you've been warned...

dreaming awake

2010-11-18T01:25:00.000-08:00

lately, a lot of people have been asking me how i do it... How do i stay alive? or at least awake during an entire day? i don't know exactly... force of will?

when i started school last year, i knew sleep is gonna be a rare commodity enjoyed only on weekends and special holidays... i was right. sleeping for 4 hours a day now seems heavenly. waking up is a bit(&#!

for some reason. i'm still awake. i'm wasting time i should have already been sleeping just to indulge myself and post something... indulge in old habits that reminds me of who i was before i started trying to become something else.

one more year...

i hope you're having the time of your life...

2010-08-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

i can barely remember the times when i barely feel exhausted. i feel like i'm always trying to squeeze in 15 more minutes of sleep, one more hour of rest, one more day just... i don't know, numb? stupid?

i wanna be all emo and stuff and wail pseudo angsty and totally cliche stuff like 'i don't know who i am anymore' or 'nobody loves me i want to die' (sorry kim, that's still never gonna get old) but heck, even if there is a measure of truth in those... i don't care anymore.

i'm tired. everything feels pointless again. what am i doing? why am i doing this? why can't i just waste away locked in padded room somewhere? (okay, kidding)

i used to have a life... well, okay, i've never really had an exciting existence, but it was peaceful (a lot of the time boring...) and almost exhaustion-free. i had time to read books and browse for movies on a weekday or at least hang out at a booksale dreaming about books i'm going to read someday.

i'll get that life back... just one more year, right?

i can't take my mind off you...

2010-01-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

(this is from you tube...)

i love this song.

you know the feeling when you see or hear something so beautiful that it hurts. i get that feeling each time i listen to this song.

just wanted to share.

makulay ang buhay

2010-01-11T15:22:00.000-08:00

ikaw din... click this.

Result of your test :

Your results present a correlation ratio with our model superior to 89 % .
( In a general way, a result can be taken into account if this ratio is superior to 30 %.)

Your Profile :

You are 48 % extrovert and 52 % introvert.

Independently of any order of importance :
You are intellectual and intelligent, you wonder and you inquire before taking any action.
You are also dynamic, your actions are only directed by your own will and you know how to lead people.
Finely you are a manager and a structured person, you know how to take into account the needs of each person while leading them towards the set goals.

Your attitude towards the environment :

facts

feelings

idees

At first, at 37%, you are centered on your thoughts and your actions are determined by your knowledge and your experience.

Then, at a rate of 31%, you are attached to moral values and feelings, and you have an emotional relation with the environment.

Finally, at 30%, you are focused on the facts and on the reality, and your decisions are determined by your perception of facts.

Your highest qualities today :

At 23 %, you are intellectual and intelligent, you keep wondering and inquiring before setting up your next step or defining your values.

At 20 %, you are thoughtful and deep, you think before getting into action and you know how to communicate your knowledge.

At 19 %, you are a creative person, with always new ideas, and you know how to apply them.

At 18 %, you are dynamic and active, you are determined in your actions, you know how to communicate your ideals and your energy, and thus, you know how to boost people.

At 17 %, you are strong-willed and active, your actions are determined by your own will, by the goals you settled to yourself, and by your need to act and move ahead.

Finely, you are a manager and a structured person, you know how to take into account the needs of each person while leading them to the fixed goals, you are creative, you know how to see beauty, you are intuitive and your inspiration comes from the inside.

because silence is never really fun when you're trying not to fall asleep...

2009-11-25T13:18:00.000-08:00

it seems weird or at least improper that i'd get a person to blog yet fail to do anything on my own. but then i don't really have a grand life update or anything of the like.

i have a new old phone! new, because it's newly bought, supposedly previously unowned and i bought it probably just a week ago. old, because it's old model, the kind that you could leave laying a round on the canteen table and not bother worrying someone else would get it since it's so passe. i'm enjoying the games though, i'm almost downright addicted to the version 2 of snakes that i drain the battery (leaving me with 2 worthless phones).

i have this thing with old-fashioned games. until now my favorite game ever is tetris (more commonly called brick game where i came from). i spent months being addicted to Spider Solitaire. i once had the life goal to finish all 32000 games of Freecell... which is amazing since i was never one for goals. i once had a minesweeper thing but it became too unchallenging after awhile. though i'm still scared and panicky in playing pacman. the ghosts always get me. darned yellow critter is a coward.

anyway, i'm still contemplating getting pokemon downloaded into my other phone just for fun.

vrzoomm....

2009-11-20T14:09:00.001-08:00

I thought I would update with, well, inanity.

Hard to believe but I’m halfway through my first year of school again. Not hard to believe that I passed my subjects and all, I mean, duh! But shucks, time passes by so fast that I didn’t even notice it in the haste to come up with where I’m getting the next installment to pay my tuition fees. Sheesh, it’s hard to be a student… not only do I not get enough sleep but the darned thing is expensive as well!

Anyway, I’m stressing about learning to dance the first two minutes of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean for the company Christmas thing. Can’t I just sing it instead? The darned song wouldn’t leave my head (complete with signature Michael Jackson shouts and grunts).

I’m supposed to be making a friend a blog. But then what the heck would I know about that? Hahaha

It occurs to me I might want to add a bit of color pictures or video here… Nah, too much work. I’d try to check on that later.

Remind me to rave about The Life Of Pi. I was seriously stumped by that book.

no pain, no suffering... heh

2009-08-12T14:57:00.000-07:00

How long has it been since I’ve last been here? Minutes are dragging by like years while I feel as if time is passing y to quickly, not even giving me the chance to breathe. I feel so tired lately that I don’t have the energy to do anything else but sleep. Well, I should have expected this when I started back on school. But, crap… I’m tired.

Not that school isn’t fun. School is fun. Two subjects (from the same professor) out of six make it worthwhile to attend classes. But I guess the entire point of college is the atmosphere and the interaction with like or different minded people. I’m enjoying learning; I think I never stopped loving that.

Anyway, I’m tired. I’ve said that already I know. But when tiredness permeates through your body that you can feel it in your bones and sleep is a rare delicacy to be savored… you probably get what I mean.

stasis

2008-11-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

I sat down in front of the computer thinking I have a lot to say, opened a word document and everything flies out. I wish I had an exciting adventure full life to regale you or even clever stories and witty thoughts I just came up with while staring at the blinking cursor in the glaringly bright blank sheet in front of me. I remember days and nights spent agonizing over worn out notebooks I proudly called journals and wishing I can shut my thoughtas of and finally go to sleep and break the curse of pathetic insomnia. Of course I was also in a different mind set those days… angst, my constantly irritating companion. I’m more happy go lucky now. Sedate. Placid. Uncaring. Indifferent. Aloof. Maybe I finally fried my brain. Oh, well.

For some reason I wanted to update my blog. I actually have a handful of blogs I have forgotten passwords to time and again and abandoned thru time to focus on achieving the once sought after state of catatonia. These days, even if I’m awake I still feel like I’m sleepwalking. Sleepwalking through my nights while I pass out during the day and wake up for a brief moment just to submerge myself back to the unreality of the new novel I’m reading unconsciously taking note of how soon I’d finish it agitated in looking for one more to fill the interminable inactivity before I have to actually get up and go to work. My days are filled with nothing, I’m not proud to say… though not really minding it either except for some brief moments of realization that there’s a world out there beyond the four (five? six?) corners of my room, then I snap out of it and sleep it off. What happened to the fierce exclamations of ‘carpe diem’ and living life to the fullest, you ask me. I don’t know. Somehow it’s a bit frightening to even think that I don’t really care that much anymore. Feels even worse when it rings true.

Anyway, depressingly mundane things aside… well, I don’t really think there’s anything else aside from the depressingly mundane. Hahaha. It’s too funny how utterly hopeless this is. I just realized what a sad existence I’m living out because I still can’t come up with a reasonable explanation of how this stagnant existence is actually not as dreadful as it sounds. But then it really is not as bad as it seems to be. I’m well, relatively content to just watch the world go round, living vicariously through paperback novels and online fiction, exploring worlds and minds of people through the worlds they imagined.

But (here comes the glaringly obvious point I’m trying to gloss over) I leaving my own life to waste it seems… I feel guilty. Well, not guilty that I decline invitations to impromptu drinking sessions after work or even innocent breakfasts in usually expensive restos after shift. Not guilty that I spend more time being active in the office, around people I can tolerate going home tired and sleepy rather than going home on the dot and just engorging myself on mindless and pointless tv shows until I feel braindead or exhausted enough to sleep.

See, I think I’m still waiting for ‘life’ to begin even though I know that the world doesn’t work that way and the basic principle of physics is that anything would not move unless you apply force behind it. Yeah, the cognitive knowledge is there, I know and accept it as true but still stupidly wait for some kick that would propel my life to motion. The stupid thing is, a small part of me isn’t really sure if I want it to start. Today is real. It’s also simple, usually manageable, routine, comfy and safe. Most importantly, it’s safe. Safe from what? I really have no idea. So I go on reading about great adventures or even completely ordinary settings filled with deep insights borne of pain and chaos and conflict and I sit in my bed in my locked room completely removed from anything that could threaten the stillness of my existence. Live vicariously, said every one who has ever been great. I sit in the sidelines in awe, clapping and cheering my head of to afraid to follow… or too lazy and filled with rational yet empty excuses?

Fear or Laziness, asks director Richard Linklater in his rotoscoped animated movie Waking Life, which is the most universal human chracteristic?

(oh yeah, watch the movie… so cool)

listening to Go with the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age, which a xian asked me to listen to with his new zune. i should get one and just drown myself again in music shutting off the world beyond my earplugs... apathy and disinterest plus solitary absorption to music only i can hear... yeah, why not... dismissing the world one step further...

remember, remember the 5th of September?

2008-09-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

I had it all figured out. The week of my birthday, I am on leave from work free to do whatever for the week and sleep the entire Friday away, not mentioning or even thinking of my birthday at all.

Thursday morning, I woke up as Imago’s The Box (my message alert tone) vibrated on my pillow telling me to call work. A few minutes later, I’m set to come in later that night and come in on Friday. There goes all my plans to mope around and get all broody and lazy which is just how I think a turn of another year should be celabrated, like dying and being born again, full of angst and waiting and mostly nothing but sleep. I used to be more active, I’d actually make the effort to go out of the house and numb my brain with mindless pop movies cinema hopping and high on caramelized popcorn.

But not this year (nor for any other past years that I remember).

A year older, I don’t feel it. Actually what I feel is a sore throat and sore muscles, lack of sleep and the tendency to remain awake in a super bright room filled with chattering people even if I hide myself under the cube we use as a quasi-apartment/motel (it’s all filled with small square pillows and blankies, separated from the world mostly). I also feel the need to prepare all I need for my training tonight that I told myself I wouldn’t think off not until 10pm later this evening when I come in for my 12am training. No, I’m not saying I work that hard, I would probably come in a little closer to twelve tonight since I already somehow have an idea of what I am going to do. Anyway, that’s not important, I’m just blabbing.

So, it’s the 5^th of September, almost exactly 23 years since I was born, what have I done with my life?

See? I told you brooding and angst is called for, not to mention an entire day of sleeping, or mind numbing TV, or a movie marathon of classic proportions, or sleep, yeah, sleep… and cake! Who could forget cake?

rook, castle... whatever...

2008-08-20T03:23:00.000-07:00

Your result for The Chess Mess Test ...

The Queen's Rook

Congrats! Only 5-6% of the population score this!

The Queen’s Rook is a pensive, analytical individual. They don’t mind spending long periods of time on their own to work through problems. They may venture so far into thought they appear vacant or detached; often they really are oblivious of the world at that moment. These wayward princes are precise about descriptions and by habit correct others (or feel sorely tempted) if the shade of meaning is slightly off. This is annoying to the less concise, but this is what gives the Queen’s Rook a gift for gab, especially in writing.

This Rook is relatively easy going until their principles of truth, knowledge and justice are violated. Because of this they hate the formalities of bureaucracy, politics, and authority – which tend to mask the truth of operations. They will respond with a flip of the switch and become outspoken and inflexible. They will eventually drop the issue, because they do prefer a reserved and benign ambiance. The problem with the Queen’s Rook is when they are debating a point; they may be convincing themselves as much as their opponent. They spend a considerable amount of time second-guessing their abilities and may come to multiple conclusions that offer plausible solutions.

An indicator that a friend may be a Queen’s Rook is an obsession with logic. If a mistake is made, it is because there wasn’t enough data or it was placed out of context. Another indicator you’re friend is a Rook, throw a strategy game at them. They enjoy Risk, Bridge, Chess, and word games. Never rush the Rook. They don’t draw conclusions very quickly. If one were to gather a bunch of Rooks together to form a group they may debate:

1.) Whether or not there should be a group.

2.) Exactly what name should the proposed group choose?

3.) Which of the persons in the group should take responsibility or should they rotate?

i love the Alice in Wonderland/Sir Tenniel images. though, i don't really play chess... i could live with being a rook.

check it out here... http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-chess-mess-test

wish a wish to wish wishes

2008-06-10T06:05:00.000-07:00

Starlight, star bright

First star I see tonight

I wish I may

I wish I might

Have the wish I wish tonight

Make a wish.

…

Then send this to 7,107 people in the 7,107 islands of the Philippines in ten seconds.

It’s weird how naïve people can be sometimes about wishes. I never really got it though. We get so many chances to wish according to the world: on the first star you see at dusk, when you see a shooting star or just pick any of the countless stars and wish upon one. We wish before blowing birthday candles, on wishing feathers, wishing wells, wishing fountains, wish bones… You can make a wish when a digital clock displays the same digits or when the digits displayed corresponds to your birthday and when you enter a catholic church for the first time. There are harder instances too: completing and attending all 9 days/nights of misa de gallo, going to 7 different churches on holy week, when you pray ten Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s and pray the rosary, when you send a irritating and pointless email to 10, 11, 12,13 people in 5 minutes who probably already received the same email you’d be sending them…

Aren’t wishes supposed to be as free as dreams? It’s funny because we make up these stupid and rather pointless consequences of when we could wish or not or when it would be granted or not. You can wish on a fallen eyelash that a friend picks up from you but it would only come true if you can guess which way it’s going: up or down. Same with the wishing feather, make sure you do not weigh it with a wish so big that it can’t carry it to the sky. You can wish on your birthday candles but it would only come true when you blow every single one out in one breath. Can anyone really come up with a study of which of these are effective and which are not?

Same thing with luck. I get at least one email or one text message every week about luck… send this to all of your friends to have good luck but if you don’t bad luck will follow you. If you break a mirror you would have seven years of bad luck aside from a mess to clean up. If you find a four leaf clover it would bring you luck but a five leafed one would be bad. If a black cat crosses your path, pick it up, it’s cute! … err, I mean, you would have bad luck on wherever your going. If you wear red on your birthday, you’d have good luck but it would be bad if you do on a funeral.

There’s so much more.

Obviously, I’m not a superstitious person but its amazing how much people rely and follow these unwritten and universally acknowledged “maybes”. It won’t hurt to believe, some people would tell me while throwing salt over their shoulder or trying to catch a rogue wishing feather. It’s not like you fully depend on your wish coming true or on your luck, you still try your best and work for what you have and pray for what you can achieve. And who am I to break their faith in the magical and colorful mysticism of world just because of cold, hard facts and boring logic. I guess it’s just the kid inside all of us struggling to break free. The kid that believed in Santa and flying reindeers and fairies (clap your hands if you believe in fairies!) that trusted the world completely. Maybe we all need to have that kid come out every once in a while to just smile and believe in the world, to believe for us that anything is possible and dreams can be reached and that good triumphs always over evil and that love conquers all. Maybe we need to break our systematic trance in a work day to stretch our arms out and try to catch that elusive wishing feather or pause in our hurried 15-minute lunch break meals to ask a friend to grab the other end of your chicken wishbone to see which of you can get a wish free. Or at the end of the day, weary and tired, we could try to seek out the first star we see and wish for anything, even the impossible. Who knows, it might happen…

Maybe we all need to let that child inside us to come out each time we feel weary or depressed or jaded and hopeless and just let that child we once were to keep believing for our adult selves. Who knows, the world may end up being a little less bleak and a lot more beautiful.

But I’m still not sending those emails.

Define You

2008-05-27T06:38:00.000-07:00

I am me. I surpass definition. I seek it then evade it, always moving ever changing. I am me. That means I am more than my name or position, more than a statistic, more than the result of any IQ or personality tests that come so free yet incomplete over the internet. But you can get the complete and more in depth view of who you are for the price of … we just need your credit card number.

I am me, I don’t know how else to put it. If I could be any other person except myself I would seek me out to get to know me better. But if I was in a different person’s body, who would be in mine? I sometimes day dream about the future me going back to this moment right now not to change my life or save the world or anything cheesy like that, I just would invite myself for coffee to get to know me. I imagine sometimes of going back to the past to talk to who I was around 5 years ago just to get to know who I was then and try to compare it to who I am now. Have I changed much? But then if a random stranger, no matter how she looks like me, corners me in a coffee shop, I don’t think I’d be forthcoming enough to get to know.

I can ask others. I do ask others. ‘Tell me who your friends are’ said the wise man, ‘And I’ll tell you who you are’. But it isn’t any easier. My friends are themselves. They’re human with their own characters and personalities and quirks. They are like me in a way but also distinctly different. We share and agree on a lot of stuff just as much as we are opposed entirely on some. We drink coffee or tea in coffee shops, heads in clouds of first or second hand smoke or in fogs of air conditioning while talking about life and the world and life. We like life, we have it in common.

Well, one of them asked me (randomly, might I add) to define myself. I have been asking myself this since I can remember. A teacher and friend of mine once asked me that too. She said that there are three essential questions we need to ask ourselves in life: who are you, why are you here, and … I forgot the third.

Your turn. Define you.

food attitude

2008-05-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

The Eating Test (galing kay karen... na sana pala kinopya ko na lang post nya...)

Here is the analysis:

You are generally a calm person. You get excited when your favorite band is in town, when you are going on a date with your partner or when you and your friends are dancing. Your friends mean everything to you. You hate it when the summer is over.
You like art, and some poetry. You can throw a party, or help a friend put one together. You usually have no trouble finding dates, but you occasionally hit a dry spell. You like the outdoors, usually, and rainy weather doesn't bother you. You sometimes get jealous of people who are smarter or better looking than you, but you wouldn't hold it against them if you got to know them. You are on good terms with your parents, even though they annoy you once in a while. People tend to think you are reliable and trustworthy. You like animals.

http://www.quizbox.com/personality/test43.aspx

wake up calls

2008-05-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

What do I be in two years? Sheesh, I can’t even figure out for sure where I want to be in two days. Simply, I don’t know what I want. I don’t want. I float along life. Yes, I know it is irresponsible and horrible. Still two years is still a long way away. Too much time… enough to either ruin your life or make something out of it… or waste it all away in a half conscious state of following the motions. In some ways I feel as if I have been living this semi-zombie state except for a few moments of life that buzzes in and out as predictably as the weather.

I need to grow up more.

Have I ever really grown up though?

And isn’t it about time too? No matter how laid back I want to live my life, I can’t always pull off excuses. I’m not so young anymore to not know any better. With age comes wisdom they say and I need to wise up. I need to grow up. If only it’s as easy as taking a long, deep breath and imagining myself to suddenly fill up like a baloon being slowly inflated. Somehow the transformation of Dr. Robert Banner to Incredible Hulk (and, yes, I needed to look that one up. Comics are not the realm of my geekdom), I’d gladly choose the physical pain of growth rather than this need to grow/mature in character and … I actually have no idea.

I need a goal in life. Aside from the usual read a lot and sleep a lot more and watch a couple of movies every week. I feel so stupid for needing to think about it. I remember Sir Terado before from COCC training, ‘I’m giving you 5 counts to think about it. 5. 4. 3. 2… 1.’

the love affair

2008-04-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

I started reading when I was in fifth grade.

Of course I learned how to read earlier on. I used to go through my (as well as my siblings’) textbooks as a kid even before school starts just to read all the stories there, no matter how corny or boring or deep and confusing (like why do they call it short story if it’s almost ten pages long!?!). In my old school, we had three English subjects: Reading, Phonics and Language. I loved Reading even though we had to answer these stupid questions afterwards. To me the point was not to know if you got the details of the story correctly (Who is the main character? Who is the antagonist? What is the moral of the story?) But that you experienced the story. Kind of like an out of body experience where you see through the lives and thoughts of others and live through it, change and grow with those characters in that fleeting moment caught on page.

Anyway, I transferred schools in fifth grade. I was really terribly shy as a kid. The fact that I was usually younger by a year or two than my classmates was probably the reason. Thrown suddenly in an unfamilliar environment with new people, I was scared. I sought solace in the library even during that first day. I think it was the first time ever in my life I went in one, not because I don’t know about libraries or I don’t like it but because I never really had the courage to go alone on my old school and my friends then weren’t really the type to stay still and quiet in a place brimming with books and the occasional promise-this-is-true ghost story.

Well, nothing was stopping me that day. And the library was close to my classroom. I remember I started reading illustrated versions of fairytales always being curious about it after seeing countless English movies with parents reading kids fairy tales before sending them off to sleep. I finished a few childrens book and was almost late to my first class. Then I got hooked.

I remember the time my classes were usually only until noon except for a couple of days for non academics that lasted ‘til around three. I was on school service that comes at noon, 3pm and 5pm. I was usually in the library after classes thinking to myself I’d join the 3pm schedule but would miss that as well. I was irritated that the library closes at 4:30 and the bus won’t come til 5. That’s thirty more minutes I could lounge in the libe!

Well of course I graduated from children’s books. For awhile, I was hooked on Hardy Boys and Sweet Valley short novels but when I was through with all our library had, I resorted to short stories. I had a friend during sixth grade who told me stories she has read and it lead me to sci fi. When I exhausted all short stories resources I’m allowed access to, I started with abridged versions of novels until I was reading the real thing. I remember being able to read Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn first before seeing a cartoon version while wishing there is one for A Connecticut Yankee or that it was made as well as the novel was written. I liked Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and wished to be as witty or intelligent as Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or as capricious and endearing as Emma. I mind was blown with Lewis Carrol’s Alice adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Blah blah blah blah blah… (You do realize, it’s take forever if I try to recount all my best moments reading here, don’t you?)

The habit never really left me. Probably most of my time at home is torn between reading and sleeping. Looking around my room, I feel exasperated by how much I still haven’t read after stupid binges on book sales but once I open one, you won’t really be able to speak to me until I’m done with that story.

I have no idea why I’m writing this. Oh well…

the net knows who i am

2008-04-21T14:33:00.000-07:00

from here... http://www.quizbox.com/personality/test82.aspx

Your view on yourself:

Other people find you very interesting, but you are really hiding your true self. Your friends love you because you are a good listener. They'll probably still love you if you learn to be yourself with them.

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:

You like serious, smart and determined people. You don't judge a book by its cover, so good-looking people aren't necessarily your style. This makes you an attractive person in many people's eyes.

Your readiness to commit to a relationship:

You prefer to get to know a person very well before deciding whether you will commit to the relationship.

The seriousness of your love:

You are very serious about relationships and aren't interested in wasting time with people you don't really like. If you meet the right person, you will fall deeply and beautifully in love.

Your views on education

Education is very important in life. You want to study hard and learn as much as you can.

The right job for you:

You're a practical person and will choose a secure job with a steady income. Knowing what you like to do is important. Find a regular job doing just that and you'll be set for life.

How do you view success:

You are afraid of failure and scared to have a go at the career you would like to have in case you don't succeed. Don't give up when you haven't yet even started! Be courageous.

What are you most afraid of:

You are afraid of having no one to rely on in times of trouble. You don't ever want to be unable to take care of yourself. Independence is important to you.

Who is your true self:

You are mature, reasonable, honest and give good advice. People ask for your comments on all sorts of different issues. Sometimes you might find yourself in a dilemma when trapped with a problem, which your heart rather than your head needs to solve

Batangas

2008-03-24T13:35:00.000-07:00

How do I explain my vacation…? I don’t really know if words could carry the same sort of peace and awe and wonder for the three days and three nights we’ve spent in a beach in Batangas. I could go over the enire trip recounting all we did from start to finish and you won’t get it. This is one of those frustrating times when I feel like I fail the world by not knowing how to express how beautiful it is.

Anyway, mornings in the beach are peaceful. You wake up to see the full moon still clearly visible in the great blue sky stretched out with the even bluer sea. The sun comes out from the mountain behind our tents reflected in the shimmering sea and lighting the world as the moon slowly fades. You see the fog lift up from neighboring islands if you’re awake early enough, like clouds kissing the mountain tops. Everything is peaceful and there, that peace is normal even as you watch the ‘bankero’s go about their morning routine. Nothing can break that peace.

