Endings

For a non-school day, today has been unexpectedly productive, but not in subject areas that matter in real life or, more pressingly, in my student life. Nothing academic nor illuminating in street smarts. But I was happy with my progress, my little triumphs as is. Tomorrow though, I promise to give more thought to school matters:

• I would rewrite the notes I’d hastily scrawled like chicken scratches on scraps of paper;
• think of a topic for my special problem and the project in Statistics;
• read the Bioinformatics articles I’ve scavenged for my report.

But today, between the hours of the mandatory rolling around in bed and burning my eyes staring a the computer screen over menial, shiny posts on the internet, I managed to:

• Finish reading a novel. John Le Carré’s magnum opus, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. But it took me three weeks to finish this 240-page book.
  
  Truthfully, I was a tad bored at the beginning, like I always am when I start with a new book. At the beginning, I was blind; I had no clue what I was reading—I knew nothing about the characters, and consequently what they wanted to achieve. And since it was set during the Cold War, I was clueless of the place and the general circumstance of the community at that time. Thus, I was mildly frustrated.
  
  Had it been a fantasy story, like the other book I read during the summer—The Hunger Games, the plot would have been easier to follow. What you knew of the real world, they didn't matter. In fantasy stories, the settings were explained wholly, the characters described adequately since it’s a new world altogether. But it wasn’t the case with novels grounded on actual history; I had to be armed with historical knowledge to know the first thing about the story.
  
  But towards the middle, when I had enough threads to understand what was going on, I tried to imagine where the story was heading. That was the exciting part. I sampled sentences, their conversations, thoughts and actions, and see if they fit with what I theorized would later occur. If they did, then good; if they didn’t I had to scrap the idea and come up with a new assumption—or assumptions.
  
  But being proved wrong—that was more fun. When the single, strongest theory I had of the ending was confuted, just by a single, unexpected action of the antagonist, that part was the best. The novel’s alternative was infinitely better than my own, I was more than happy to just accept it and read on.
  
  Unfortunately, the praises in the back cover of the book were true: it was a harsh story. Depressing, even. But brilliant, until the very end.
  
  I would read it again, I promise, some years from now.


• Watch the conclusion of an anime. I’d started watching [C]: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control, when I went home for my ten-day summer vacation. My brothers had made me watch various animes, but instantly, my favorite was C. At first though, I’d been wary; I procrastinated watching the pilot. Because Masakaki looked scary, sinister.
  
  But after watching the pilot, the next episodes I watched back-to-back-to-back, until it was time for bed, or until I was asked to stop.
  
  C had a complicated story; it baffled me. But I liked being confused. It frustrated me when I did not understand, but frustration is an emotion that didn’t hinder me. On the contrary, it pushed me to watch continuously. Perhaps, I thought, I’d know more when I watched more. (Or read on, whenever I read something I couldn't make sense.)
  
  The story revolved around economics, and I knew little to none about that subject! Therefore, I vowed to learn the basics of economics before this year ends. I’d self-study. Then, I’d rewatch this anime.
  
  I just had one complaint though: the ending was lacking. It was open-ended. Another episode wouldn’t hurt.


• Watch a horror movie in fast forward. Thea made me watch the Thai horror movie, Coming Soon. But I’d already guessed the twist before it was revealed. So like most other horror movies, I thought: meh. And because we had to fast forward the ending of the movie, it came out more comedic—I was close to laughing, if only the revengeful ghost’s face wasn’t so gross.