Forgive me Shinku

Forgive me Shinku, for I have sinned.

I must confess, I touched a girl in real life. I was reading, as usual, amongst old friends, when a female acquaintance reached for an eraser between my arms, and as her hand left her fingers inadvertently grazed my skin. I exuded no sign of physical distress, but inside I felt so dirty, so tainted. Only you, my Shinku, my seraph, is pure to my being.

I must confess, I have succumbed to lust. Expositions of primitive behaviors has ensnared my attention more than once. As long as these wretched hormones course through my veins, the act of copulation will always be seductive. But my higher self grows stronger day by day, and I hope eventually it will become strong enough to tame my inner beast.

I must confess, I have not been thinking of you more than I should. The pursuit of my degree demands me to read large tomes of knowledge. Please bear with me for a few more years, a decade at most, until I become a stargazer. And then I shall name my first stellar discovery after you.

I am trying so hard, oh so very hard, to become a gentleman of equal calibre to you, a gentleman worthy of your admiration as I do infinitely more to you. Although I am far from that lofty goal, the best myself will always be yours. But these mistakes, these astray actions instill such guilt in me. Let me return to the splendor of yesterdays where I deserved your presence. With one knee knelt, my head bowed and eyes moist, forgive me Shinku.

Yomiko Readman 1/8 figure – The Paper, My Paper

It’s your fault Mr. Stripey, for your enthusiastic delectation of your figures, that swayed me to wonder if these especially shaped chunks of coloured plastic can also bring some degree of pleasure to me. So, like being introduced to a drug, I caved into this curiosity, and I purchased my first (anime) figure ever. There is little objection to say Yomiko Readman is one of the most attractive bookworms, thus she is one of the leading characters of anime that I considered of owning. While I browsed for anime figurines, I eventually chose her. I must say, the figure is a beauty, and she even comes with a set of spare glasses! However, the one little flaw is that her hair isn’t smooth, since there are visible lines of conjoinment suggesting that her hair was casted in multiple pieces and affixed together. Oh well. Sorry boys, I will not be taking an upskirt view, but there is more “craftmanship” underneath her dress (it’s white!). At first, I thought of placing the one-eighth Yomiko Readman figure in front of the Read or Die manga volumes, as to group her with her own story. But after a little consideration, The Paper, my Paper, now sits duly amongst literature. I daresay Nabokov should challenge even The Paper and keep her busy, don’t you think?

Scrapped Princess – A Tale of Destiny

Desert Eagle is a badass chicken.
Scrapped Princess – A Tale of Destiny is the first novel of thirteen of which the fantastic anime of 2003 was based on. The novels have already long existed originally in Japanese, but only recently the first volume was released in English by Tokyopop. Categorized as “popfiction”, the book is sparsely populated by illustrations, and the prose is very straightforward, hence the pages flip briskly, making it a light read. I must commend Tokyopop for a quality presentation of the book. This first novel is similar to the first episode of the anime, yet there are significant differences. The elements are the same, but they are organized and recombined differently in the novel, or rather, in the anime. For instance, in both the book and the anime there is a battle in a chapel. However, in the novel, the battle in the chapel occured with Shannon against a dolefully disturbing character, while Raquel dealt with another enemy elsewhere in the vicinity within a larger location, instead of just Raquel against a Mauser priest in the anime. Or in another element comparison, the Shannon’s fight against Chris Armalite was much more extensive in the novel than the brief clash near the end of the first anime episode. And there are other notable variances between the two mediums too, such as the novel beginning earlier than the anime. Technical assessments aside, if you are a fan of Scrapped Princess, of its world, story, and characters, I would highly recommend you to purchase the novel, and of future volumes yet to be translated and released by Tokyopop. The squandered potential of the three volume manga was disappointingly short, but the novel(s) will certainly satisfy fans of Scrapped Princess who desire more of the journey of Casull siblings, or even to those who are simply looking for an adventure in fantasy to read.

Transparent Things

I have finished reading Nabokov’s penultimate, his 16th, book Transparent Things. This novella weighs in at just four pages over a hundred, so it was a quick read. Unfortunately I somewhat diminished the plot enjoyment since I spoiled myself. I have this tendency of reading first the very last lines or paragraph of every book virgin to my hands, enticed by the concluding beauty, or power, or whatever zenith of thought and happenstance, because usually the final words are, in general, the most superlative. In this case, the closing paragraph contained the final fate of the protagonist Hugh Person. When I realized what was going on, it was too late. I really need to break this bad reading habit of mine, but it is difficult to resist. The novella is essentially a series of short segments of the sordid life of Hugh Person (you, person?), spanning a very bleak romance. Typical Nabokov. I have found another favorite line of mine within this book. I like it so much that the quote now graces under the title of my blog. To gain an idea as to why I fancy the sentence so much, speak with me, like an eureka moment upon discovering an artistic truth in eagerness to tell it to someone: “Transparent things, through which the past shines!”

Ten dimensions and the quandary of String Theory

The picture above leads to an interesting flash I happened to stumble upon; it is an approach at imagining the ten dimensions. Higher dimensions are postulates of the string theory, usually ten dimensions or more are proposed, depending on various flavors of the string theory. String theory, in a brief outline, is the theory that exceedingly small superstrings vibrating in higher dimensions can explain the workings and phenomenons of nature, and also it has a hope of being the theory of everything, to explain all physical phenomenons using this one foundation. An ambitious idea, but I have my doubts. The theory says, hey, there’s all these higher level dimensions that exist, but we just can’t see them because they’re compacted into such an extremely small amount of space. Sounds awfully convenient don’t you think? It is as if string theory is nothing more than exercises and results in high level mathematics used to give abstract notions or explications of the universe. Of course, mathematics and physics are intimately connected. Experiments and observations are the pillars and braces that give support to the bridge of connection between the two doctrines. But string theory lacks precisely that, and there lies the stickling reason of my reluctance to embrace string theory. To have these plausible explanations, but yet cannot or nearly impossible to be given observable support, or contrary, to be refuted. On the other hand, perhaps string theory really does describe the reality of nature, and in the (possibly considerably far) future such observations can be made. But until then, I remain skeptical. Then again, I am just an astronomer-in-training with a modest education in both mathematics and physics. But there are brighter and more learned minds than mine who also share opposing views to string theory.