Today, on my return to my dorm room after a semi-industrious day in my research lab, I noticed that my umbrella has gone missing. Yes, missing (I actually did one of those double-looks, as one does in comedies when something strange happens and the person walking by the odd scene looks once without thinking, looks away, and when the oddness of the scene strikes him/her a few split seconds later, he/she looks back again to make sure it wasn’t his mind playing tricks on him/her). I don’t quite know who took my umbrella, or whether my umbrella sprouted legs - or better yet, WINGS - and took off. I don’t quite know what happened, but this is the second time this happened since the beginning of October. I am now thinking of a diabolical plan to prevent this from occurring for a third time (oh, the horror!), but I must first explore the crime scene for clues or hunches.

Fact One: the fact that my door is the closest one to the stairs and elevator makes my hanging umbrellas a more viable target. Students (with or without being involved in chemical experimentation) in a rush to class or to a date realize that the weather forecast mentioned heavy rain for the day (which didn’t happen! This is also quite unusual for the Japanese weatherpersons; they never make mistakes. In fact, they usually predict the chance of rain and the exact time in which the rain would fall!) probably find it convenient to just yank my umbrella off its resting spot as they wait for the elevator to make its slow ascent to the eighth floor (much more convenient than running back to their own doors, which may give rise to the risk of someone else taking their spot on the elevator). Fact Two: the fact that the building I live in has a donut-like architecture, which means that there is a hole in the center of all floors (meaning people on the sixth floor, can look up at the doors of the people on the ninth and second floors), meaning that I cannot necessarily blame anyone who lives on my floor. Fact Three: I bought my umbrella (with its unusually large diameter of 75cm - which is barely enough to keep my shoulders and arms from getting drenched when it rains) at a convenience store. Otherwise, one might even call the umbrella minimalistic in its color and shape (color:transparent, shape: like any other umbrella!). This brings me to my next dilemma which is the idea of me not recognizing my own umbrella if I ever see it again, just because it looks like all the other umbrellas everyone has here in my dormitory, unless I pull out a measuring tape to measure the diameter of all passing umbrellas (and I find this slightly impractical).

In conclusion, I believe it is safe to conclude that this is one of those mysteries that will leave me baffled for a while to come, or until I purchase my next umbrella (whichever comes first). Any feedback on what might have happened, considering the facts stated above, would be kindly appreciated.

I just spent the last couple of hours trying to transpose some musical scores I picked up in Istanbul in December by Şerif Muhiddin Targan (because the key used in Turkish music for Oud is typically different than the standard key in Arabic music). I guess practicing to write down the notes by hand without having an instrument in my hand to see how it would sound might be a good way to practice ear training, which is essential for musicians. While writing down the notes onto staff paper, I realized how bad my penmanship was when it came to copying musical scores, so I got curious about Beethoven’s handwriting when he composed music. Luckily, we have Google and the Beethoven-Haus Bonn Digital Archive to answer those questions.

It turns out that Beethoven had such terrible handwriting that scholars suggest that when Beethoven named his bagatelle in A minor WoO 59 as “Für Therese”, the copyist made a mistake and wrote it down as “Für Elise”. (you can get a free copy of the sheet music for “Für Elise” here).

As I sit here, trying to entertain myself by trying to teach myself music theory, I laugh at the idea of poor penmanship surmounting to some form of genius. If this proves to be the case, maybe I should quit school and start a rock and roll band before I too become deaf.

One of the things I’ve noticed over the last few years in Tokyo is that fortune tellers seem to come out of their Summer hibernation and attract many different people of different social statuses, by promising to tell their futures and give advice on how one should behave in the (relatively) foreseeable future in order to have a happy life. As I walked by one of the more established street fortune tellers on my 700-pace walk between my research desk in Mercury Tower and Kunitachi Station, I couldn’t help but feel hollow staring at the middle-aged fortune teller holding the hand of a youngish man dressed in a black business suit in her left hand and tracing invisible lines onto the lines of his palm with the butt of a plastic ballpoint point. She was also sounding out the meaning of each of the lines as she snatched deep glance into the eyes of the young man with a genuinely concerned look on his face. His only reaction was a torrent of rapid nodding. I have no idea what she was telling him, but I’m sure that the nippy weather added some sting to how he must have been feeling standing there, with his palm being poked at with a plastic pen by a strange woman.

I have a habit that I cannot seem to shake off when the weather begins to get cold. I think of all the Gulags described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, all of which seem to be colder than anything I have ever experienced, and all of which bring out the worst forms of isolation within a person.

I guess my ‘personal isolation’ is here to stay for the foreseeable future, and I don’t need a fortune teller to tell me that. I am in the last stretch of working on my graduation thesis, and I’m literally sweating bullets now thinking about ways to strengthen the arguments in my paper and thinking about my plans for next year which are most likely going to be along the lines of pursuing a PhD degree (depending on how things fair).

In this time of change, I have no choice but to be optimistic about things, regardless of market meltdowns, political turmoil and other disasters happening that seem to be here to stay for a while to come. None of that stuff matters right now. All I know is I have a paper to finish, and the leaves in the trees will start falling soon.

