Turris Eburnea: Ivory Tower

On Escape (no, not that crap by Enrique Iglesias)

2010-01-05T13:06:00.002+08:00

Woke up at 2:30pm, which is a big deal for me considering the fact that I honestly did not want to get out of bed today. My eyes hurt from reading and writing for too long on the computer (they feel heavy, as if they're trying to force me to close them), it was wayyy after lunch and nobody was home (and I had this stupid notion that the less I moved my body, the less hungry I would feel and I would be able to survive until dinner time at least), and I was right smack in the middle of a funny dream where I was talking Timmi the Internet Tough Girl about how gutsy she was during that Hong Kong incident of hers (this coming from her Facebook rant being the last thing I read before going to sleep).

Sigh, dreams and escape. This coming from the fact that the second to the last thing I read before going to sleep was the graphic novel Blankets by Craig Thompson. You see, the problem with all the melodramatic, emo stuff going around nowadays is that it gets easier and easier to distinguish the works that come straight from the heart, and those that are simply trying hard to get attention. Thompson's is a memoir of sorts, so that should tell you something about how heart-tugging this work is. In short, go read this, and see if you don't shed a few tears, or at least feel your heart beating just a little bit harder in the process.

Craig (who is also the protagonist) has two ways of escape from reality: his drawings and his dreams. And I guess this is what my eyes want me to do, at least for today: to escape the harsh realities that are the fact that there's nobody at home, that I'm totally unproductive due to this wasted schedule of mine, that my thesis is still unfinished.

As I am writing this, I hear the first lines of "World Spins Madly On" by the Weepies: "Woke up, and wished that I was dead, with an aching in my head, I lay motionless in bed". Which what I was exactly just a few hours ago, tossing and turning, with a stiff neck, and wondering if it was worth getting up at all.
I flash back to the time I was back in first year. It was the first class of Humanities 1, under Ma'am Ai (who wasn't my friend yet). As an icebreaker of sorts, she asks us what books we like to read. I, being a geek who was obsessed with the Legend of the Five Rings and Magic: the Gathering mythoi, answer:

Me: "I like fantasy, science fiction, that sort of stuff."
Ai: "Oh, so you're an escapist?"
Me: "Um, not really."
Ai: "Ahh, okay. Next?"

To tell you the truth, though, I never knew my answer to Ma'am Ai's question.

A tall, ice-filled glass of Coke, a good book, and a small speaker playing something relaxing, like Sigur Ros, Death Cab for Cutie, Owl City or the Weepies.One of the best ways of forcing yourself to write anything.

All this microblogging shit is giving everybody ADD

2009-12-29T13:39:00.000+08:00

51 character title! Which I can totally Plurk/Tweet! Not!

I mean, 140 characters is more than enough for real-time news updates (The best use I've seen so far for the medium. Ingenious, actually). But honestly, if you're planning to write anything more profound than that, then one hundred and forty letters, punctuation marks and spaces combined is not going to get you anywhere near what a good rant, gush or simple musing about anything under the sun and moon can reach. There's a reason why people used to allot entire pages for diary entries, you know.

In short, nobody reaches for the sun and moon any more, content with the airy weightlessness of every hackneyed quote and insignificant detail of their lives for everyone to give their own hackneyed and insignificant comments to.

And please, do not even get me started on the karma system.

Psychometric nostalgia but not really: a not really review of Transformers Encore Generation 1 Optimus Prime for both collectors and non-collectors

2009-12-13T22:21:00.000+08:00

(Psychometry is a psychic skill wherein one is able to sense the vibrations that are left on an object by somebody who has handled it, enabling the psychic to sense various details about the object's owner or most recent handler by simply touching the object)

For the longest time, I have wanted a G1 Optimus Prime, my own copy of the now-so iconic mold that has entertained kids until they were old enough to entertain their own kids by buying them their own toys, so they would leave those of their dad alone. Never mind which version it was: I can't afford the vintage one, and besides, I'm going to be playing with it anyway. The TFC (Transformers Collection) series version was wayyy too expensive (around 10-12k, to be exact) for my taste, and Hasbro's recently released 25th Anniversary Prime was fugly and getting lots of bad reviews, so in the end I decided on the most recent Japanese release, the Transformers Encore version: not too expensive (usually around 2.5-3k, but I got mine for 2k yay) and one of the more decent-looking versions nowadays.

Funny how toys have changed in the last twenty years, I say to myself as I look at the box's contents. Back then, you had to take time to clip stuff and stick stickers onto your Optimus Prime toy and its trailer before you could play with it properly, a pre-play stage of sorts where you could sort things out mentally before actually handling the toy the way it was supposed to be handled. Compare this with today's toys, where everything is practically ready to play with out of the box, hence the frustration of some kids and parents when they find out the toy was supposed to have a launching missile that they accidentally threw away with the box.

Of all the Optimus Primes designed and released through the years, Generation 1 Optimus Prime still probably has the best looking truck mode. Why? Simple: it was meant to look good as a truck more than anything else. Nowadays, designers try to make it look as both truck and robot. Even the Masterpiece version (the largest toy in the cabinet shot, Generation 1 Optimus is the truck on Masterpiece's back) pales in comparison of truck modes, and the Masterpiece toy, I will tell you, is anything but simple.

Transformation is as simple as it gets. Thanks to the lack of intricate joints to hide something as big as a fist in, you have to plug in two fists from the included extra parts in order to transform Optimus into robot mode. Somewhere, somebody is reading this now and wondering when exactly did he lose the fists of the Generation 1 Optimus Prime he had when he was little.

There are hinged joints on Optimus' shoulders, elbows, hips and knees. By today's standards, articulation like this would only count as decent if it were on a figure less than a third of its size. The head can't even move from side to side. Sure, you can place him into an 'I am raising my gun because I am the leader of the Autobots and I want all Autobots to transform and roll out!', but that's about it.

Oh yeah, and in case I forget to mention it: for all its simplicity, Generation 1 Optimus Prime still affords to have a decent amount of metal parts, specifically its legs and feet. You weigh him in your hand, and you know that you're holding a good, weighty toy. Nowadays, even the Japanese, the genius toy makers that they are, hesitate to use metal as generously, due to its heaviness and because, well, it's just a lot more expensive to incorporate into toys nowadays. And this is why chromed plastic is so popular nowadays.