After the flurry of coffee and breakfast, there really is nothing much to do but enjoy that calm. Most of what we did was snorkeling. It is amazing what you see underwater, it never gets tiring… there were different types of fishes of different types of colors (which of course I can’t name), a lot of sea urchins, blue starfishes, other spiky things of the sea urchin family (accdg to someone)… I wish I could swim. And dive. And not drown?

For variance, we dabbled in learning to boat. I won’t say it was a complete disaster but I guess bringing a can to scoop water out of the boat speaks of how good we were at it. They make it look so easy… do you know how frustrating it is to try and turn a boat for a beginner? For goodness sake, the first time they tried it, the boat capsized as the wannabe boatmen was getting on (I hope there was a picture). I always wore a life vest; it’s fun to snorkel in deeper waters.

Late afternoons are too hot to swim, none of us wanting to get burned. The sea is too bright to even look at from a distance. We eat lunch the lounge around for the rest of the afternoon until the heat can be tolerated. Afternoons at the beach IS the vacation. Mostly we sleep, or they play cards, or I read or stare at the horizon, or drink or … whatever do else to pass the time. I’m thinking about it as I’m writing this and the soundtrack of our afternoons is The APO Hiking Society… talk about old school.

Then we go back to the beach… another round of snorkeling or boating or horsing aorund. Friday we went to Dive and Trek (http://www.diveandtrek.com) that was just a few minutes boatride away (just around the seacoast…) I don’t think I could describe how beautiful it is and how amazing it is to be surrounded by so much beauty. Pictures aren’t even enough. One thing to note though, they had this dog, a golden retriever named Bogart whose version of fetch involves jumping to the sea and swimming. I want to take that dog home.

Aside from waddling in the water, snorkeling or our futile attempts at boating, we went trekking. We went partly up the mountainous terrain behind camp. I don’t remember when was the last time I trekked (if I ever did) but it was cool. The sound on the tree-filled wilderness is way differrent from the beach. Everything seems to be alive and teeming with life.

Evenings are something different. The sky is clear, the stars bright. The moon was full for the entire time we’re there (until now I think). After dinner, we hang out before turning in. We had a bonfire Friday night with the boys (where I got plastered and hung over the next morning, I blame it all on Bones). We had set up tents to sleep in. As great as it seems to sleep on the beach, it takes getting used to sleeping on tents.

We ended up staying for three days and three nights leaving early morning of Sunday. Taking vacations are exhausting - I slept most of the day. I wanna do it again!

I’d have let the pictures do the talking but I don’t have it yet…

vertigo

2008-03-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

I feel out of sorts for some reason. The anticipation of a long weekend and the frustration of one more day at work? I’m not really sure but I can’t wait for the day to end and just get the entire week over with… well not really. In some way, I’m excited with the upcoming break from routine as well as apprehensive with the endless possibilities it could bring. But that’s not the deal right now… or is it? Am I overthinking things again?

Annual medical check up earlier, I’m still a healthy 22 year old according to the physician. I have a small hole in a vein on my arm from where they took blood. I am still afraid of a hypodermic needle and can’t help flinching or paling at the thought… so much for fearing nothing. Life is as is, and endless wait for the next big thing, the next event in the calendar as I sail pass the days in between. I usually like routine, it gives assurance and guidance when you feel lost… I feel choked now.

I have no point, I’m just mouthing off.

Anyway, sometimes I want to put a stop to everything in life until I get myself sorted out. It’s like I don’t know where everything is anymore. I have changed so much, if not in character then in habits and in demeanor. I can’t help feeling I liked myself better before because I can barely figure out what I’m doing anymore or where I am. For such a supposedly ‘laid-back’ person I can’t help feeling anxious not knowing where I’m going, where I want to go or even where I am. I’m afraid I don’t know who I am anymore. And I don’t mean that in the emo angsty manner as of before. People change and I realize that and it knocks me off that I don’t know myself as much as I did. I don’t even write as often as I had which I usually did to clear my thoughts. Now I feel like I’m all muddled. I probably need that vacation. I need to put me in perspective.

As I said, don’t mind me.

before i jump out the window...

2008-03-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

ten things i need to do bago ako mamatay.. topic sa isang forum board (www.bobongbooks.com) na sineryoso kong sagutan. weird probably na wala jan ung usual stuff like travel or see the world or have a family... if i could die at any moment i don't really think i'd regret not travelling or not having a family of my own blahblah... pero mga 'to i would regret a bit...

as in pag literal na mamatay na ko any day from now...

1. magsset up ng insurance plan para may pang gastos sa cremation ko at may pang college at start up ang mga maiiwang tao

2. kakain ng pasta... ang craving ko ngayon pesto, bukas baka iba nang uri ng pasta

3. makikipag away (pisikal) o kaya seryosong sparring... how much can you know about yourself if you've never been to a fight? (fight club) gusto ko makita kung paano ako magrereact sa pressure ng impending bodily harm, would i immediately lash back or do i dodge? how would i contain the situation once i'm there?

4. susubok ng drugs... stupid pakinggan, oo, pero i want to gauge how i'd be high. kung pwede video taped na ako lang ang makakakita para ma analyze ko sarili kong behavior

5. skydive/base jump/bunjee jump... sa totoo lang, hindi ako takot sa heights pero takot ako sa mga bagay na hindi ko kayang kontrolin ang sarili ko. gravity is something i wouldn't be able to control... how would i freak out?

6. tatapusin ung team manager's training modules at lahat ng iba pang pending kong paperwork... i hate foisting my responsibility on other people and leaving things unfinished.

7. ipamana ang mga gamit at kwarto sa mga kapatid, mga damit sa charity, mga libro sa sinong may gusto. spend all i have after taking care of any debts and leaving enough for cremation at least.

8. manlibre ng isang malaking handaan para sa mga kapatid, barkada nung hayskul at kolehiyo, BB friends at office barkada. kung kaya, hindi sabay-sabay sa bawat grupo para may quality time sa lahat

9. spend an entire day with all of SIYAM

10. ituring na normal na araw lang ang huling araw ko sa mundo

detachment

2008-02-29T13:47:00.000-08:00

I hate the last pages of books. You spend a month or more poring through lives not your own, knowing people you do not see, hearing their thoughts, feeling their pain or happiness or confusion… and then all of a sudden, the connection ends. You wind up lost in your own world again, the people you met, you knew, you lived and breathed with through the confines of the printed page are forever out of your grasp. Somehow, I feel like I was cheated out of a friendship. I am always left hanging, no matter how skillfully the author has ended the story. You get friends for awhile, you grow with them and then suddenly you’re alone in your room again staring at blank walls while their lives are all cleanly summarized into a happily ever after or otherwise. It’s an unexplicable sense of melancholy and happiness to notice the unread pages of a book thin out until all your holding is the cardboard end cover… happy that the story finally comes to fruition and sad that it ends.

Still, no matter how strongly I feel about this, I hate unfinished book series. It just drags on and on…

What am I saying…!?!

I guess it gets tiring after awhile. One can read just as so much books. I remember my folly from before wishing to read every book and story ever written (I don’t even have enough time to read much these days…). I’m addicted to stories except my own. I wish life would just be as easy as stories: everything laid out for a central plot, each character given specific meaning; growth measured and reflected upon, meaning found in almost everything, changes as natural as seasons. But then again, isn’t life the grandest of all stories and all adventures? I wish sometimes that I could just take a spectator’s view of all this though; life always seems to be easier from a distance.

Anyway, lately ‘life’, with all the drama, romance, magic and whatnot everyone puts on this short word, seems to be at a distance to me. I jokingly say ‘I have no life’ and its becoming apparent that mere existence is all I focus on: mechanical nights and days, routinary habits and catatonic dreamlessness. There’s always something more urgent to focus on and the rest of the day is spent just running away from more. I hope I am not forgetting myself nor am I disregarding what is important… I just seem to not have the energy or the temperament to deal with a lot.

I feel the walls closing in again; the instinct to pull back and isolate myself is very tempting. Classic loner syndrome, I feel like I’m around too much people a lot that I just want to be alone when I could. Am I wearing myself thin? Is it healthier to fall back to old habits?

ox

2008-02-08T12:39:00.000-08:00

following Pmay's footsteps in consideration of the Chinese New Year (dear officemate, thanks for the tikoy) i'm posting my own. thanks to wikipedia too...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ox_%28zodiac%29

The Ox is the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work. This powerful sign is a born leader, being quite dependable and possessing an innate ability to achieve great things. As one might guess, such people are dependable, calm, and modest. Like their animal namesake, the Ox is unswervingly patient, tireless in their work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint.

Ox people need peace and quiet to work through their ideas, and when they have set their mind on something it is hard for them to be convinced otherwise. An Ox person has a very logical mind and is extremely systematic in whatever they do, even without imagination. These people speak little but are extremely intelligent. When necessary, they are articulate and eloquent.

People born under the influence of the Ox are kind, caring souls, logical, positive, filled with common sense and with their feet firmly planted on the ground. Security is their main preoccupation in life, and they are prepared to toil long and hard in order to provide a warm, comfortable and stable nest for themselves and their families. Strong-minded, stubborn, individualistic, the majority are highly intelligent individuals who don't take kindly to being told what to do.

The Ox works hard, patiently, and methodically, with original intelligence and reflective thought. These people enjoy helping others. Behind this tenacious, laboring, and self-sacrificing exterior lies an active mind.

The Ox is not extravagant, and the thought of living off credit cards or being in debt makes them nervous. The possibility of taking a serious risk could cause the Ox sleepless nights.

Ox people are truthful and sincere, and the idea of wheeling and dealing in a competitive world is distasteful to them. They are rarely driven by the prospect of financial gain. These people are always welcome because of their honesty and patience. They have many friends, who appreciate the fact that the Ox people are wary of new trends, although every now and then they can be encouraged to try something new.

It is important to remember that the Ox people are sociable and relaxed when they feel secure, but occasionally a dark cloud looms over such people and they engage all the trials of the whole world and seek solutions for them. GOOD JOBS FOR THE OX ARE COMPUTER SCIENCE AND NETWORK ADMINISTRATING.

(capslock not mine, promise...)

sailboats

2008-02-04T02:31:00.000-08:00

I was with my college friends this Sunday. We met up to attend the Christening of one of our friend’s baby (shout out to Vaughn Aleczander, as if it could get to you). It has been more than a couple of years since I last saw any of them. It was nostalgic to hang out with everyone again and just spend an entire day not locked up in my room or my own little world.

Have you ever felt that the world has moved on and swept past without you? It felt like that for a bit with them. It’s like they’ve all grown up and became adults with talk of marriage and family and children and life … while I’ve been so caught up in my own little world and cocoon of existence unable and unwilling to grow up and get past adolescence. I guess that happens. I still feel like a bumbling idiot most of the time unsure and awkward with myself and stumbling to get through everyday in my so-called life. They live in the everyday world I’ve shielded myself from with unusual hours and juvenile mentality. I’m proud of my friends for what they’ve become: their own person. I can’t help thinking, when will I rise up to do the same?

I guess the problem is I’m too immersed in the familiar and the common, I bask in it afraid of what else there is. Standard slacker: I prevaricate around life and just deal with what is comfortable and easy. I push through when needed then merrily go with the flow for most part. I can’t really say what’s terribly wrong with it but I’m not going anywhere. Same old rebuttal, where do I want to go? Where do I want to end up? Still unable to answer, I sail languidly through existence none the wiser.

I’d like to argue “but I’m a dreamer…” like some idiot that spends an entire day sleeping or like the Peter Pan archetype in fiction, unwilling to grow up. There’s always this kid in me innocently curious about the world yet scared and tentative. In a sense, there’s really nothing wrong in that (clap your ands if you believe in fairies) especially if you aren’t really stepping on anyone’s toes to do so. Blame it on laissez-faire values.

‘One life, one chance in happiness’ as someone I forgot said. I see a bit of my friends’ lives and wonder with a bit of agitation if and when would I even get there. I can’t even imagine it and I don’t know if I should be relieved or comforted or frustrated brushing it all off with a nervous laugh. A small voice in me can’t help thinking it would have been a better use of my time if I slept the afternoon off rather than worry endlessly about this. And so I sail along life again wherever it may take me … merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream, eh?

fast breaks

2008-01-15T05:30:00.000-08:00

What are your goals? asked our trainer sometime before the year began. I just fumbled through to scrounge up a decent answer.

Honestly, I don’t have goals. I wouldn’t even sweat it if not for the fact that it is seemingly important to have some, to have any at all. I guess its importance never really struck me. I’m content with living a day at a time, content even with the idea that tomorrow might or might not come. I drift along calmly allowing life to lead me where it may.

But what do I want in life? I have no idea. What am I supposed to want? What am I even supposed to expect? What am I supposed to reach for and strive at? Isn’t the though of just enjoying life because I am alive enough?

At these moments I can’t help but feel insecure of the people who know exactly what they want in life even if there seems to be absolutely no chance of them ever getting it. I have weaned myself off wishful thinking early on. Venturing out to try dreaming of grand ideas of what I want to be or where I want to go is immediately smacked down by logic, common sense and darkly humorous disdain for the absurd. A friend told me once to think up of what I really wanted to be before I realized it’s impossible and aim for that. But then no matter how much I would be willing to stretch my belief, there is no way I could be a space explorer sent to investigate the otherside of blackholes… not unless I get sucked into a world where sci fi is real. Anyway…

Am I being to negative?

The thing is I don’t expect anything from life. I don’t even want to expect anything from anything. I can already hear echoes in my head of random people telling me to trust in life more and not to doubt too much. But then it has nothing to do with doubt bor with (deeply ingrained) cynicism, it’s just survival instinct.

A week of one meal days just finished. Fasting at the start the year aims to focus ourselves on God and believing for the breakthroughs He would bring for the year ahead. What am I expecting? What do I believe for? I find myself locked in this mentality of self reliance and isolation. Maybe that would be what I need to be freed from. More than praying for blessings in finances or career or relationships or success, that is too easy. Rather, I pray to be freed from this defeatist outlook which I can never overcome left on my own. I pray for myself.

toothaches and falling stars

2007-12-14T11:48:00.000-08:00

I’ve never really believed how much trouble one toothache could cause a person, now I’m beginning to believe it would be enough to end the world. Darned growing molars, can’t they just pop up without causing agony and suffering?

…

It’s Christmas in just, uhm, ten days time. I don’t really feel Christmas-y… well, I never really do. It doesn’t really help that the last few hours/minutes of precious sleep you can have before work is savagely disturbed by kids banging around metal cans or strung up and flattened bottle caps wailing wrongly-worded Christmas songs to the top of their off-tune voices. I’m not a Scrooge just normal I guess. Christmas to me has become more like a children’s holiday. Yeah, I know about the real reason for all the celebration, I just think that it is something solemn and personal that does not really rely on what date it already is on the calendar. I’m justifying myself.

I’m trying to look for something to really look forward to this season. I guess the couple of days off work would be enough. I can’t wait to go get gifts for people though, if only we could get the crowds off the malls and stuff. Plus, it would help a lot if I actually have an idea of what to give.

…

I guess it’s pretty sad when the most wonderful thing you look forward to on days off is the fact that you could sleep as much as you want. Contrary to popular belief, I do sleep. I love sleep. If I would be honest, I probably get more than enough sleep. Not too hard when enough sleep means 4 hours of restless catatonia. I just feel so lazy lately that the hassle of actually leaving bed to pursue a life seems so tiring and pointless. I mean, the afternoons are cool if not cold and raining and being at malls or in public is always crowded and frustrating. It’s just so sad, I know.

…

There was a short meteor shower tonight. I watched it with Xian after he treated me to a softdrink to join him while smoking. It was beautiful and amazing. I felt like a child seeing the world for the first time. Xian won’t stop singing ‘When you wish upon a star…’ It was nice. Just when you think everything in the world is bleak and expected it surprises you.

fields of gold

2007-12-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

Fields of Gold

Sung by Eva Cassidy

Lyrics by Sting

You'll remember me, when the west wind moves
Among the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in it's jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold

So she took her love for to gaze a while
Among the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
And you can tell the sun in it's jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold

I never made promises lightly
There've been some that I've broken
But I swear in the days still left
We will walk in fields of gold

We'll walk in fields of gold

Many years have past, since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
As you lie in fields of gold

You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Among the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in it's jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold

When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold

I woke up this evening to this song. It was beautiful. It’s rare for me to sleep deeply and waking up with this on the radio somehow lessened the regret of needing to open my eyes to face another long night. I can still feel the song echoing inside my mind like a heart wrenching last song syndrome. The ethereal voice calming and soothing. I need to get a copy of this.

for all

2007-12-05T12:08:00.000-08:00

May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
May the rain fall soft upon your fields
And until we'll meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

- Old Celtic Verse

career blues

2007-12-04T11:39:00.000-08:00

lately, under the sheer insecurity of not knowing what i'm supposed to be in my life, i opted to go check the internet to see what amazing insight it could give to my dillemma.

let's see how this works...

***Your Career Type: Investigative***

You are precise, scientific, and intellectual.
Your talents lie in understanding and solving math and science problems.

You would make an excellent:

Architect - Biologist - Chemist
Dentist - Electrical Technician - Mathematician
Medical Technician - Meteorologist - Pharmacist
Physician - Surveyor - Veterinarian

The worst career options for your are enterprising careers, like lawyer or real estate agent.

What's Your Ideal Career?
http://www.blogthings.com/idealcareerquiz/

i answered all questions as honestly as possible. i have had no desire, ever, in my life to be any of those stuff... oh well, i never expected it to be accurate.

dahil kay neil

2007-11-23T08:12:00.000-08:00

1. the person(s) who tagged you
neilencio

2. your relationship with him/her is ...
cartoon idol.. kinulayan lang nya buhok nya, orange talaga dapat yun at palagi talaga syang naka labcoat

3. your 4 impressions of him/her ...

1. hindi sya nakakatawa lang, seryoso syang tao, cover lang yung humor
2. nakakatakot super asarin, baka magalit
3. feeling ko tahimik lang syang magalit pero ayoko makita
4. mature for his height

4. the most memorable thing he/she had done for you.
yung pagbitbit daw ng pink na bear habang nagpipilit syang magmukhang macho

5. the most memorable words he/she had said to you...
kung bakit 'ella chen'

6. if he/she becomes your lover, you will...
laugh my head off

7. if he/she becomes your lover, things he/she has to improve on will be...
keeping me from laughing

8. if he/she becomes your enemy, you will...
disappear mysteriously with no clues pointing to him

9. if he/she becomes your enemy, the reason will be ...
going too far with banters... like to pluto

10. the thing you want to do for him/her now is ...
ito?

11. your overall impression of him/her is ...
more than he seems

12. how you think people around you feel about you ...
nawi-weirduhan

13. the character you love of yourself is ...
self-reliance

14. on the contrary, the characters you hate of yourself are ...
undecided

15. the most ideal person you want to be is ...
fictional

16. for people that care and like you, say something to them ...
thank you but are you sure you're not drugged?

17. pass this quiz to 11 persons that you wish to know how they feel about you
1. ella chen
2. pinay23
3. tres
4. kimpot
5. pmay
6. faust
7. madel
8. xtin
9. zynch
10. lenlen
11. ... (sino pa bang nasa multiply ko...)

From the list:
who is #6 having a relationship with?
the world of make believe

Is #9 a male or female?
hindi ko sure... hehehe

If #7 and #10 are together, will it be a good thing?
it would be weird... bading yung isa eh

How about #8 and #5?
hindi ata sila ganun ka magkakilala

What is #2 studying about?
life?

When did you last have a chat with #3?
i can't honestly remember

What kind of music band does #8 like?
uhm... di ko alam

Does #1 have any siblings?
meron daw

Will you woo #3?
hindi talo

How about #11?
yesh especially since there's no one there

Is #4 single?
as far as i know :D

What's the surname of #5?
reyes

What's the hobby of #4?
magturo ng english... hehehe

Talk something casually about #1
baho. hindi naliligo. saka bading!<--- (yan orihinal nyang sagot)

Have you tried developing feelings for #8?
uhm, duh no... higante palaging kasama nyan eh

Where does #9 stay at?
office at sa malayong kabundukan ng laguna

Are #5 and #11 best friends?
yes... 5 is bestfriends with nothingness

Is #6 the sexiest person in the world?
with enough money, he could buy my vote

iniquities

2007-11-22T11:11:00.000-08:00

Greed:	Low
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	Medium
Envy:	Very Low
Lust:	Very Low
Pride:	Very Low

http://www.4degreez.com/misc/seven_deadly_sins.html" target="_top">Discover Your Sins - Click Here

gusto kong mag-explain... tamad talaga ako by nature...although akala ko pride pinaka kasalanan ko.

salamat kay xtin sa idea

gray

2007-11-13T08:42:00.000-08:00

All people are gray matter. Shapeless, shifting, ever-changing blob of something they cannot define or begin to explain. Most people do not care at all nor do they realize what they are like. They’re too possessed by the world blinded by its dazzling lights and surround sound booming from their television sets or the quick scroll of text posing as comprehensible words and sentiments that actually mean nothing from a 2 inch screen oblivious to the pointlessness of it all. But then there are some who realize it and are afraid of this fact so try to fit themselves into shapes or imbue their lives with color, with vibrancy that quickly fades, some just to fit in, too not appear to be strange, to have their fake smiles and hollow laughs remain unquestioned. I’m probably one of those… no, that’s escaping again, I am one of those.

Ever heard the cliché on the bliss of ignorance? I used to scoff at that. Ignorance isn’t blissful or peaceful it’s just stupid (well, duh!) though I have found myself sometimes feeling strangely sad and envious of mentally incapable individuals (yeah, retards) that they don’t really need to wallow over the twisting philosophies of life. At times I feel like I’m too addicted to thinking that the reprieve of brain death is a very seductive state.

Anyway, I’m tired. Of trying to fit in or of faking amiability with the world when half the time all I want to do is poke fun on how stupid everything is. I’m staring at these snapshots on my corkboard of me and my office friends (yeah, I feel the need to categorize friends), those pictures with a centimeter of white space caging in our stupidly grinning faces. It’s a lot like life. We put ourselves inside well defined borders and patterns, one lined strain of thinking diverging only somewhat slightly from time to time but keeping within the road lines, toeing the line but mostly staying inside our self assumed and self imposed labels and definitions when all of these are just blank white spaces where the color could still seep through. We force ourselves to become ‘this’ or ‘that’ or ‘something’ or ‘anything’ when we could just ‘be’. We could end our sentences with prepositions and leave verbs without an object. We could seep through our imaginary cages and just blur the lines. I feel the need to rebel against something, against order, against well-formed observation, against conservative opinions, against racist or narrow minded judgment and it frustrates me to no end that no one really cares about this stuff… or they do and tag themselves as something again: left, right, radical, conservative, apathetic, enraged, annoyed, uncaring.

And I have absolutely no idea of what I’m saying.

sleeping all day is healthy!

2007-10-12T05:39:00.000-07:00

I haven’t really been one to seriously put that much importance on sleep in my two decades or so of living.

I hated being asked to sleep in the afternoons as a kid. Older, I always had this mentality that I would be nuts to want to sleep any earlier than midnight if I’m not really required to get up at 4am the following day. I always prioritized finishing a book or at least a chapter (or two) of the book I’m reading before sleeping or even staying up the entire night to reread the latest Harry Potter book I just borrowed from someone else. It always took me lifetimes before I fall into blessed catatonia after going to bed in my warped form of insomnia and I always grumblingly wake up to the smallest noises like someone trying to turn my locked doorknob.

Now though, it seems like nothing else is as important as getting the shut eye for as long as I possibly could. Blame it on the reversed routine and vampiric lifestyle (minus the sucking of blood and all) but I’d really rather sleep these days than do anything else. As if nothing else could add to my life and make it better than just 30 minutes more of sleep time. Well, yeah, I occasionally get headaches from sleeping too much that could only be assuaged by sleeping a bit more until it passes, but those are rare and far in-between.

I just realized though that I have severely taken for granted the wonder that sleeping is. I feel like for the past few days, I have been trying to catch up to years and years of undersleeping (?) and waking up with just enough time to make it to the office with one more minute before work starts. I’d usually try to sleep as soon as I’m home, wake up in the afternoon for who knows what reason just to check the time and force myself to sleep again. I love sleep.

Something bugs me though. I can’t really remember dreaming for awhile now. Either my subconscious has nothing to say to me via REM or it’s blatantly ignoring me for not really sleeping as much as I need to. Oh well, it’d come back. I kinda miss waking up puzzled after another insanely weird dream I can barely remember a split second after waking up.

