Scratching Toes (Wednesday 17/05/06)

It is 11:20pm now, and I am yet to feel sleepy. With my head resting against the wall and my eyes wandering about the room, I am seated on my bed all alone in my room, doing nothing much, feeling very, very hungry. I should have had dinner when everyone was having dinner just now, but stupidly I chose to play with Baby, our hamster of 4++ years, as it started moving around its home after waking up from its nocturnal schedule. And although I may be feeling extremely hungry now, I just don’t bother having dinner for no one at home is awake, nor do I feel like sleeping because the feeling is just “not there yet”!

So I started thinking of Nihongo soon after that – don’t ask me why but probably because yesterday’s class was so enjoyable that I sort of wanted to relive the joy in this ‘forlorn’ environment. And my eyes caught the green plastic bag which I keep my notes and stuff in it, and have lately been bringing to class – unfashionable I know, but easy and convenient so I don’t really give a shit about anything else with regards to the plastic bag – so I took the bag with me and brought it to my bed. In it, I found 'de sketchitoes' together with 2 packets of Koeda Chocs – hah, something there to munch on after all given all my laziness to go down to the kitchen and heat up some food. Thanks to Chin-san for the Koeda Chocs – she gave them to me last night (for turning up to Tuesday class?? I hope not…ha). The Koeda Chocs anyway, though not at all filling, is enough for me for the meantime as I have found something I was about to do that I think might not take up so much of my time before I finally get sleepy and doze off.

I looked through ‘de sketchitoes’ – well, not to say that it makes me sleepy that I can doze off soon, but it is definitely the one i found something to spend my time on before I sleep. Anyhow I looked through 'de sketchitoes' still with much interest and curiosity even though I may have looked through it many times since I first got it. ‘de sketchitoes’ is a comic book of about 66 pages on a ‘scratchy/scratching toes’ character quite like a human being. Though one with very few words and heaps of drawing, I still find that there are yet things to read in this comic. It was like reading between the lines for normal books but more of reading between the sketches for this one. Well I may not be a comic analyst, nor do I go around judging sketches for I know no art but frankly when I first saw the sketches, though they were all excellently done, yet look so typical of those one can find in book stores. But when I found out that they (both the art and text) were done by a classmate, the sketches and everything else that comes with the book just appeared more than typical; they appeared “so wow” to me. I had so much respect for this classmate of mine (Chin-san, who also gave me the Koeda Chocs) for her great ability to sketch comics so well and even have produced something out of her interest!

I mean, I wasn’t too sure if doing comic illustrations is her interest because I didn’t ask her that but the illustrations just looked like they were all done with so much devotion...and interest, for sure. And it is great to know of such person because she has just, in a way, convinced to me that dreams can come true, and that one can do what one likes and survive on it despite the limited mainstream job market in tiny, boring Singapore. Also it is very admirable that her work gets published (everything in ‘de sketchitoes’ is mainly her work and the publishing company is American) as I may have seen, in the entire of my life, so many people sketching things out of their free time or boredom but they just do not get anywhere with it. So that was cool, and Chin-san you’re just so great!

Anyhow, as predicted, looking through ‘de sketchitoes’ did bring me somewhere: to bed, at least. I spent about 2 hours looking through the illustrations, admiring them and figuring out the story, and even thought I should get more of Chin-san’s published work! So at 2:20am, there I was, tired and sleepy (finally!), and hungry (still!) but by this time I had not much energy left to do anything else except to turn off the lights and return to bed. Night!

Check out Chin-san's webpage at http://fscwasteland.com/manga/main.html