As I transform Optimus into robot mode and back into a truck for the third time before typing this and going to sleep, I get a weird feeling, something I can only describe as akin to a mix of psychometry (which is impossible since this toy is brand new) and nostalgia (which is impossible since I have never owned a Generation 1 Optimus Prime toy before this). It's somewhat an endearing look, the way a mother looks at her son, as she both savors the present moment and looks back as the time he allowed her to carry him in her arms: a look at a past time when toys that could both transform and actually move their arms after being transformed were the coolest thing ever, when oh-so-durable metal was a staple for toys, when nobody cared for such alien concepts as 'poseability' and 'show-accuracy', when toys felt more like toys when you held them with both hands (and needed more care as well, lest you lose a fist).

Don't lose a fist.

Because I missed writing for the heck of it...

2009-12-11T14:35:00.000+08:00

Amidst the information overload that is a Jeopardy episode (never mind if it is the Teen Tourmanent, where the questions are easy as hell), my mind is swimming with a hundred thousand thoughts: stories, both real and not, that I have neither time nor effort to place on paper, for reasons too stupid to rationalize. My thesis, a look at three contemporary Filipino marvelous realism novels, is, as always, at the forefront of my mind, but at the back of my fingers. It stifles me: nothing can escape, can come into existence, whether on paper on the binary. Anything that does manage to escape is turned random, into a senseless pile that appears not to deserve to be written in the first place.

Life is a meaningless cycle of food, movies and the Internet. I need to write, something that doesn't involve Transformers or my thesis. I need to get out of this before my parents get too pissed off at how the cycle has its grip on me.

No, photography, the Transformers forums and Facebook aren't helping.

If only it was this easy to write all the time...

2009-09-07T07:37:00.000+08:00

I wish blogs were like sale threads in a forum. That way I could simply shout Bump, Update or Bumpdate and everyone would be looking around again.

But that's just me. Bleargh.

Just so I can say I still write something here every now and then.

2009-08-16T13:19:00.000+08:00

I am typing this in the hospital because I am here to visit my lolo after an unsuccessful toy hunting morning. My lola jokes to my recovering lolo that I only came to show him that I had a haircut and had my beard trimmed, which I did last Wednesday. Lolo hated my long hair and beard, he always told me I looked like garbage. Good thing that lolo is recovering nicely, the only thing I could think of alongside thinking of typing this out was whether I would say that little piece of trivia about my hair and beard on lolo's funeral, which, thankfully, does not seem to be coming anytime soon.

Blame mama's ominous mood this morning, when she left to be with lolo on his operation.

Three words

2009-03-29T22:46:00.000+08:00

Sem. Finally. Over.

Wordpainting: One afternoon, walking around Freedom Park

2009-03-22T13:24:00.000+08:00

(Note: These "poems" are an attempt to break the uncontrollable tendency to write poetry in obstructively highfalutin language and mind-numbingly convoluted syntax and structures, to shatter the ubiquitous illusion that agreeably good poetry, admittedly, need not be fully understood -- no wonder some writers hate, no, loathe adverbs.)

SEVERINO WALKING HOME

They call him a terrorist
The white hairs of his beard twitch
If he is a terrorist, he is an old one
Too old, perhaps, to wrestle with picket police
But still too young to be immortalized as Ka Severino
He looks up at the trees near Men's Dorm
As he takes step after weary step
I pass him on the turn, seeing his tired face
"He could use some cheering up," I say to myself
So as our eyes meet the way people walking past each other do,
I smile at him, the widest I can without having to bare my teeth
(For we all know baring teeth is an instinctively, animalistically hostile act)
Trying to get my face to say, "Cheer up Sir," as noiselessly as possible
Somehow, I am not surprised to see that he does not smile back,
That his impassive half-frown (it must be the moustache and beard)
Stay even as he walks past
Now, I am truly not surprised
This man has probably received too much hate today;
Hundreds, even thousands of frowns that a single smile
Could only against hope to counteract.

Too much for his old soul to bear,
Too much for his old soul to care.

LONE PALM

Testament to nature versus nurture, he stands
The lone advocate of wood and leaf in his Alamo
Surrounded by soldiers of black steel and brown cement
He does not grow taller anymore, as organisms are wont to do
He simply sheds his old fronds, drops his fruits, and begins anew
Until old age and disease take their toll on his life
Unlike hie enemies, who are immune to the ravages of time
Whose only sicknesses are rust and chipped paint
They who will light the evenings
Even after their single enemy is long gone.

ARTURO'S SON FLIES A KITE

Arturo holds one wing in each hand
It is one of those delta-shaped kites,
Green to match the lightest of the field's grasses
Arturo tells his son to run
And run the rotund little boy does
All smiles,
Hands sweaty in their grip,
Legs pumping
Arturo lets go of the kite
Steadily, steadily it rises
Catching the air the child's feet rush past
Between the motions of running, looking forward and back,
He feels a certain stillness in the kite's flight
This zen allows for him to keep running
Until alas, he has reached the field's edge
He stops on the edge of the road and catches his breath
Letting the kite float down and become one with the grass,
Its string slicing through the chitchat of a benched couple
The boyfriend is considerate:
He holds the wings up the way Arturo did
And tells the boy to run back where he started
The child obeys, and pretty soon he is in zen again
Until he runs into Arturo's embrace
Father and son now exhausted, they fold the kite up
And hail a jeep to take them back to the Batcave.

Wordpainting: One afternoon, walking around Freedom Park

2009-03-22T13:13:00.000+08:00

On passion, performances, and performers (batu-bato sa langit, ang tamaan MAMATAY)

2009-03-15T07:10:00.000+08:00

I miss the days when people actually believed in the power of brainstorming. There is nothing more comforting in creative work than to see your fellow man and woman, like-minded or otherwise, thinking along with you, participating in this collective creative process which churns out projects so beautiful that they would have strained the sanity of a single individual.

I miss the days when people maintained enough humility, and probably enough faith in how effective developing muscle memory is, to actually attend practices; those who, in spite of the knowledge that they have a lot of things to do (don't we all?), are still willing to dedicate whatever time they have left for the project's cause. After all, time is never wasted in a meeting: the time between practices and brainstorming sessions allows one to talk, and perhaps bond, with the people you work with, and a performer knows that these bonds will endure way after the ephemeral high of the performance itself has worn off. Nowadays, all we have is a bunch of primadonnas who are OBVIOUSLY so talented that they don't need practice, and show their smug faces only on the night before a performance, or worse, on the morning, or worst, on the afternoon of the performance itself. I don't even know which one is worse: showing up late, or backing out of a performance? What, may I ask, ever happened to hard work?

I miss the days when people did volunteer work because of an itch, a passion for creating beautiful things for their supposed audiences, and not for a fucking grade. I miss people who perform for the sake of performing, for the high that you can only get from close to a thousand people's eyes and attentions (which, I may add, are a wonderful source of motivational energy) turned towards you. Who cares for a .25 incentive, when supposedly you have been given an opportunity to bring art to those who may bask in it, and may probably be inspired by it, making you one to be remembered in the process, a reward not even a flat 1 can replace.