Oh well… a life well lived do consist of a lot more sleep than I would’ve thought.

name calling

2007-10-03T13:44:00.000-07:00

sheena

God`s gift "Hebrew"

Life is never dull with your adventurous and restless spirit. You are always on the move and seeking a new challenge to pit your wits against. Being in touch with nature you love the outdoors. You have keen intuition and a desire for knowledge and you can be something of a crusader. When you apply discipline and tenacity to your energetic mind then leadership positions are easily available to you.

mercy

You are both a visionary and a realist able to bring your dreams into a tangible form. Pioneering and ambitious you accept new challenges and the responsibilities which go with them willingly. Your sound judgment, resourcefulness and positive nature means that your progress in life is assured. Certainly your kindness and generosity to others and your inspirational manner attract success as well as many admirers.

sheena mercy

Loving to take the initiative you are a person who gets things done and you accept the responsibility of leadership roles willingly no matter what the challenge. You base your decisions on intellect rather than emotion but always act with pure motives. Your strength of will and communication skills are such that you are an influential figure and likely to succeed in anything which you turn your attention to.

I’m not going to guarantee this is true. It would be nice to think so but then way too hard to live up to as my inner sloth takes up. If you call me on it, I might get guilty at not living up to my name (which I’m not really insanely proud off nor so I renounce) but mostly I would just shrug you off.

Thanks to pims for the link and the idea.

Coffee and Bibingka Night

2007-09-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

I sometimes hate that a person could only live just one life. I look around me sometimes and see lives I want to live and be able to try even for just a day. We were at this coffee house last night near Pmay’s house (wonderful coffee shop by the way… I mean, wow!) that feels so much like a hub for artists and the likes. There was this celebration when we came in and I have never seen so much talented people in the same room in my life. I can’t help thinking how great it probably is to have lived and grown up with these people all your life as I see a kid definitely younger than me play Metallica’s nothing Else Matters on an acoustic guitar. I can’t help wonder how I would have turned out playing out that life. To have art and the passion for it, to be amongst talented individuals feeding off inspiration to one another…

Anyway, after a few hours when the soft music ended, we trekked another coffee shop to pass time. It suddenly dawned on me how weird we are jumping from one coffee shop to the next. Anyway, on the way to Coffee Bean, we encountered a few groups of street kids, the kind that knocks on your windows trying to see you through the tinted glass to squeeze a bit of pity at you or sell you cheap garlands of Sampaguita. I thought how different this life is from what I was previously wondering about. How much more desperate it probably is. How it would be much more difficult to overcome and rise from. It is saddening to see how much of those kids are probably satisfied with so little not knowing how much more they could achieve or even dream of. The reality that most of them would probably grow up having lives no better than the ones they have at the moment: wandering rain-washed empty streets to coerce a bit of pity from strangers who mostly are too absorbed in their own lives to care. What would it be like to live their lives? Would I have been who I am now if I came from the same background? Would I be able to do better?

What really defines who we are or who we become? Is it something innate and genetic or is it something we acquire from the environment we are marinated in or our upbringing? Is hope, determination, imagination or even passion something we have since we’re born or is it something we grow up to and unconsciously learn?

Sometimes I try to imagine myself in lives enormously different from my own to try to work out how I would live it and manage it. I would always start to wonder if I would still be myself if I was in a different life. That’s one of the allure of literature for me, living someone else’s life in someone else’s head for a brief period to escape your own life which seems to pale in comparison and yet still be even more difficult to handle. But then, I am not really keen on losing who I am at the moment. It’s like something I have finally accepted and swallowed and forced to like that parting with it seems to put all that effort to waste.

Somehow, I like myself now. Admittedly, I still have a lot more to learn and much more growing up to do, I think I would be able to get it.

Doesn’t mean though that I don’t harbor unending frustrations… but I am also a master of procrastination which is funny because a lot of people who partially know me think I’m disciplined and all. At the beginning of this year I bought a guitar with my friend Xian after being inspired of an anime series and his own story of how he became so good at playing the thing. I told myself I’d teach myself to play and now, as the year closes, I probably know just three chords and just one song that I still can’t play well enough. I bought a sketch pad a few weeks back in an effort to learn to draw. It now contains a page of useless and undecipherable doodles that even my four year old nephew is capable of doing. I feel so pathetic at times it seems so darkly humorous.

Anyway, after all is said and done, people at the office loved the left over bibingka from Galleria Estrada which is the sole reason everything in my bag smells strangely sweet. I’m overdosing on caffeine as I let the time I could never bring back fly on.

living in reel life

2007-09-17T17:33:00.001-07:00

(Jeff) Anything is possible. It is night on planet earth and I'm alive. And someday I'll be dead. Someday I'll just be bones in a box, but right now, I'm not. And anything is possible … each moment can just be what it is. There's no failure, there's no mistake … I don't need money, man. I don't, I don't even need, I don't even need a future. I, I could knock out all of my teeth with a hammer. So what? You know, I could poke my eyes out. I'd still be alive, you know? At least I'd know that I was doing something real for two or three seconds, you know? It's all about fear and I'm not afraid anymore, man. Fuck it! Fuck fear!
- suburbia

Principal Holmstead: Growing up is a hard enough thing as it is.
Kelly: Is that what your box of tissues is for?
- The Battle of Shaker Heights

Lelaina Pierce: Hey Sammy, what's your goal?
Sammy: My goal is... I'd like a career or something.
- Reality Bites

God: Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?
- Evan Almighty

Pierre Dulaine: You can get what you want.
Rock: No, some people get what they want.
Pierre Dulaine: Those are the people who show up to get it.
- Take the Lead

so how was your weekend?

…

If a tree falls in the wilderness and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If you paint the picture o perfection and no one gets to see it, or do the best performance on stage without an audience, or write the best piece of literature without anyone getting to read it, would it be real? I used to think, up until a few days ago actually, that knowing in myself that I have reached that unattainable goal is all that matters. If I write the best book or act the best performance on stage, knowing in myself that I did it would be enough. But then would that be enough to make it real? Would it really matter if it is not? Why are people so intent on leaving their mark in the world like some cosmic vandalism everyone would acknowledge? What am I talking about?

Heck, my inner monologue now has a voice of someone else… like an inner monologue, right? The other half of my mind should know the answer. I feel like coffee (the real thing!) and bukclab-type conversations.

twang

2007-09-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

i just turned to a new age. a new year in my life has just begun. but i don't want to grow up yet...

well, not that anyone is forcing me. i'm just stressing about it, probably unnecessarily even.

it feels weird. i don't feel it yet, the shift that i program myself into. i am usually on leave each year on my birthday, this is probably the only time i spent it at the office in the presence of other people for as far back as i care to remember. i don't feel it's real unless i really sit down or sink myself into feeling it. a sort of 'congratulations/condolence, you're still alive' thing i do to myself while filling journal pages of random realizations of what i've become or what i need to be. i need to realign my perspectives. i need to wallow in the dark and depressing side of myself. i need to feel that hollow part of me that i've been covering up with whatever, sink into that part of myself i'd rather not remember and find the reason and motivation again to rise back up and continue living each day and being awed by each moment once again.

a friend told me i need to see or witness or be in the presence of something so wonderful i would be in awe. i need awe.

or i'm probably overthinking everything again. i do that a lot.
---
randomness...

OMG! (wow, i use that?) a real close friend, one of my bestfriends from highschool is pregnant. heidz, i still can't get over the fact that you're already married and now you're gonna be a mom!

hide and sink

2007-09-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

spell it out

2007-08-13T16:40:00.000-07:00

For those who know me, I have this stupid fondness of writing my whole name. I get the entire thing that I don’t really need to spell out even my middle name and that it I really do not wan to be referred to with my second name I should probably just leave it out completely. I don’t even particularly like my name (someone commented it’s too girl-y as opposed to my entire character). I didn’t even use it here and I don’t think I have even mentioned it either (I have forgotten if I had). But I like writing out my whole name. I like the feel of my pen moving along its well known arcs and dips, the evenness and weight of it. I feel as though even if I have no idea of who I am, that jumble of words not of my choosing somehow defines me. As if it could fill that empty gap of my existence with its illusory meaning and presence.

I like definitions. I crave meanings. I’m uncomfortable with vagueness, with things not making sense. I like understanding things, making rational and logical conclusions to be able to fully grasp a concept. I know most people hate labels and stereotypes but I find myself seeking them out. Label me. Tell me who you think I am so I could know what you think me to be and surpass your expectations. Label me so I would know what label to rebel against, so I would know what boundaries I could struggle against. I crave stereotypes to have something define me while I fruitlessly struggle to find my own meaning, my own definition.

The thing is, no matter how much I like definitions, it feels like I unconsciously shy away from it when it comes to saying defining who I am. Can you wrap up a person, a character, a personality, in a collection of thoughtfully stringed out words and sentences? Can you capture a moment and reproduce it in its purity with pages of script? Can you bottle up the magnificence of sunrise in a few intangible letters and recreate the blush of the sky kissed by the early light? I can’t and to be completely honest, want to be able to. To be able to do that is what I desire most. To capture the beauty of the universe and reflect it in words… but I can’t even start and do it for myself.

Forgive the ramble.

mouse tests

2007-08-08T15:16:00.000-07:00

oooh... blog.

i recently (just a few minutes ago...) took a drawing and handwriting test online. needless to say, my handwriting sucks and my drawing is something a kid could do much better at... oh well.

i'm taking the 'my-mouse-sucks' excuse for this. i'm not real sure how accurate this may be though...

here's the handwriting part. (http://handwriting.feedbucket.com/)

You plan ahead, and are interested in beauty, design, outward appearance, and symmetry.

You are a shy, idealistic person who does not find it easy to have relationships, especially intimate ones.

You are diplomatic, objective, and live in the present.

You are a talkative person, maybe even a busybody!

You enjoy life in your own way and do not depend on the opinions of others.

and the drawing thingy... (http://drawing.feedbucket.com/)

You tend to pursue many different activities simultaneously.

When misfortune does happen, it doesn't actually dishearten you all that much.

You have a peaceful mind, viewing the world with calm and serenity. To you, life is not about struggle and strife but about existence and co-existence.

You like following the rules and being objective. You are precise and meticulous, and like to evaluate decisions before making them.

You have a sunny, cheerful disposition.

oh well...

half-jacked

2007-08-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

It is probably wrong and dangerous to think that no one notices me. It’s this kind of obnoxious disregard to one’s surroundings that often brings about mistakes. I need solid excuses all the time, an escape hatch, a loophole. It’s funny how some think I’m pretty much a straightforward person. Do they not sense the defensiveness in each word? Don’t they see the paranoia behind it?

Apathy - A state of not caring; not wanting to know; complacency; indifference (Google)

I have always said I’m apathetic, indifferent. It’s funny when people contradict me. They wouldn’t really know right? I really am apathetic. I really don’t care I just make a pretense to. Though it could be argued that I’m just saying this, that I don’t really see how I am and that other people who see how I act or speak or whatever could be a better judge of my character. We could never judge ourselves objectively says someone. The thing is it could also be argued that they’re just saying that I really do care. I know I don’t because I don’t want to care. I don’t want to invest emotions on uncertain grounds. I don’t like being involved and dragged into being sympathetic to other people’s stories and heartaches because I also do not like having people probe into mine. I am apathetic. I don’t even try to care, I actually try to choke it down. I am disillusioned and self-indulgent and I probably hide it pretty well.

Don’t think ‘coz I understand, I care. Don’t think ‘coz we’re talking, we’re friends – 6 underground, Sneaker Pimps

Hah! I sound like a 10-year old whiny kid…

Pointless cloudiness of a sleep deprived mind

2007-07-13T19:43:00.000-07:00

The photocopier is in love with me or the world really has a sick sense of humor.

I noticed it yesterday morning while I was waking it from its slumber. Yesterday feels like a million lifetimes ago (was it really yesterday? how many hours have I been awake already?). I need to photocopy hand outs for my first day of training for a project I probably know more than I even stare at the back of my hand. The photocopier took its time warming up, languidly basking in my impatient stare. Then it finally begins! I walk back to my station at the middle of the room. Midway, I heard it beep for me missing me already. One of the papers I need to photocopy has been stuck on the tray. I patiently sort it out thinking nothing of it. I walk off and sit back down in front of my station to surf the wonderful world of web pages. A couple of minutes later, the photocopier beeped angrily again, jealous of the attention I lavish on my computer. Another piece of paper is stuck somewhere inside the darn thing. I sort if off again, mildly irritated, toner crawling deep under my fingernails. It hums back to life at my touch. I smile and leave to make coffee. On my way back, it beeps again. It is out of paper. Thus begun the treasure hunt of clean bond paper to feed the insatiable beast... The rest of the people around me were unaware of the battle. Aside from the HR employee staring at the machine bringing a small stack of paper wondering when I will be through so that he can photocopy his 2 valid IDs for the credit card application you could get at the guard’s desk in our reception area. I have no idea which moron or genius left those pamphlets there nor do I even know if and when they check up on it to check if some idiot has signed up and left the application with the guard. Not that I am one of those, I faxed mine in. anyway, when the small stack of paper was gone, he left. I patiently waited for him to return with a ream of paper to finally end the paper hunt. He never came back. I was alone with the photocopier beeping at me from time to time.

Long story short, I somehow survived after a few more errors and stuck pieces of paper. By the time I was done, I have seen to the very soul and skeleton of the machine. My fingers stank of powdered toner. But I was relatively unscathed.

This morning, after eating breakfast with a long lost ex-officemate and co training officer, I stretched and readied myself and the hand outs that I would need for tonight, the 2nd day of training. I approached my new found friend o foe, depending how you look at it. A minute after I began, the monster beeped. No more paper, again. I sighed and began the eternal quest for the person responsible for the paper stock. I found my old ally, the HR employee. He told me to go on the other floor and have someone get me some from the stock room. I trekked the stairs. I found the person he said for me to look for. She didn’t have a key. I trekked back to the HR guy; the key is with his ID. I flew back downstairs, to the well protected chamber of office supplies treasure. I got my box of paper. I wanted to clap in triumph but it was heavy. I rambled upstairs looking well dignified in my smart casual outfit and whiteboard marker messed hands cutting through a group of applicants better dressed and cleaner than I am while lugging my hard won box of paper. I load it in the machine. I walk off to enjoy our free internet access. The machine beeped. I try to ignore it and the blinking red eye it was flashing in its corner like a wounded animal. I succeed for about ten seconds. A paper was stuck in 4 places. I sighed and went on to unearth the buggers from different parts of the photocopier labyrinth stupidly scalding myself in those hot metal parts in an effort to finish this and win the battle against equipment ineptitude. Repeat about 4 times. I am not kidding. I try to go on with my life. The photocopier beeps again. I run my hands on its hard surface unyielding under my whiteboard marker and toner stained and scalded hand. Paper stuck on the paper tray. I open it and find no problem. It beeps again. I open it again and lo and behold, a paper floats out of position a bit crumpled. I sigh as it trembles back to life. Another minute later, same problem, same magic trick. Repeat about four times more. I stare at the clock. Its midnight in my Eastern time existence, high noon for all you with less vampiric lifestyle. I sigh dejectedly again. Morning shift people are wondering why I’m still there. I am wondering what I am still doing at the office 6 hours after my shift ended. A few more minutes later the photocopier beeps me away from suicidal contemplations like a cackle of laughter announcing it’s finally done playing with me. I search for my trusty stapler to finish the job. There’s no staple wire. I search the entire office scavenging for staple wire like a play station game where you search for bullets. The zombies of fatigue are catching up to me.

Well, I survived. I always preferred to go home a bit later than immediately after the shift, but this was ridiculous. The morning jam that usually greets me when I stepped out of the office has dwindled to a trickle of vehicles running nowhere near where I’m heading. The rain that threatened and began to fall during breakfast has long gone. The earth is dry and dusty once more longing for its coolness again. The wind is still there just a bit stronger than a breathed whisper. The sky is still overcast and grayish. I want to think it stopped the rain from falling until my tired bones an aching muscles has settled into my first true love, my soft bed taken for granted in the battles of my East Coast day, night for all you unfortunate individuals with a weird fascination with being asleep and awake at the wrong times of the 24 hour period. As I got down from the jeep, cats and dogs fell from the sky. So much for celestial or at least meteorological favor…

And as I lay my head down for the most needed sleep, my mind won’t shut up until I record this infamous day. Or at least that’s what I guess is the cause of this particular bout of insomnia. And I wish to the supremely egoistic (human) beings above like the clouds or even the person on the moon, may I not wake up to suffer another pointless battle or just even wake up at all…

Er, no, wait til I finish my training… or let me check my calendar for when I could be available for eternal slumber… in 3 months okay with you?

monkeywrench

2007-07-11T14:43:00.000-07:00

far be it from me to actually just post song lyrics, i just thought i would share the song i am recently addicted to.

Monkeywrench - Foo Fighters

What have we done with innocence
It disappeared with time, it never made much sense
Adolescent resident
Wasting another night on planning my revenge

One in ten, One in ten, One in ten

Don't want to be your monkey wrench
One more indecent accident
I'd rather leave than suffer this
I'll never be your monkey wrench

All this time to make amends
What do you do when all your enemies are friends
Now and then I'll try to bend
Under pressure wind up snapping in the end

One in ten, One in ten, One in ten

Don't want to be your monkey wrench
One more indecent accident
I'd rather leave than suffer this
I'll never be your monkey wrench

One last thing before I quit
I never wanted any more than I could fit
Into my head I still remember every single word
You said and all the shit that somehow came along with it
Still there's one thing that comforts me since I was
Always caged and now I'm free

Don't want to be your monkey wrench
One more indecent accident
I'd rather leave than suffer this
I'll never be your monkey wrench

Don't want to be your monkey wrench (fall in, fall out)
Don't want to be your monkey wrench (fall in, fall out)
Don't want to be your monkey wrench (fall in, fall out)
Don't want to be your monkey wrench

self fulfilling prophecies

2007-07-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

I am going nowhere. I say this not as an inevitable edict in my life but with all frustration I can muster… although, in other people’s eyes, that may not exactly be the case. And I bask in it, in their good favor. And I feel that as long as they still think that my life isn’t headed for the dumps yet, I’m still okay. The thing is, I know myself a bit better than the world probably does. And I am going nowhere.

I guess one of the main thing is I have no idea where to begin. I read something in a self help book our trainer required us to read (so conveniently photocopied and placed in my station a few months back) ‘it is not where you start that counts, but where you choose to finish’. So another problem came up, I don’t know where I want to end up as well.

Anyway… yeah, it’s another ‘I don’t know what to do with my life’ ramble. Do you? How do you get to know how you want to spend the rest of your life as? Is there like an eye-opening epiphany complete with a choir of angels singing at the back of your mind? Of course not, this is the real world, but then I can’t help hoping it is that easy.

I go through life just accepting what comes, which isn’t really all that bad. I enjoy what I have and where I am right now (I really do) but I can’t help feeling that somehow I should probably be more involved in the process rather than just going with the flow of things. I guess this indecision is not really from the indecision of what to become but from the want to be able to do everything! I believe in the idea that you can learn anything and if I can learn it, I can be good at it. If I can be good at something I just learned and don’t really have ‘that’ passion for, I could do anything. But I don’t know what I want to do. I have vague ideas of things I want to accomplish before I exit this grand existence but none too crushing if I don’t get to do it. I could cope whatever happens.

I feel like I am just making an excuse for myself.

mac arthur

2007-07-04T15:05:00.000-07:00

it's not that i want to turn this blog into a lit.org extension. but here's another one. and the title is just because i can't come up with a better one. i have just read bob ong's mac arthur so it kinda stuck. no, the poem has nothing to do with it.

the room is empty
dust has settled in surfaces
once polished by your touch
all is still
all is silent
suffocating

days has gone unnoticed
even time has stopped
cobwebs on the tall grandfather's face
since you've gone
everything is suspended
like a breath held

the wind whistles through your absence
like a painful cry of longing
a wail of sadness rattling your window
the only sound we have
in this interminable wait

but i know, one day
that door will open
light would filter in once more
outlining your shadow in the doorway
the music of your voice
would vibrate on these walls
like thunder promising rain
in this long drought

one day, life shall shine again
on these haunted spaces
one day, you shall return

interlude

2007-06-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

the sky is pearly gray
before rain falls.
thunder rumbles at a distance
growing closer and closer.
the wind blows through,
trees swaying in its wake
dancers in an ancient and forgotten ritual
a crack of lightning briefly lightens the world
as the sky opens to let its tears fall

i sit by my window to watch this magic
you are out there somewhere
is it raining where you are?
does the wind still whip your hair as before
do you still look upto the sky, open arms
to catch the falling raindrops
and let the coldness caress your skin?
do you still laugh at each boom of thunder
and crack of lightning, feeling its power,
allowing yourself the same reckless abandon?

rain falls on the rooftops
like the beating of a thousand hearts
suicidally falling to their doom
it crashes against my window pane
into a thousand crystals of water
until it blurs the world completely from my eyes.
the coldness creeps into where i am.
is it raining where you are?

preludes

2007-05-04T13:51:00.000-07:00

Everything feels so unusually subdued. Like the calm after the storm, I can almost picture the flying debris and clutter floating in the weak artificial breeze. But looking around, everything is normal… although a bit empty. I was thinking this emptiness might just be the after effects of alcohol, lack of sleep and emotional roller coasters, not to mention, an entire week’s forced energy. The imperceptible stress of the past weeks is taking its toll on me. I feel like an athlete suddenly run out of adrenalin. I want to wind down, sleep, rest… melt into a puddle and lose all form and function and meaning… die, well, not really. Just disintegrate to nothing. There’s no apparent reason why, I can’t find any I could justify myself with. And somehow that troubles me.

I just realized. It is not calm after a storm I feel but the one that preludes it.

leftover angst

2007-04-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

I miss myself. That would be a funny thought but then it resonates inside me too much like the truth.

I guess, in a way, I miss who I was. I miss that uneasy comfort and truce I had with silence, with solitude. I miss that frustrating confusion that haunts my every thought, my every sleepless moment, my every dream. Those that push me to grab on to a pen like a lifeline carving the very beat of my heart in paper. I miss the despair to cry out and not be silenced by the fading day, the yearning to be swallowed by the night yet keep my voice chanting poetry to the moon and to the vast emptiness it gives reason to. I miss the time I could still convince myself of that it was passion I felt, not just immaturity or pretense; that it was the cry of my soul that I engrave in paper, not just ordinary scribbles of half-baked and amateur tryst at writing.

Now, everything is dulled down by cold rational sense. Everything is a logical transition. Every move is caused by a rational thought process that I can’t turn off. Machine-like, devoid of emotion or passion or that vital pump of blood… what has become of me?

Yet even as I ask, I know the answers. I could always come up with one, there’s always some clear cut reasoning behind each phrase blurted out un-thought of. It’s like a talent… conveniently convincing the world even if I feel as if I’m living a lie. I could even convince myself.

The truth is I’m afraid. I am afraid of what could become of me. I am afraid of being back where I was before, of falling back and this time not being able to rise up from that depressing pit of hopelessness. That the next time I let myself go, there would be nothing left. The past was just a fraction of what I could be, what else could I become?

What in the world am I saying!?!

drift on by

2007-03-30T19:21:00.001-07:00

I have been in two graduations in the past 2 weeks. Some of my friends are also graduating this afternoon. It is almost like a huge breath being let out to graduate from college. It’s like they’re breathing ‘Finally…’ then they go and jump the world to pursue their laid out plans and fulfill their destiny. I am not even at school yet. I am still procrastinating and trying to justify why I even need to go back and why I just have to do so. I still have no clear answer.

I have been working for three years already. Time that has just seemed to flow as I float by trying to disregard that small voice in the back of my mind urging me to go back to school to find my destiny. Can I really find what I need and want to do in my life in a boxed classroom listening to a drone of voices telling me nothing else that I would need to be able to function properly in the real world? But then the imagined scene of a classroom sweltering in summer’s heat while a professor speaks about the beauty of the world you want to fully grasp, while you fling ideas of the world in that cramped space with people just as passionate as you are about learning, the sweet frustration of trying to grasp anew concept and the exhilaration when you do… I love that. I missed out on the entire week-long stress that deadlines for term papers ensue. I didn’t get to go through that despair of trying to come up with a decent thesis with classmates that had become a part of your life because of the close contact you’re forced to suffer as you spend night after night in each other’s company. I missed that cramming you’re supposed to do while laughing and hanging out with your friends over inane and unnecessary stuff when they’re supposed to be helping you study. I missed out on life as it seems. And in that course of life, I missed that inner revelation near the end of it all that, finally, makes you perfectly sure you know what you’re going to do for the rest of your life.

I want that… that sense of purpose. The feeling that even if the world turns right side up, you know what you are in it. Like in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, “Howard Roark, Architect’. I want that definition as well. I envy that certainty. I crave that passion for something, for anything.

Summer break has started. If what I really want is to get back to school and live through all those moments I feel like I’ve missed, and a million more… I need to start now. Is that what I want?

Where am I going?

future tenses

2007-03-08T16:57:00.001-08:00

“For I know the plans I have for you”, declared the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future…”
- Jeremiah 29:11

It’s beginning to bother me that I have absolutely no plans for my life. I live life a day at a time. All the planning I do just consists of what time I am going to wake up and prepare for work and what I need to do there. I am master of procrastination that I even managed to procrastinate dreaming big for my life. What’s the use if I’m not even sure it would happen? Yeah well, it’s not really that but… I don’t know.