Here’s one of the poems contained in the collection - I find it haunting.

The War Works Hard

How magnificent the war is!
How eager
and efficient!
Early in the morning,
it wakes up the sirens
and dispatches ambulances
to various places,
swings corpses through the air,
rolls stretchers to the wounded,
summons rain
from the eyes of mothers,
digs into the earth
dislodging many things
from under the ruins…
Some are lifeless and glistening,
others are pale and still throbbing…
It produces the most questions
in the minds of children,
entertains the gods
by shooting fireworks and missiles
into the sky,
sows mines in the fields
and reaps punctures and blisters,
urges families to emigrate,
stands beside the clergymen
as they curse the devil
(poor devil, he remains
with one hand in the searing fire)…
The war continues working, day and night.
It inspires tyrants
to deliver long speeches,
awards medals to generals
and themes to poets.
It contributes to the industry
of artificial limbs,
provides food for flies,
adds pages to the history books,
achieves equality
between killer and killed,
teaches lovers to write letters,
accustoms young women to waiting,
fills the newspapers
with articles and pictures,
builds new houses
for the orphans,
invigorates the coffin makers,
gives grave diggers
a pat on the back
and paints a smile on the leader’s face.
The war works with unparalleled diligence!
Yet no one gives it
a word of praise.

Over the last few months, people would walk up to me, say hi, and then get upset when they realize that I don’t recognize them. I’ve been walking around for the last few months doubting my memory and my people skills, until I finally bumped into the guy today who apparently looks like me.

In fact, it was he who told me that there are people who mistake the two of us for each other. He and I have been acquaintances for over a year, but never really noticed any resemblances to one another. We bumped into each other at the train station closest to our dormitory, and we were talking about our Summer vacations when he said, “Hey by the way, there are people who think that I am you, and you are me. Isn’t that funny?”.

I still don’t know what to make of this.

As soon as I arrived in Tokyo, I went to the Administration Office in my university to ask them how many credits I have left to graduate. When the petite woman behind the desk said, “Oh, you finished all the required credit hours. All you have to do is hand in your thesis by January 15th,” I spent nearly half an hour asking her whether she was sure I didn’t have to take any classes this semester. It just seemed to go against what I grew up being used to: how can one be a student but also not having any classes to go to? Regardless, I think I can get used to this. The idea of having time for my own research and interests could be a great chance for me to accomplish many things, if I use my time well.

I flew back to Tokyo a couple of days ago just as quietly as I flew back to Bahrain for a month-long vacation in September. The main reason I went back to Bahrain was to unwind after a stressful semester (both of which ended with no major incidents) and to think about what I want to do after completing my Master’s degree here in Hitotsubashi University. I’ve begun moving towards a decision that involves continuing into my PhD, depending on a few variables that aren’t completely in my hands. From my experiences here so far, I’ve come to enjoy research in my particular field of interest, and I hope that I can make a small difference with what I am working on (a pipe dream, perhaps).

I’m still trying to figure out whether I hit the two birds with one stone or not.

When a gas station, in a supposedly gas-producing country, runs out of gas, what is a person supposed to feel? I imagine that most of those caught in such a situation would panic and would either go to other gas stations in search of gas or do something else with their time. I also imagine another group of people who would be happy, because this is another close step (without falling off the edge) to their own destruction. I would like to refer to the last group of people as those suffering from vertigo, in the sense introduced by Milan Kundera. I probably fall into this vertigo group.

Vertigo is not only the sense of dizziness one gets when standing in front of a deep abyss, but also a small sense of excitement. An excitement in which one imagines himself or herself falling into an abyss while knowing that he or she is secure from destruction.

As I looked at the gray palm trees, I breathed in the suffocating clouds of dust and looked at the attendant who was busy trying to figure out how to get around the problem at the pump, and I smiled.

The woman at the counter insisted that I buy some chocolate frappuccino, but I said that I just want plain coffee (with nothing other than coffee inside). I didn’t finish my cup of coffee when I realized that I had to dump the unfinished cup of coffee into the trash can (yes, I actually dumped my own garbage into the garbage can, and didn’t depend on the employees there to come pick up my mess behind me).

After spending an amazing evening with friends whom I haven’t seen in nearly 12 years, I walked over to my car, only to see that someone had dumped some chocolate frappuccino (obviously from Starbucks) onto the side of my car. This got on my nerves, especially knowing that my car was parked just across from the presumed security guard who is meant to watch over the parking lot.

I wiped the gunk off the side of my car with some tissue (and didn’t throw the tissue on the floor or on anyone else’s car) and drove off.

Must be some sort of karma for saying no to that Starbucks frappuccino in the first place.

*sigh*

I came back with my Oud and played a little music for him, and even played a few lines from his own compositions when he wasn’t expecting it and he became happy.

Without inspecting my Oud from up close he said, “that’s an Iraqi Oud you have, right?”. And he recognized the technique I used in plucking the strings, Al-reesha Al-maqlooba (reversed plectrum), as being one of the most famous techniques of the Iraqi school of music.

As a parting question, he left me with a very interesting piece of advice: “The only way to improve (as a musician) is by rebelling against everything you know. REBEL!”