The Particular Joy In Letter Writing

We have got to go back to the 1800s where people used to write letters.

Because I just graduated high school, I've been writing a lot of thank you notes to everyone who graciously sent cards, but because writing is a secret little love of mine, the thank you notes have transformed into a thank you letter, with one exceeding over 1500 words for seemingly no reason. Though it might seem tedious to write a bunch of letters by hand, I've actually found the process quite charming. The delicate process of drafting the letter in my notebook, revising and editing it in a blue pen, and then carefully transferring the final draft into a separate sheet of paper that smells like trees and books with a tint of beige is one that I'm starting to like a lot. My right middle finger has a giant blister, my hand is cramping, and my desk is a smeared mess of ink, but it's great. 

The practical use of letters seems to be dwindling by the second, which I totally understand, but at the same time, the craft of composing a letter start to finish despite our modern technology is one I believe should be preserved. It is infinitely more personal, more intentional, and more fun! It's like writing a personal mini-essay for someone where you can show off your best writing skills and literary elements to sound sophisticated and graceful. Since it's not a face-to-face conversation, you can fine-tune and tweak your message as much as possible to send out your best. Those who do it in an email typically have the advantage of using AI or other technology to aid them, but writing by hand makes it a lot harder (plus, then it takes the personal aspect of it away). And nobody is going to fine-tune a text message, thus letters are a great way to put forth good writing.

This afternoon, for example, I sat in the library with my notebook staring out the window for a bit trying to think of what to write. It took a while, but once the words started, the process felt natural. Just because it's faster and more convenient to type doesn't always mean it's better, right?

Spam Vs. Bacon 2

A trip back to the Hawaiian-themed restaurant put me in another mood to write, particularly because I wrote about this last March. Well, really, it was posted in March of this year, but it had actually been sitting as a draft since March of 2025. 

The restaurant looked the same as expected; the only difference was the annoyingly warm air outside. I suppose it was too late in the day to enjoy a gloomy morning coffee. Instantly I noticed two women sitting at a table, who looked like they could be mothers, both with blonde hair and a beachy baseball cap. They were dressed in beachside athleisure. There wasn't any doubt in my mind that I found them attractive despite their age. As they spoke I noticed the occasional laugh and heartwarming nod of engagement. Even at this late hour in the morning, in the warm September gloom, I could still benefit from entering a hellishly crowded restaurant.

        Just a few days prior, I was relaxing at a park on the hilltop between classes. At the center of the hill crest, there lies an affluent-looking steakhouse of a considerable size with beautiful outdoor seating. The design, I'd say, is reminiscent of a ritzy golf course restaurant, or something in line with botany and buildings stylistically wrapped in vines (although there are no vines). As I walked around the perimeter of the building, I noticed the several large windows to give the interior plenty of natural light during the early evening. It was house-like, big, and modern. When I checked the reviews on-line, the accompanying pictures displayed meticulously crafted entrées served on white plates and white tablecloths. As expected, the prices were on the higher side, and it's strictly a dinner restaurant. Recalling all of this, I imagined the two women enjoying a meal at sunset overlooking the incredible view of the suburbs and the university. What a nice place for a restaurant, I thought. The day I was there, at noon, I sat at a bench on the grass facing a gazebo wrapped in vines (so this was where that idea came) and surrounded by plants. Despite its midday emptiness, the park was quiet, pretty, and perfect to stow away in my mind for the upcoming fall and winter. 

        

A Short Trip

It was after Calculus, when I was in a daze of utter bewilderment at the new topics. I wondered if it was normal to feel lost after nearly every class. Walking toward the escalator, I tried to brush it off and focus on my next task, which really wasn't a task at all. I was to go just down the corner to the office supply store to buy another notebook, because as it turned out I had filled another notebook from inefficient notes in math, ones that were filled with wasted space and sloppy writing to keep up with the professor. Among these were notes from literature, equally sloppy. The escalator clattered on as my peers and I descended the uncomfortably tight room. There is something so stupidly familiar with the sounds of the middle-spaces that I have learned to enjoy. At the mall, it was the quiet howling of the sink—here, it was the rhythmic, mechanical hum of the rolling chain. In a way it also reminded me of the sounds of my printer dispensing copies of a novel late at night, so that I may write my heart out all over it. After doing research, I affirmed that by significantly reducing the size of the font and cramming as much text onto the page as I could, printing in draft mode was more cost-effective than buying a new book. It did not have the glamour or aesthetics of an actual paperback, but the value of words are not lessened merely because of how they are presented. How I just loved sitting in the leather seats of the car with the paper in my left hand and my coffee in the right. 