Anyway, thank God He has a plan for me. But I feel as if I’m just drifting through life waiting for what happens next. Waiting for the next blow, anticipating the next move of the world… all I ever do is react. I do not know if I have ever really felt what it is like to dream and aspire and be completely hopeful for my life. I think it was Twain who said that when you stop dreaming, you stop being alive. I think I’ve stopped really dreaming.

My life is filled with small and totally reachable goals that would not even faze me if I don’t get to do it. My checklist and current plans in life involve wishing I could go there or do this and then just shrug it off if it doesn’t happen. My ultimate goal is to live through this day, try to get home early and sleep as much as I could. My most constant aspiration (one that does not ever change with whatever insanity I currently am in) is to be writer who would just live and explore life and write about it not even for people to read but just for the mere action of writing. I have no idea if that would ever happen. If it doesn’t, I don’t even know if I would care that much. As cliché as this sounds, I just want to live as much as I could and explore the world around me to it’s very dregs.

What would you be ten years from now? If you ask me this question, I would laugh at you. Maybe you can just answer it for me.

(I am soooooo open for suggestions...)

waking

2007-01-28T17:42:00.000-08:00

I feel as if I have forgotten myself. In the flurry and excitement of everything, of this new life, this new world, I’ve lost that fragile idea of who I am that I’ve held most important to me. But that's the point, right? To let go of all...

I’m thinking of shutting this down. I’ve always thought of it on and off especially in lull times where I forget the reason this is even here. But I feel the grip of nostalgia for all the immaturity recorded here and all the nonsense I have ever felt at one time was my world.

Oh well…

missing this

2006-12-30T16:41:00.000-08:00

I actually missed blogging. There’s something about blabbering online where your inane thoughts could be heard/read by people who do not concern you or you do not care for that is both liberating and encouraging. But lately, there really wasn’t much to say. I’d hate just popping in and ruining people’s Christmas just because the Christmas spirit failed to land on me and random boring moments of my life hardly even rate a word or a sentence to bore you to death with.

Anyway, a new year is fast approaching. I still feel like that kid who just graduated from high school drifting through life as if everything is just a game or a brief preoccupation while waiting for ‘life’ to start. Earlier this evening, I was with high school friends and it struck me how much everything seemed to have changed while everything remained the same as well. We’re the same people but we’re already different persons on our own. It’s like looking back at who I was, living it again, just that it’s not me anymore. I don’t know what I’m saying… I’m probably just figuring out after a looong, long time, I actually grew up.

.....

A freaky story… I have this officemate at work that I usually tease of being crazy (hint: her name rhymes with the word) and it’s uncanny how much we have in common.

(AN: I don’t know how to continue with the ‘She’s crazy; I’m normal’ line of reasoning while pointing out how eerily alike we are… just let it be said, I’m very much normal)

Well actually, I do tend to tease everyone who even vaguely understands me a bit crazy. Not to say anything detrimental about my own thought processes, but then I try and play at being weird and funky and it would take natural ability in being abnormal to actually get what I’m saying, so that would mean everyone who somehow relate to this inane thought processes should very much fear for their mental stability.

Anyway, my first day on the call floor for this team, I was posted to listen to her. I’m usually pretty tame with new people but then we somehow clicked while joking around. She said to a co-TL ‘she’s weird, can we keep her’ which brought me laughing. Anyway, (I should refrain from overusing that word) we usually get to hang out after work eating exaggeratedly late breakfast. That was when we realized the first quirk we shared… we both love cheeseburger meal from McDonalds and have the same unique way of sandwiching fries in our burgers. The horror of having something in common! Again, I point out I am normal! The mere fact that we get each other is disturbing enough! Not to mention that I seem to be her kid’s intellectual equal (he’s 8y/o) and his playmate each time he sees me (I swear, that kid probably thinks we are the same age – though he seems to be more intelligent. He throws a lego at me, I throw the lego right back at him…). But aside from that, some other quirks we have in common (or at least those that i'd admit to… hahaha) :

- we both prefer caramel sundae to chocolate

- we both prefer salty pretzels instead of the nauseatingly sweet ones

- we both hate pinoy spaghetti and prefer the sour, tomato-ey pasta

- we both loathe taking in medicine even when sick

- we both love mustard though lots of people hate it

I’m trying to think of more (that you, invisible audience who have probably fled with concern to your sanity, would understand or that I could explain without a bloody nose) without being too freaked out to just pass out cold here (the fact that I am sick doesn’t really help things) but I’m too woozy to continue. The mere fact that our brains seem to share the same wavelength is something to be panicked about… but it sometimes seems that we have the same brain! She couldn’t very well be a clone of me or I of her, the world would not stand such monstrosity… but as I said, it is freaky.

Maybe she’s me when I grow up.

Now THAT is one SCARY thought.

(I’m exaggerating. It happens. And it is so much fun to use parenthesized comments (it’s a bit much don’t you think?). are you sure your sanity is still safe?)

Cagbalete...

2006-12-04T17:15:00.000-08:00

If I haven’t really talked about the trip from Cagbalete, it wasn’t because of anything else but my inability to carve out in words that entire weekend. It was surreal, like a rift through time, like taking a break from the entire world, from your entire life.

My tan is fading (or flaking away it seems), my wounds have dried out and nondescript scars that would disappear in time has taken its place. After that it would seem to have never even happened at all. Each photograph taken seems to be stolen from some dream.

I miss the beach, to wake up hearing the waves slap against the shore and seeing the sunrise reflecting on the restless sea. I miss tasting the salt in the air and hearing the wind whistling in my ear. I miss how easy it is to just lose yourself in those few moments of tranquility early in the morning walking alone on the beach or mulching your feet against the white sand as you stare forever at the beauty of the world. I miss walking knee-deep in crystal clear water just when you feel like it.

You should see the stars from Cagbalete while lying on the sand in the darkness of the night and see just how big the universe is and how small we are. You should try falling asleep while the world sings your lullaby. Go to Cagbalete, bring me with you… (and teach me how to swim without a life vest!!!)

i'm freakin' inside

2006-11-12T15:32:00.000-08:00

i don't know what kind of people we are but we all seem to be so morbidly drawn to disaster. it'd like we feed on that moment of intrigue and adrenaline-rush. have you ever wondered why there always seems to be a crowd in an accident or a very public fight...? why though?

earlier, as i got to work, there was this traffic and commotion in front of our building where one of those U-turns are. it is unusual to have traffic at 12:30 in the morning. there was a battalion of taxis parked around the building and the other end of the street. motor vehicles slow down trying to catch a glimpse of the action or what happened. commentary springs up like mushroom on damp dark earth from half-witted people who didn't really know what happened. i didn't even need to shout to stop the jeep as i usually do because night shift drivers tend to speed and drop me of a mile away from the front of the building (or i get over-eager and they drop me off a block before the building). there was an accident. apparently, after conversing on the usually sleeping guards on sunday night shifts who are now all awake and chattering excitedly and as told by a tambay taxi driver when we walked to the edge of the road to also have our fill of the accident, the truck was making a U-turn and a jeepney slammed into it's rear causing the corner of the flat-bed of the 10-wheeler to go through the windshield and kill the only (and only the) passenger. we were also provided with the gory details of rolling heads and blood splattering.

we watched perched on the front steps of the office watching the commotion. dozens of cars either stuck in traffic, parked nearby or slowing down to watch the spectacle, as if a circus suddenly came in town. we were looking at the wreck, how fragile one's life is! one moment your in a jeepney, tired and finally going home after a very long day, the next your the nameless feast of thousands of eyes with your head rolling to the gutter and blood staining the street, another addition to the statistic of lives ended in careless acts of others. i wonder how it would feel like to be that victim... how would his family take it to be woken in the middle of the night to hear the news, starting their day horribly early, shocked to numbness...

a few minutes after the wreck was gone and the news cams have gone slack, it was like nothing happened. cars speed by unaware of the life taken within that now empty area still marked with blood probably sticking in the edges of their tires. the world has moved on and i haven't even finished my coffee.

...

yesterday, i had the mother of all headaches. i hate having migraine and tasting the food you've already masticated and digested back up your throat changing their minds of being absorbed into your system and crawling back out to the nearest sink available. i slept it off.

i found myself dreaming. i just came home and was told that mama and my other siblings would be moving to a new home and leaving us alone. it has already happened once, not the dream but me and ate being left back when aj still had that cyst and they needed to fly back to UAE and have it operated on. i was okey then, we enjoyed having no one tell us off eating rice with powdered milk and milo and sugar. but in the dream, i was angry and crying. i hid under a cube in the office (wonder how i got there?) and wouldn't let anyone comfort me. i was trying to justify in my mind why i keep crying but i couldn't stop. then i woke up and thought 'at least it wasn't real' then i realized it really can't be... she's gone.

i hate these types of dreams.

...

title from the title of my friend christian's song (naka-naman!)

a day in a life less meaningful

2006-11-11T14:20:00.000-08:00

i drink coffee while i work or at least stare at a screen staring back at me with its all-important and hieroglypic-like numbers and letters i try to decipher as if all the secrets of the world would be revealed by it. i hear the distant hum of the airconditioning that fail to jolt me awake and the rumble of a hundred different voices from my back focused on pursuing their own goals. i felt the approach of the new day as it creeped slowly into the dark sleeping world while i was making sure i locked the door and praying for a tricycle to pass by without me wasting an hour of my life under the glare of infinitely tall lamp posts and that strangely endearing ominous stretch of silent, empty road. this is my life as i know it.

i woke up tonight with a start. i frantically searched for my cellphone somewhere under my pillow and realized i left it in my bag and forgot to set an alarm. it was somewhere near 11pm in my 30-min advanced world. i breathed a little easier, i could still make it. then i realized my shift is 3am... i tried sleeping for another 30mins.

i couldn't. i just lay there for 30mins waiting for the alarm to go off thanking God because for the first time since Monday, i have more than 2hrs worth of sleep in my system. i really thought it was my day off.

the entire house was asleep. all i could hear were the motors of overworked electric fans faintly floating through the walls and their open windows. i was all ready but checked the kitchen before going out for a drink of water or anything cool to bring for lunch since it was a saturday night and there's no one and nothing to provide sustenance in the office. lo and behold! there was food!

the weirdness continues...

the driver of the tricycle i rode on to the still alive and breathing hub beside the strangely unpopulated highway reeked of a day's work sweat. i just woke up to start my still-dark day and the only seat available is behind him (unless i was willing to contort myself into an insignificant blob of human flesh to fit inside the tricycle cab). what a way to start a day! anyway, he spoke to me (as if he knew me!) asking why i suddenly changed schedules and how am i coping up with graveshift. i am very wary of strangers especially those weird ones (i suddenly wondered how i got along with my friends...)who talk to me out of nowhere. trying to still be polite this early in the morning, i just gave one-word answers and non-committal grunts but he still persisted in talking to me and even slowed the tryke when i don't hear his questions. from someone used to tyke drivers flying off the road during late-night trips making you suddenly feel grateful survived after, this was very disconcerting. plus, of course, the fact that i don't have an idea who the heck he is and i don't even recognize him as one of the drivers who partially know of me.

anyway, the sky is a faint shade of purple seen through thick blinds of the window pane. i watch as it faded slowly from pitch black darkness of the night from my safe and brightly illuminated cube of space. the morning has officially begun.

have a great one.

how'ya doin'?

2006-10-30T15:16:00.000-08:00

it's past 6am on a tuesday morning. i'm wasting time at the office waiting for someone who passed on the message that i wait for him because he needs to give me something. i have just spent more than 8hrs at work because i've realized too late it was supposed to be my day off. after spending the entire night/day shadowing TLs and generally just uhm wasting time and sort-of rationalizing that i'm learning about what a TL is supposed to do, i went back to my old cube and decided to waste time in this (blog) only to realize that my log in ID and password is no longer accepted on my beloved PC!

so how was your day?

anyway, i've got no work later so i'm thinking up on what to do for the entire day of hanging around at home. this is what would suck in not having conventional days off, you generally get to spend it by yourself, but then the concept of relaxation wouldn't be entirely lost since the current plan is to hibernate 'til wednesday. i'm thinking of probably catching up on my long queue of books still to read, but then how wonderfully exciting does my life seem to be!?!

...

The Portrait of a Call Center Agent (Artist) as a Young Child

2006-10-24T06:35:00.000-07:00

After three hours of sleep plus a delayed sugar rush…

Last Saturday, in one of our healthy (if not almost insane) discussions while passing time in Intramuros Walls, we talked the decline of the quality of education in the country. Well, it wasn’t really that but that’s the general idea. Anyway, there was me, a Comm Arts student, a BSEd student majoring in English and an out-of-school freelance graphic artist. One of the points we have touched is the decline of proper English speaking students. It is frustrating to discover and realize that even those about to graduate and teach English in our elementary or high schools aren’t really capable of fluently carrying a full conversation in English. And those who do and could are probably employed in the numerous call centers all through out the country.

This got me thinking… I have never really had any trouble in English or at least not as much as most. And though I don’t even think I’m better or more fluent in using English than the next person, it’s astounding to realize that I’m actually better off than most.

We talked about it and about how language should be taught at a young age when children are still more receptive and are just developing his/her language skills. We think part of the problem is the indecision or instability of the department of education on which language should be the used for teaching most subjects: English or Filipino. And now that the call center industry is a booming enterprise they’re suddenly rushing and having crash courses in proper English usage to take advantage of the market. But then that touches only a part of the problem.

What was my advantage? Was it that I actually started my education in an English school outside the country? Does a year of kinder in English you can’t even remember enough to mark you and change you for life? Maybe it was my being a loner and hiding in the corner of the school library until I grew addicted to stories and books that is my biggest advantage? Or maybe it is the influence of movies and TV shows and cartoons I grew up and still prefer watching most of the time (Will & Grace or telenovelas? Come on!).

I still retain the theory that it was just the fear of being teased about not being able to pronounce the strong Filipino accent on the letter ‘R’ that did the trick. I would always be teased about it (and occasional neighbors would scare me saying they’d iron my tongue out so that I could speak better) until I learned to revert into the softer and almost silent ‘R’ of the English language. I remembered trying and copying BBC newscasters who speak with a silent ‘R’ just so I’d get out of being ridiculed. It also taught me to widen my vocabulary so I could use a synonym (English or Filipino) for I word I could hardly pronounce. Looking back on all those playmates that made fun of me, thank you for forcing me to learn another way to speak… I guess I had the last laugh (haha – how melodramatic).

shifting sands

2006-10-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

I feel like a goodbye is in order though I’m not really going anywhere, maybe just a staircase away. Still…

I don’t know what would happen yet. It sucks that I’m so used to this to being here then suddenly being thrown elsewhere. But my mind is already running a mile a minute awaiting the challenge of this shift of routine. It’s time to brush off the cobwebs and clean up on my rusty English and practice thinking on my feet again.

Anyway, this seems to be my last day in an exaggeratedly early shift. Tomorrow I’d start on coming in at 10pm, I guess. Oh well… either way, I’d still get to see daybreak. I need a bit rearranging in my schedule though. Hah! As if there are a lot of things occupying my time aside from sleep and work and Friday and Saturday hangouts.

The world is changing… it’s another paradigm shift. What is a paradigm anyway?

dream-speak

2006-10-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had that dream where everyone in the world has just disappeared? Of course, you can’t see the entire world but you just know that suddenly you are alone and everyone else has just vanished overnight in that all-knowing intensity dreams have. I have never dreamt this, my dreams are annoyingly peopled. Nor have I ever had that other usual dream of flying or floating or even being naked somewhere dying from embarrassment only no one has noticed you. I don’t seem to have normal dreams.

Anyway, it was one of my crazy ‘what-if’ fantasies as a kid: waking up to realize that the world is the same as you remembered except you’re the only human being in the planet. It was a happy scenario for me, I would daydream of living on a different house everyday, kinda like being in other people’s shoes literally, not really living their lives but knowing their lives. It was only recently that I realized that the entire situation could be sad and depressing for a lot of people.

The flying floating dream, I honestly have never dreamed that. But I have dreams where I have that distinct feeling that I’m falling, crashing down to earth. I always have dreams like that. If in my dream I’m in a high floor even if it’s just the second floor of some wacky building that mutates from my room to a school building, once I lean over the railing to look down, the railing crumbles as well as the floor. I’m not sure what that means but I’m not really afraid of heights (I’m only afraid of heights if there is movement involved…)

Why am I telling you this? I actually have no idea. I rarely even remember my dreams and when I do it’s something weird and freaky I’d rather not have remembered it. Like this morning…

I woke up today with that feeling. The only vague details I could remember involved getting kidnapped by an owner of a photo studio wearing pumpkin orange business suit while toting a water-gun filled with acid. There were previous action-packed scenes where there were robots that looked like the giant sentinels from Miyazaki Hayao’s Laputa (Castle in the Sky) shooting off acid that a dream character defeats by throwing something at it because it was annoying and they were wrecking the house while she was trying to get to her normal morning routines. The character morphed to being me after a while, or I just realized that it was me all along. Then I was in a photo studio trying to get a picture recopied for some bank application forms. When the pictures came out it was a matte photo of my five year old self. Then I was suddenly in a car, the kidnapper at the driver’s seat, my mom beside her and my brother beside me depressed because he wasn’t able to attend a school event that required everyone to cross dress. There even was a scene where we watch his classmates and cliqué in a sack that was meant to be a dress playing with (or probably eating) lipstick. The kidnapper was, weirdly enough for a supposed kidnapper, driving us home. As I understood, she wasn’t really after money (she was rich, I just know it) but revenge of some sort and she was sort of reminiscing with my mom who isn’t even bothered by the situation we were all in. I was kinda reminded by the uncovering plot of Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride which I am not even halfway to finishing.

The car slowed down by our newly painted gate. I woke up puzzled.

I never understood my dreams. Maybe it’s supposed to be funny…

wallow

2006-10-04T16:25:00.000-07:00

It frustrates me to no end that I seem to have no talent in something that I want to do for the rest of my life. But what is talent? Who decides if you have it or not? A lot of well-wishers and friends would probably argue that I do have some skill… but then again they’re friends, not that I don’t trust their opinions it’s just that I don’t trust their opinions… hahaha

While ‘blog-jumping’ as I guess it’s called, I realized how many talented people there really are in the world. Much as I would like to be associated in their ranks, it suddenly seems to be a disgrace for me to think that I could actually compare. What was that in Desiderata about not comparing yourself to others? I don’t feel vain or bitter, I feel undeserving of existence.

I am being overly dramatic. I am also being cowed over, wow-ed and bludgeoned by my apparent lack of things to say or a weird, funky fun way of saying things. I’m wallowing in self-pity… see that murky thing in the middle of the nowhere trying but failing to blend in with the shadows or melt to a puddle of icky goo-like substance, that’s me wallowing.

Why am I doing this anyway? I forgot the reason I actively signed up to air my grievances and a detailed declamation of my boring existence to this very captive if not invisible and imaginary audience. I seriously can’t remember and too lazy to dig it out. Anyway, I seem to find this fun every once in a while when the elusive thing called sense visits upon me.

This is, for certain, not one of those times.

millenium

2006-09-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, it rained and winds whipped around innocent trees to destruction. Well, to be more specific (since it rains every other day, what happened to the rain season ending when ‘–ber’ months start?) a typhoon named Milenyo (who chooses these absurd names? We should have stuck with alphabetical common names ending in –ing) hit the country. It’s not rare to have typhoons halt the world we live in but when you see another branch torn off a tree and landing just by your front gate and leaves strewn about everywhere that the entire road is stuck with it, you know its something else. Power was off for the entire day that I spent either cleaning my room or trashing it at the same time and listening to the wind whistle by my window while trying to sleep the entire day away.

I was unsuccessful at sleeping and was unreasonably bored. There are tons of books I could have read to pass time but for some reason I can’t force myself to read through even just an entire chapter. I keep watching the window being splattered with droplets of water and bits of leaves. I want to write something poetic or whatever but the usual excuses of laziness applies. It seems too cliché to write about the rain and too contrived to force myself to think of something else to graze paper with. I settled to trying to sleep again and listening to a battery powered radio.

And so the day passed, slowly and languidly in the cozy warmth of my room as the reckless winds continued to fall trees and billboards at the same time make roofs fly, overturn cars, strand many, and cause enough destruction to make it the headlines of news programs we didn’t get to watch because of the Luzon-wide black out it also cause. I’m reading about it just now, apparently it is not just in my imagination that the world stopped, it really did. At least eighteen are dead, many more wounded, thousands more lives probably ruined. I could already see the newscasts in my head of the tragic families wailing their loss, of flooded streets reaching up to peoples’ necks, of a deserted road with lamp posts and trees lying dead like casualties of war. All this while I’m listening to some crappy song minding my own business and devising ways to make time pass more quickly.

I wanted to write about how powerless we still are against nature. Mankind with all its technology and ingenuity still awed and kneeled over the almost-majestic fury of a few hours of rain and winds. But I am not really in any position to say such grand things, the worst I got is twelve hours of restlessness and being awakened from hard to achieve catatonia when the light in my room suddenly flare up mid-dream. This morning, while groggily fixing my first cup of coffee and grumbling about how early it still is to be at work, there was an exchange of personal horror stories caused by the typhoon. I listened as they talked about roof almost flying off, families flocking over disaster relief areas, billboards crushing cars and hour long traffic because of flood and trees almost falling over the tops of their heads… I can’t relate. Suddenly, the world doesn’t really hate me much by taking off the power for my computer. But right now, what I really want to grumble about is how pay is delayed because its suddenly a bank holiday.

Am I that detached from the suffering of my own people? Am I that indifferent to their plight? It seems that I am. Oh well, at least I have my computer back.

battlecries

2006-09-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

I hate Sundays. It’s an entire day of being locked up in my room doing nothing but sleeping and crawling an inch through my long list of books to read. It’s uneventful, boring and frustrating. Yes, I could probably do something to alleviate this irritation on an innocent day but then that is the point of Sunday, rest. Unfortunately, even on Sunday mornings I wake up at 4am cursing myself on waking since I probably would have just been sleeping for an hour or so. I sleep again and wake up mid afternoon to have a throbbing headache for sleeping too much.

Oh well.

I miss those times in high school when the whole school was our playground (actually, training field but then it still feels like playing at times). I miss the times we jogged and jumped over wooden benches, skirting in and out of pillars and tiring ourselves out ‘til we can’t really run any longer. I especially miss ‘battle cry’ where you just scream your frustrations, anger and tiredness away. I want to do that again. I want to shout my heart out.

Of course, in the real world it’s not really advisable to just suddenly shout, no matter how frustrated you are with everything. There would be questions, looks of concern as if you’ve finally fallen off your rocker, no one would really understand. And though some might get the reason they’d still look at you disapprovingly as if breaking that unspoken rule of ethical or proper behavior marks out for life as a stupid and probably insane person. I may just be paranoid. I probably shouldn’t really care. But then I do, I’ve spent enough time trying to build a reliable persona to shatter it for a reckless whim… of shouting my heart out.

Hahahaha

It seems so funny and so stupidly frustrating. I want to just let loose but I have too much self-control for it. I’m rambling. You’d get used to it.

List(less)

2006-09-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

things to do in life:
(as specific as i could make it or as possible as it could be. of course, i realize, I would be remarkably lucky to get to accomplish all this, but what the hey!)

1 Backpack across Europe
2 Learn a new language
3 Read all Pulitzer Prize winning novels
4 Write a Pulitzer Prize winning novel
5 Live a year in another country
6 Learn to play a musical instrument
7 Graduate from college
8 See the Aurora Borealis/Northern Lights
9 Skydive
10 Bungee Jump
11 Go to New York
12 See the pyramids in Egypt
13 See the hanging garden of Babylon
14 Go to the Great Wall of China
15 Go to Tibet and spend a few days in a Buddhist temple
16 Master a martial art
17 Go to Japan and witness a cherry blossom festival
18 See a show on Broadway
19 Read more about history
20 Learn more about ancient philosophies and religion
21 Go spelunking
22 Go mountain climbing
23 Build my dream house
24 Scubadive
25 Travel around the world
26 Jog regularly
27 Visit museums
28 Fly to the moon or visit the Skylab (which is not used anymore)
29 Get high just once
30 Learn Yoga
31 Visit the Stonehenge
32 Visit the Machu Pichu Ruins
33 Make or be involved in making a documentary
34 Study abroad
35 Learn first aid
36 Learn sign language
37 Go camping
38 Travel to another country by ship
39 Learn to type without looking at the keyboard
40 Learn a different way of writing (Japanese, Chinese or Arabic calligraphy)
41 Volunteer at an NGO
42 Be a full-fledged feminist
43 Assimilate myself in a rebel group or activists
45 Learn to draw better
46 Learn to skate
47 See snow and start a snowball fight
48 Learn to surf
49 Learn to be ambidexterous
50 Go on a roadtrip with no previous planning on where to go or how to get there
51 Get into photography
52 Write an entire book of poetry
53 Donate blood
54 Run in a marathon
55 Kayak or go sailing
56 Own a bookstore/cofeeshop
57 Be in a fight ("how much can you learn about yourself if you've never been in a fight?" - Tyler Durden, Fight Club)
58 Have a near-death experience (or near-life, fight club ulit)
59 Learn to drive
60 Visit a virgin rainforest
61 Learn to play chess
62 Live in a province far from any sign of technology for a month
63 Work as a grape-picker in a vineyard
64 Visit all the islands in the Philippines
65 Ride a camel and an elephant
66 Meet, converse, learn and live with gypsies (may gypsies pa ba?)
67 Visit the seven wonders of the world
68 Write a song
69 Live in the mountains
70 Get a PhD in something
71 Teach anything
72 Go fishing
73 Fire a gun
74 Learn to fly a plane
75 Invent something

chuwariwap

2006-09-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

Today, I turn twenty one. Actually, basing on my newly acquired NSO birth certificate, I came into this world at around 5am so I turned twenty one while still sleeping earlier this morning.