Jackie, Eljay, Pen, Tin, Anjai: Thank you.

Ran-dumb (w/ linkspam)

2009-03-07T18:40:00.000+08:00

-Bandwagoning the fact that people haven't written anything, much less anything decent, in their Multiply blogs recently. Real life (and Plurkers) getting in the way again, I suppose. And that can only mean one thing: DAILY SUMMER BORED BUM BLOGGING muahahaha

-I. Want. This.

-Can't get Ikue Ohtani's voice out of my head.

-Corruption is evil. So evil, in fact, that not even we toy collectors are spared (I don't know if this is bad grammar).

-Everybody was right: Cyclonus is an awesome figure. Am also getting addicted to the Rushed Reviews on YouTube. Something about the combination of poetry (so what if its bad?) and Transformers.

-Good thing Ma'am Pinpin's trippy with her 11:59pm online paper deadlines. Only got to post mine at around 11:25pm.

-Did drums for Isang Daan last Friday night. Thought I did horrible, but Angge and the others didn't seem to notice. Come to think of it, haven't picked the sticks up and used the set for months now. Don't worry Angge, we'll be good boys and girls.

-The fireworks after the centennial concert weren't actually for said event; they were for the COMA 104 foodfest in the Mariang Banga area. Kimchi for the win.

-Hung around for a while and watched part of the National Grappling Championships in Megamall this morning. And for some reason, watching kids trying to choke and bar each other into submission amused me in a way I haven't experienced in some time.

-Somewhere in the Shaw area, there is a person by the name of Joanie Mitchell who leases office spaces. Wonder if her parents were tripping when they thought of her name.

-I'm as stable as the wheels on LC Bulkhead. I think.

Hekhekhek

2009-02-15T23:03:00.000+08:00

Elaine's post makes me realize that I haven't written anything in this blog for a long while now.

Heck, I haven't even written anything outside of this blog for a long while now.

Heck, I haven't written anything outside school requirements for a long while now.

Heck, I can't even write anything readable in this blog now.

Screw this writing drought. Real life is getting in the way again.

Hekhekhek

2009-02-15T22:50:00.000+08:00

Elaine's post makes me realize that I haven't written anything in this blog for a long while now.

Heck, I haven't even written anything outside of this blog for a long while now.

Heck, I haven't written anything outside school requirements for a long while now.

Heck, I can't even write anything readable in this blog now.

Screw this writing drought. Real life is getting in the way again.

2AM a few nights ago, while I was depressed and stuff

2009-01-01T18:06:00.000+08:00

I feel like I'm living a double life. When I’m in eLBi, I have a social life: hanging out with different friends and groups of friends from morning until night. When I’m back in Antipolo, however, I’m turned upside down: I am a loner, with no immediate community to accompany me, which is probably the reason why I am forever doing things on my own, a mockery of true independence.

When I’m in eLBi, I feel so happy surrounding myself with people, and it has taken a toll on my Antipolo life, where I have supposedly been content with my isolation before. It is not an easy trip out of the house, I’ll admit, for the nearest friends live at least forty minutes away from me. Still, I persist, if only to feel others’ genuine company, not the awkward and easily misunderstood artificial gobbledygook that is chatting over the Internet. Still, it is not nothing.

It’s all a matter of seeing the glow of other auras, I guess. That “warmth” the existentialists said we needed to stop looking for in other people and find in ourselves in order to truly live as islands...

Imma gonna stop nao I think I’m repeating myself again

Happen You Year?

2008-12-31T19:53:00.000+08:00

Yes, it’s a new year,

But it drowned in the rain

The only explosion I hear

Is the pop of champagne

But still, the fizzy

Doesn’t go to my head

For although I feel dizzy

I’m still feeling a bit dead

Another year passed

And I’m still the same me

On the computer, on my ass

Writing bad poetry

The silence hurts my ears

I’m an emotional mess

But it’s finally here

So Happy New Year, I guess

Verses for Random Christmassy Things

2008-12-23T14:47:00.000+08:00

An almost last-ditch effort to get into the spirit of the season, since for some reason, Christmas isn't getting to me yet. Pardon these.

I.
Rotund, polished, gleaming you,
Flashing the red of a fresh apple,
The green of a handful of basil leaves,
And the gold of sugared honey.
My joyous little ball,
A world unmarred by crack and crater,
Join your friends in orbit,
Around the wooden, iron or plastic galaxy.
Guided by a sun at its pinnacle,
You, ball, are the perfect planet,
A place in time where frowns do not exist,
Where, reflecting the hearts of those who stare at you,
You become the sons of your sun,
Radiating His spirit into those
Who gather for each others' warmth.

II.
Sit still, and help us remember
The mystery of two milennia past,
When saints roamed the days
And angels guarded the nights.
When the dust was still
And the night glowed with its own warmth
You, king, hold your box well,
Do not forget who you present it to.
Please stay still, do not move,
And let the silence speak to us
Through your straining wooden limbs
Until we, too, are as still as you are
In our own re-enactment
Of your holy night
When stars will dance on our shoulders
As the darkness begins to glow once more

III.
Sitting, you seduce me
As I count your numbered days
Until I shall finally tear it all off
And lay my eyes on your beauty.
O, angulous temptress,
I am consumed by imagining
What lies beneath your garments
And which thoughts brought your creation.
Your figure fills my mind,
Curious at the thought of stripping you bare,
Until the time comes at last,
When all the walls in my mind crumble
And I am free to ravage you
To the joy of everybody.

Daniel Keyes is fun too, among others (reading blurb, among others)

2008-11-23T14:35:00.000+08:00

"Don't misunderstand me. Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knoledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you s a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and neural breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain."

-Charlie Gordon

That said, I believe everyone and their mother should read Flowers for Algernon. Wonderful how Keyes manages to stick in equal parts emo, retardation, mush and smartassery and still makes the whole thing cute enough to be an easy read.

Not so much for the other book I'm reading, though. H. P. Lovecraft, I believe, demands a patience and sophistication not for those who want easy (though not necessarily light, mind you) reads. Still, if you can handle the verbosity of it all, Lovecraft's weird short stories are a cute trip back to the times when there was no TV and it was all right to exoticise niggers. Personal favorites: "Herbert West -- Reanimator"," The Picture in the House", "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" and "The Call of Cthulhu"

Funny, I seem to notice that I keep on switching between to phases: a reading phase where I literally devour books and a writing phase where I just keep making new material and saving all my cares for its quality when I show it to other people, and that I can't seem to do one when I'm in the other. Or maybe I really am a "Mood Writer", as Chantielle was always so quick to point out in the past. Ahh, the rite/s of writing.

