“Please.”

It’s my third week in Tampa, and just today I realized some things were different from West Virginia.

Like “Please.”

I guess my reaction’s similar to a friend of mine who visited NY (or was it Atlanta), and felt left out when everyone said “pop” instead of “soda.” I digress.

I’ve been in WV for close to five years, which were enough for me to drop a lot of my British English politedness. WV people are if anything, blunt — a lot of the time.

I’d been saying just “Yes” instead of “Please” well into my second week (this is my third) before I began to notice I was somewhat out of place.

I also seem to have picked up the habit of not ending sentences which is something I never used to do.

“You know I just wanted to leave because…” Sentence end.

People seem to understand what I had in mind, although I don’t understand how they do it.

Must be the weather.

The internet connection for the dorms has been down for close to two weeks. Absolutely nothing was wrong before the IT department came in to do upgrades. Ever since then, it’s been on and off. I looked up the gateway IP (SonicWall) and seriously considered doing a bruteforce attack by generating a lot of entries with this script just so I can have a look at the restrictions placed. Considering all the trouble I’d have to go through, including IP spoofing, and the ones I’d have to go through if I get caught, I think it’s safer just blogging from the library like this.

I ought to have posted one or two times last month (not that that’s nearly enough), but after losing a very long, witty (I wish!) post to the aforementioned problem and a Firefox crash, I just couldn’t bring myself to do any blogging.
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Well, this semester’s been quite busy, but I think I’m keeping up. Now if only that internet got fixed.

Black/6ft 1. Suspicious. Great big coat that looked like it could fit half of what was in the store, and a backpack for what was left over.

Just to be sure, I went to the counter and leaned on it with my elbows, my eyes tracking his every move, although I grew uneasy when he walked behind the shelves where he probably knew I couldn’t see him. He would walk aimlessly between the shelves, stop, pick something, stand looking at it for a minute, then replace it. Not once did he ever look towards the counter, but he had to know I was watching him.

This guy was good. I decided that he could go on for hours, and I’d get so used to seeing him patrol that I wouldn’t notice when he did pick something — for good.

Neural adaptation — that’s what it’s called. I barely graduated from high school, but I know the word because my daughter learned about it in a college freshman Psychology course.

I called out to him when he was close enough to the counter. I called out again, then once more, and he turned to me. He took out the earphone in his right ear and said, “Did you say something?”

His accent was foreign. My suspicions increased.

“Shoplifting might be accepted back where you come from, but here it’s a crime. You look like someone who’s going to walk out with something hidden in your coat, and I don’t want you around here, because I’ll get into trouble with the manager.”

I wanted to say that, but I didn’t. Instead, I said, “I need you to leave if you’re not going to buy anything. I have some work to do in the backroom, and I’m not going to stand around watching you walk up and down my store.”

He looked me right in the eye and said calmly, “I don’t like what you’re trying to imply.”

Imply. The devil probably looked up the word right before coming to the store.

“Look,” I said, getting angrier. “You’re not buying anything, you leave. It’s as simple as that. I don’t want you walking up and down, and then…”

“Wait…” he cut in. I wasn’t going to let him.

“I don’t want you walking up and down and then taking God-knows-what. I simply don’t have the time to watch you, because I’ve got things to do in the backroom.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” he said. “Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve come into this store to buy something. All the other guys who work here know me.”

Yeah right.

“I come in here sometimes when I’m bored, walk around, and buy anything I feel like…”

“I don’t want anyone ‘bored, walking around and picking what he likes.’ If you’re not going to buy anything, I need you to leave,” I cut him short.

“I was going to buy these,” he held out two 25c combs.

“Just leave,” I took them from him and threw them beside the cash register, heading for the backroom where the greater pleasures of life awaited me.

“Hey!” he shouted. “I said I want to buy these.”

I returned to the counter and rang them up. 75c, including tax. I wanted to wallop his nose, but I dutifully made change, and handed them to him, although I made sure I didn’t put them in a paper bag, or ask him if he wanted one.

I heaved a sigh of relief when he left.

