dreaming awake

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...

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...

(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

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...

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....

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

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

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?

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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?