Oh well.

*goes back to playing Splinter Cell and DotA, downloading indie folk and electronica and post-rock and trip-hop, reading webcomics and finishing the rest of his Lovecraft anthology*

Burn(out) Baby Burn(out)

2008-11-08T16:50:00.000+08:00

Still too lazy to go back to school. Still want to enjoy the monotony of a presure-less existence. Still want to procrastinate. Still want to sleep for eleven hours at a time. Still want to go out and drink without worrying what time to wake up the next day. Still ant to enjoy eLBi as a hangout and not as a campus (cue: Take Me Back to Elbi).

Ewan. Burnout.

Whee.

(taken from Inquirer.net)

Trying to beat the school burnout

By Angela V. Ignacio
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Last updated 19:14:00 11/07/2008

NOT too long ago, I was taking an exam when I suddenly found myself staring blankly at the wall. I could hear frantic, frustrated scribbling around me, but I remained motionless, pen poised in the air.

When the proctor chirped, "Five minutes," I was the only one who didn't scream, groan or yell barely disguised expletives. I tried to focus on my exam, but all I could think of was, "Ayoko na."

I calmly handed in my nearly spotless answer sheet and went straight home, not caring that I'd just skipped the rest of my afternoon classes. Classmates kept calling, my family was getting worried, but I just shrugged off their concerned inquiries.

And so I sat in my bed, staring at nothing and caring about nothing, until I finally fell into a deep but troubled sleep.

This wasn't the first time it happened, and a tiny part of me knew something was wrong. Stressed? Definitely. Depressed? Not really, or at least, I didn't think I was. Then it hit me.

"Holy crap, I think I'm burned out."

What it is

Some people have equated it with "being jaded" or "being fed up with the world," but there's so much more to burnout than that. In 1972, American psychoanalyst Dr. Herbert J. Freudenberger coined the term to refer to a subtle, gradual process of becoming physically, mentally and emotionally fatigued in response to prolonged stress.

Burnout reduces your productivity and saps your strength, making you feel increasingly powerless, cynical and resentful. When you're burned out, it's like you're a walking herald of gloom and doom--problems seem insurmountable, everything looks bleak, and it's difficult to muster the energy to care about anything or anyone.

The unhappiness burnout causes eventually affects your academic performance, your relationships, and ultimately, your health.

Burnout can happen to virtually anyone whose job or course demands so much from them, or those who have been shouldering too much responsibility since they were young.

Those in the medical profession are particularly notorious for getting sucked into this "black hole" syndrome. An article from the American Medical Association website cites that in the US, an estimated 400 physicians commit suicide each year. Also, a recent study in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal found that 50% of approximately 2,200 medical students from seven medical schools reported burnout, while 11% said they considered suicide in the past year.

Stress vs. burnout

Contrary to popular belief, burnout isn't the same as stress, although the latter is a major cause of the former.

Stressed-out people tend to be frantic, hyperactive and highly irritable, but still get the job done.

On the other hand, those experiencing burnout feel empty, hopeless and emotionally detached. They usually think, "I'll just do a botched job anyway, so what's the point?" and abandon their work altogether, not caring about the consequences of their (in)action.

The main difference between stress and burnout is the fact that indifference and reduced personal competency are what mark burnout. While stress turns people into water balloons ready to burst at the slightest prick, burnout turns them into prunes, all shriveled up and devoid of motivation.

Four stages

In his popular website, Mark "The Stress Doc" Gorkin lists four stages of burnout:

1. Physical, mental and emotional exhaustion.

After such a hellish semester, you'd think that a few weeks of R&R would be enough to recharge your body batteries for the next term. But how come you still feel so drained and worn out despite the sembreak?

Burnout can occur when you feel so overwhelmed by your workload that you lose your self-confidence and start making more mistakes. You put in more and more effort, but with less and less favorable results. That's why you feel completely exhausted inside and out, even though there's nothing stressing you out at the moment.

2. Shame and doubt.

Once you start losing faith in your own abilities, it's all downhill from there. Never mind that you were the class valedictorian, or the editor-in-chief of your high school paper. You're not feeling confident about the future, and you're feeling pretty lousy in the present, so it comes as no surprise that you start thinking that your past accomplishments don't matter.

3. Cynicism and callousness.

What do snails and turtles do whenever they feel threatened or vulnerable? They hide behind their hard shells, just like burned-out people do. Because you've begun doubting yourself and other people, you put up some heavy defenses to protect yourself. You become cynical, bitter and indifferent, thinking that as long as you're pushing everyone away, no one will notice what a failure you really are. This is when your relationships crumble and your social life goes completely kaput.

4. Failure, helplessness and crisis.

The old saying "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" couldn't be more appropriate. You know you can't quit school, but if you don't, you'll become worse. Either way, you lose. You start thinking, "I've become like this and there's nothing I can do about it." As you sink into hopelessness, your grades and social life go down the drain as well. Before you know it, you've turned into your own worst nightmare.

Climbing back up

One doesn't necessarily pass through all four stages, but more often than not, they all eventually hit rock bottom. It takes a while to recognize burnout, and sometimes, an even longer time to recover from it. It took me a few months, maybe even years, to realize just exactly what I've been suffering from, and I'm downright appalled by how unproductive and uninspired I had become. But now that I know what I'm up against, I can now look for ways to climb out of this hole that I've unknowingly dug myself in. After all, when you've reached the very bottom, there's nowhere else to go but up.

E-mail the author at avignacio@gmail.com.

Burnout-busting tips

Burnout isn't something that happens overnight. Because stress plays a big part in its development, you might want to watch out for the things that subject your mind, body and soul to too much pressure. The earlier you recognize the signs and symptoms and address them, the better chances you have in preventing yourself from going into that downward spiral.

Effective burnout-busting strategies include taking care of yourself emotionally and physically, asking for help when you need it, and staying connected to other people.

Stop, look, listen. While you're usually aware of being under a lot of stress, you don't always notice burnout when it happens. Hopelessness, cynicism, detachment from others and other symptoms of burnout can take months to surface. If people close to you start pointing out changes in your attitude or behavior that are typical of burnout, you might want to listen to them.

Rekindle the fire. Pessimism prevents you from drawing motivation from the things or people that would normally inspire you. It's good to have something on hand to remind you of the reasons you're still doing what you're doing. On your notebook, stick a picture of the new laptop model your dad promised you for Christmas if you get high grades. Or, place a foreign language book beside your bed so you can dream of the trip to Japan that your mom plans to give you as a graduation gift.

