Through the MAGIC of post scheduling, by the time you see this, I will be travelling across the largest ocean on Earth in a long metal tube which defies the laws of gravity via an exploit in a loophole in aerodynamics, travelling in less than thirty hours a distance which used to require months or years. And throughout my time in this miracle of human engineering, I will probably be complaining about insufficient leg room.

I've never really experienced or even witnessed any dramatic partings at an airport. Singapore's Changi airport would probably be the best one to do so in, being that it actually looks nice, as opposed to merely serviceable, like every single US airport I've been in. (Admittedly, this means Detroit, Los Angeles, Denver, and Pittsburgh. I'm probably missing a few more.) Tokyo's Narita comes a reasonable second, but the vagaries of transit means that I've generally only been in Tokyo for a couple of hours at a time, save for once when I was little with my family and visited Tokyo (on the way to Los Angeles) for a day. This was, perhaps fortunately, before I Discovered Anime.

I've also transited in Frankfurt before, but it was three in the morning local time and I was only there for an hour or so anyway.

In any case, my general inability to be properly emotive is probably the main reason why I treat most farewells as a mere "see you later", even if we're never actually going to do so again. I'm probably missing out on a lot of dramatic moments which will be forever remembered fondly as the years go by, if anime is anything to go by: any scene in an airport is likely to lead to some sort of revelation or confession, if it's not a simple "yay we're going on a trip" kind of feeling (eg the trip to Hong Kong in the first Card Captor Sakura movie). It's not exactly a small thing to hop on a plane to elsewhere, especially since it's a huge investment in time and money, so if it happens, it's likely to be particularly significant.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to be doing when I head home to Singapore. My DVDs will be going on ocean freight, which means that I'll have what few I didn't bother to bring before to the US. Further updates as events unfold, assuming nothing untoward happens en route.

Not only does Miyuki wear glasses, she's also incredibly smart, and most importantly very nice. It's actually kind of surprising how few "nice and smart people" there are in anime who have a main character role, rather than side character; the primary one which comes to mind offhand is Belldandy from Ah My Goddess, but her Divine Intellect is not exactly portrayed often in either anime or manga. (In fact, she's kind of spacey in the earlier manga chapters, played up for comedy.) Also, Yomiko Readman from Read Or Die, one of the sexiest characters I've ever seen.

I'm under the impression that after a while, a particularly high intelligence in Real Life tends to result more in cynicism, rather than optimism. On the "nicer" end of the scale, we get the Deadpan Snarker, like (famously) Kyon from Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. As we progress towards less empathy and more RAGE, we end up with the "I hate people because everyone except me is stupid" types, which I've always had problems talking to. My worldview is that everyone should be nice to each other, and they believe that they have an inalienable right to be a complete… well, I'll just leave it at that to prevent myself from descending into a full-blown rant.

I wonder what sort of character archetypes Miyuki would be classified under in the Great Fandom Classification. (Yes, I'm aware that many times, these pigeon-holes are not precisely accurate, or even appropriate.) There's the obvious meganekko, and as Konata points out, she also has elements of dojikko, a trait which I've never seen portrayed as "cute" except in anime, although once again absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I don't know if there's a fandom term for "smart girl", "nice girl", or "smart and nice girl". I wonder if "smart and nice", male or female, really are that rare, in anime or in Real Life.

Yes, I went there.

Half a year later, my blog, against all expectations, still appears to be alive. I'm not entirely certain why this is so, but like a tower of cards made of the flimsiest pieces of gossamer inspiration, I shall attempt not to disturb this edifice any more than is strictly necessary. Following a badly misinterpreted version of Quantum, either it will be here, or it will be gone.

It's been a while since I've had one of these CheckMarks. Allow me my moment of fun. It will, I promise, be shorter than previous ones.

Something which will become rather relevant sometime soon would be the future direction of this blog. The brouhaha over licenced titles in Singapore would mean that until I can figure out the legalities of Bloggers' Rights in Singapore (whether we have any or not), I'd rather not post about titles I do not actually own, since it's not like the Fifth Amendment will protect me. I do, in fact, own a lot of titles, but this is a limited resource, and replenishment is highly subject to import laws, vague as they are.

In other words, I can't exactly blog about New Anime From Japan without technically incriminating myself, and I have gotten conflicting reports about whether I can or cannot simply import R1 titles to Singapore for personal use. This will determine whether I will blog about anime, or if I will blog about the medium that the anime comes in, based on my recollections of the subpar packaging and presentation that Odex treats its properties with.

Suggestions from other Singaporean bloggers are certainly welcome, although I have to admit that I have never really mastered the art of Reading Between The Lines, which is invariably required when the inevitable "well, I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy" oblique references to what I actually Need To Do crop up.

And before anyone suggests it, Raging Against The Man would generally require a good lawyer. (No, Kalium, our Matter Mage doesn't count. He'll be half a world away.)

If anyone should doubt that I am supporting the anime industry (or at least a anime industry), I can show them my sizeable collection (no, I haven't tried pricing it yet, considering I gave several DVDs away already), including the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya limited edition box set. If the Singaporean anime companies come out with things like these, I'll be happy to support them too.

In the meantime, I do still have the Card Captor Sakura project, which will last me for quite a while. I'm tempted to do a CCS episode summary before I leave, but I'm reluctant to use up my resources when I don't have to.