4:36 PM
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Summer. A season when the days are hotter.
People scramble to open sea, but I regardless of the forever impossibility of having a beach body, I rather occupy my bed.
The early mornings remain cold. To sleep and sleep when the cold is comfortable, and sleep, and sleep until the heat becomes unbearable, to laze like a cat without a care in the world, and move only when hungry – when its summer vacation, such is my life.
After a meal go back to the room and recline with multiple pillows at my back. To allow for better digestion I remain seated for a while. Slide little by little to a lying position over time, and when sleepy, sleep.
Always armed with a smartphone, only the gripping arm and the eyes go tired. All days of this season, I rest.
Despite being a faithful internet-citizen during school days, every summer, I rest. It was inevitable, because the summer house does not sport an internet connection.
Sure enough, there are lots of other things I could do. I know in my heart that just reading light novels isn’t productive, but this is rest season. Forcing the issue of productiveness would just kill the fun.
Among the other options that would not kill the fun are the following.
I could draw to a satisfactory quality, and although my color-choices are deemed weird by my sister who also likes to draw (and I agree), I’ll never get tired of splashing the paper or the digital media of whatever colors I like or felt like using.
There are many sketches, scanned and not yet scanned, uploaded and not yet uploaded, and a lot more that I want to redraw.
There are many projects, written and more still in my mind, programming projects I have yet to start or continue, ideas I still have to properly compile. The hand-written notes that I want to encode, there’s an ever growing pile over there, there, and there.
The problems with these however are the time and the energy they require.
The problem of the lack of materials is something that I could overlook; I convinced myself that it’s just a matter of making full use of what you already have. But time, because of the can’t-be-helped lack of exclusive space, much time is spent just pulling out, preparing, and afterwards cleaning keeping them materials away.
The time and energy I have to use to pull off these other options, just thinking of them makes me back-away.
I would only touch those projects when I really feel like it. Rest means ‘no effort’.
I end up just choosing to read with the phone, and sleep when tired. I stay happy and the surroundings stay clean without the materials around that I don’t feel like cleaning. Although it’s true that reading for hours tires my eyes, my eyes don’t require glasses and I don’t feel like they’d need one soon. If my health is not compromised, all is well.
The lack of sleep at night caused by sneakily continuing to read chapters in the unlit room, I could get back after I tire out – I’ll just sleep ‘till noon.
Hail offline pages. There’s an option to save webpages for offline reading – this feature during summer along with my siblings, I abuse.
When I run out of light novels to read, I lament. And time to lament would always come too soon, sometimes sooner than the time it takes for the phone to die out.
Of course, when you have nothing to do but lay down in bed, and tire your finger scrolling through pages and pages of text, those volumes of stories you will finish in a flash.
At night, be the first to bed and yet be the last to sleep… until the phone threaten to fall from my hands suddenly losing grip due to extreme sleepiness, or until my eyes hurt from the phone’s already lowest brightness setting but still bright light, I keep on reading light novel chapters saved for offline reading. I have nothing better that I want to do.
Every night vigilant to not get caught staying very late, sparing a speck of attention to sounds of movements, so I could turn of the screen, close my eyes, and feign sleep until they who sleep in the shared room settle back to their sleep.
4:25 in the morning. Unlike the previous nights, I slept with my feet towards facing the opposite of the usual direction. The should-be east. For that’s where the sun never fails to rise from.
I want a compass but until I find a very good one, I won’t be thinking about it. I remember there are keychain compasses that are sold cheap, but I don’t want to own something which quality I could easily doubt. The mystery of the exact direction where our house is facing to, will remain until then.
Sliding glass panes coupled with sliding wire mesh act as the windows. They span the entire side of the wall at my feet. Although they are wholly covered with curtains, the combination don’t complete shut out the morning light.
Another window of lesser width is to the left of my feet. Normally, the left and right sides of the house would be all-walls because the houses are built side by side, but this side is free because the adjacent lot only has a one-storey made to be a parking lot. The curtain assigned to this window being pink, plus the orange color of the street light, blend to a warm and soothing color –easy and soothing to the eyes.
Before dawn, it’s still dark.
I set the phone alarm to 4:30 but woke up before the anime song rang. I don’t remember what time I surrendered to drowsiness; waking up so easily very early, before dawn, could only be surprisingly. My eyes snapped open and then I was wide awake. It felt like I waked up very naturally, but this is weird. It’s like someone flipped a switch to turn on the light. I wonder if my body-clock is acting up? This kind of waking is too abrupt. This is the first time this happened. If it’s possible to wake like this every morning, by all means please.
I marvel for some moments at the weird feeling of managing to wake before the alarm, before actually getting up.
Right. The first time to do is to turn off the alarm.
Unlike in the capital where the home wi-fi stays on, 24/7, most times, this residence as mentioned earlier doesn’t have an internet connection. No one has been living there so paying for the service is pointless. The place is far too much from the capital where the schools and the offices are; it was much better to rent than to trouble ourselves to commute every day, consuming time and energy, and getting unnecessary fatigue.
Now, the so-called mobile data, is unfortunately not so much of use. The distance of this residence to that of the capital, at the fastest is around 45 minutes. Whether there are other cell-sites nearby I don’t know, but the network’s signal is too weak, one would always pop a vein just trying to send an SMS inside the house. To send or receive a message, we have to go near the perimeter of the house, if not outside, or the second floor.
There are of course other network alternatives, but if I’m not mistaken, all are under the two or three major networking companies. To bother to switch to another network? The disadvantages, I don’t even want to talk about. Please don’t make me enumerate.
Some might say something along these lines: “Temporary leave from internet won’t make you die”. Well, that’s true. But when it’s school vacation, you’re supposed to go all-out in enjoying yourself, no?
The elders would say I should use such time to rest, but while I do enjoy sleeping a lot, I’m not someone who can only rest, being someone with an always-busy mind. I have to either take care of my own plot-bunnies or distract myself with others’. I don’t dislike physical books but they are heavy for my small hands. I rather read the more popular light novels from the internet.
So, what does it take to really have access to the internet? Although in this country, the monopoly of a certain company prevents competition and thus have internet speed in a range lock, we rather have slow internet than no internet at all, please.
The existence of internet cafes, as in, establishments which offer computer-use, most of which are connected to the internet, for a certain rate, is a blessing for those who don’t own computers or don’t have internet connections.
The good news is, there are a number of them at walking distance, with rather cheap rates.
The thing is, I don’t want to walk – go out the house, or take whatever mode of transportation, just to download new light novel translations updates. Worrying and bothering about my appearance is one thing, but more than that, I don’t want to have to bother greeting all the elder neighbors along the way. The folks here are rather lively, they like to loiter outside their houses to chat or just to pass time. I love how the young ones, the children, don’t know me so I don’t have to greet them, but I can’t possibly ignore the elders. My conscience would break into indiscernible pieces. I can’t drag the name of the family down only because of my gloominess and socializing references. Oh, if the society didn’t mind, how wonderful would it be.
Days pass, I continue lamenting the lack of internet connection at home. There are cheating bastards (I won’t name) around, happily leeching internet connection through their own connections which I don’t have. I frown whenever I remember, but I’d never dare to join the same boat.
Day in, day out, I wondered whether I should give up and just go to the internet café which is 15 minutes by foot. I could take a bike, but I don’t want to worry about it being stolen or the skies suddenly raining down on me while on it. That is, until one night, I realized, I haven’t tried the mobile data connection from the roof.
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