Repeat the words "I can do this" over and over until your nose bleeds if you have to—turn your stress into something positive and use it to rekindle your burned-out spirit.

Take a break. If you find yourself spacing out in the middle of doing homework, get up and find something to amuse yourself with. Have a snack, watch TV, or annoy your little brother while he's playing Warcraft. Distraction may not be the best option for some people, especially when they're neck-deep in workload, but it can help clear your mind so you can better focus on the task at hand. Just don't dawdle too long, or else it'll come off as procrastination.

Change course. If, after months or even years of fighting the good fight and still you feel like you're on the losing end, maybe this is just not your battle to win. You know it's time to give up on your dreams when every waking moment is turning into a nightmare. If you don't like the person you're becoming, choose another career path that you feel will make you happier and more relaxed.

Stay connected. Burnout tends to make apathetic loners out of people. The key to overcoming this emotional void is to surround yourself with the people you love and who love you back, instead of pushing them away. Nurturing your relationships with your family and friends can alleviate the feelings of under-appreciation and boost your self-confidence. Make new friends, go out on dates, meet new people—make sure your social network stays up and running.

Seek help. If you think you can't deal with this anymore, it's time to ask for advice. Talking to your guidance counselor, parent or trusted friend can work wonders; don't keep everything bottled up inside, even if you don't feel like sharing. Also, don't be afraid to consult a psychiatrist. Chances are, they'll know how you can deal with your problem effectively, with or without medication.

Nostalgic freshman survey

2008-11-02T07:06:00.000+08:00

Instructions: Think back to your first semester in college. Let's see how much you remember and how much you regret.

What section were you?

BACA block C5

Who were your seatmates?

Jester and Rochi, at least during the convocation.

Still remember your English teacher?
No English class during that sem.

What was your first class?

Philosophy 1 TTh, Humanities 1 MWF.

Best friends?
Chaba, Jester, Yso (known as Thea back then), Louie, Chantielle. Fate has cruelly pulled so many of us apart from each other.

How was your class schedule?

Weird 6-hour break during MW.

Made any enemies?

They're out there.

Who was your favorite teacher/s?

Probably Hidalgo, because she was really wacky, not to mention that she gave me a 1. Too bad she doesn't teach there anymore.

Sport?

Aerobic drinking. Only began swimming during second sem.

Back then, did you always buy your lunch?

No stove at the dorm means I had to.

Were you a party animal?

LB Square phase. Drinking until 3:30 am with an 8 am class was win.

Were you well known in your school?

No idea.

Did you get suspended/expelled?

Heck no.

Can you sing the alma mater?

Of course.

What was your favorite subject?

Probably Humanities 1. Literature subjects are win.

What was your school's full name?

University of the Philippines Los Baños.

Where did you go most often during breaks?

Home. Sleep is fun.

What color of pen do you always use?
Black.

Recited often?

All the time. Geekiness!

Ever cheated?
Nope.

Do you bring your own paper and pen?

Always.

Were you in the top ten of your class/es?

Topped one or two, I think.

Favorite things to do in class?

Sleep in class, write the lecturing teacher's quotable quotes down.

Classmates you didn't like?

Annoyance doesn't linger long enough for an answer to this question to matter. (In short, I forgot)

Subjects with highest grade?

Humanities 2.

Lowest?
History 2. Rasmfrasm 5:30-7.

Ever had a crush? Who?

She-cret.

What's your theme song for him/her?

None.

Which of your classes was he/she in?

One.

Fave events in 1st year?

Probably the first drinking spree with Chantielle.

What are your favorite classrooms?

Probably HB5. Lotsa memories.

Do you sleep in class?

Yep, especially 8 am (Humanities 1), 2:30 pm (Natural Sciences 4) and 5:30 pm (History 2).

Ever thought of burning your school?

Nah. It'd probably burn itself down sooner or later. The building's ancient.

Ever messed with a prof?

Does getting profs drunk to see how weak their livers are count?

What do you miss most from your 1st year?

Not studying for anything, yet getting Laude-worthy grades.

If you could go back in time and do it all over, would you?

Dunno. Timewarp on?

Favorite PE?

Torn between Swimming and Street Jazz.

Where did you spot the hot girls in your school?

All over the place. eLBi win.

Ever gone on a field trip?
None that sem.

Org?

None, but I did work for the school paper for a sem and a half.

Dorm, boarding house or your home?

Dorm. Whee 4Boys.

If you had your way, what was your dream course/major?

This is my dream.

First ever person you knew?

Jester, I think.

First play you ever watched?

Kiko's demo performance during the Comm Arts Orientation, if that counts.

Ever been recruited by a frat or sorority?

They tried.

Is it fun in your school?

Of course.

Ever gone rallying?

Passing by EDSA during EDSA 2 was probably the closest I got.

Did you ever dream of having latin honors for your first sem?

Dreaming.

If you weren't studying in your present school now, where would you go?

Ateneo. Only other school I applied for.

What do you remember most about 1st sem?

A lot of drinking and cussing and writing. Next to no studying.

(Taken from Brian and Peppy)

My turn for a sembreak epiphany

2008-11-01T20:34:00.000+08:00

Sembreak has officially sunk in, mostly due to the lonely feeling of going back to everyday drudgery that comes each time people visit the house. Add to that the fact that we (Karize, Ilia, Charet and I) had to go and spontaneously write a song that has 'I miss eLBi' written all over it. Sure, I don't have as much a right as the graduates to rant about the whole 'I miss the laid-back life in the mountains', but something tells me this last sem will be over before we all know it. Hi thesis, how're ya doin'? Don't say bad words.

Life is currently one big routine of waking up late, going on the Internet and reading and playing my ass off until the wee hours of the morning, with a bit of reading here and there. I feel static. But they say that there is no victory without defeat, no beauty without ugliness, no happiness without sadness. Difference, as Derrida said. Not even a sameness without the idea of difference itself coming in to change everything.

Change. We all thrive on it. See the philosophies of Plato and Kierkegaard, which state that humans really are programmed to not be pleased with the mere finities it understands. This makes us trapped within a vicious existential pit, to forever desire what we may never be able to achieve. This, in turn, fuels our libido, and not only in the sexual sense. Libog, as they say. Passion. The force that drives us to keep striving for things that border (only border, mind you) on the infinite and the unknowable. Thus we are set apart from every other species on this planet (and probably those on other planets, if we are to follow the Fermi paradox). There is no escape from this angst; even saying 'sucks to be human' simply makes you fall into the same paradoxical pit.