I don’t feel any different.

Also, apparently, my delusion and dream to die before this fateful age is vetoed by higher powers for reasons similarly unknown and unknowable.

…

I don’t know what to say or what needs to be said or if there is anything that is needed to be said to mark this, uhm, stupidity.

Oh well…

sci fi

2006-08-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

nakakirita. napakadami kong gustong malaman at matutunan na parang kulang ang mundo, ang oras, ang kakayanan kong maunawaan ang lahat. ang lawak talaga ng mundo, sa lahat ng aspeto hindi lamang sa pisikal o topograpikal. nanliliit na naman ako. hindi ko alam kung pano ko sisimulan matuto.

---

kasama ko sila jaymee at lex kahapon. sobrang tagal na pala talaga naming hindi nagkikita-kita. ang masaya dun, kahit sobrang layo na ng buhay namin sa isa't isa, parang wala pa ring nagbago. ganun pa rin yung samahan, walang nagbago sa siyam. habang kasama sila napansin ko kung kalaki na ang pinagbago ko mula sa 'ako' na kilala nila. marahil hindi sa ugali o pagkilos pero sobarang iba na ang pananaw ko ngayon. hindi ako magtataka kung sobrang maibahan o maguluhan sila sa mga paniniwala at paninindigan ko. para na nga talaga kaming magkakapatid, bahagi na kami ng buhay ng isa't isa kahit magkakaiba na ang takbo ng mga mundong kinabibilangan namin.

pero sana kasama din namin yung iba kahapon. nakakamiss yung dating masaya, magulo at napakaingay na kulitan at asaran pag magkakasama kaming lahat. kahit na hindi na kami madalas magkahalubilo, hindi ko pa rin maisip kung ano ang nangyari sakin kung hindi ko sila nakilala.

---

gusto ko magbasa ng sci fi. napansin ko lang na hindi na pala ako masyadong nakakabasa ng mga sci fi o fantasy na kwento o nobela ngayon. nung elementary ako (at loner at naktambay sa library mag-isa) kadalasan sf short stories ang binabasa ko. sa tingin ko mas okey humasa ng imahinasyon ang mga kakaibang kwento sa science fiction. plus, mas nakakatuwa ang science na subject pag naiisip mo ang mga posibilidad sa teknolohiya.

pero sana madaling maghanap ng mga full length novels ni philip dick, robert heinlen o kahit ni isaac asimov o kaya kumpletong koleksyon ng mga maiikling kwento nila. at sana talaga matapos ko na ang mga nakapila pang mga aklat na dapat at gusto ko ring basahin.

---

pilipino. wala lang. kakaiba daw kasi pag nagtagalog ako sa blog. mas sanay akong sumulat sa ingles.

wala na ko maisip sabihin.

teddy bears

2006-08-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure what’s up with this blog. Every once in a while, actually, it has become everyday there are these comments that I rightfully think are from spammers. Ugh! I need to tweak security at least… the junk mail’s getting to me.

After another uneventful hour at the office, I found something to do that seems to be the latest craze to the thinking populace (and those who seem to like getting frustrated like myself), Sudoku. Sheesh! I feel my atrophied brain shrinking and turning to useless mush.

-

For some unknown reason, probably lack of imagination, the office is already decorated in the bright colors of Christmas. It’s August, for goodness sakes! I know Filipinos are known for celebrating Christmas early, but this is ridiculous! *sigh* it reminds me that another year is soon to pass. What have I done with my life?

There are perks to this early decoration though. Aside from the fact that I wasn’t unnecessarily hassled to stay after hours and decorate (someone already took care of it, obviously) I also got to arbor (is this just pinoy vocabulary or is there really such a word meaning what we mean?) a cute little teddy bear. I nicked it from under the tree and it’s currently the trustworthy guardian of all the trash I’ve accumulated in my cube through the years. I’m staring at it as I type… I’m not returning this. Hahaha

-

Yes. I’m bored. I’m restless. I’m sleepy. I’m babbling. I can’t solve the darn sudoku board on the other window… blahblahblah....

galit

2006-08-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

There is a time for everything. A season under the, as of late, frequently hiding sun… now is a time to vent.

Naiirita na ko. Okey, more than that pero ayokong mag-overstep na naman at sabihing galit ulit ako. Sabi ko kasi I don’t care enough to be angry anymore. Pero hindi nabubura nang pagmomoderate ko sa sarili ang ka-bullshitan ng lahat.

Hindi kami close na magkakapatid. Para lang kaming magkakaklase sa isang subject na terror at walang kwenta ang teacher. Hindi kami nagsasabihan ng pinakamalalaking problema namin at protocol na iwanan na lang mag-isa pag may problema o may umiiyak. Bihira kami magkampihan pag napapagalitan. Minsan lang, pag sabay kaming pinagagalitan para sa isang walang kwentang bagay. Kaya sobrang bad trip lang siguro ang makakapag-usig sa kapatid kong bunso na umuwi na ko dahil mag-isa lang sya sa bahay at napagdidiskitahan sya. Anong level ng kagaguhan ang magtutulak sayo na itext ang kapatid mo dahil bullshit daw lahat sa bahay? Lalake yung bunso kong kapatid, pareho kaming hindi humihingi ng tulong. Oo, gago lang talaga ang mundo.

Kahapon, kwento ni ate, nagyayaya daw kumain si ian pero hindi daw nya mapakain dahil tinago ni papa lahat at tinaggal yung koneksyon ng stove sa gas. Gusto kong matawa pero sobrang gago kasi ng dating. Okey lang kung ako lang. shit, hindi na nga ako kumakain sa bahay. Ikinukulong ko lang ang sarili ko sa kwarto at nagbabasa dahil mas masaya yun kesa pag-isipan ng paulit-ulit ang kagaguhan ng lahat.

Iniisip ko yung sinabi ni jr sa text… kung hindi lang daw nya kelangan ng pamasahe araw-araw makikipagsapakan na daw sya; hindi naman daw sya mahalaga. Hindi nga sya mahalaga, kahit para sakin. Naisip ko, bakit kaya hindi na lang ako umalis ng bahay? Pero kelangan ng mga mas bata kong kapatid ng suporta. Kahit para lang sigawan si papa para sa kanila. At bahay namin yun, bayaran nya ko kung gusto nya ko paalisin. Napaka-angsty ng buhay.

Cold war sa bahay, sa dalawang pamilya: kaming magkakapatid at sya… pero baka matapos na yung ‘cold war’… umiinit na ulo ko.

Sinusubukan kong maghanap ng goodside.

randomize

2006-07-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, out of the unquenchable thirst to discover more of the world and the immortal ‘carpe diem’, and the fact that it was a sort of assignment for plmers, we trekked to the Cultural Center of the Philippines for Cinemalaya (the Phil Independent Film Festival).

We watched one full length film (Ang Huling Araw ng Linggo) and five short films (Puwang, Parang Pelikula, Putot, Orasyon and Sa Silaw) to get a taste of both categories. I can’t help thinking why o why haven’t I learned of this before! So a new event is set in my yearly calendar, we’d be there again next year. I wish we could’ve seen all the entries but there is the question of time and resources.

Well, we were not exactly pressed for time… the first movie we watched ended around 3pm and the next one was at 9pm. Basically, we spent hours upon hours ogling the diverse fashion statements of the people around, wandering around the entire CCP in search of exhibits to feast our eyes on, and the usual endless talks on almost everything we could think of. It was wonderful watching the fountain in front of the building that night while it was softly raining after we’ve explored every exhibit there is. We perused every brochure and calendar of events, our minds running the possibilities of what we would watch and when promising ourselves to come back and make use of the extensive library, enjoy the scheduled exhibits and continue to be immersed in the wonderful and vast world of art.

Anyway, we seem to have another chance to catch all those we didn’t get to watch last week. For those interested (I mean the one or two people who actually swing by) UP-Diliman is showing them Mon-Thurs next week in the film institute/center/whatever! Check their website for more accurate details…

…

Bakit wala ka pang sinasabi, parang alam ko na? Ayokong maging tama pero parang hindi nagkakamali ang hinala ko?

Ano pa ba ang bubuwag sayo? Ano pa ang sisira sa masaya at malambing mong pagkatao? Nawawala na ang dating ngiti mo. Sana hindi ka masira. Sana hindi matunaw ang mga pangarap mo at mawala nang tuluyan ang iyong kasiyahan. Sana hindi ka rin biktima.

Oo, minsan talaga bullshit ang mundo…

…

My life is filled with stories not my own. Almost everyday, a new book is opened and I’m lost in a new world until the last page closes. Then I stare transfixed, pulling myself out of that universe I was temporarily and silently part of. A few breaths after, I delve into the next one.

It’s unfortunate that we are offered but a glimpse of a particular world and that no matter how strongly we want to just disappear into the words breathing through the pages, the story always ends and we’re pulled out to face the reality of our own world, our own stories. At times, I can’t help feeling like I’m procrastinating on life. It’s like I’m transfixed to this spot just waiting for something to happen… as if I’m waiting for life to happen.

Well, it’s not as if I’d run out of books to read while waiting.

…

Pag gising ko kaninang umaga, pakiramdam ko may kakaiba. Pero, syempre bagong gising, hindi ko pinansin… tumuloy lang ako sa usual routine. Pagkatapos kong maligo at matapos lumipas ang di ko namalayang mga minuto sa pag-aayos ng kwarto, napansin ko kung ano ang bago, sumikat ang araw.

Sa hindi ko malamang kadahilanan, pinatapyas ng tatay ko ang mga sanga ng puno ng mangga na nakatakip sa may bintana ko. Bukod sa skeleton ng kaawa-awang puno, pagtingin ko sa labas ng bintana tila nag-aapoy ang mga bundok sa pagkalat ng kulay ng araw. Ang ganda! Pati mga maninipis na mga ulap nakulayan at nakatutuwang makita ang contrast ng dilim sa sobrang orange na ilaw na parang tumapon mula sa kung saan.

Mahal ko ang ulan pero ang tagal na palang hindi nagiging ganito kakulay ang mundo ko. Unti-unting lumiliwanag ang kalangitan. Saka ko lang napansin, mala-late na pala ako.

Masaya manuod ng umaga.

passive idealism

2006-07-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

While listening to an Ella Fitzgerald song, I realized how much I wish I was born in a different century. Imagine the 40's music scene, the birth of jazz, the big band music that makes you feel as extravagant as the music you listen to, the first stirrings of feminism... the utter simplicity of everything.

1940s was the brink of the Second World War. But then, you know who your enemy is, you know what you are wasting your life to fight for. it may come in grand but gray terms of equality or democracy or freedom, in figure heads of evil like Hitler or the suffocating restraints of being called inferior just because of your sex or race but its better than now where we know we need to fight because we feel there is something wrong but we don't know what evil we're facing. What do we shout on the streets? Who do we condemn? What evil do we need to fight? Who’s on our side? Maybe I only feel this way because I wasn't really there.

From whence came this amazing ephiphany...? I don't really know but it has been an echoing thought in my mind longer than I could remember. I think we have the shorter end of the stick. Everything is much more complicated now. Every battle is fought internally. There are no more black or white just varying shades of gray. Everything is in context, depends on conditions sometimes as flimsy as weather changes. Every outcome is weighed, every manipulation of the clueless masses perfectly strategized. Take the last presidential elections, you vote for someone not because you totally believe what they stand for but because it is the lesser evil and they don't even try to hide that fact.

Everything could be used to control the populace. Every motive should be treated with deep scrutiny. Nothing is as innocent as it seems. Everyone who cares not to be just another mindless drone should always be on-guard; on the defensive... even terrorism is a fight against imperialism. Anarchy is a fight against iron fisted dictatorship. Every rebellion is a noble fight against the sugar coated flaws of the state.

Internal battle... where would you stand? Who would you believe? Which side is more 'right' or just or more noble? When you get tired of answering all the questions and uncovering all the justifications and endless possibilities, you stop caring. sit in a corner watching the news allowing the world go by with its madness feeling frustrated at your incapacity to fight for what you personally believe without being another soldier to be dragged behind someone else's stands. It would be easier not to care but the callousness of sitting back while everything else goes wrong is hard on the idealist inside of you that you've never managed to fully shut up. But what can one do aside from pointing your fingers on what is wrong and blaming everything on everyone else? Even passing blame could get tiring.

I’m a blabbering idiot…

today

2006-07-17T23:03:00.000-07:00

Today is the greatest day of your life
- Today, Smashing Pumpkins

…So says the song. But today is boring, seemingly endless and unreal – just like yesterday and the day before. I remembered someone’s question when we talked about passions and how we both have no idea what to do in our lives yet. She asked if we are wasting our time. I don’t really think so, besides it’s easy to conjure all sorts of explanation and excuses that the time seemingly wasted now is somehow important for lessons to be learned or experience and all that crap. But, times like these – of senseless wanderings, waiting time to pass – it seems like such a waste.

---

Female chauvinist pigs…
http://www.denverpost.com/excerpts/ci_3039603

It’s a book written by Ariel Levy dealing about the raunchy culture prevalent in today’s women. To her it is like a blasphemy on everything feminism stood for. I get her point. It is stupid to dress suggestively with the actual word ‘slut’ on your shirt and being proud of it, demeaning yourself into acting and living the role suited perfectly to the macho ideals, the superficiality of that kind of social life, dumbing yourself to be ‘in’ … I don’t get it. I don’t get why there are girls flashing themselves on camera just to get a Girls Gone Wild shirt. These are not stupid girls, they just live it.

While the author would probably say it’s an outcry to feminism, there are those who claim it to actually be the third wave feminism.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/26351/

While I’m far from judging anyone’s lifestyle and choices, especially those I do not understand… there is something here. I don’t even know which to agree with completely.

Oh well…

woozy

2006-07-05T15:35:00.000-07:00

I'm getting sick. I feel bad. My stomach constricts in agony and my head is floating in pain. I have just taken my breakfast so it’s not hunger and I have just woken up, so its not lack of sleep either. Actually, I think its stress and guilt manifesting itself physically. I hate myself (it’s an on and off thing, I’m used to it) and it seems like my body is punishing me to retaliate.

There is this minutely reliable personality question in would choose which to prioritize in a list of almost mundane everyday things and tasks, each subconsciously representing a facet of your life. Which would you pick: a crying baby, a ringing phone, someone at the door or getting the dry clothes? These represent your personal needs, career, friends or family respectively. Out of impulse (and without actually knowing what each stands for) I chose to pick up the phone first. Hey! I prioritize career!

However, I can’t actually agree not to mean I disagree completely. I may prioritize work but it doesn’t seem more important to me than anything else. Yes, some would argue that I do spend majority of my time at work but it is because of lack of anything else to do. I probably would also choose to go to work rather than skip it and party with friends or go to a family outing or even sleep… but something is still amiss.

Work is important to me because it brings that semblance to normalcy and routine in my pointless everyday. It gives me sufficient reason to escape the prison of my room and the suffocating atmosphere of solitude that is second nature to me. It fills the emptiness in a life admittedly just waiting to end. And of course there’s that comfort of earning something that is your own and the occasional satisfaction of having accomplished something that may not mean anything to the world but is still a victory in itself. The problem is that I don’t care about my work, what I do and where I am mean nothing to me. It is and has always been just this filler I happen to be lucky at.

When I was young, I wanted to be a workaholic. As Kahlil Gibran said in The Prophet, ‘When you work you are a flute whose heart the whispering of the hours turn to music’. I wanted to be one of those people whose passion for what they do makes everything else almost unimportant in comparison: time, sleep, hunger... I never really made up my mind as to what I am supposed to be obsessing on when I grow up but it doesn’t change that I want to be obsessed about something. I wanted something to mean the world to me. I still don’t know what I want to pour my life for but whatever it is, I haven’t found it yet.

I seem to wallow in immaturity and drift day by day afraid to take hold of my life. It’s high time to take things seriously and leave of excuses for inadequacy rather than take the challenge. Yet I can’t stop feeling like a lost child not knowing where to go, what to do or where to turn to. The answer always seems too obvious but too scary and uncertain to risk everything for. Yes, I am a coward.

Carpe diem, the old mantra from one of my favorite movies and high school motto (coincidentally both is DPS), make your lives extraordinary… mine is currently extraordinarily unexciting.

in libris libertas...

2006-06-26T22:53:00.000-07:00

It’s always too easy to come up with the textbook solutions and answers to everything. All life resembles but the simplest plot and everything should just be as easy as doing what you know or conjectured would be right in any given situation. But, sad to say, we have the misfortune of actually striving day by day to live life rather than just theorize and stare at the endless possibilities of how to act or what to say… things happen, and in the most common stories we find ourselves thinking ‘if I were there, this is what I would do… if I was the one to go through at most anything else, I would have been better or faster or less inclined to the human weakness of error.

I’ve always wished life to be different, as easy to predict as the usual storylines and as hard to take me by surprise and at a loss for what to say or what to do. But it never is. Looking back, you chastise yourself I should have known or I should have done this, I shouldn’t have been as weak, as easy to show emotion and defeat. Yet at any given moment you couldn’t really care what the heck you do or how you act or what to say. At the news of death of a parent or a friend in all novels I’ve devoured through the years I always find funny the dramatic explosions of sorrow or smirk at the description of unconscious tears streaming down grave faces. Yes, I feel saddened for the character’s sakes and I feel for the loss, the grief… but it all seems too cooked up to stir feelings and all the elaborate declamations of woe seems too contrived. Then you encounter it for real and all humor flies out the window. You sit uncaring as your tears fall without you realizing you are crying. There is that internal struggle as you come to grips with something that mind blowing that you don’t readily feel the sadness and grief and all that cursed emptiness. Everything comes to mind at the same time nothing does. Everything is blank. Every action though uncommon is almost involuntary. All you’ve read about it seems correct in every way yet lacking.

A life examined is a life lived

Lately, I’ve been too busy in preoccupying myself with mere trifles just to pass time and justify day after day. I feel like I’m just covering up a stupendously empty existence. Nothing matters. Everything else is more important than that shiftlessness I can’t shake off. Countless of times I ask myself to what purpose am I here for only to stare blankly into space and fall back into the indifferent comfort of routine. I remember JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye as I think I now understand the emptiness and worthlessness Holden felt as he drifted from nowhere to nowhere in vain hope of anything to give him/his life any semblance of meaning.

Is this but another passing phase? Is this a turning point in the pathetic novel that is my life? Or is this the final struggle I must endure in the unbearable uncertainty and confusion that is adolescence? Must I now prepare myself to finally grow up? A friend remarks that I have a propensity to questions. Can I help it if it seems that my entire life is?

If I were to treat my life as a story, where would it go? What would be the logical next step? What would prove to be most satisfactory? Unfortunately, I’m crap at writing stories. If I have just read my life I would be chastising myself as to being unsatisfied when there is nothing else I could probably need or want that I can’t strive for. Nothing else perhaps but peace of mind…

Do you know the story Flowers for Algernon? (There is a movie version for the less inclined to search and read) It is about Charlie, a retard, an adult with a kid’s brain capacity. All his life he wanted to be smart then he got his wish and realized how extremely complicated the world became and how hard it is to be as happy as he was when he was stupid and made fun of. No, I do not think I am intelligent enough to bear the loneliness and frustration of genius. But sometimes I wish I have never cared about all this. I wish I could just lose myself in something I could consider noble enough to strive for and live for.

Have I ever said I really hate life?

cliff jumping freak?

2006-06-03T00:50:00.000-07:00

Ok. I know I probably should be doing something else rather than waste time in this but everything gets pretty boring after more than eight hours staring at a unsympathetic pc who couldn’t care less if you’re nursing a migraine. I’m ranting, indulge me.

Anyway, I finally got myself that pc at home (hurrah for me!). Suddenly I feel like everything is so darned easy to achieve once you just ignore everything else and just ride along whatever happens, somehow you’d always get where you wanted to be (or you could make up enough reasons to justify wherever in hell you end up). It made no sense but I’m sticking to it. After another milestone, pathetic as it seems, in my unglamorous life, the question begs to be answered… what’s next?

Alas! This reckless (?) abandon to life’s whims could not suffice this relentless waiting for the sweet succor of eternal silence (just gotta have that alliteration, didn’t work out that much though…)

Indeed, what is next? I mean, so now I have my own computer, I could finally say I have done something substantial with what I earn. So, what else do I do…?

The normal person in me irritatingly suggests that I finally stop procrastinating and either drag myself back to school immediately or start doing what I’ve long wanted to do and quit being a wuss about everything and just jump of the cliff of uncertainty (or just any cliff, preferably those that fall on ragged rocks with vultures cicrling in greedily). Of course, I’ve never even approached normalcy but sometimes the rational voice screaming in your head could be very, very hard to ignore. Hmmm… nursing a migraine… screaming voices in my head… that explains this nagging head ache… better that than to face the scary and very probable option that I could probably be crazy… *dududum…*

passing time

2006-05-18T01:42:00.000-07:00

updating is fun! especially if you're bored silly...

weird occurence: the other day, just as i've come in, turned on my pc and stood to get coffee, one of our managers was messaging me on msn. she was asking if i have ever thought of writing (uhm... hell yeah!?!) and if i do what genre? i was flabbergasted! (i love this word) it seems some of her friends are thinking of coming up with a publishing company and they're hooking her in on the deal and making her come up with a few titles. being the book lover and all around library and booksource at the office, she thought maybe i should consider it. although, i think they are inclining more on the romance taglish genre but since they are still starting up they'd probably consider something else as well.

i'm still considering it. it's one thing to write on blogs and journals but fiction is a completely different dimension altogether. i'm not too good at making stuff up.

oh well...

the overdue horror story

2006-05-13T19:16:00.000-07:00

i have been wanting to update for awhile...

okey, not 'wanting' that's easy enough. i've been planning to though. it seems like a lot has happened without anything actually happening. like a side of life suddenly kicked into high gear, unfortunately it is one i don't feel ready for. life is funny that way... exasperatingly funny.

i know, i'm being vague, but when have i ever not been?

anyway, a long overdue story i haven't yet told to all you folks (that would be about the two or three people who deigns to read this...) is how i came to end my experiment with alcohol. yes. finally, i have gotten myself drunk. (about a month or so ago actually... i meant it when i said overdue)

it all begins with the fateful words 'team bonding'. at least that is what i called it, after all it was the first time most of my team would get together with the immortal invitation of 'inuman tayo!' and i, being the easily convinced person that i am, was one of those who trekked to some almost unknown part of the world to a teammates house. it began easily enough, i really have no inclination to drinking too much except in the sometimes harmful spirit of camaraderie. the suspect was a common brand of brandy. we were noisy even before the first bottle was opened chatting about work related dramas (and comedies, depends on where you are looking at it). we had food enough from a local grocery meaning canned goods and the eternal pancit canton plus iced tea mix for gallons.

further in the evening, a guitar came out and being the music loving freaks that we are, there was an impromptu jamming session. our numbers and noise were dwindling by that time not because they went home or anything but i think they took turns puking in the bathroom. i didn't really care much, i was part of the jamming crew and those still hogging the food and unending topics on the table. then i think i sat back or stood up to go to the bathroom.

next thing i knew after a round of singing a few lyrics to half-forgotten red hot chili peppers songs, i woke up on a strange bed, alone, with my bag on my foot and my shoes under the bed shivering in cold. what the hell happened? i cannot even now remember. i have heard of horror stories of what people do under the influence and rationalizations that you can not really forget what you were doing and all that but i'm not kidding when i said my memory is wiped clean. before waking up i had a vague sense of puking by the bed with someone rubbing my back. i checked, the floor was clean and dry. hmmm, that could've been easily cleaned. i was desperately trying to recall everything... anything. no luck. i waited shivering until morning.

as the light came by the horizon so was the happenings of the previous night told to me, slowly but not really making it any easier to accept or digest. (andrama, hindi ko maintindihan sarili ko ng pangungusap...) our host, N looked at me disbelievingly when i said i don't remember what happened. i guess it would be pretty amusing from her point of view but it's unnerving to not know. as i went with her to buy breakfast, she recounted how everyone apparently made fools out of themselves. it was a bit of a relief that i wasn't the only one and that i fell asleep preventing further instances to look stupid. but after breakfast, things turned serious.

according to her, i went up to their group by the kitchen saying i'm not feeling good. there was someone at the bathroom so i leaned by the sink trying to keep myself together. someone shouted 'picture' and there i was with them looking oddly sick. (no, i burned all evidences, any attempt to look for it would be futile) then she suggested that i lie down for awhile. obidiently i did then i apparently everything i've been eating and drinking came out on the side of the bed. then, she said, started crying and with the ominous words 'i don't know why i'm telling you this...' i spilled my life.

i was stunned to say the least when she finished. the inevitable questions arose, the same worries echoed while the familiar pain came back. all the masks came off uselessly. its stupid to be that honest and defenseless. it was cruel to be that person again, being justified once more into useless anger over circumstances long forgone with hopes of being forgotten. questioning the inaction and placidity of just leaving everything be. it was like stirring water when finally all the dirt has settled. after trying to salvage what little composure was left of me, i went home dazed, crawled back to my hole trying to pretend none of it really happened.

so there... the experiment is over. i wanted to know what i would be like drunk, i found out. it's not worth it. it seems unfair that the only instance i have been that thoroughly unguarded and i can't even remember how it felt, if it even felt liberating to pour you heart out... it was like the repressed me finally surfaced with all the bitterness and anger i thought i have been able to diminish. everything is just a shell and it seems i've also been fooling myself. it's like i'm back to zero. is it any wonder i took this long to write about it? even now i'm still shaken at how everything i was fell apart again. no, i don't ever want to lose control like that anymore.

life went on, fortunately leaving me to my own thoughts again as i attempt to quiet them. the next morning, it's like nothing happened. the same smiles and greetings, the same masks. it doesn't matter anymore, i could always pretend not to care...

it seems i'm pretty good at that, at pretending.

drabbling...