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I (Azuka) have never been more insulted in my life. I think I handled this pretty well, considering that I’m sometimes a pushover, and will either take anything thrown at me meekly, or explode in anger.

This is the corner shop where I’m one of their (I hope) esteemed customers. I get a discount on a carton of Arizona Green Tea which I can reserve up to a week in advance. Some items I’ve requested have been added to the stock because I’m likely to buy  items I request every week.

It happened this morning, but I’m still very angry at what happened. I’m going to talk to the manager tomorrow (today, actually — it’s 12:12am).

I’ve just emerged from the shower and am looking for something. In one of those cases of my losing something in working memory, I keep searching, sure that when I find it — whatever it is — I’ll know it’s what I’ve been looking for.

Now, if I had my glasses, I’d have found it long ago, but no, I don’t have them on.

If I had my glasses.

If I had my glasses…

I’m looking for my glasses, and there they are, perched in the closet, which was the first place I looked in.

I bought a lot of junk — $50 worth of junk, or 50 junk items — and when I emerged with about a hundred shopping bags clearly marked ‘Dollar Tree’, my teammates rolled their eyes at me. They later went in. Girls.

I haven’t been in there for quite a while, but a month ago, very broke (total assets: $8) and needing some stuff, my firends S–, E– and I walked into the Dollar Tree next to Walmart. I have very oily skin, excluding my hands and feet which turn white even in summer. Nothing I’ve used has helped, but I decided to try some $1 moisturizer, as well as some liquid bath soap.

“Are you sure you should be getting those?” E– looked very skeptical. “That stuff’ll probably burn holes in you.”

I’ve never been one of those who believe you get what you pay for. Cheap rules, or so I thought.

Two days after using my wonder moisturizer and soap, I started to notice lesions on my hands. My skin peeled off in places, and there was even some raw flesh on my palm. Okay, that’s not true.

They had the opposite effect. I got whiter hands and feet, and the soap even dried off my face (in winter I used to walk around with a shiny face). I convinced myself I just wasn’t using enough, and when it worsened, had to admit to myself that I’d been wrong. Not that E–’ll ever know. .

So here I am broke again, and I think I know not to buy some things even if they’re just a dollar, but do I really?

The seeds were sown in the Fall of last year when my friend Samuel asked me to do him a favor. His cousin was apparently coming over from Ghana and would be staying in the dorms. Would I kindly take him under my wing, show him the ropes, yada-yada?

Sure.

I’d gotten [yet another] a new roommate. I never quarreled with my past roommates — OK, I came close to doing so once but we settled the issue amicably — so I assumed naturally that everything would go smoothly from then on. Was I wrong!

For one, I discovered my new ‘friend’ (we’ll call him N) was into music, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. My eardrums nearly literally got blown off every time he decided to listen to something. I let him use my computer back then because he hadn’t gotten his, making it ironic that I was assailed by my own speakers. My PC’s soundcard is quite loud, so you can imagine how it all felt to someone who listened mostly to Yanni, Vivaldi and Mozart. The situation worsened when he got a new PC. His speakers had some very wicked sub-woofers.

I regularly perform culinary feats in the dorms using my rice cooker and microwave. At first, I offered him samples whenever I cooked — I later stopped doing so, although he felt comfortable enough to go in my the fridge and partake of my stew without asking me.

My only response was a rather weak, “I love to cook. The ingredients for two pots of stew are just over $10. I don’t mind if you buy them when next you shop for groceries. I can help you cook them.” My words seemed to be for one-time use, as after the initial time he bought groceries, I’ve been doing the buying.

My next point of action was to sometimes cook what he didn’t like — even though I wasn’t too happy to eat that stuff either. Sort of a lose-lose situation, although in the end I would have to cook something I loved. This game of hide-and-seek continued for a long time while the resentment brewed inside of me.

It wasn’t just food. The air fresheners I buy get taken out of my drawers and used freely. And they don’t even get returned to their original locations.

Apparently, our relationship had ‘progressed’ to the point where one could say, “N’s things are his. Azuka’s things are also N’s.” When I thought about it, I figured I was just being possessive. I even wrote up a post about realizing for the first time how possessive I am. Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t publish it, although doing so would have meant less time since my last post.

