somber straits

Like earthbound stars, shimmering on the surface of glass, a thousand shards of electric blue light floated freely in Sumida river. It was quite pretty. In a gentle way, they swayed to the quiet waltz of the water. Floating among the reflected clouds and above the deep, dark sky, they sloshed past.

It was to remember the fireflies, they said. There were thousands in the Spring, when the weather shifted and shrugged off the cold, and opened its arms to the warm sun. And in Edo-era tradition, they made a sport of catching fireflies here. They'd catch one or two in a lantern, to light the way home.

It's quite dreamy, isn't it? Even though I knew about the chemical reactions that yielded they're intriguing luminescence, there was a magical quality about this unworldly glow that teetered in the darkness. And I thought, it's good to know these things. The real world may, for the most part, be a harsh, no-nonsense kind of place, but there are glimpses through the fog.

There is more to the world. There is mystery in every quiet street, intrigue in every worn path, and promise in the shifting currents of the river. And though sometimes we may lose our way, stumble off the trail, or sink in the murky darkness, we simply need to hold on to the memory of light.

I like to think that life is the attempt to fill the heart with bright things. Like a lantern in the darkness, like a bouy in the turbulent sea, if you fill your heart with simple joy and simple kindness, the journey grows easier; the burden, lighter.

Like fireflies, from their light comes a lightness of being, and perhaps, like me, they dream to one day earn the serenity of the stars.

Photo Credit: Catching Fireflies by the Sumida River by Utagawa Kunisada I

Work, Work, Work

I guess it's about time I said something about the new place, the culmination of months of careful planning, and the final resting place of my (latest) hopes and dreams.

Well, it's great.

That's what I tell everyone who asks at least, then I swiftly distract them with a story of how everyone in my department are all [swarthy] men from America, Europe, and elsewhere, which to me is both encouraging and invigorating all at the same time, except when they wear shorts, and I end up mentally halting mid-line-of-code and thinking, "Ho- shi-, I'm such a lucky basta~rd!"

But the truth that lurks behind the wall of small talk and entertaining banter is that I am so terribly in love with my job. I am so genuinely happy to have landed this job where I get to work on projects that, from the perspective of someone who's been making little, quiet applications hidden away in some forlorn server on the dark side of the earth, has more screen time  has more far-reaching impact, has more fancy buttons and slick animations to complement every user twitch and twiddle. A big upgrade, I'd say, from the mangled hex digits, encoded dates and obscure toggles that were as intellectually challenging as they were obscure.

Where before my canvas were the pedestrian crossings and bike lanes of forgotten country roads, now I can paint frescoes on basilica walls. The beauty of mobile applications is their [prevalence]. For the humble app developer, his stage is the palm of your hand.

There're other things to consider at work, though. Like, as I mentioned, the manly colleagues, who are clever, intuitive engineers one second, and a rambunctious gang the next. They're like the brothers I never had, who have grown together, have so gotten used to each other, to a point that, from the uninitiated ears of an interloper, their varied interactions would come temperamental and brash. But they are all quite kind, the silly, boyish, lot of 'em, and are also quite human, prone to mistakes that in a team such as ours just manages to mix and dissolve together into a brew of stumbling, raving, genius.

What I initially saw as excessively vocal, was actually frank honesty. I've come to deeply respect this. What better company is there, than with those we trust?

So after the job, the people, that leaves us with the infrastructure of the company, the policies and perks. There's free lunch at the cafeteria, and vending machines at every floor, with an ATM at the 12th if you feel like dodging the sunlight a bit longer. My personal machine is a highly-spec-ed laptop on Windows to support any corporate application requirements, and my development machine is a powerhouse of a desktop, with dual monitors. One of which, is a wide-screen 23-incher in portrait mode. Oh, the number of lines of code I can see in a glance is a coder's wet-dream.

It's great, and my only challenge is, earning my place here.

Photo credit: Spring Fresco in Santorini from Jeremy Rutter
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