2006-04-18T20:18:00.000-07:00

i am being haunted by a line from dead poets society (i don't know if its part of some classic poem) 'gotta do more, gotta be more'... the same questions are burning in my mind, 'do what? be what?...'

i should go back to school. i know i promised this to myself a long, looong time ago but promises you make to yourself are the easiest to break. everyone i know as well as everyone who seem to know me says i should go back. i have a list of excuses and justifications for not going through the set plan of enrolling for this school year but the bottom line is that i am afraid as hell that i am not good enough to get back in. i'm afraid i might crumble to pieces under the pressures of work and school combined. yeah, i know its pretty pathetic... but hey!

its not as if i need it anyway for any other reason other than my fragile self-esteem. i have a stable job that's good to me, covers all i could possibly need and doesn't hold against me my lack of complete education. i'm not trying to go back to school to guarantee myself a ticket to another part of the world and escape this one (like most people still in school here...). most probably, if i do go back to school it would be to study a course that most would call unproductive and impractical.

i can argue on and on of why i don't need a degree anymore but i can't ever convince myself of it. and no matter how adamantly i believe that i need to continue my education i still can't get myself to move.

sheesh, i need to set my priorities straight.

...

since when did i have priorities?

oh well...

f*cking freud!

2006-03-02T16:36:00.000-08:00

you are as good as dead. i mourn and celebrate in the same breath.
- romeo, elise title

i have never believed nor cared about oedipal complexes, i agree with jung on this one... i think its one of freud's wackiest ideas. not everything relates or stems from sexuality. but what do i know, right?

i have just recently finished reading Elise Title's Romeo. granted that i don’t spend much time these days reading plus the fact that i've weaned myself of popular fiction to warp my mind in living through and actually enjoying classics (classics will always be classic, popular fiction wanes in time not to mention gets pretty repetitive or formulaic...), i 'enjoyed' reading this particular psychological suspense/thriller. (that is, if messing with your head is considered as 'enjoying'. there's actually a term for this, mind-fuck.) however, its not really the plot line that got me riveted. in truth, i didn't really care much figuring out who the perp was. its the psychological bullshit that got me. i think it would affect anyone but i know it got me differently.

yes, the moronic attack on freud is connected to the book. you could read it if you want... although i am not partial to giving off reviews to everything i read, allow me to delve into this one. (not that you could do anything about it, its my blog after all - not that anyone reads this...)

i think anyone could relate in even the smallest way to main protagonist in this book. i think anyone who had ever tried to fool his/herself stronger than he/she really is would relate, and i think everyone does that. i remember a forum topic on bb about being strong. those who feel or exude strength are those that feel weak inside and those who seem weak have more strength in them than they know. (well, i didn't really need the book to tell me that...)

yet, that is not all...

i'm shaking my head in amusement and chagrin, as if i really could tell what bothered me most about this book... teetering to the edge then avoiding it at the same breath, i'm wryly laughing at myself, i have never changed. hints splattered all over the place yet i have rarely spelled it out for fear that it would keep being real and i have spent nearly all my life trying to forget or pretend it didn't happen. i've spent as much time trying not to care that it did. i could be fooling everyone except the only one i've tried so hard to convince: myself.

its stupid, really, all of it. the endless charade is killing me but then it suicide to let it down. i've killed myself enough already.

yes, i know. you're not getting any of this...

a friend once commented on reading my blog. if ever she is reading this, don't be misguided. depth has always been relative.

...at work

2006-02-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

i am boxer and muriel. because something went wrong, i believe i should work longer (harder?) yet i can't care less about anything that happens. if you don't get the allusion, go back read animal farm.

...

i've just downed my nth cup of coffee. i don't know why i think it would help me, i've never really felt any effects of coffee... i still think its all superficial. i stay awake as long as i need to be and even after mugs of caffeine, i'm still an incurable insomniac. its now 10 minutes after one in the morning, still 5 more hours before i can head home to sleep after another 16 hours in front of my pc. after that i have 7 hours to sleep before my next 16 more hours for this week... not including how much time i need to be here on the weekends. isn't life sweet?

i shouldn't/couldn't even be doing this while the burden of thousands of things i still need to do crowd my thoughts. but as my seatmate said (who left about 3 hours ago) i need to relax. i've always been a cathartic writer... until i overused its effectivity on me. but still...

i mean, it isn't as if anyone pays attention to this garbage...

...

people have remarked that i'm probably trying to kill myself by still being here and i'm probably overworking myself to an early grave... shucks, they know me all too well! it's fun that they care and it's also amusing. you'd probably say that i enjoy the attention even if its directed to my, uhm, weirdness. you'd probably be right... i'm trying to think of some half-sensical psychobabble to somehow redeem myself but brain functions leave me just when i figure out a good thing to use it on.

(whaa..!?!)

to be honest, i missed working nights. well, i loved it better if i haven't been here 8 hours before the original night sched, but what-the-hey! i'd take what i can get.

it does help that i'm getting paid extra for this. plus, i'm out of the house more!

...

i'm rambling... it usually happens and becomes a habit if you've got no one aside from yourself to talk to for considerable length of time. again, i'm rambling... its fun, try it sometime.

holiday shenanigans

2006-01-02T19:15:00.000-08:00

This New Year’s Day (or Jan 01, 06), while happily left at home eating hotdogs and graham cake and, of course, indulging myself with nonstop TV, I came into a movie about the movement for women’s suffrage in America led by Alice Paul. I was not familiar with her but I was intrigued by the story. They were openly persecuted, harassed and even put to prison for petty charges just because they wanted to be treated equally and to be represented in their government by their votes. As I was watching I was thinking, how far have we really come from that?

They probably spent years fighting for the right to vote. Today, voting is a hassle and a sham to those pessimistic or realistic enough to know that their single vote won’t matter since everyone cheats. (When’s the next election? Why am I so outdated?)

I just realized there is still nothing worthwhile happening with the ‘Hello Garci’ scandal, just as I expected. Are they just waiting for us to forget it? Fair enough. Welcome to the new year.

…

Honestly, I don’t really know what to write about or what to furiously thump the keyboard with to the beat of the blaring music from my earphones. I live in a world of my own in my approximately 1 by 1 m cube lined with unnecessary items that account for how much of nothing I’m currently absorbed with.

But here, when it rains it pours. Have I ever told you how much I love rain?

…

The holidays just wore off and THANK GOD! As for my year-end vacation filled to the brim of TV, books and perennial boredom, I prefer being at work beset with the same eyestrain and mind numbness. At least I got out of the house!

But my holidays weren’t really as bleak as it felt most of the time. There were two major BB event that I got to be at, that would have probably been the peak of the last week for me (it actually felt longer). Thanks to Kim for indulging my hare-brained insanity of staying at the Intramuros walls ‘til wee hours of the morning blabbing about almost everything and nothing at all. I also got to spend a night with SIYAM (or at least, chuck, jmi, lex and rej) who (all of them) slept through most of the night and early morning of our movie marathon. (yes, this is my pathetic attempt at updating you with my life…)

Mainly, that’s what my holidays consisted of, movies - alternate realities. Not that I’m complaining or anything but how much can a person handle without his/her brain turning to mush. And I think that did happen.

…

May nagsabi kausapin ko daw blog ko…

Masunurin akong bata.

Maligayang bagong taon.

halloween and floating heads

2005-10-31T13:47:00.000-08:00

my throat is aching. i think i have tonsilitis... aarrgghh!!! i'm drinking warm chamomile tea which i hoped would make it feel a bit better but i'm just feeling nauseated by the smell and the unbelievable sweetness of it. sorry for those offended, i'm a coffee addict and somehow i'm craving its bitterness and strength. tea is messing with my head.

its technically nov 1, halloween, all saint's day. later, we're off to visit mama's grave for about as long as it takes to eat a box of pizza then leave of heat and other imagined complaints. i don't like being there much. i feel as if i'm the worst daughter ever to walk the earth but that's how i feel. when there, i stare of to space not knowing what to think, what i should be thinking, what i should do or what i'm supposed to be doing. i find myself staring at the candles flames and looking at butterflies and dragonflies flitting by or the trees around. then i think, 'what am i doing here? she's not here. she can never be summed up by the words on the engraved marker on her grave. no amount of candles and flowers and time spent feeling stupid, fidgeting in the heat, wanting and not wanting to cry will ever change the fact...' i should be shot now.

...

just got back from lunch break, a creepy one at that. and since it is technically a holiday, canteen's out. we (four of us) went out walking to the nearest open gas station with an open foodshop(that does not need crossing a street to) and sort of hung out there while eating microwaved lunches we definitely would have gotten cheaper if we only had enough premeditation that there would be no food.

going back, a funeral car passed by with a coffin inside. trying to be funny, we pointed it out and joked about halloween and everything. jakey screamed and we all started laughing. i think the only scary part of the funeral car is that it only has one light at the back. we were laughing all the way to the building when friends from the other company (and other floor) called me over and panickedly asked me to wear my clothes inside out immediately. i laughed, i mean: who wouldn't. then they told me why... apparently, one of them (myla) saw us walking back and saw me without a body. i laughed again but was a little disturbed. they were damn serious too, so i flipped my jacket and left.

it reminded me of the elevator ride at the beginning of shift. i was in the elevator alone and distractedly called for my floor (5th). i thought to myself, 'what if i was haunted here...?' again, i was alone, the elevator should only stop at the fifth floor especially since the only ones in the building at night either belongs to the fifth or sixth floor. then it opened on the second. i didn't look up but i knew no one was there. i closed the door immediately. then it opened again on the third, again, no one was there. i closed the door immediately, stared at my phone and waited for my floor. when i got in the office, there was almost no one in... it was just then that i remembered shift was moved to eleven pm and i was an hour early! aaarrgghhh!!!

nothing else happened. (except for someone still yammering to flip my clothes...)

soundtracks...

2005-10-19T13:32:00.000-07:00

Hmmm… No updates. Don’t worry, no one who’s remotely interested missed anything. Life is life as usual: crummy, boring, a bit expensive and usually filled with crap. Work on nights, sleet at day then wake up midafternoons to a blaring stereo of neighbors competing with malls in celebrating christmas early by repetitively playing sexbomb’s christmas album that, if you ask me, doen’t feel christmasy at all.

I suddenly remembered I have a blog when some spammer or something commented all about skin problems or whatever. I never realized I spoke about skin care… but what the hey!!! New age, new type of spamming. (and kim, that was the first laguna trip: just me and tres… I really wasn’t on the second one – actually second for this year? Never mind…)

I realize, I’m slowly depreciationg and missing tv. I’m currently obsessing on perusing through one of my favorite show’s episode summaries and transcripts ang today, I actually really considered not going to work to watch Nat Geo’s docu about The Da Vinci Code… well, of course the thought that I need to used up all my remaining leaves by early next year also crossed my mind and the fact that its utterly boring at work at this moment did traipse around dancing and singing in my mind (with a tail, a three pronged fork and cute horts on its vampiry head)

I finally fulfilled one life’s dream: I fianally got myself a rubik’s cube so I could conk it on the head of a stupid person or just throw it to a wall in frustration. Yup, I still haven’t figured it out yet. I’ve considered googling for solutions but wouldn’t that be cheating? Besides I can’t understand the mathematical permutatiions and the supposedly easy to understand directions. Why, oh, why did I have to leave that blasted thing home…? Well, at least I have another thing to waste time on. Next, I’m getting a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle that I’m conveniently going to lose pieces of and therefore have a valid excuse for not finishing it. Uhm, yes, I am that pathetic. I go to work to finish a book saved on my pc, beat that!

I’m ranting. I’m bored. I’m listening to Audio Werks Studio’s Cruisin Themes from movies, specifically the tango song on that Arnold Schwazzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis danced to at True Lies, a movie I grew up with… I’m still guessing where the other themes are from and what scene it is… There’s leche flan!!! I’m in luck! Have I ever told anyone how much I love that stuff…? It’s so cold in here.

I obviously have nothing to say but can’t stop trying to be coy and witty.

I’m gonna stop now.

Or not.

Now, it’s the theme from Titanic… sheesh!!!

gusto ko lang magkwento

2005-09-26T13:39:00.000-07:00

nagpunta kaming laguna nung week end.

first time ko natulog sa hotel o resort na may nirerentang kwarto. noon lang rin ako nakakain ng puting keso na naiwan namin sa kwartong tinulugan namin nung sabado ng gabi na may malaki at lumang salamin sa gilid at sa may headboard para mas nakakatakot pag may nagpakitang multo. kung may multo mang dumalaw samin nung gabing yun wala kaming napansin, tulog kagad kaming tatlo.

nagpunta kami ng elbi pagkatapos kumain ng marami sa mr kabab. kumain kami sa mr kabab pagkatapos nung gig ni khowee. pagdating namin sa calamba, naghanap muna kami ng tutulugan... mahirap matulog sa bus lalo na pag pinipilit mong panoorin ang unti-unting pagsikat ng araw sa gumagalaw na sasakyan at nilalamig ka. 3 oras lang ang tulog namin pero parang isang taon na ang nakalipas mula nang lisanin namin ang maynila.

nagalmusal kami sa oras na malapit nang mananghali ang mga normal na tao. hindi uso ang normal. kumain kami ng donut at nagkape tapos sinimulan naming palipasin ang araw sa uplb.

naglakad kami sa elbi. wala kaming pinupuntahan, naglalakad lang kami. naglakad kami sa sobrang kapal na damo na masarap sigurong gulungan na parang bata kung hindi lang baka magulungan ko din yung maliliit na paru-parong lumilipad ilang pulgada lang mula sa damo. andaming puno sa elbi! bihira kang makakita ng higanteng puno sa maynila... tapos parang anlaki-laki ng mundo! mababaw ang kaligayahan ko nang mga panahong yon (hanggang ngayon ata), makakita lang ako ng bundok masaya nako. panandalian ko ring natakasan ang buhay at araw-araw na minsan ansarap nang isuka. tila walang hanggan ang mga kalsada at daanang magpapakita sayo kung gaano nga kaganda ang mundo. mas masarap panoorin ang pagtakbo ng tubig sa batis (batis ba yon?) na halos natatakpan ng mga maliliit na puno't halaman mula sa mga tulay na nilakad namin papunta sa kahit saan. wala halos tao at sa katahimikan ay maririnig mo ang bulong ng hangin sa mga puno tangay ang mga tuyong dahon na marahang bumabagsak sa lupa kasama ng ulan. nakaupo kami sa labas ng library noon at pinagmamasdan ang mundo.

habang nakasilong at nangangarap maglaro o magsayaw sa ulan, nananghali kami sa natirang donut mula sa almusal at ininom ang mga nakaplasticbag na gatas na binili namin sa loob ng campus, nagkwentuhan, bumili ng palitaw mula sa batang pinagbigyan namin ng nalalabing donut na wala nang gustong kumain at pinagtapon ng mga kalat namin.

pagkatapos ng ulan, naglakad ulit kami. may nadaanan kaming garden at kinatuwaan namin ang iba't ibang bulaklak. tila hindi tumatakbo ang oras o ang mundo. wala lang. suspended reality. surreal... at least para sakin.

bumuli kami ng masarap na mais at tubig tapos tumambay sa steps ng isang building sa likod ni oble, nagkwentuhan at hinintay ang mundong yapusin ng dilim.

dumilim.

nag-internet kami.

tapos naglakad pauwi kila hani. dahil nakasara sa kanila, naghanap muna kami ng tutulugan. yung una, full. matapos ang mahabang pagitan ng kalsada sa lumalalim ng gabi, nakahanap ulit kami ng hotel pero para may options kami, pinuntahan din namin yung inn sa tapat na mukhang mas mura. ito yung maiksing bahagi ng kwento na pwede sanang pagmulan horror film: pumasok kami at sinalubong ng tagapamahala na mukang adik, bangkay o bangungot (ansama ko!) na ipinakita samin ang isang kwarto na mukhang pinangyarihan ng krimen o exorcism. nakakatakot ung lugar. madilim ung daanan. maaring niloloko ko kayo o niloloko namin ang sarili namin, pero nakakagimbal talaga. bumalik kami sa hotel/resort, para sa 50php pagkakaiba, isang di hamak na mas matinong kwarto. matapos ang sandali pang kwentuhan tulog na sila, natulog na din ako.

pagkagising, kape at pandesal kasi gusto naming tikaman at kainin ang parang natutunaw na na kesong puti. inubos namin ang binayaran naming 12 oras sa kwarto tapos tumambay sa kina hani na kung anu-anong papel, hand outs, libro at babasahin ang ibinibigay sa natutuwa kong mga kamay. pagkatapos ng tanghalian ng kape, coke, ampalaya at chicken, naisipan na naming balikan ang mundo.

mahaba ang byahe sa bus, mas mahaba sa french version ng isang napanood ko nang pelikula tungkol sa batang taga-tribong panandaliang tumira sa syudad...

pag-uwi sa bahay. parang hindi rin ako nawala. pagpasok ng kwarto, parang nawala na naman ako... nalunod sa libro, unan at panaginip.

halata bang wala akong magawa.

prelude to a quarter-life crisis?

2005-09-19T12:53:00.000-07:00

i was thinking of something to put here while mulling over my wasted days as i usually do in boring jeepney rides hurrying to work. for some reason, i can't remember what it is... but hasn't it always been like that?

i hate it. i feel as if the most of my more clear strokes of sanity bursts forth while i'm hanging on for dear life at one end of a racing jeepney.
since i haven't really said anything here since, uhm, my birthday... i'm trying to think of anything...

...

after a night of gimik, my first real one, i was asleep most of sunday. i woke up around three am and was surprised at how bright the night was. so that's what a moon festival is! i love the moon and it was magnificent that night! eventually i fell asleep again...
i realized, i'm not cut out for the ususal night out so glamorized by almost everyone. all night, i wished i brought a book.

...

i'm speaking of mundane things. they hold no meaning even to me. somehow i feel the need to say more. but i can't. and not here... probably not anywhere.

sometimes i feel as if i lost my voice in trying so hard not to speak. but it's hard to begin and once begun, its harder to stop even while you restlessly roam nowhere.

it is not nowhere. it's something i said i'd leave behind but can't. it cozies itself in the back of my mind, burrowing deeper and i know i won't rid of it, probably can't. it waits, ready to pounce on one silent solitary night while i stare blankly at the walls of my room unable to lull myself into the confused bliss of sleep and forgotten dreams. that's why i surround myself with stories and characters breathed unto life any time i need to pulled back from its grip. i don't want to be back in its suffocating doom. i thought i knew better.

but i'm getting tired of me.

i promised i'd grow up. it's easier said...

b-day blues

2005-09-05T00:42:00.000-07:00

its my birthday. i'm bored as hell...

so to make this day somewhat different from the rest... meaning, i'm not confined to the four walls of my room lying prone with a book propped in my face and falling asleep after an eternity of incomprehensible words, i went out.

now, i'm at a mall, just watched a movie, eaten and bored myself some more until i think its safe enough to go home... meaning, i wont be bored for long there to contemplate drastic and stupid thoughts while a pirated cd of birthday songs blare unmercifully from somewhere followed by a sexbomb christmas album (also pirated) that, i am sure, is enough to shatter my hard-kept sanity.

i may be joking. i'm not sure anymore.

sheesh! another year! i need to get a grip on my life! (do i even have one...?)

...

i apologize, i have forgotten how to think properly... i am not making sense again.

aftereffects of lack of coffee and lack of sleep...

2005-09-02T14:54:00.000-07:00

Another year in my useless life is about to come by to shake me up with guilt of not being anything yet and not going anywhere. Sheesh.

In fairness, I guess, I am somehwere and I am something now though something I’d newver have thought to be and somewhere is just where I let life lead me.

I have alwas thought that by twenty I’d either have everything worked out and I would know exactly what I want to spend my life as or I’d be dead because I’m not supposed to be anything after all. On the verge of being twenty, I’m in a limbo. I have no idea of where to go or what to do now… and obviously, I’m neither dead nor dying nor contemplating physically killing myself except in half-joking despair. What is to die but just to change? To shift from one consciousness to the next? What I need is to find something enough o live for and die for… a deeper purpose, meaning, something aside from this empty days filled with wasting time…

No, before anyone suggests it, I don’t believe that the answer to my lifelong ennui would be found in any best selling self-help book.

so now what…?

…

Now comes my weeklong leave from work. And while I’m pumped up by the prospect of having free days to do whatever, I’m plagued by the idea that most probabaly I would just waste away locked in my room reading and living out my normal loner life emerging from the vacation none the wiser.

I’d most probably look for a school to waste four more years of my life in pursuit of something that might give me a clue to what I am truly supposed to be doing. If not, at least I got myself an education. It does feel that way somethimes… that I’m only going back to school to waste time, go through the motions so to speak. Skipping college, I feel like I missed out on a very crucial and life changing phase and that once again I jumped ahead and forced myself to just get along without it. I probably missed out on a lot of things that was supposed to build my character and resolve to be something. Now, at almost twenty, I am part of a world I’m cramming to understand. Well, it’s not terribly hard but I still feel as if I’m just a spectator to things happening around me… just going with the flow of things.

I want to feel alive, not just be. I want to dedicate my life to something worthwhile. I need something that requires more of me than push me to the edge and be more. To be tired and happy and overwhelmed with all that I have to do but see that what I’m doing actually changes the world or just someone else’s life and not just mine. Heck! Whatever…

So I say farewell to adolescence, to default reasons and arguments for stupidity, to the careless living a day at a time… now, I need to take life seriously…

What a joke.

...

I need a life.

walk home

2005-08-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

Kanina, since wala akong kasabay, naglakad ako pauwi. Ang weird ko siguro… pero masarap maglakad. Hindi ko na madalas magawang maglakad mag-isa o kahit hindi mag-isa kasi ang palagi kong kasabay pauwi ay palagi ring naka high heels at ang palagi kong kasabay pauwing yon ay babatukan siguro ako at titignan ng masama pag bigla kong sinabi na gusto kong maglakad. Parang sinabi ko na rin na mag poetry reading kami kahit gusto nilang mag-inuman lang…

Pero masaya maglakad, kahit mag-isa ka lang. Its like slowing down to smell the invisible roses except that you breathe in the stench of pollution and garbage stupid people carelessly dump everywhere. Habang naglalakad ako sinusubukan kong ijustify sa isip ko kung bakit nga ba ako naglalakad… walang pinatunguhan, hindi bagay sakin mag-isip.