Things came to a head last week when I called him aside to complain about his sound. He shot back at me that I frequently watched anime in the night while he was asleep. The annoying thing is, it was true. I stopped using my headphones in the night simply because I wanted to get back at him for playing loud music in the day, and he had felt free to increase the volume of his music during the day because I watched anime at night. We managed to straighten things out and have worked out the sound problem.

As is my wont when Samuel visits me, I began to lay out my complaints about N yesterday when he came for help with a C# assignment on encryption. This time, I think he got tired of listening to my whining as he told me in no uncertain terms that I was too concerned about offending people — the world didn’t work that way. I may be fiery when I write — sometimes brash — but in the end my personality’s more on the passive side.

I think I’ve been running away from a direct confrontation on so many issues and I’ve decided to face them head on. Thank you Samuel…

The Oni in me has awakened. I’m going to do the things that make me happy from now on. Nice guys get the short end of the stick.

I hope I don’t overdo it…

I can’t remember the times before that — what my sight was like before I became short-sighted. I like to imagine the world looked the way it does as I see it whenever I put on my glasses today — bright and colorful.

“You mean you can’t see that?” people with 20/20 vision ask me sometimes. Then they point to someone standing just a little distance away and ask the stupid question, “Can you see the guy standing over there?”

Of course I can — I’m not blind!

The world through my eyes is different. I squint to make out text not too far away — sometimes I have to close my right eye as my left is slightly better. Because I find it difficult to make out faces from afar, I recognize people by their other features — gait, complexion, figure, voice…even dressing. I make guesses when ordering at Wendy’s or McDonald’s because I can’t read the displays.

It’s not altogether a life of woe. Looking out of the window when driving past accidents, it is indeed a blessing not to be able to make out all the gore. Not joining the peculiar group of guys who peeked up girls’ skirts because I wouldn’t have seen a thing anyway — not unless I brought my face to within 30cm or less of the focus (and perhaps received a couple of slaps for my effort).

My glasses kept getting broken — I got them when I was quite young, and thought I looked ‘cool’ wearing them while playing football. More often than not I was without them while they got fixed, or replaced, and have pretty much gotten used to living without them.

Here’s to the bright, wonderful world I see with my glasses on — and to the many ‘evils’ I’m spared from seeing without them.

I’m still in and out. Work, school, more work. We’ll see what we can do about all that.

Learning Japanese. Okay, not exactly. That’s just a roundabout way of explaining my new found love for Japanese anime. I prefer them with the subtitles because I pick up a lot of phrases that way. Great Teacher Onizuka, Eyeshield 21, The Prince of Tennis, Yumeria and Ninja Scroll are my alltime favorites.

I’ve been doing an entirely different set of blog rounds from my usual haunts — Xin Hui, Ishtar, Phantom Writer, Cidersweet, etc — and I’d like to apologize for not reciprocating visits.

I’m having a block right now, and might be away for a while but I’ll post as soon as I break through. It might be today, you never know.

Mada mada dane.

I really had to take a break from blogging because it was getting too addictive. It was more like switching addictions — as bloggers whose Facebook walls I’ve been trolling will attest.

Why exactly did I leave? Well, for one I got a little depressed — you know the kind of depression when your friend signs online and the only joke you can think of is about you taking a bottle of pills, freaking her out instead. Contrary to belief, I didn’t get any anonymous-type comments (I’ve gotten them before, but my blog automatically moderates those of people who’ve never commented here), but seeing so much negativity around, I thought I would snap — the pills joke was half-serious.

I went back to my project but I couldn’t find any fulfillment — my account was heading for the red, and I just couldn’t get any Joy-Joy feelings. Then I remembered what my mom told me so long ago about giving.

I love to give, but preoccupation with myself had perhaps loosened some bolts in my head. I’ve been giving in unexpected places for the past two weeks or so, and I believe things are looking up now.

Well, I’ll stop patrolling people’s Facebook walls. I believe I can spend that time blogging, eh?

I guess I could put up a lot of excuses, but the long and short of it all is, I want out — for the time being.