So we wallow, the only cure for which is other people's attention, since let's face it: everybody is an attention whore. Cue Locke's 'man is a social animal' which is probably really cliched by now, but what the heck it's true. As heck. Without attention, people simply wither away and die in the midst of wallowing in their own misery. So people turn to more desperate methods, like the Internet and all its time-consuming pseudo-attention outlets (I think I'm looking at you, Plurk. You're even more extreme than Facebook), which make our real lives feel even more worth less. Throw in the amount of miscommunication potential (nonverbals count, after all, for about 93 per cent of our communication), and you've got one big mess of an interpersonal interaction going on.

Nobody needs chat buddies, everybody needs real people to hang out wih, to talk about anything (no matter how disjointed the associations between discussion topics end up) over a cup of coffee (coffee is my hang-out-for-a-long-while-and-talk drink) and a Go Nuts donut or two (Krispy Kreme if you like them better). Sure, staying home and staying 24/7 online is wayyy cheaper. If you want artificial attention, that is.

Trying to write, not coming up with anything new. So, trying to revise old content. Problem is, I stare at the screen and eventually end up reading something else on the Internet (if I'm connected) or playing (if I'm not). Think the problem is that there isn't enough happening with my life. It's a delicate balance, in my opinion: too little happening in your life, and you're stuck imagning things up, and people know how dangerous leaving somebody to rely solely on their solitude's imaginings is. Too much, and you simply do not have enough time to rite. Yes, that was a typo, but a fortunate one. Because writing, I believe, requires the sort of preparation and attention to detail similar to what one undergoes when doing any sort of ritual. Put extremely, we have to be in the so-called 'writing mood' which may not differ that much from the trance people enter when doing a ritual, sacrament, pot session or whatnot.

Stasis is scary. Silence is scary. Because it makes you think things. Things that you don't think of because they're impossible to think of while you're moving and noisy (in short, living your day-to-day life). Things like the future, and how extreme, inexplicable, and at times extremely inexplicable, it is. How, like Neil Gaiman and every other fantasy writer who figured out how to kill a god, it is so much worse to be forgotten than to simply die; to leave this planet without having realized (as in, made real) or passed anything of value on to those of the future. And from this basic anxiety other anxieties rise, culminating in the most superficial of paranoias (paranoiae?), the most basic of which may be the paranoia over the future itself. 'Damnant quod non intelligunt' after all, and what concept out there is less intelligible than the future?

No, love doesn't count. Too complicated (but not untelligible enough) a thing to talk about; just ask every 'It's Complicated' out there in Friendster and Facebook.

Sinfest is an absolute emo-trip at times.

2008-11-01T18:03:00.000+08:00

(Taken from www.sinfest.net)

Awwwwwwww.

Gay quotes to make even the homophobes laugh

2008-10-30T10:19:00.000+08:00

(Got this from Irvin, who got it from somebody else, who got it from somebody else and so on... Rly funny tho)

1. Hindi Man Ako Ka sing Ganda ng Nanay Niyo, Hindi din ako Kasing Seksi ng Ate Niyo, Malay Niyo (Big Male voice) Ako Ang Tatay Niyo.

2. Look-a-like ni Nina:

The woman standing in front of you is the woman who once told you that Love Moves in Mysterious Ways. - Panalo ang Kanta!

3. Kung ang Jeepney driver ay Sweet Lover, ang Taxi Driver Plus P50. Thank you so much!

4. with a slang diction ----- My Name is Tyra Banks from the Land of Liberty and Opportunity the United States of America.

At Naniniwala po ako sa Kasabihan, Na sa Panahon ng Krisis at sa Pataas na pataas na Presyo ng Langis, Ma Swerte and mga Mangkukulam sa Capiz dahil ang Gamit nila ay Walis! Thank you!

5. Ako po ang nag-iisang nagpatibok sa puso ni Sergio Santibanez

ang nag-iisang POLO RAVALES!

PAK!

6. question and answer portion

" may kasabihan po tayo the more we speak the more likely we make mistakes...
so for me not to make a mistake i will not answer your question. I thank you"

7. Aanhin ang isang damo kung wala na si Petrang Kabayo. Aanhin pa ang patimpalak kung walang manonood. Aanhin ang korona kung gawa sa plastic.

Hindi ko hangad ang manalo sa contest na ito. Hangad ko lang makita ko kayo at makita niyo ako. Maipamalas ang aking angking talento at kahusayan sa pag-iisip. Dahil kung wala ako, walang kwenta ang contest na ito. Thank you so so much!

8. Question: IF YOU DIE TOMORROW, WHY NOT NOW?

Answer: BECAUSE TODAY IS NOT TOMORROW BUT IF YOUR IN A HURRY JUST GO AHEAD AND I WILL FOLLOW. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

9. Question: WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE BEST PART OF YOUR BODY? WHY?

Answer: THE BEST PART OF MY BODY IS MY NECK... THE NECK HOLDS THE HEAD WHICH WILL WEAR THE CROWN LATER TONIGHT. THANK YOU.

10. Question: IF YOU WERE IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN, WHO WOULD YOU PUNISH? ADAM? EVE? OR THE SERPENT?

Answer: NONE OF THE ABOVE... I WOULD LIKE TO INFORM EVERYBODY THAT I AM CHINESE. I WOULD TEACH ADAM AND EVE NOT TO EAT THE FRUIT. INSTEAD SELL THE FRUIT AND EAT THE SERPENT.

CHEERS TO ALL!!

11. MC: CONTESTANT NUMBER 3. DO YOU BELIEVE THAT MAN CAME FROM APE?

CONTESTANT: (ANG BADET LUMINGON, SABAY GRAB NG MIKE)
YES, I BELIEVE SO, JUST TAKE A LOOK AT CANDIDATE NUMBER 2..

12. "NANINIWALA PO AKO NA HINDI LAHAT NG KABAYO AY NASA KWADRA...MERON DIN PO SA BACK STAGE!!!! AKO PO SI MARIMAR ANG JOWA NI FULGOZO NAG NAGSASABING... KEEP OFF THE GRASS!! BECAUSE... SLIPPERY WHEN WET!! I THANK YOU!!"

13. This one is censored..haha..
Halu! My name is Chin Chun Su O Mei Su Lyna from China.

Standing infront of you is a beauty from the Orient. Im proud to embody let the new blooms of our national flower

MY MY VAGINA FROM CHINA!!!!

14. bago ko lisanin ang maraming sulok ng entabladong ito iiwan ko po ang mga katagang:
wag niyo na po akong tangkaing dayain dahil ang mga lola kong mambabarang ay nasa likod ko lamang(looking at her co candidates at his back)

15. MAY KASABIHAN PO TAYO,

KAHIT GAANO KALALIM ANG DAGAT,,

HANGGANG DIBDIB LANG ITO NG BIBE, THANKYOU!

