Waiting for the aurora

I have to write down my thoughts.  I was trying to read, but it's no good.

I've grabbed the closest thing to hand – an old address book I used to use in university.  It's filled with Japanese notes, and, I'm amused to see, doodles of Digimon characters.  I doodle a lot less now, which is a shame.  Although, back when I worked at a card shop, I'd started to doodle ponies on spare envelopes at the quieter times.  There was one that was the exact same shade as Rainbow Dash, so I drew her on it.  It was pretty good for a biro sketch, so I was going to take it home, but I forgot, and I think it got thrown away.  I was quite annoyed.

  I actually remember the lesson on the opposite page.  We had to read some words in katakana – one of the two phonetic alphabets and the one in which loan words from other languages are written – and guess the meaning.  The only word I didn't get was  ユーモア 'yuumoa' – humour.  But I remember it to this day because of that exercise.  There is some vocabulary on the next page... simple words; bag, glasses, box, keys.  Words I learned long ago.  But I didn't know them when I first wrote them on that page.  It feels a little odd somehow.

  I keep glancing up at the window.  I always leave my bedroom curtains open in any case, I hate to shut out the moonlight.  On the news, they said it was pretty cloudy, and it is.  There isn't much chance to see the aurora tonight.  And yet here I am, lying the wrong way round on my bed, so I can keep looking out of the window.  There's so much man-made entertainment in my house.  I can hear the TV downstairs, my brother is using his computer.  I have my own laptop down there, and so very many games consoles.  I could have the much more simple pleasure of reading; I have a whole bookshelf filled with books and manga – mostly Discworld and Yugioh - right in front of me.

Yet I gaze hopefully out at the cloudy sky, to see if nature will oblige...