Girl I’m just a fool
One who’s bad with words
So I’m sorry if what I said
Made your feelings hurt

I’m sorry if I hurt you
I’m sorry if I made you cry
But please girl I’m begging you
Please don’t say goodbye

Seeing you always smiling
Bring cheers to my heart
And even imagining your tear falling
Cause it to tear apart

Now what should I do?
I have no idea in mind
I can only hope that it will reach you
Words born from this heart of mine

Girl all I’m asking you
Is to give me one more try
To return your smile to you
And to wipe off those tear you’ve cry

But after a while, the thirst came back
and his throat felt drier than before
So again from the bottle he drinks
and the wetness of his throat restored

But the feeling of thirst keeps returning
and each time greater than before
And each time from the bottle he drinks
till the water in his bottle was no more

Now on the ground he’s lying
with a thirst greater than ever before
And in his mind he thinks
“Maybe I shouldn’t have drank at all”

I remember being asked that question when I was a kid. I didn’t remember who was it that asked me that question, nor do I remember what my answer was; all I know is that if someone asked me that question again; my answer will be “NO”.

However, the thing that I wanted to know more isn’t what is the correct answer or what would other people answer the question, what I wanted to know is something more basic, something more fundamental. What I wanted to know; is the meaning of the question itself.

My first thought on the meaning of the question is that, it asked people to weigh which is more important, the need of one person, or the need of a whole group. If one were to answer that they will kill the girl in order to save the whole world, it shows that they care more for the need of the whole group than the need of an individual.

However, if my first opinion is correct, then it still won’t make sense to me. My answer to the question is “I won’t kill the girl”, but it doesn’t align with my personality as I believe that I’ve always placed to need of the team first, before the need of one person. Does that mean my opinion on the meaning of the question is wrong, or I just don’t fully understand myself?

My second guess on the meaning of the question is that, to see whether the person would do the thing right, or do the right thing. However, I am not entirely sure of this because to me, the line between the two is like a single thread. Maybe if one were to answer that they won’t kill the girl, then they are doing the right thing, or maybe it’s the other way around, but like I’ve said, the line that separates the two is too thin and too blurry for me to see and determine which is which.

So, what do you think? What is the meaning behind this question that has been around for so long, and what would you do if you were to face such situation? All I can say is that I hope that I will never have to face such situation.

            I started playing the game around November 2007, I was beaten pretty bad and decided to play and finish other games that I got first. The hard aspects of the game that I found are:

1. The save points is only useful to take rest from the game, in other words, when you die in a dungeon, you’ll have to start all over again, not from the save point.  

2. The “shut the game down when you almost die” tactic doesn’t work. Unlike many other games out there, where if you shut the game down when you almost die, you will restart at the last save point, Izuna have another gameplay rule. If you shut the game down, the game will automatically consider you commit suicide, in other words, the result is just the same as getting kill.

3. When you die, you will lose all the money, and the items that you are carrying with you. There is a way to save your weapons though, by sticking a Kikan talisman to it. This way, when you die, the weapon will be send to the storehouse (of course that is if the store house is available and not full at the moment).

4. The number of items you can carry is limited, and except for bombs, kunai, caltrops, and shuriken. Everything else is will take one place per item.  

5. In the dungeons, there will be traps and monsters, there are traps and monsters attacks that will destroy your items or affect your status and weapon.

Well, there are more reasons I can put in as the game challenges, but I think these are the main ones.

After a while, I continued playing Izuna. This time, I got pretty far, finished almost all the dungeons and even defeated the last god (a dungeon boss), it was tough for me at that time. 21 floors of enemies, and there are also traps to watch out for. After beating the last god, I thought it was over, guess I was wrong though. There’s another dungeon, and another boss to beat.

A dungeon with 41 floors to go through, complete with monsters at their strongest form and many traps, the last dungeon was almost like hell to me at that time. After almost getting killed so many times, I became traumatized. I was afraid to play it again, and decided to finish some other games first.

Around end of May 2008, I have finished every game I got except for Izuna. So once again, I played the game with the aim of finishing it. I decided that defense was the main key (as I only focus on raising my attack and completely neglected my defense before), I started to raise my defense. After a while, I finally ready to challenge the dungeon again (or so I thought). With 3 swords with attack points of 300 something and 2 arm guards with defense points of over 600, I challenged the dungeon one more time. Sadly, not everything goes my way; I found myself again, at the edge of death and escaped the dungeon with frustrations and anger on my mind.

