the highway.