Gusto ko ulit maglakad mamaya! Pero sana bukas na ang McDo para may breakfast…
…

Nanaginip ako kanina… may isang part nung panaginip na narinig ko daw ang boses ni mama tapos tuwang-tuwa akong bumaba, tapos wala sya dun, mga kapatid ko lang at pamilya ni papa andun sa may sala. Nalungkot ako, bumalik ng kuwarto tapos naisip ko na parang nakakalimutan ko na ang boses ni mama. Kanina ko pa pinipilit isipin kung naalala ko pa nga o hindi. Hindi ko inaamin o nasasabi to ng madalas pero namimiss ko si mama. Ansama ko sigurong anak kasi hindi man lang ako dumadalaw sa kanya sa anniv ng pagkamatay nya or sa birthday nya… pero para ano pa ang ipupunta ko dun. In denial pa rin ako, ayoko pa rin tanggapin o masyadong pakaisipin na wala na sya. Two years na syang wala… nagbago na ang buhay naming lahat… pero sa mga panaginip ko palagi syang bumabalik na parang galing lang ng probinsya o ng palengke tapos para akong batang matutuwa… tapos magigising ako at malulungkot. Sheesh… ganun ba talaga yun?

Nabasa ko kahapon… wala lang.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die.
- Mary Elizabeth Frye (1932)

…

Kanina tinanong ako ni ate kung san ko balak mag-aral at kung ano balak kong kunin. Naalala ko tuloy n kailangan ko na ngang ayusin ang buhay ko at isipin kung saan o paano ako mag-aaral by next school year. Wala pa rin ako maisip na course. Gusto ko mag-aral sa UST, pero may uniform. Okey lang siguro mag-aral sa UP kasi malapit at walang uniform pero baka hindi maabot ng tinatawag na ‘intellectual capacity’ ko. Masaya din siguro mag-aral sa PUP pero AB/BA lang naiisip kong course na kunin at kung yun daw ang course mo sa PUP, sabi ng barkada ko, palagi kang nasa kalsada at palagi kang nakiki-rally… atsaka hindi ko pa rin alam kung paano pumunta dun.

Wala na kong ibang maisip na school.

Wag na lang kaya akong mag-aral… HINDI! Hindi pwede yun! Dahil… basta!!!

Sheesh!

Andami kong gustong gawin sa buhay ko… hindi ko lang alam kung ano… o san magsisimula…

Pero kelangan ko na atang kumilos.

jail time

2005-08-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

Hindi ako matahimik. Gusto ko umiyak, gusto ko sila iyakan, pero wala naming mangyayari… saka walang oras, baka batukan ako ng mga tao ditto sa office pag bigla na lang ako humagulgol dito. Nabura na ang mga tatak sa braso at palad ko, palatandaan na dalaw lang kami. Hindi pa rin mabura sa isip ko ang lahat. Ayoko syang makalimutan.

Sa ngayon tanging picture lang ng logo ng Navotas City Jail ang meron ako. Wallpaper na sya ng phone ko, pati ng phone ni mae anne… para lang siguro palala. Sana merong iba. Sana habangbuhay matatak sa isip ko ang itsura ng mga batang dinalaw namin sa kulungan. May mga nakita akong picture sa internet…

Nungniyaya ako ni maeanne kagabi, adventure daw! Syempre natuwa ako, experience yun. Sigurado may matututunan akong bago. Pareho naming hindi alam kung ano ang ieexpect. Pumunta lang kami.

Nameet namin yung mga volunteers ng PREDA (People’s Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance Foundation Inc.) sa Malabon City Jail. Papunta palang eye opener na… bakit bumabaha kahit hindi umuulan? Bakit matagal nang alam na umaapaw ang tubig sa ilog pag high tide at binabaha ang kalsada pero wala pa ring ginawa para hindi na mangyari yun ulit? Well, I mean, bukod sa pag renovate/elevate ng city hall para hindi sya pasukin ng tubig…

Nameet namin si ate jackie sa labas ng kulungan. Pumasok na yung iba nilang kasamahan. Pumasok na rin kami. Pagpasok mo pa lang, ramdam mo na ang mga mata ng mga inmates sayo. Palingon-lingon lang ako sa paligid, apprehensive. Malinis yung jail. Maliwanag, mahangin at hindi pinapasok ng tubig, not bad naisip ko. Yun ay hanggat hindi pa ko nakakapasok nung selda.

Inretrospect, maayos ang kulungan sa navotas. Siguro dahil na rin sa nakita ko na ang mas malala. Nasa second floor ang cell ng minors. Dun nakilala namin ang mga kasama namin para sa araw na iyon: sina ate jo at kuya rod na taga PREDA din tsaka si dan at david na galing sa isang org sa Ireland para mag-observe. Si ate jo ang kumakausap sa mga bate in general, si ate jackie ang nag-iinterview ng mga bagong bata isa-isa para sa background ng kaso at para ipaalam sa magulang na pwedeng lumapit sa kanila. 25 (ata, nakalimutan ko na eh) sila, mula 15-17 y/o. nakahiwalay sila ng selda sa matatanda pero may kasama silang matatanda matulog sa selda nila. May tv na ang saksakan ay 2 wire na ipinapasok sa socket, may vcd/dvd player at mga pirated na vcds, may mga raketa ng table tennis, may dalawang gitara na nakasabit sa gilid, may isang bola ng basketballna mukhang display lang, may 2 set ng visionary, chess set, kalendaryo na personalized para sa juvenile delinquents, may hand made poster ng mga juvenile delinquents na nakatago ang mga mata sa mahahabang buhok kahit na semikalbo silang lahat, may banyo, may lamesang kainan, jug ng tubig, may isang kama at may 30 taong natutulog dun sa gabi. Waw. Nakaupo silang lahat sa tapat namin, nakaupo pa lang sila sakop na nila more than half nung room.

Habang kinukolekta ni mae anne at ni ate jackie ang case background nila, kausap ko si ate jo tungkol sa foundation nila, sa mga ginagawa nila at sa kung anu-ano pa. Mahirap din maging NGO, maliit ang sahod, mataas ang stress level at mabigat sa puso pag wala kang nagawa. Minsan, pag incapable ang parents, suspended ang sentence o pag pinili nila, ang PREDA ang nag-aalaga ng mga bata. May center sila kung saan di hamak na mas friendly at uplifting ang environment kesa sa kulungan. Kapansin-pansin, lahat ng bata ay may skin disease at scabies. Andaming tao, pero since hindi silang lahat ay nasa loob ng selda, hindi ko maestimate kung ilan ang laman ng iba.

Marami sa mga bata ang mag-iisang buwan na sa kulungan at wala pang arraignment ng kaso, dinampot ng walang warrant at hindi nag-undergo ng medical checkup upon arrest para alam kung sinaktan sila ng mga pulis o jail guard. Minsan pa daw dismissed na yung kaso ng bata pero hindi pa inilalabas ng kulungan kase sayang daw ata sa gas kung isang bata lang ang ihahatid nila. May mga bata na illiterate at hindi alam na nalalabag na ang mga karapatan nila. Yun ang papel nila.

Umalis kami dun na medyo nabagabag. Anlungkot din ng kwento ng mga bata. Ang mga kaso nila ranges from theft to frustrated homicide. Bukod sa pagtulong sa mga batang ongoing ang trial, tinutulungan din nila yung mga tapos na ang kaso para maayos na maassimilate sa society. Yun pala ang kwento ni ate jackie, dati syang isang batang tinulungan ng PREDA, ngayon hindi lang daw sya volunteer, nagte-teatro pa daw sya na nakarating na sa iba’t ibang bansa. Kasama din namin yung ilang batang nasa custody nila while ongoing yung kaso, nailigtas na sila mula sa preso, sa PREDA base sa Olongapo na sila nakabase na, ayun kay ate jo, parang resort compared sa selda.

Nalaman din namin na ang PREDA din pala ang tumulong sa mga taga ITV na gumawa ng report about the state of juvenile detention sa pinas. Nakakinis na nagkakaroon lang ng pagbabago kasi nagkaroon ng expose tungkol dun. Next stop namin yung lugar kung san shi-noot yung report, sa Navotas City Jail.

Kung ikukumpara sa Malabon, well kempt zoo ang malabon at kural ng baboy ang selda sa Navotas. Amoy ganun din.

Mas well-guarded sya. Andaming inmates. Kinausap namin yung mga bata sa grounds. Akala namin nung una 8 lang sila, 13 ata silang andun. Same, kinuha nila case background nung mga bago. Ang pinakabata nila ay 14 y/o 2 buwan na daw sya dun. Merong iba lampas isang buwan na dun, ang kaso: tantsing o kara krus, illegal gambling lang. tsk! Andami-daming jueteng lords sa pinas pero nakulong ang isang 15 y/o kid dahil lang sa kara krus! May isa nahuli daw syang nagru-rugby, hinuli sya at ikinulong, illegal possession and being under the influence of dangerous substances ata, 15 lang din sya. Damn! Hindi ba dapat detained lang yun or at least rehab? Criminal case ba yun!?!

Ang kadalasan pang nangyayari hindi nasusunod ang tamang proseso sa paghuli ng mga bata. In a perfect world, pag nahuli yung bata, dadalhin sa magulang tapos sila magdedetain or sa institution na para lang sa mga juvenile delinquents. Kelang may medical checkup bago sila I detain ng pulis. Kelangan may warrant of arrest bago sila biglang nakawin sa buhay nila. Kelangan wala munang interrogation hanggat walang defense yung bata. Kelangan basahin yung rights ng bata sa kanya kasi hindi lahat sila marunong magbasa. Kelangan nang masunod ang mga protocols na yun… pero hindi.

Hinatid namin sila sa selda nila. Welcome to hell bigla. Welcome to the real world daw, reality check en all that cliché stuff… pero hindi, mas malala to sa tunay na mundo. Nasa dulo ang selda nila, katapat ng selda ng mga babae. Kung sakaling magkaemergency sa building at kelangan nilang lahat lumabas, huling maliligtas ang mga minors. May tv sa selda nila, may double deck na isang tao lang ang kasya sa isang palapag ng kama, may table, may banyo, may mga marka sa dingding na nagpapatunay na binabaha sila dun pag umuulan. Pag umuulan daw, palitan ang tulog, nakaupo lang sila sa table, sa kama or yung iba natutulog ng nakatayo. There’s an atmosphere of oppression, stink of lost and dying hopes. glazed eyes expecting nothing and fearing to hope for too much.

Sa ireland daw, sabi ni david, ang seldang katulad nung selda nung minors ay apat lang ang lman, at most. May playstation, tv, well ventilated at malinis. Wala kami sa Ireland, nasa hell kami. Sabi ni kuya rod, may karapatan silang magkaroon ng proper exercise pero anliit ng open space tinanong namin yung isang bata, nakaklabas lang daw sila ng selda para sa exercise ng Monday pero halfday lang tsaka pag may dalaw sila. Shit… isipin mo kung wala kang dalaw… minsan volunteers lang din at social workers dalaw nila. Ang lungkot. Ang gago.

Nasa 4 na naunang selda ang mga matatandang lalake. Nakahiwalay lang ng tutulugang kwaro ang mga bata, pero parang ganun pa rin, sila pa rin ang magkakasalamuha buong araw, araw-araw. Hindi ka makatingin ng derecho o nang matagal sa mga selda nila. Nakaktakot sila. Sa isang seldang est. 6 by 4 meters, parang andami-daming tao… pinakamababa na ang 30 sa isang selda. Nakikita mo sila pero ayaw mong tignan, lahat sila nakatingin samin paglabas. Pagtapak namin sa malapit nang lumubog na araw… ansarap pala ng hangin, kahit medyo pollutioned. May foreigners daw silang dinala dun dati na paglabas humagulgul ng iyak. Yung mga kasama naming Irish na napaka complacent the whole day, galit na galit. Nakakagago nga kasi. Sobra.

Sa sasakyan pabalik ng kabihasnang parte ng bigla naming naguhong mundo, pinag-usapan namin kung ano mangyayari sa kanila. Usually daw, tinutulungan ng NGO yung social worker na ilakad yung kaso at hinihingi ang custody ng bata habang ongoing ang trial para hindi tuluyang masira ang moralidad, dignidad at mentalidad nila sa kulungan. Nakikipagcoordinate sila sa mga guyardians nung bata. Paano pag walang guarian? tanong ko. Wala daw silang magagawa kelangan syang asikasuhin mismo nung social worker. Isang social worker lang ang humahawak ng kaso para sa mga lungsod ng kalookan, malabon at navotas.

Ang gago ng buhay.

ranting half awake

2005-08-13T00:21:00.000-07:00

its 3pm. I'm still at work. And considering that office hours are 10pm to 6am...

sheesh!

i have a terrible headache and are having delusions of breaking in to one of our managers' drawers just to get an advil and somehow blow my head off or at least make it feel a little more like a head and not a heavy bowling ball made of glass that is ready to fall off my shoulders and splatter my invisible brain matter on newly vacuumed carpet that we're still steadily scattering bits of paper, foil and whatnots on.

i hate this week.

i'm ranting. i don't usually rant... at least not much for the past few weeks. i'm disappointing myself. this (blogging) has successfully weaned me away from my battered journal i think is still hiding under paperback novels i try rereading to fall asleep on and a good thick layer of dust. i miss writing but i have always hated it... i like pounding away at an innocent keyboard a better relief from stress... and anyway, its easier to get disappointed from the latest appalling thought you've just so entusiastically scribbled (making your already uncomprehensible writing even harder to discern than hieroglyphic cave carvings) in the helplessly punctured paper than when you're stupidly staring at the keys of a keyboard and not care at all if what you're writing is spelled incorrectly or not even bothering to recognize the misspelled, unpunctuated grammatically incorrect sentence preceding the last letter you've pounded on like a savage.

sheesh...

i'm unnataturally bored... i've got so much to do or so much to prod myself to pick up and help on to feel bored... but i am. this is not boredom this is ennui... still, what the hell is the difference!?!

booked

2005-08-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

Its been a long weekend. A long absence too for me. I feel like I’ve just crawled out of a cave after drowning into a mass of words that is Harry Potter 6. It is still taunting me to once again immerse myself in that make-believe reality that has been more than a book (not only to me) but an experience, an adventure.

Anyway, since I only have it in ebook version, I just finished reading and editing it to fit in as few pages as possible. I only read it at work since it was too long to print witout anyone taking notice. From a 800-plus pages of manuscript, I somehow toned it down to less than 400 pages in a font others would have to squint at. They are not my problem. When I came up for air, I realized I haven’t even checked my mail since Friday last week and did almost nothing else but pore through those pages momentarily forgetting about life, eat and sleep. I’m also reading another book at home which comes in the likewise unconventional format of loose letter-size pages photocopied from the original text. As if not yet contented, browsing through the mall this afternoon for lack of anything to do after accompanying a friend doing research on different barangays in QC, I walked by the booksale section and bought a novel by John Irving I’m eager to begin once I once again find time on my hands not yet occupied by sleeping or poring through something else.

Life is complicated.

Lately, I find myself trapped in conflicting circumstances or schedules in which I find it somewhat hard to chose from. Not only that, I find myself going of everywhere almost every weekend and being pulled to after-work activities I’m really not to keen on or fond of. ( if you have just understood what the heck I’m trying to say, you’re a genius…) I’ve never been fond of alcohol, now I see it more often that I’d hope to and feel its strange and somewhat unwelcome taste more than I care to remember. No offense to anyone or to those whom by some magic of occulumency or mind-reading (or simply by having the distinct chance of seeing and remembering me posting the address of this blog somewhere else) I’ve never been much of a drinker. Not seeing me puke my guts out yet or collpse into a state of pure insanity transcending my normal state of crazy doesn’t mean that my tolerance for that stuff is strong, or even if it is, that I like it. *sigh* all in the name of ‘pakikisama’…

Obviously, I’ve never been the type who finds relaxation, comfort or even fun in the idea of loud music, alcohol, second hand smoke and occasional flirting either with disaster or otherwise. Somehow, I miss the strange comfortable silence of my room while my mind buzzes with millions of unasked questions, doubts, fears, and infinite insanities. I’m still a terrible loner at heart… besides, I miss sleeping.

…

Eversince I started this blog, I never really thought anyone else aside from those desperately bored would waste their time traversing this overflow of my inane ideas. I didn’t even want people who know me personally or differently about this. I don’t know… fright, shame, embarrassment? So imagine my sheer surprise when I receive messages of people appreciating my blog or workmates that comment over lunch that they have been going through this trash on lull periods of our days or nights. Anyway, thanks! Leave your footsteps on the tagboard… trample upon these ideas, lend me your own.

Also, these days, I find myself collecting stupid anecdotal observations in a curios attempt to easily breakthrough a blank sheet staring at me apprehensively when I don’t know what to do with my time and every time I try to write anything to post here and waste your time with. I realize, despite mounds of criticisms and comparisons that blogging could never replace real ‘writing’ it’s a step up along the way.

…

Again, If you understood anything I stupendously typed in here, you’re a friggin’ genius. I just liked the feeling of flying through the keyboard as if clacking away something important… you don’t need to make any sense out of this, I doubt there is.

...

(inspired by the first line which is a title of a chapter in John Irving's Son of a Circus... wala lang, naisip ko lang ang cute nung statement... tsaka wala ako magawa eh...)

Channelsurfing

Depression comes after lunch.
After the noontime babble
of high-strung artificially induced glee
of raining streamers and desperate voices
flooded by shrieks and screams
of audiences coming to life
or dying down
in gesture of a hand
you cannot see from your tv.
Excitement dies down,
disappears, fades,
leaves you hanging,
clamoring not to be left alone again.
It quiets down and you’re left to cope
to escape the sudden unnerving silence
by randomly flicking your remote
caring it seems for nothing
but to bring it back
to that noisy state of idiocy.

gorging on life...

2005-07-25T13:38:00.000-07:00

Another Monday night… I wonder how long this week would feel like.

It’s unusually quiet here in the office as I once again pretend to be occupied with some extremely important life and death matter in the office. I should’ve just stayed home to sleep but I was thinking of not missing the opportunity for overtime. We didn’t really have work today since we are drastically affected by SONA being along Commonwealth Ave. I slept through the entire hoopla happening around as (it seemed) the whole family stuck to the TV for the president’s speech. It’s better to get the details and manuscript online not to mention different opinions and commentaries ready for devouring of the idle minds at 3 am supposedly busy with an important life and death matter at the office.

I’ll get around to it later. I don’t want to ruin my worthless (but paid!) lack of sleep.

Anyway, out of the spirit of living life to the fullest, we went swimming last Saturday, again. This one was just a barkada outing to celebrate someone’s birthday. And apparently they’ve got nothing better to do. We went to Gubat sa Syudad, somewhere in Caloocan. They said it was just a stone’s throw away…yeah right! If you were Samson, Hercules or Goliath, it could’ve been. So armed, I mean, packed with a lot of food, alcohol that is way too much for 6 persons, and pure guts and thirst for ‘happenings’ (I’m merely there for the adventure); we cramped ourselves and everything else to a taxi.

The ride there was spooky, really spooky; take my word. It was called Gubat sa Syudad: Forest in the City… it didn’t look anything like a forest. The way there: long, winding, dark, deeply rutted unasphalted, unlighted roads lined out or seemingly carved out of tall grass; seem perfect for a crime scene or a horror movie. If you stare out the window long enough, you can’t, I mean I can’t… I feel as if my imagination would jump ahead of me and see things I’m not supposed to be able to. I just leaned back and closed my eyes. Later, according to Mela, our birthday girl friend who has a working third eye (huh?), my fears were justified, there were some things around. It seems like a perfect place to die or scream yourself to death. To make matters worse, we got lost.

We eventually made it out. It was probably the first time I felt relieved to see lights and hear Totoy Bibo playing in a stupid videoke machine. We went in realizing we weren’t the only ones stupid and insane enough to go night swimming in the middle of the rainy season right after a whole afternoon of thunderstorms. it was better to have people around anyhow, they were looking for company and the place is too big to have to ourselves.

The place was almost as creepy as getting there. It was a big place but I think there were only two working pools, 3 of you count the kiddie pool just beside the main one. The rest of the pools had black water that seems to house either alligators or a forgotten breed of dinosaurs that would justify the reputation of it being a ‘gubat’. Some didn’t have water at all but didn’t have signs saying anything so you have to squint to check or probably not be so stupid to swim where there are no lights and people around. We discovered a slide and raced up the rusty winding staircase to the top. It seemed to be the stairway to all the slides on the entire place. We almost slid through one that leads to an empty pool; I dare not imagine the outcome of that one.

There were about 5 groups that went there. We got to talking to one group since they had this 2 or 3 year old kid that we were playing with and we needed help finishing the third and last bottle of Emperador. Again, I spent almost the entire night on the water not caring if my body aches to high heaven for another week. I was evading my turns at alcohol. I vowed not to get drunk again or anywhere near it. We got a lot of food for 6 people who aren’t that hungry and we were stupid in guarding it much to the delight of roaming cats and dogs who probably took and ate almost half of the fish we were supposed to cook there. Oh well! On the bright side, our friends for the night gave us some more food: raw fish. We basically just took it home to eat for breakfast.

Well to make the long story considerably shorter than it already is, we had fun, waited until 6 am to raise ourselves from the pool and attempt to clean the cottage we occupied. Our trustworthy taxi driver, the same one that drove us there that promised to pick us back up in the morning, was there waiting for us. We discovered he slept there, how he found the guts to or why he did such a stupid thing for 200 pesos is beyond my imagination. We stayed awhile at Hyland’s place, fried the free fishes, had breakfast and (all of us) crashed on his/her bed for a few hours before realizing we had homes and lives.

I was asleep the whole off Sunday waking up late at night just to watch TV and sleep again. Next Saturday is another birthday, another drinking session, another adventure… sheesh!

Carpe diem!?... hahaha

11: follow the truth

2005-07-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

Inuman na naman kaninang umaga after shift. Hindi ko alam kung bakit nasasama ako sa mga ganito, hindi ako manginginom… yeah right! Apat lang kaming tumatagay, saling kitkit yung isa… madaya… tsk! Pero hindi ako nalasing, inantok lang kasi wala pa kong tulog. Mula ngayon, uuwi na lang ako mag-isa. (as if)

Siguro dala ng alcohol o/at ng third eye ng isa samin, napunta ang usapan sa pinakagasgas na topic sa buong buhay ko: religion. Ayoko nang magcomment. Natigil lang bigla ang usapan nung lumabas na si mela (yung may third eye) kasi masyado na daw malakas at ‘troubled’ yung spirit na lumapit samin. Tatlo daw yung spirits sa room, yung pangatlo dumating lang dahil sa debate. Itim daw yung spirit, 4 kaming nakaitim. Sabi na nga ba ispirito nako! Hehehe

Anyway, perfect! Sa wakas uuwi na kami! Sa dyip, pinag-uusapan namin yung pangyayari. Namiss ko tuloy ang BB na hindi ko mapasok… sheesh!

Pero bago ako mamatay sa boredom sa work (na nalate ako for the first time in ages) binigyan ako ni hani ng online puzzle. Nasa level 11 na ko. Malapit ng matapos ang shift. Wala lang.

(at dahil sa wala parin akong magawa…)

…

Daylight fades
To mist gatherng
In your eyes.
Remember, I told you
It’s okay to cry.

Forever fades
To yet another day
To a silent interlude
Of twinkling stars
Defying the heavy clouds
Of the sky’s misery.
‘it would pass’ you’d laugh and say.
But your voice is a memory
Your laughter, music
I am desperate to hear.

Listen to the wind sigh.
Watch intently
those softly falling crystals
Shatter into a million more
In your closed windows.
Catch those raindrops, dearest.
I’m crying with you.

rainy days and mondays...

2005-07-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

Wala ako magawa. Ansakit parin ng katawan ko.

Sandali. Filipino? Bago! Ehehehe

Week end.

Masaya ang weekend!? (Kasama talaga yang question mark, hindi ko alam ang batayan ng kasiyahan, nasabi ko lang yun kasi may bago na naman akong ginawa) Nung gabi ng Sabado hanggang Sunday morning naitakda ang belated 2004 christmas party ng menus family. Andaming food – mga pang-isang batalyon. Nung umaga after shift, sinamahan ko ang 2 bading naming caller para mamili sa Commonwealth Market. Gusto ko nang derechong umuwi galling work pero naawa ako, hindi sila marunong mamalengke, mag grocery lang. So, mala-tour guide/taga-bitbit ako. Nakakatawa siguro kaming tignan, ako na mukhang timang, isang hindi na mukhang babaeng naka-heels, dangling earrings at id pero nagtataka kung bakit alam nung mga sumisipol sa kanya ang pangalan niya at isang ewan na kamukha daw ni chocolate (hindi ko sya kilala) na nagkaroon madaming bulkan sa mukha at tumangkad. (buti na lang hindi nila alam na may blog ako, patayin ako ng mga yun eh… ehehehe pis!) Matangkad na ko pero mas matangkad sila pareho sakin. Nanliit yung nagbebenta ng baka na nakatuntong sa wooden crate samin lalo na kasi ansama ng titig sa kanya ni lan (na may killer stare) kase tanong siya ng tanong kung ano nga ba talaga siya, babae o bading. Magluluto sila ng apat na kilong spaghetti at 7 kilong fried chicken, treasure hunting kami sa palengke. Astig na party siguro.