        At the bottom, I exited the tiny hallway into the fresh air. Phew. The back of my hand held the door open for a few seconds, and then I was on my toward the store. And people can't even sit down and read a fuckin' book. It was a short walk. The weather was perfectly September: cloudy and cool even in the late hours of the morning. On the way I saw a couple of students headed in the direction of campus so that when I finally reached the storefront, there seemed to be nobody that were evidently students. In the aisle for paper supplies there were boxes upon boxes of brand new notebooks. Upon closer examination, however, I realized why they were untouched. I truly don't understand why manufacturers still produce wide-ruled paper. Annoyed, I dug around the back of the boxes to search for any others that may have been leftovers from when the store did have normal notebooks, but all I found were wide-ruled. No, I figured I did not walk all this way for nothing, so I picked up two interesting looking college-ruled books that were slightly smaller than a typical notebook—they'd do the job. I continued to wander the aisles, looking for anything that could catch my eye. A snack, of course! As I was grabbing the chocolate-covered pretzels, a man having a conversation on the phone approached the aisle I was in. He went on, loud enough so that I could hear, talking about how somebody was mad at somebody because of some financial issue within their relationship. I tried to eavesdrop as much as I could, but once he strayed a few aisles away his voice became muffled and unintelligible. When I got within range again, under the inner-pretense that I was moving to pay for my stuff, the conversation became impossible to relate to what he was saying before. Whatever fragments I was missing in the time he was away plus the obvious absence of the other person's voice prohibited any further intrusion on his business, which I'll admit was entirely unnecessary anyway. I lost interest and went to buy the notebooks. Four dollars exactly, said the woman. I paid, and left the shop.

        People-watching, or rather people-listening, is one of my favorite things, you know. I'll beat a dead horse and say that in Kauai, that was the second-best part of being present in any place. Even the mundane conversations, like "what would you like on your burger" or "I haven't used snapchat in ages", were always so interesting. The different subtleties in each person's voice, their manner of speaking, their vocabulary, and everything else in between were things I paid pointless attention to when overhearing conversations. This was besides what they were actually saying, which most times made no sense to me. Despite this, I find myself doing this often as I did in the store. At best, it feeds my imagination and gives inspiration. Most times, it doesn't lead anywhere.

        I only decided to write this because, on my way back to the campus, I received an e-mail that my professor had called off class. 

Finally ~ A Full Notebook

At roughly the end of Spring Break of this year (my senior year), I purchased a cheap little notebook with seventy sheets at the Walgreens down the corner. I never kept the original receipt, but it couldn't have been more than a few dollars. Just last week, I finally filled the entire notebook. Typically many pages of my notebooks go unused, and hitherto I don't think I've ever filled every page of even a small notebook like this one. 

I don't like to imagine myself as a person who puts sentimental value on things, but having a completely filled notebook is bound to have several significant snapshots. I did not use this notebook for high school work, thereby putting a limit on how I filled it.

Here are some things that were in it:

- The draft for the original post "A Tropical Refresher" is enclosed in that notebook. See bottom for the attachment.

- Drafts of letters (Many were scrapped)

- A significant, significant amount of creative writing projects. Some were supposed to be on YouTube, but I scrapped it. These writings took up more than a quarter of the notebook.

- Vocabulary from Middlemarch

- Other drafts for blog posts

- Towards the end, some calculus work (not high school work)

- Also towards the end, some notes on William Blake and Mary Wollstonecraft

- Several personal anecdotes (not fiction, haha) from Kauai. These include observations and some interesting overheard conversations at different spots on the island. Inspiration and spontaneous creativity are practically born out of things you hear in public.

I believe I only tore out a few pages here and there for whatever reason, but I promise that most of the pages remain intact. The front cover (black) is pretty worn from being in and out of my backpack, and the original white borders have a slight tan-tinge to them from exposure to dirt and my dirty hands. The spiral, despite being bent this way and that from shoving it in my backpack, has held up fairly well. I can expect this level of wear from taking it everywhere and using it outdoors. Rarely do I say this, but it was totally worth the money.

If you don't care for my description, here are some photos of it along with the draft of the blog post:

As described, it has standard wear. The white marks are sort of like creases. The photo makes it harder to see the tan-ish tint to the edges, but they are there. A bit gross.

The back. This part is in pretty good shape, actually. I expected this to be the first to rip and fall off, but surprisingly it hasn't.

Draft of a recent post, written in pencil. The rest are parts of that draft in order.

Overall, I wish I could keep using it, but obviously that can't happen. The new notebook I bought was only 35 cents. I plan on making another post like this in the future.

A Terrible Rain

Just as I was dealing with the most trivial amount of rain on Sunday, poor old Kauai was about to deal with another rageful hurricane. Today, as I ate my lunch of Spam musubi in silence on the steps of the lecture hall, waiting for my literature class to start, I thought of the island.

In a moment of pure imagination, with no real basis on what violent rainfall and winds would look like on my favorite parts of the island, I pictured the little buildings and elements of nature that make up my mental diorama of Kauai struggling to withstand the storm. Only roughly a month ago, I was running down the windy roads towards Kalapakī Beach, or hiking on the rocks of Shipwreck Beach alongside a luxurious golf course, or, most vividly yet, laying on the shore of Poipu with a novel and pineapple juice embellished in the coconut of my sunscreen. These were, in recent memory, the closest feelings to paradise that I could get. 