16. aanhin pa ang bahay na bato kung.......

... KATULONG KA LANG DITO

17. ang babaeng hndi natutumba dating konduktora hehe

18. Host: What is your favorite motto?
> Contestant: (after a long pause) I don't have a motto eh.
> (so the crowd starts helping her out. the crowd started saying, "Time is gold! Time is gold!")
> Contestant: I have na po. Chinese gold

19. "BASTA AKO NANINIWALA SA KASABIHANG ANG TAONG DI MARUNONG LUMINGON, AY WALANG PAMBILI NG SALONPAS!"

First Verses (Play me, I'm a game)

2008-10-25T14:48:00.000+08:00

Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle.

Step 2: Post the first line(s) from the first 30 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing. See which of your friends can name the most songs.

Step 3: Bold/strike out the songs when someone guesses both artist and track correctly.

Step 4: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING! (Srsly)

Step 5: If you like the game post your own.

(Obviously, I can't include the instrumental tracks in the playlist. Darn.)

1. Today is a winding road
Thats taking me to places that I didnt want to go
Today in the blink of an eye
Im holding on to something and I do not know why
I tried

2. You keep your riches and I'll sew my stitches,
You can't make me think like you, mundane
I've got a message for all those who think that they
Can etch his words inside my brain

3. Nandyan ka palagi
Niyayakap ako
Nandyan ka palagi
Hinahagkan ako

4. The seaweed is always greener
In somebody else's lake
You dream about going up there
But that is a big mistake

5. You must've fallen from the sky
You must've shattered on the runway
You brought so many to life
And now you're by yourself

6. Napanood kita kanina sa loob ng TV
Sabi mo “hello” sa akin
Ako ay nabighani
Sabi mo ay babalik ka
Pagkatapos ng commercial
Kay tagal kong naghintay
Muntik na akong magpakamatay

7. I don't wanna lose you,
I don't wanna use you
Just to have somebody by my side
And I don't wanna hate you
I don't wanna take you
But I don't wanna be the one to cry

8. You said you made us in the middle of the afternoon
While we said we're frustrated
But you tried to take us
"Go on, get ready, cause it's coming soon" you said
Well no thanks, we'll make it

9. Finally someone let me out of my cage.
Now time for me is nothing 'cause I'm counting no age.
No, I couldn't be there. No, you shouldn't be scared.
I'm good at repairs and I'm under each snare.
Intangible, bet you didn't think, so I command you to.
Panoramic view, look I'll make it all manageable.
Pick and choose, sit and lose, all you different crews.
Chicks and dudes, who you think is really kicking tunes?

10. Smoking with the homies
That's all he do
Always hanging out
Losing money playing See Low
Every night out at the Go-Go
He don't slap around
But it's in his plan
He gotta be the man
Never show you no respect
He mess with all your friends

11. There's a party at 8:02, don't be late
Hurry up, hurry up, and be ready don't make us wait
I know you know the place, so please don't hesitate
Or waste any time, there you'll find your rhythm

12. When you're on a holiday
You can't find the words to say
All the things that come to you
And I want to feel it too

13. Liar liar,
You're such a great big liar
With the tallest tales
That I have ever heard
Fire fire,
You set my soul on fire
Laughing in the corner
As it burns

14. Check the waves
Crashing down right by the sand
Feel the water go through my empty hands
'Cause today is mine
No troubles in my mind
Out this cynical world, ooh
Out this cynical world

15. Out here we don't hear anything
But the clicking of the rain
Against the leaves
And the way each other breathes

16. Eyes wide open all the time
Just like a drugstore in the city
Where she walks the streets at night
Time keeps ticking, like an ocean through a sieve
Ever onward, ever forward in a march

17. And here we go again
With all the things we said
And not a minute spent
To think that we'd regret
So we just take it back
These words that hold our breath
Forget the things we swore we meant

18. K fyne k kalang
Bantan-on tiguwang dili mahimutang
K fyne k kalang
Kumagko gikubalan dili mahimutang

19. We watched the season
Pull up its own stakes
And catch the last weekend of the last week
Before the gold and the glamour have been replaced
Another sun-soaked season fades away

20. Can you hear me
Hear me screaming
Breaking in the muted skies
This thunder heart
Like bombs beating
Echoing a thousand miles

21. If I kiss you where it's sore
If I kiss you where it's sore
Will you feel better, better, better
Will you feel anything at all

22. Do you remember
When we fell in love
We were so young
And innocent then
Do you remember
How it all began
It just seemed like heaven
So why did it end?

23. Nagtatanong ang isip
Di raw maintindihan
Kung anong nararamdaman
Dapat mong malaman
Sa puso ko'y ikaw lamang
Ang nag iisa

24. Perfect by nature
Icons of self indulgence
Just what we all need
More lies about a world that

25. Baby won't you tell me why
There is sadness in your eyes
I don't wanna say goodbye to you
Love is one big illusion
I should try to forget
But there is something left
In my head

26. These colours will not change
You change the way I see them
These words will fade
Can you explain
Why you hate them
We are the same

27. Really thought that I
Could live without you
Really thought that I
Could make it on my own
Sent you away
Yeah, I said I didn't need you
I let you go, I let you go, I let you go

28. They say I'm different
But they don't understand,
That there's a bigger problem
That's much more in demand
We're got world hunger
Not enough to eat
So there's really no time to be
Tripping on me

29. Earth to Bella
You think you’ve got it all figured in
Earth to Bella
Everything you know is wrong

30. Boys and girls of every age
Wouldn't you like to see something strange?
Come with us and you will see
This, our town of Halloween

(LOL #30 for the timely win)

Have fun. (^_^)

ProjectsPapersPota

2008-10-08T06:20:00.000+08:00

Fatigue. Frustration. Lack of sleep. People whose seemingly sole purpose is to disappoint you. Nausea. Splitting headache. Indigestion. Aching shoulders. Callused feet. Mood swing.

*sings Mika's "Love Today" to self*

Whee-kend Blabbelblah (because I lack the creativity for anything aside from ranting these days)

2008-10-05T09:55:00.001+08:00

Finally, the time to sit down and write for the sake of writing. No time pressure, no requirements (though I have to get down to the idea of doing the Eng 106, Sosc 2, Thea 108 and Coma 193 stuff down soon). A set of poems, a concept paper, an acting journal, an article and a newspaper layout. Despite what I believe are the really wonderful things Sir Gene said about the Communication Arts program, it sometimes annoys me that we're pressured to be good in everything, because to put it frankly, everything's what a BACA student does. Talk about Renaissance.

...