Finally I decided to go all the way; I decided to make the ultimate gears by raising my attack and defense points to 999. I started with my sword Zantetsu, after raising its base attack to 995 (after equip, the attack will be add to my own base attack of 5 points so it will still raise to max), I stick 3 Hayate talisman to it, so I can attack twice per turn. After that, I raise my Enma arm’s defense to 999, and stick 7 Mikiri and 1 Kikan to it. Now I’m ready to face the dungeon one more time.

After selecting the items that I will bring, I went into the last dungeon (of the story), Singularity. The hard works that I’ve done proved to be worth it, as also the 3 Hayate talismans that I stick to my sword. Everything was going my way; I decided not to explore each floor and made finding the stair my main objective. This is to avoid using the sword to much and break it, although I’ve brought many Fukugen talisman with me to fix my gear when needed, the talisman drain SP which will resulting in reducing my attack. But after halfway through, a monster burned one of the Hayate talisman leaving only 2. Unfortunately, 3 will be needed to launch the attack twice in one turn, and now, I can only attack once per turn. After that, every other thing was smooth and I was able to reach the 41^st floor.

The fight started well, I finished other monsters first so they won’t disturb me later (during my fight with the last boss). When I saw the boss being close to me, I throw all the bombs I got at him, causing around 8000 damage. I went in front of him and attack him, but the attack wasn’t as high as I hope, seems like the boss also got a really high defense. As we were exchanging blows, the boss used his special attack that cost me half my HP and threw me all the way to the wall. I decided to heal myself by walking and ran from the boss. After healing my HP, I found myself being cornered and his special attack hit me again, unfortunately, the wall was right behind me and he was a step away only. After healing myself by using one of the 3 Orb of Divinity that I got, I exchange blows with him one more time and after that was hit by his special attack again and flown away across the room. I quickly used the second orb at tried to make space between me and him, but he was good at cornering me and hit me with that special attack one more time. Once again I was flying across the room until I hit the wall. I used the last orb and walk a few steps only to be cornered by him. Since that was the first time I’ve ever reach that far, I decided to go all the way and attack him, he return the favor with a normal attack. With fear in my mind I attack him one more time and suddenly, when I was expecting an attack I saw him falling, and at that time I knew I’ve won……

I don’t know what you did
just the sight of you make my heart ease
no drugs nor alcohol can ever beat
this strong feeling that your smile leave

Your smile was sweet and lovely
just the sight of it soothe me and made me calm
when I was in pain or sorrow it made me happy
made me feel like I can grab anything into my palm

I thanked the lord for letting me meet you
and I thank you for just being there
you changed me even if you didn’t realize it, it’s true
that in this world someone like you is rare

The last time I saw you
on your face wasn’t a smile but hate
it pains me but there’s nothing I can do
because it felt like it was already too late

I don’t know what I’ve done to you
and I don’t know if I can be forgiven
but I want to say I’m sorry, I really do
if it was my fault that your smile was taken

where ever you are, what ever you do
like when we first met, the first time I set my eyes on you
I hope you’re smiling happily like you always do
the smile that made me fell in love with you

I’ve always wish to see you again
but this wish can’t seem to come true
I want to apologize for the things I did that caused you pain
and to say straight from my heart that I love you  

Hypocrisy is usually considered by many as a dishonourable act because the people who practice it is being dishonest by not showing the truth about themselves and that it’s better to live by always to telling the truth no matter what. But can hypocrisy truly consider as a bad thing? Is it really a good idea to show your true self all the time, to everyone around you?

The truth is hypocrisy can’t be count as a bad thing all the time as sometimes we will face a situation where it is better to wear a mask and hide the truth than to tell it, depends on the situation we are facing, or the reason we wear it. If we wear the mask so the people around us wouldn’t feel uncomfortable, or to make the people we love happy, is that still considered as a dishonourable act?

But there are also bad consequences, by keeping all of our true feelings under the mask we may hurt ourselves. As people always say to gain something, we must sacrifice something else in return? if we always want to keep everyone else happy, we probably end up losing our own happiness. I guess to avoid from meeting such consequences, we must first decide which is more important to us, our own happiness or the happiness of the people we love. If the answer is the happiness of the people we love, then it’s fine to wear the mask, but if we decide our own happiness is more important, then we should just take the mask down and face the world with our true selves.