Taking small bites, I was reminded of my glorious walk alongside Old Koloa as the residents prepared for the annual parade. As I walked with a musubi in my right hand, I passed the familiar buildings of Koloa, which in turned inspired me to write more about it in this blog. My heart ached when I imagined them with an ominous gloom overhead, flooded in a mess of murky water and trashed objects. When I looked at images taken after the disaster, I was surprised, but also not surprised, that my mental image was fundamentally the same. 

There wasn't anything they could do. The poems we are studying in literature are from the Romantic period, and looking at nature through a lens of sublimity, I find it easy to accept that we are at the mercy of nature. The only thing that can be done is to continue to move forward. My heart went out to my family and all the other residents on Kauai in hopes to speed the restoration of daily life. I know that eventually the island will slowly begin to return back to the way it was. Unfortunately, like with most disasters, the place will never really be the same afterwards. There are still scars left on the islands as reminders of Iniki, and I know that despite the fact that this hurricane was not as devastating, there will be some. 

So I finished the last bites of my musubi, knowing that the only thing I could hope for was that everything would be okay.

A Tepid Rain

 It's early September, but today--and only today--it is raining profusely. There is something about this blog that I associate with rainy days. Among the sound of the drops hitting the roof and the neutral gloom of cumulous clouds, I love the little rainy weather icon on my macOS menu bar in the top right. Looking back through my blog, I posted a lot about rain during March of last year, when according to said blog it was raining frequently. Hitherto, this year has not been the same. 

Regarding literature, rain is one of the best atmospheric symbols/metaphors for a scene. It can be used to convey several interesting emotions, and in conjunction with other literary elements, layers of vastly unique interpretations. One of my favorite scenes in Lolita, both in the novel and the movie, occurs when Humbert and Lo have a heated argument after he finds out she has been skipping her piano lessons to practice the play with Mona. The simple idea of the Beardsley house (Oh my god, the rain is really picking up now) lit only by the lazy light of the windows, the rain suddenly intensifying as Humbert calls Mona and confirms Lo's admission of guilt is an excellent tool not only to immerse readers into the setting but also as a symbol for the tension between the two and the deterioration of their relationship (which already started in the beginning of Part 2). You can imagine rain intensifying as Humbert's anger rises when ending the call, exclusive from his narration saying "How mad I was!". 

There's so many other examples (mirroring other emotions) in literature and film that where rain functions as a major symbolic device that's pretty hard to overlook. 

In real life, however, rain is merely a natural pattern of weather. 

The Terminal Radio

Because I've been messing around with Linux for the past few days, I decided the next best thing was to get FM radio in the terminal. Most radio stations now have streaming URLS that you can use to play a specific station inside of your own media player, so after poking around the internet looking for URLS for the stations I wanted, I made the choice of which media player I'd use to get it to work.

I went with mpv. It has a simple terminal interface that I'd already configured with my own keybinds. 

To start the radio, I typed:

mpv "stream_url" 

into the prompt.

Just like that, the radio station begins to play. 

According to my brief googling, streaming the radio via the internet (which allows you to listen to any station no matter where you are, obviously) is slightly different from listening to it with an actual FM radio. For instance, I noticed that during commercial breaks the stream played what I entitled "filler songs" that do not appear on the official station website's song history. They do, however, play when you listen on the official website. 

In order to conduct a proper comparison, I turned to the only real FM radio I knew I had access to: the car! Yes, it's common knowledge that pretty much all cars have a built in FM radio, so I took my Linux laptop to the car to listen to the same station at the same time. Sure enough, during the "filler songs" gaps (which can last quite a while), the car played advertisements instead. Konichiwhaaaa? To say the least, this was the first time I discovered this. Essentially, if you're in the car listening to the over-the-air station, you are missing out on several songs (that internet users hear) while commercials play. Even worse, because I was listening the same station for so long, I was able to listen to several of these filler song breaks, and it seems the songs they choose are vastly more varied and interesting than the ones on the regular program. 

The stream URLS are not immune to commercials, however. After a listening for a while without quitting or reloading mpv, the URL will start to inject commercials into the stream during the filler song breaks. In the terminal, I could see that these commercials were denoted by "adContext=abunchofrandomnumbers"". But, if you quit and reopen mpv during these ad breaks, the filler song returns (just like it would play on the website). 

Usually, when the radio host says the name of the next song, it indicates that the normal, real songs (that would be recorded in the song history) were about to return. I believe the official website omits any audio-commercials because the website is already riddled with visual ads all over the screen. On my particularly slow laptop, these consume an irritating amount of memory. Many times my computer has crashed because I opened the tab and poor little Linux did not have enough memory. Indeed, even on a lightweight distribution and using LXQt, one unassuming tab can overload the memory, just like it used to in ChromeOS. 

That was predictable. I am forever bounded at 4GB of RAM, no matter what OS I use. Thus I have to be careful when using my browser (and severely limit what I have open. YouTube notoriously devours memory, so when that tab is open, all others are at the mercy of it). 

This is where the terminal radio comes in clutch. There's something so charming about seeing the little "icy-title" and "pipewire" pop up in the terminal after running mpv, just like how a car might pull the ID3 tags on its shitty little player. Linux! It's a gorgeous day to be back.