Kung iisipin, astig nga! 21,000 daw ang pondo mula sa tate. Obernayt swimming party sa isang bahay na (malamang) may pool, billiards table, tv at mga kwartong pwedeng tulugan. Andaming pagkain!!! (nasabi ko na ba yun?) Andaming tao - mga twenty. Ang usapan 6pm dun sa place kasi kelangan mag-ayos tsaka para masulit kasi magsshooting daw dun ng 6am ang daisy syete na lahat ng tao any namangha na hindi ko alam. (Siyete! Malay ko ba!) Proud ako late ako!- ng thirty minutes… pagdating ko dun 2 pa lang kami. Pagdating ng 7, dalawa parin kami at gutom at walang load.

Pero dumating din sila nung sumunod na oras matapos naming magmukhang tangang magbilliards kase pareho kami hindi marunong. Tapos nagsimula na ang kainan at ang mga sirena sa pool. Kung 10pm ako nagsimulang magtampisaw siguro mga 4:30 na ako umahon for good (umiiwas ako sa inuman). Ang sakit ng katawan ko.

Uwian ng 5:30 am. Uwian din ng pagkain. Inuwi ko rin yung sawsawan ng lumpia (ufc samting, antsalap eh). Walang tricycle kaya naglakad kami palabas ng village. Mabigat sa bag ang basang damit at twalyang ginamit ata ng lahat. Mabigat din pati yung walang lamang tupperware. Nasabi ko na bang masakit ang katawan ko? Tumuloy sila ng inuman, umuwi ako at nangako kay mae anne na sasamahan ko sya ng hapon samwer. Bagsak ako sa kama. Nagkamalay ako para maalala na hindi pa ako naglalaba, wala na kong damit at pucha, anong oras na!?! Buti na lang na-cancel ung pagsama ko kay mae anne samwer kase wala daw sya mahanap na perya. Tulog ulit… naguilty, bumangon at naglaba.

Tapos natulog ulit.

Tapos umulan buong gabi.

Monday.

Gusto ko bumili ng Harry Potter and the Half-blooded Prince na sabi ni ate mamamatay daw si Dumbledore. Ayoko maniwala. Gusto ko bumili ng libro, pero wag daw muna kasi sayang sa pera… antayin ko daw muna bumaba ang presyo… o ang thirteenth month pay, kung alin man ang mauna.

Dahil wala ako magawa kanina. Umalis ako ng bahay kahit umuulan at nanood ng sine. Oo, mag-isa. Sasamahan sana ako ni ate kasi libre ko naman pero tinulugan nya ako. At dahil sa umuulan, wala nga ako magawa at gusto ko bumili ng harry potter 6 pero wag nga daw muna (ang kulit), nilibre ko ang sarili ko sa bk, tumikim ng onion rings (hindi masarap) at nanood ng dalawang sine.

Nanood ako ng Pinoy Blonde! Experimental sya. Kulang sa kwento pero okey na sa epeks. Hindi madaling maka-relate kung hindi ka movie geek. Hindi ako movie geek. Hindi ko alam kung mas magaling si Brocka kay Bernal. Pero nakakatawa. Astig ang sound track. Andaming mura at andaming dialogue mula sa iba’t ibang pelikula. Kulang sa background ang characters tsaka kulang sa justification. Andaming cameo appearances. Pero gusto ko yung character ni Ricky Davao, henyong baliw na walang sense ang kilos(?). At para makasira ng araw, ang laman nung brown paper bag ay... siopao.

Tapos since maaga pa at may pera pa ako tsaka ayoko pa umuwi, bumili ako ng venti mocha frappe sa starbucks at nanood ng Nasaan Ka Man. Astig! Ang ganda… madrama pero hindi tearjerker na ililihis ang atensyon mo sa pagka suspense thriller ng pelikula. Ang ganda ng mga shots (cinematograpia?) tsaka nung kwento. Akmang-akma yung sinister character ni Ito kay Diether. Basta!! Sana showing pa kung hindi mo pa napapanood… hindi ako magaling magkwento eh. (Hindi rin ako magaling magreview ng pelikula, halata ba?) Okey din yung twist. I should’ve seen it coming… I could only shake my head in amusement and awe.

Tapos manonood pa dapat ako ng Ice Princess pero 6pm na tsaka dahil nakashot nako ng kape, inaantok na ako. Umuwi nako tapos nagtangkang matulog.

San kaya makakahanap ng manuscript ng Harry Potter 6?

Ansakit pa rin ng katawan ko!

Gusto ko na matulog ulit!

holding my breath...

2005-07-08T14:21:00.000-07:00

I’m just waiting for what happens next. I guess I’m not the only one.

I didn’t really want to comment on this, it enrages and depresses me at the same time. But then again, why not…

Last Thursday, PGMA asked for the resignation of her cabinet officials and some economic advisers, though they have already decided to resign and the President’s order just preempted them. The official story is to allow her more control in ‘instituting changes in the Constitution’ (uh-oh…)

I think everyone else is just waiting for her to follow suit. Even former President Aquino, whom weeks ago were praying for her to stay in office, is asking her to make the ‘supreme sacrifice’ and spare the country from more turmoil. The ship is sinking fast, group yourselves to nearest rally of your choice!

Almost everyone is asking her to step down. Those that don’t are expecting and calling for a democratic solution in form of congressional impeachment processes. That would probably be a stalemate or if not, one long winding and tiring journey. I can already imagine the major networks’ live coverage and our TV bent solely on the purpose of getting the latest for my riveted father sleeping on the sofa. Not to mention stomaching congressional representatives struggling with their English and grammar and acting like unruly children for public delight. After the coverage would be discussion forums that would still tackle the same issue making me sick of it even before it happens.

The thing is if Arroyo resigns De Castro would be president. I don’t know about you but I can’t really warm up to that idea. Should we now vote for vice presidents putting in mind that even before the next elections ends they would be the next ruler of our country? As of yet, she shows no signs of relinquishing the presidency.

On the other side is the opposition virtually led by the late FPJ’s wife. Good luck to that. No matter how ardently she denounces the government and the crisis it has brought upon to us ordinary citizens, she can’t buy me into supporting her. Well, to be fair, she doesn’t want the presidency for herself and is in fact reluctant to lead it but the way that the opposition milks her emotions, loss and anger to get to the masses. Suddenly life and politics seems more unreal than movies.

Others call for the resignation of all officials to install a ‘transitional revolutionary government’ whatever that means. This is impractical not to mention even more dangerous, at least to the common people who doesn’t know what they’re being fed. I mean, really now… who do you expect to take the office?

Another former President FPJ with House Majority leader Jose De Venecia offers another alternative: Constitutional Convention to shift the country into a parliamentary government. Wow. It reminds me of the scene in El Filibusterismo where Don Custodio lame brain suggestion of taking care of (a lot of) ducks to solve the problem of Pasig River not being wide enough. Not that I find it stupid but this is not the time to bring this up not to mention that it doesn’t really make things any better.

This whole thing makes me want to laugh and cry in frustration at how ridiculous it all is. As I have said somewhere else, it’s damned hard to stay nationalistic these times. But not really, because what keeps us angry is the love for this country which is going nowhere right before our eyes. I wish I could do something. Who am I kidding?

I feel as if I’m holding my breath for what would happen next.

passing through

2005-06-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

i have probably been spending about a couple of hours trying to spruce up this blog that i have always considered shutting down or continuing based on the current mood swing or degree of insolence.

anyway, i was excited in using and trashing a fresh new intermediate pad paper i found in my sister's room yesterday. i tried to write. i was supposed to post it here after i have sort of edited it or somehow made it more acceptable for public scrutiny but i left it at home probably to bask in being forgotten with the rest of furious scrawlings left under the bed or between pages of books read a long time past gathering dust in a corner. there were a lot of those, i threw most away i think.

as i said, i was just passing through.

sick me

2005-06-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

i got sick yesterday... i mean, aside from the usual mental illnesses, yup! it is an actual event. (well obviously i can't think of anything better to say and i'm naturally bored at work.)

i can't really remember the last time i was that sick. i by 'that' i mean high fever that you actually feel the heat emanating from your body, chills - even when you're sweating profusely being wrapped tight in who-cares-how-many sweaters and jackets, unexplainable bodyache, headache, dry coughs and, the ultimate sign of illness, lack of appetite. the last sickness i had i just vomitted everything i ate for the 2 days (that's actually just one meal as the usual 'days' go by with me) then i was okey. that was what... last year?

my being sick seemed to amuse my sister who suddenly began poking at me with a thermometer and giving me medicine well-aware of my 'sensitive' reactions to medication. i mean, do i really need to take at least three types/brands of paracetamol to get well? plus the fact that i hate taking tablets especially when you wake me up from a hard to get state of catatonia.

anyway, i still usually go to work when i am sick. its part of that martyr/i'm-trying-to-kill-myself mentality i'm unusually fond of. but yesterday of all days, the call in hotline at work is not working leading to a very frustrating and nerve wracking evening. i thought of going to the office ust to say i can't make it but how stupid is that?

actually, i was feeling guilty not coming to work especially these days when FINALLY, weeks after i was transferred to this (quality control) department, i had something to do and i knew beforehand that someone from our dept has already taken the same day off for vacation leave. its a sickness, my conscience is crazier than i am.

after the whole hoola-baloo of the advising and admitting that, yes, i am human, i get sick. i went back to bed and tried to fall back to sleep. keyword is TRIED. after midnight and the crazy alarm (sister) saying i have to take my medicine, i gave up, sat up in bed and did what i usually do when i am sick: clean my room.

i'm still sick, slightly. although the fever is gone and all the outwardly signs of vulnerability has diminished in the glare of harsh sunlight and an hour or so of watching blues clues, i got the colds once again (as if i even missed it to begin with). and being less sick than i was yesterday i feel as if i'm already okey.

so back to work! (with an early detour to maridel's with leux, emsi and jamapi - whom i/we met last saturday) and as the jokes of 'sheena, tao ka pala!' and 'tinatablan ka pala ng sakit!' wore off, almost everyone is asking me why i didn't take today off too. well, sorryyy...

but maybe i should have taken their exaggeratedly late advice. (guys, don't tell me not to come to work when i'm already in the office and we're supposed to be having the pre-shift meeting.) after a few hours in this freezing cube, i'm feeling sick again...

oh well!

first time, sam?

2005-06-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

my brief flirtation with alcohol is over. last saturday i felt its queasy effects and decided i don't need this in my life.

making the long story and longer day/night short. i sort of got drunk? (with all the uncertainties included) well, there were no raucuous shallow laughter, no proliferation of obcenities, no babble of unintelligible words, no inexplicable depression, no hysterics or histrionics, no nothing. just lack of decent rest, feeling woozy and finally uncomfortably falling asleep. i woke up, stood up and walked out while for the first time i felt the world move somewhere. i sat outside trying to breathe it out and regain composure but it didn't go away easily.

i gave up trying to clear it away and gave in once again to the comforting unconciousness of dreams. i woke up without the supposedly heavy feeling of hangover or piercing headaches. the nausea was there and unexpected dysmenorrhea. i didn't vomit anything not like what they usually do. i didn't shout out that nobody loves me and i want to die (hehehehe). it was somewhat anti-climactic.

somehow while all of this were happening, i was dissecting the moment to imprint it in my mind and never have to repeat it again (haha) just like what i do with almost every new experince i hurdle myself into.

i wont say it was a worthless experience. i don't even know if i had really been literally drunk. i shared the experience with one of my friends in the office and he said i wasn't drunk just in the brink of it. i'd rather trust his judgement not just to save face but because i am sure he is more of an expert compared to me. but it wasn't my kind of high... it wasn't uplifting at all.

so there, the experiment was over. the morning after and a weak creamy cup of coffee and a bowl of chicken soup later in the middle of the stench of divisoria, i still wanted to throw up to somehow rid my system of alcohol. on the jeep ride home, sleeping most of it away, i guess the fatigue and nausea finally wore off. i was actually back to my usually wacky stupid self.

while holding on for dear life on a backride-tricycle home (tryc drivers in our place feel as if the road are theirs and their driving formula one racecars) i noticed how perfectly blue the sky was and how fluffy the clouds are. i got home. rinsed all the sweat and grime away, lay down to sleep then it rained. perfect.

okey. one down! next, i'm going to try to learn to smoke! hehehe

carpe diem?

f sionil

2005-06-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

i have just finished f sionil jose's rosales saga and even before i turned to the very last page, i knew that i would read it again and again... but probably i wont be able to read all of it over any time soon because of a restless habit of almost pushing off to friends books that wow-ed me. that would probably explain why more than half of my personal library are lost and forgotten to nameless silhouttes that, i could only hope, appreciated those books.

oh well...

i can not even begin to try reviewing or criticizing it as i had originally planned on. honestly, i have never tried reviewing anything in my entire life aside form those that were written for school and even then it was mainly just my perceptions and understanding of the subject and how it affected me.

i knew it would be good when i bought it. but i guess i never thought i'd be affected as much by it. affected in a sense of somehow reconciling me to my dejected sense of nationalism. i never really realized how jaded and indifferent i have become, not only that but also hopeless and cynical. and though the saga touched upon different generations, i couldn't help regretting that there was none dedicated to this generation, our generation. well, of course we can't have it that easily.

it amazes me how f sionil understands this society and how he explaind it so candidly and easily. i learned more from his fiction than from all history books i have supposedly pored over to pass school. he makes me want to know more, feel more about society. the first book i read from him was viajero and i came out of that wanting suddenly to study history, my weakest subject of all time. after reading the saga, i feel so overwhelmed, not to mention stupid. in a way, i was also humbled. i had not gone through enough pain and poverty to make me angry. at the same time, i had not studied/learned well enough to rely on my puny conclusions about life and nationalism.
reading sionil makes me want to be more 'out there', involved in life, not just my own but of all those around me. perhaps the only answer to the eternal boredom i cannot shake off is to actually go out there and live!: see the rot and decay, hear the noise and the silent anguish, smell the stink of dying dreams and feel the pain, that helpless and hopeless longing to rise above the slums i have long since drowned out by deluding myself to just focus on my own interests. i want to do something and not just waste my days in listless surrender to forces, i would claim, beyond reckoning. i'm tired of that. i seem to be doing it all my life.

sheesh... i'm making a speech. a very hypocritical one at that for i am sure to forget this almost immediately... but i've never been more serious.

well, anyway, jd salinger wrote that a great writer is someone whom you would want to speak with and hang around with after reading his work. (or something like that...) i think it goes beyond that. a great writer would be someone who could propel you to action or no matter how insignificantly would change your life, your views... you!

and even now (that i've raved on and everything), i still could not temper the sudden hopes and dreams, doubts and questions, awe and blinding hope that maybe we could change this, build our future.

heck, it's funny. i don't know what changed, but i guess i'll never be the same anymore.

amusing myself

2005-06-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

i am feeling a bit overwhelmed already. i feel as if there is a lot of thing i want to think of or to say or argue with myself with endlessly. but my thoughts are as fleeting as water: hold it too tightly and it escapes through the spaces between your fingers, hold it too loosely, it spills out of your grasp.

i have thought of actually just leaving this blog to waste or just dismantling it, leaving no contrite evidence of past insanity where it could be so easily and painfully dissected and pored upon in moments of masochism and self deprecation. but nah... going back past postings, i haven't really shamed and humiliated myself enough here, i must give myself a fair chance at that first... (haha) and anyway, i'm a bit too lazy to try starting up another that would eventually share the same fate of obscurity and forgetfulness.

besides, i need something to do when i'm staring blankly at my pc during lull times at work as well as an outlet for rage, stress or otherwise. bashing someone's head might be just as fulfilling but ranting in a blog is more sanitary and humane. i always try to do the right thing...
in a way, this blog reflects how screwed up my life is: unorganized, pointless, given to spontaneous bouts of rage and insanity with rare moments of lucidity that no one yet knows whence it came. anyway, i vowed to get my life straightened out somehow.in moments of dull procrastination, indulge me with patience.

oh well...

mike test... hello? hello?

2005-04-27T02:19:00.000-07:00

a dozen of times i've tried posting again. a dozen of times too, i've changed my mind for lack of things to say in my terminally boring existence.

it actually has nothing to do with anything more than plain sloth and the feeling that there is probably nothing i would want to say that would have anything to do with your life or that would add to your rapidly diminishing braincells due to radiation of staying too long in front of the tv or of computer screens. (i'm joking, i'm compelled to add.) i am a catharthic writer ever since i began to assume that i do know how to string words together to make some sense out of anything. i write to expel the evil from myself although i haven't quite written myself out to leave a blabbering blob of semihuman you need to put up with.

but enough with the gore and the stupid excuses.

hehehe. it feels so good to write agian... i mean type. my fingers are just flying through the keyboard as if there is something exaggeratedly urgent i need to spill out. i still don't know what to say.

last sunday, mae anne, highschool friend long time idol, just graduated magna cum laude from UP diliman Broadcast communication. in their batch, there were 78 cum laudes, 12 magna cum laudes and 2 summa cum laudes just for the college of mass communication. it suddenly made me feel a lot like stupid. i didn't even pass the upcat! that sunday, i learned the meaning of true friendship, humbling, funny and sweet... a true friend is the person who would attend your graduation and be happy enough to be your official phtographer and/or videographer, let you bask in the moment with less hassle of minding the minute details like that. all in the name of true friendship. the recognition for honor students of mass comm supposedly starts at 6:30, i was there 6:45, way earlier than the person i was supposed to be attending the graduation with. the university graduation was at 3pm, it finished about 7:30 or something, the whole day i was there. i loved it! hehehe

other things. this is proving to be a day for surprises. i just learned that one of my best and longest friend in highschool is engaged! i mean... WHOA! imagine that!

all this suddenly makes me think... where have all the days gone? it seems to be just yesterday when we were marching out our own graduation to make a stand and now, almost everyone is graduating again this time for the real world. what have i done with my life? while my friends have reached the first steps to their dreams and are there taking on life and LIVING, what am i doing? what do i have to show for myself? what am i?

heck, up to now, i still have no idea.

lashing out

2005-03-18T20:53:00.000-08:00

i should be home by now. i should be, finally, taking a well-deserved rest after a long day of work and an even longer week of pressures, hassles and unnecessary headaches. but i'm here, trying to waste away another afternoon and somehow pour out all excess stress left over as well as the uncalled for alcohol now present in my system after, once again, agreeing on a spur of the moment plan of going to the goodbye party of a former teamleader from work.

i guess it is hard to just pretend to be okay all the time even though you're not. that's my biggest problem; i don't show my problems. it doesn't mean that i don't show my troubles that i don't care for anything at all. if i don't show my problems, stress, insecurities and even inconsequential headaches, it doesn't mean that i'm immune to it. heck, don't start believing when i say i'm not human! even though i try not to be, i'm not yet blessed with ethereal powers of turning myself to a forgotten memory.

eversince i could remember, i have not been such a believer of displaying your emotions. i think its damn stupid to make reservations toward other people since they tend to easily get hurt and cry. i'm so sorry that you can't make me break down and succumb to my knees in front of you, but it pisses me off that you could be so darned sensitive to others feelings and feel as if i'd just understand your every whim just because i know the stress you're going through and i can handle my own though you can't. newsflash: we work for the same company, what i do is probably a lot harder than what you're doing since i do whatever comes into your cluttered mind that you think is vaguely helpful, i could think for my own and yes, i'm put here because i've proven that, and however grave your headache is, it doesn't reserve you the right to trample over me while tiptoeing on others feelings, aside from the fact that its not fair, i won't just understand that. be the bigger man sometime, my being younger than everyone else doesn't reserve me the right to act immaturely, you're being in a higher position that almost everyone else doesn't reserve you the right to be an ass.

okey. so obviously, work has taken me away for quite sometime and that the past few weeks have been sort of troubling. well, okey... a lot more affecting than i would claim and admit to.

aside from that, i find myself sad since my original batchmates are graduating... i'm extremely happy for them, but i feel this nagging emptiness. somehow, i imagine how happy i could be feeling if i was also one of those excited and scared of an uncertain future that lay ahead of me. i feel as if i've missed do much of what they've been through; all of those i wish i had also been through, with them. i feel as if a big chunk of life has passed me by. i feel as if i cheated myself from something that good. as if there was anything i could do about it... but what have i ever done but just let things run their course...

haay...

absence

2005-03-03T00:39:00.000-08:00

i have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. they are gone, and i resume the journey of my story. - David Copperfield, Charles Dickens.

i feel as if it has been a lifetime since i last updated my life in these pages of unread history. its not really my style or in my patience to keenly take note of everything i do in my life (mainly, because i do nothing...).

anyway...

i don't know what to say. during the past two weeks, i tested my limits on physical exertion to see how long i could go without sleep. i went as long as 50 hours straight, but for lack of anything to do and with the voice of my conscience shouting at me, i turned in at 7pm sunday. i as awake since 5pm friday. not bad!

aside from bouts of insanity and masochism, i realized once again the wealth of knowledge you could get from everywhere. after a breakfast bash in red ribbon katipunan with officemates, we were stacked up in a car trying to find our way back to more familiar roads. we got into talking about religion since one of us claims to be an atheist. considering myself to be on the thin line between belief and unbelief, i was curious with his philosophies and how he came to the conclusion of atheism. another was a student of vedantic philosophy, the rest were believers. a full scale debate raged on! it's interesting how devoted one could be to what one so faithfully believes in. i guess that's the power of belief. as Francis Bacon said "eventually, all philosophy leads to religion", i get that now.it doesn't mean that all philosophy someday, somehow leads to God, it means all philosophy, all your personal philosophies in life or anything, would soon be like a religion to you. you follow it closely and guard it from external influence that you deem unfit.
mainly, what i got from all that hullabaloo is a promise from two people to lend me books on atheistic and hinu or vedantic philosophies. not bad!

you could be surprised at what you learn everyday if you give yourself the chance. that day i went home feeling excited with the thought of once again exploring through different thinkings anf looking for/finding God. before going to sleep, i thought, maybe that should be my mission in life, to continually look for Him, anywhere or everywhere. i guess that might just be after effects of lack of sleep.

the same nightmares still haunts me at waking moments. i can't erase the past nor undo it but i hope never again to remember... as if! i realize, i'm tired of not talking about it. that not talking increases its hold on me. but who could i turn to? who could i talk to? the main question is, could i?

stammering nonsense...

2005-02-12T23:59:00.000-08:00

i hate for this to merely be a review for books i read but most of my life are filled with still realities breathing through innumerable pages.

i have just finished reading two books this morning: nicholas sparks' the rescue and milan kundera's unbearable lightness of being. i got the sparks book yesterday after shift from a coworker who left it to me even though i was really just joking when i borrowed it. i rarely read sparks and generally don't care much for romance novels. kundera's book, i was relishing word by word.

two so different genres...

i loved the unbearable lightness of being since the beginning. the plot is okei and not really that spectacular but the most beautiful thing in it is how it was written. it was written with the depth and introspection of poetry. there were certain parts in the book that struck me with so much beauty recognizing that truth in my own life: vertigo and falling, living in truth, rebellion...

...........

my sister wants to join the palanca. good luck to her. for weeks now, she has been asking me to do the same. she said i should try it, you'd never know what might happen. i steadily decline. too much hassle and i still doubt any hidden talent in writing that she stupidly thinks i may have. my sister is the writer in the family. i'm the eternal bookworm. i think she knows i also write but i have never let anyone of them read anything i've written. she is currently writing her anthology of ten poems and it is also currently scattered around the house. what i write is hidden in dirty dusty notebooks that doesn't usually see the light of the sun. i write with my soul bared and bled. she writes as if pulling words from the air.

anyway, i have thought of it once, but it the idea never crossed over to reality. i don't have enough guts and patience to go through with it. hehehehe

.........

i'm writing these things without actually giving a thought to them. catharthic writing...? freud's psychoanalysis included letting the patient just sit down or lie down comfortably in a couch and rant about anything that first comes to mind. the psychiatrist's work is just to keep the thoughts coming, like a river steadily flowing. somehow through that unintelligible and unconnected thoughts you begin to realize something about the personality of that person. like panning for gold in a river... most of the time you just get sand and stones.

one of my friends' dad died recently. i am not sure when. i want to be there for her but she's gone to bicol, her hometown, already. her mom died summer before my mom did. i think most of her siblings has families of her own now. the sad part is, he didn't even make it to her graduation coming up this march. tsk...

then i heard about another friend giving birth, but the baby didn't make it. he/she/it(?) never even had the chance to see what he missed.

thinking back on all deaths i have known, i wonder how great is the possibility that i am still alive to day and how sure am i that i still would be tomorrow...?

but then so what?