'Tis-The-Season

The holidays - an indolent season for one to watch the snow pour over the pseudo-Gothic architecture, enjoy a Scotch and soda and share the odd grubby fag with an acquaintance.

The time of year where emotions are irresistibly amplified amongst one's family. A time where one may feel all too alienated and desolated even when surrounded by the masses of unwashed (beloved?) relations, albeit already half pissed and nigh exploding with stuffed foodstuffs. It is an interesting phenomenon altogether, but unequivocally it apparently emanates a warmth that is the crux of the popularity of the season.

Frankly, really, after some deep philosophical contemplation, I'm quite content with the motif of the first paragraph.

Genetics

Obviously, appearances matter a great deal. How we LOOK almost certainly determines the station, at least at first glance, we take in life and how our peers treat us. It would be folly to assume that the grossly fat or the monstrously hideous could as easily achieve the same as the slim or the tall or the beautiful. Such is life. Appearances count for much more than many would care to believe. Superficial? Yes. It's not a bad thing through. But then there are those who argue against this, claiming it is "unjust" and "plain wrong darnit". I wonder, if the majority of humanity feels it to be true, is it not just? Isn't what the amalgamation of many minds perceive more true than the fluff a hideous minority musters? Of course. The majority determines our reality. And thankfully it has a pretty face. As for the dissenters' delusions: nothing more than pathetic pseudo-egalitarianism. A sad, pig-headed notion of a sense of "higher order" for those with deformed, broken dreams. Everyone equal, nothing to distinguish us but our sparkling personalities. Laughable. Nature has done this for a reason, genetically. To keep us strong.

4N6!

Oh, Forensics. A veritable dive into a dodgy pool of intellectualism and the arts. It never ceases to amaze and delight the senses, this boundless platter of social promiscuity. I've met some of the oddest, most amusing, sinful and noble people at this 3 day frenzy of dramatics and oration. A mad dash with the best and the worst, and I love each and every one of them, those crazy kids. A dash of variation this year has made the whole affair infinitely more vibrant, given it a whole new sheen, as it were - ah, judging. Not exactly the power trip I expected, but a terribly sexy position to be in nonetheless.

Truly knowing how these participants felt as they looked on at the stony-eyed, seemingly bored and contemptuous judge: horror, fear, anger, euphoria - all tempestuously swirling round them, suffusing the air in the room with its thickness. Certainly, invoking such powerful, so very human, emotions, one can't help but feel a little deific. Much like knowing you're the center of attention in a room, even when everyone's trying to be nonchalant about it. Oh, such exhibitionism! But this being very certainly my last year, I'd like to believe I'd made an impact on their lives - ill or good, it doesn't really matter, of course. What truly matters is remembrance, a searing mark branded onto their psyche. Altogether, it would be nice to think I was a positive force for most people: wielding a pink pen and draped in flamenco-esque trappings, scribbling with impunity. Encouraging personal growth, as such. Meh. And after being tossed around in the torrent of this 3 day deluge of dreams made and broken, I can happily say I've come back with a menagerie of entertaining new friends. And ones of old? Embraced with ever more fervor. Tarts and tartlets, you're all greater than you think and bundled with just as many flaws; because certainly, while greatness gives us hope and standing, our flaws define us, give us a measure of perspective. Think, what would we be without such definition and insight? Boring, plebeian and hideous.

But piss it all, let us simply celebrate our overly-dramatic intellectual elitism, let us bask in the licking flames of our passions and neuroses. Close.

Kampai!

From negative 10 weather to midnight ramen runs and meeting backpackers to have a little sake all round in the cold, it was a terribly interesting experience; with almost insufferable politeness and technology that would wet most geeks, a cultural gateway experience it certainly did make; TV that is so perturbing and food magnifique leaves one both content and curious.

But I suppose ultimately it's the people one meets that leaves one with the impressions. And such lovely people! Cards and far too much free beer will bring even the most misanthropic sociopaths together. A cornucopia of vice, as it were. But, truly, it never ceases to amaze how a simple swig of plum wine can drive a rabble of strangers into a swashbuckling camaraderie - jamming our way into skimpy bars with our gaijin words, drunkenly exploring strange warrens, and ineffectual flirting with the natives. A harrowing journey of women, wine and winnings in a strange land. So, pull up a chair, friend, and have a swig. Kampai!

Mandarins!

It's that time of the year again; where the gross amounts of food and breakneck gambling and gratuitous drinking will mystify and terrify your senses. For a glimpse: The awkward family moments where you feel like stabbing the strange man who won't stop gibbering in your left ear in his liver-spotted thigh, but you instead smile - oh so brightly - and stab the brittle rump of duck with impunity. And the first glass of brandy flows. And flows.

Truly! what savages we would be without such fine decorum.

An hour later, after the amber drink has run its course, that warm and simperingly fuzzy tipping point starts to cling to the fringes of your mind. Suddenly, sycophantic gibbering takes on a more sophisticated, delectable sheen. Ugliness, the grossly obese, slowly fade into the background and no longer offend. Laughter and conversation flow with angry, torrential rushes. Truly, the poetry of this juxtaposition is like taking a dive in infinite lakes of '91 Moet, having every particle of your body suffused in bubbly sparkle. Tingly, fun, yet mildly perturbing in the most primal of ways.