In Continuum.

I am writing this entry because just recently, the very last survivor of Titanic passed away. Millvina Dean was two months old when that giant ship ran into the iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic. It's a little strange to call her a survivor of the tragedy, since she wasn't exactly active in the survival, if you know what I mean. She was two months old, and it's not like she could have swam to shore or rowed the boat or something. Her parents, or maybe just her mother, was probably the one that got her out of the trouble, and I truly doubt if she remembered anything about the ship while she was still alive anyway. I don't even remember how it was like for me at two months old, much less the name of the ship that I was on. But anyway, people are making a big issue out of the fact that the last survivor has died - why? It's not like the ship came back from the dead and sank her house or something, or that she died on a cruise to Puerto Rico or something. She simply died because she was old, and everybody saw it coming anyway. Besides, it's not like she could have given any credible real-life accounts of what happened on that fateful day. Come on, she was two months old. Do you remember the first time you crapped your pants? I rest my case.

Before my fanboy craze over The Lord of the Rings, I had a phase with Titanic too. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was a diehard fan of that cheesy love story with Jack and Rose, on a doomed ship that'd never reach its destination. The whole concept of it all, the tragedy of it all, I was a young kid and hooked onto the hype. While other kids messed around with Digimons and Tamagotchis, I was crazy over the history of Titanic - imagine that. Obviously, I wasn't a very cool kid in class because of that. I was the kid that was more involved in going through encyclopedias and the internet to dig out information about the boat than to play basketball on the court. Of course, I joined in every now and then, but I'd have the theme song of the movie playing in my head all the time. Here's the thing, I was very passionate about the movies, and even more so for the selected movies that I've come across in my life. Titanic was one of them, and I was determined to know anything and everything there was to know about that boat that sunk to the bottom of the ocean - for reasons unknown. To tell you the truth, I have no idea why I bothered to go that deep into research anyway. I did gain a little bit of knowledge, but it's not like it was, in any way, applicable anyway.

Here's how crazy I was about the ship. I managed to find blueprints of the ship, and I studied the blueprints everyday. I studied where the ship was hit, how the water spread from one chamber to another, and I also learned the different decks and the different facilities that they had on the ship. I have a plastic model ship of the Titanic that I bought in Taiwan a long time ago, and I managed to piece everything together with the help of my mother. There were parts that needed some heating from a lighter, because the plastic railings were supposed to be bent, and they weren't when they came out of the box. So the plastic had to be heated up to be softened just so that I could bend it. Then I had to paint the model, and connect little strings to the lifeboats and then hang them by the side of the model. I got so crazy about the model that I would turn off the lights in my bedroom and just explore the ship with a torchlight. You know that scene in the movie with the submarines exploring the ruins of the ship and everything? That is exactly what I did, only with a torchlight and erasers as rubber submarines. I'd slowly move them through the wreckage, though it is still in one piece, and then hum the theme song in my mouth.

That wasn't really enough, so I decided to build my own Titanic one day. I poured out my box of Legos and decided to build one on my own. I really should have taken a picture of what I made, though it was really a multi-colored mess. It was a horrid looking boat, and it didn't even float. There was one afternoon when I decided to fill up my bathtub with water and then reenact that fateful night in the bathtub. I didn't have miniature human beings to drown, so I pretended with my fingers. Of course, once again, I had the Titanic theme song in my head again, and I hummed it all the way through my reenactment. It went on smoothly, but the part that I enjoyed the most was when I got to broke my Lego Titanic into half - just like what happened in real life. I carefully took the bricks out one by one in the middle and managed to sink the whole damn boat in my bathtub. Then, of course, after sinking the boat, I got sick of trying to piece everything back together again. I broke the ship up and then threw everything back into the box, but it was all worth it anyway. Different from building from a model, I had to build that from scratch, which was really fun. Anyway, if you think that this is crazy, see what else I did as a Titanic fanboy.

I remember during music classes, we were all given recorders to play for some reason. I mean, those things aren't even very elegant instruments at all, and they almost always sound like you are blowing through a test tube with holes or something. They look like skin-colored bamboos, and the amount of saliva you collect inside is always so disgusting when you turn it upside down. Anyway, so I remember one of the lessons when we were asked about Titanic or something, and I think my classmates pushed me to the front of the class to play My Heart Will Go On. Yes, as a child, I figured out every note of the song on my recorder by ear, and I think I can still figure it out today, given a recorder. Then again, I have a thing against the recorder now, so I'd rather not try that. Anyway, a classmate of mine also knew the song, but she knew how to play it only on the piano. We were forced to play together, and I think my own self-taught version was a little different from what she was playing. Halfway through the chorus, we kind of went our own separate ways, and I was a little pissed that she didn't follow my version because, well, I was the fanboy - I was right. We finished our performance, and we were the butt of many jokes for a couple of days, because we played a love song together. You know, kids those days, they'd pair up people together for the dumbest reasons.

Back then, I was able to quote the number of people that died on that night, the exact date when it happened, the sequence of events, and I ever poured through the list of survivors and read about mysteries and myths concerning the sinking. There were a lot of stories that surrounded the sinking, and some people attributed it to some cursed mummy tomb that was being transported on that ship or something like that. It was stupid, but I'd keep going through the encyclopedias to find out more about the ship. When it came to the soundtrack of the movie, I think I have three or four copies of the same thing for no apparent reasons. I think one of them had some limited edition postcards, while the other had some limited edition book or something. Basically, I have a few copies of the same thing at home, and I listened to the soundtrack until one of them became spoilt. However, my sister was the one who watched it twice in the theaters, while I've really watched it less than five times in my life. I don't suppose my crazy for The Lord of the Rings was, in any way, less than my Titanic obsession. In fact, I probably became even more crazy about the trilogy.

I think, no matter what passion it may be, it is always great to have a passion for something, you know. Even if it was something as dumb as Titanic, I had something to look forward to, and I was motivated to do whatever that I wanted to do. I liked what I did, and I liked myself while putting myself through those hobbies. It was fun to be immersed like that, and somewhat fun to skip from one interest to the next. My current obsession is with a human being, my partner, Neptina. While she isn't exactly a movie or a pile of Lego bricks, she is infinitely more interesting than whatever that I have obsessed over in the past. For now, here's to those that passed during that tragic night, and know that a weird little primary school boy went through your names in the passenger manifest and, tried his very best, to feel your pain and loss that night.