Japan, don't make me fall in love again.
You know I have a soft stomach.
I am not the same man that you remember. I've been scorched by light. The light of the sun, the light of knowledge, of love reflecting from the ice.

Today you were good to me. You know I have a weakness for compassion.
A cop in the police station saw me fumble with my phone and insisted on directing me to the nearest Ramen restaurant. A man in the Ramen restaurant insisted on buying me a noodle refill - A gesture for a foreign student friend, he said. Again the hair on my arm became an attraction. I still find it hard to understand how is it that you shun from hand shaking, but have no inhibitions for feeling someone's arm-hair without asking.

You're also interested in what I do.
Tomimatsu-sensei, my professor in-charge, is interested in organizing a Soft Robotics workshop. I happen to know how to do that. If I am able to build my Palestinian robot under this framework, I need to look no further.

Both Finland and Japan have a sterile purity to them that leaves me baffled.
Both of them invite you to dig deeper into their soul, until you reach the dirt, but without actually saying that.
However, they are not the same.

I finished reading "Conversations on Science, Culture and Time".
This is a book I'd like to buy and keep, so I can open it up every once in a while and be inspired.
Next on my list:
* The Cultural Politics of Emotion
* Gravity and Grace

*Click*