Finally finished with Tao. Everybody raving about it being a fresh take on theater in UPLB, what with all the movement intertwining with facial expressions and violently colorful "Medieval, Victorian, Elizabethan, Tudorian" costumes (cast: an orange chicken, a tiger with furry forearms, a shiny teddy bear, a macho dancer with a mohawk, a punk hooker and a member of the black-neon green parade, among others). Everybody pleased with the idea that every director in the University DOES have their own trademarks for their productions. Body really tired from continuous abuse of Extra Joss, coffee and softdrinks, the latter which I am also now blaming for a chip in one of my molars (TV-commercial child's voice: "CAVITIES!"). Satisfied with myself because I feel I did justice to the two major scenes I danced and acted in. Glad all the drama outside the stage is over (or is it?).

...

Launched the folio last Friday. And as Brian said, maganda nga sya. Go get a copy from any Pantas member for only a hundred bucks (if I remember correctly). Go read Catalina Wanders into the Clouds. Go tell me how I can make it better. Or if you don't want to, just go read it. And the other stories. And maybe get a few autographs from the authors still lurking around in the campus. Because biases aside, trust me, these people are going somewhere someday. Yes, even with seriously screwed-up a name like Jorge Luis Gaiman (Biboy's new pseudonym).

...

Totally fucked up on thesis. Ma'am Bheng's leaving me soon. And in her note I almost misread the line 'a draft of your proposal for a grade of "S"' for 'a draft of your proposal for a grade of "5"'. Whee emotional roller coaster, especially when you remember that I'm only grade-conscious because I want to prove a few things to my parents and myself: to them, that I could have actually shifted to Diliman ASAP, it's just that I CHOSE to study there, and to me, that, what everybody around me has been telling me is true, that I really am a smart kid. I know, I know, I'm a pompous ass. It's just that I've never had the knack for being emotional and stuff, especially when it doesn't involve intellectualizing something. Maybe that's why all my relationships with other people are convoluted and whatnot. Duhnno. Time to stalk the Diliman libraries again this sembreak.

...

I want to learn how to breakdance. From a real teacher, not from watching tutorial videos over the Internet (did this back in high school; it taught me how to handstand) and experimenting with my body (I think I dislocated my right leg thrice this semester). That, and learn how to play the sax. Annoying when you have a shiny sax in your room, but have no idea at all how to play it. Yes, I've tried fiddling with it the way I did with the recorder, piano, drums, bongos and djembe, and it didn't work.

...

They featured the house in PDI again last Wednesday, this time focusing on Mama and Papa's garden renovations. Too bad the online version doesn't have the pictures, it looks really nice in the newspaper. Annoying sometimes that I'm never around when these things happen.

...

I want to finish all the Marquez (No One Writes to the Colonel and other stories), Gaiman (Neverwhere), Borges (Ficciones), Adams (The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul), Lovecraft (The Call of Cthulhu an other stories) and Foucault (Madness and Civilization) books lying around. I want to get the Leader Class Movie Optimus Prime from the Megamall Toy Kingdom because it's p200 cheaper than how much the Greenhills collectors' stores are selling it for, along with the rare Alternator Optimus Prime my bro told me he saw in Greenhills. I want to play Magic (and the money to play it) again. I want a tall glass of iced mocha, a platter of marinara or carbonara, a free afternoon, and somebody to talk to over it and share it with (the pasta and the afternoon only, of course, as the coffee's exclusively mine). I want I want I want.

...

The Dilemma of Double Lives:

When I'm in UPLB, I'm too busy to be doing anything.

When I'm at home, I'm too tired to be doing anything.

And frankly, I don't which one I'd prefer.

A few beats short of having enough (an actor-mover's rant)

2008-09-27T19:54:00.000+08:00

I’ve tried. We’ve tried. God knows I have. God knows we have.

I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent trying to humor and help others during rehearsals (because it beats doing nothing during rehearsals), how many Pantas workshops I’ve missed (God knows how much I love my writing organization), how many nights I’ve had to rush so many other requirements for other subjects because I have to walk to the apartment all the way up in Faculty Village every night, dead-tired from the fatigue of doing everything in order to not reach the point of doing nothing. How much time, that one truly irreplaceable resource, I and so many others have wasted.

To date, I have only asked to miss three rehearsals (not counting the other productions I and several of my co-actors dedicated to because they actually produced results): two were because of important Pantas workshops, and the third was this morning, because I made a promise to accompany someone home around lunchtime. So I ask him if I can leave early. He replies with his usual “kailangan kita sa rehearsal” line. I insist that I have to leave early, and he replies with “mag-run lang tayo ng isang beses”. In short, he’s asking for just one hour. Just one hour. This after he comes an hour late, just a week or so after telling the actors off for tardiness, after announcing that he will have to be much stricter with punctuality “from now on”. The worst part, though, is when he looks at you with that disappointed look of his, as if you haven’t attended any of his daily rehearsals at all, as if you have no idea as to what you have to do when the play date finally comes. Not like the others. No, I don’t have to drop names, those idiots know who they are.

But something inside me tells me to be gullible for the nth time. So I play along for the next few minutes, asking him between rehearsed movements. By my fourth request, he’s too busy with rehearsing the chorus he literally loves playing with that he either doesn’t hear me anymore, or he does a real good job of acting deaf. That was the last straw. I get off the linoleum, pack my bag, and walk out of the entire farce without saying a word. And he was too busy playing with the chorus to notice me. So much for that.

On the way home, I text Tisa, and hear that he’s into another one of his arguments with the chorus people. Some of them are naturally bitchy anyway (again, they know who they are), I tell myself. I’m surprised, though, when I hear that this time it’s with Tinay, a person who is so tolerant and who smiles so often that I can only imagine what pushed her over the edge to speak up against him. Heat, hunger and fatigue can do that to people.

Most of you may see this rant as making a big fuss out of something as insignificant as walking out of a rehearsal, which is not an uncommon phenomenon. But for me it’s so much more than that. It’s the idea of, if only for a moment, losing all faith in an individual’s credibility, something that more impulsive and spontaneous people may do much more than walk out of.

Too bad, at the start of this semester I expected the most from two subjects: Creative Writing class and Acting class. At least one of them didn’t disappoint. Clue: It has something to do with writing. Stanislavsky, Artaud, Strassberg, Brecht, Aristotle and Grotovsky rang in my ears. Too bad none of us have gotten the chance to know them better. Maybe Yapo was right, maybe the secret was lowered expectations. On second thought, nah.

But I know how gullible I am. I know that tomorrow morning, I will be at the DL Umali Auditorium, doing my movements and helping others with theirs because it beats warming up for an entire day of sitting down and doing nothing in a stifling-hot theater. Might as well see this farce to whatever end it arrives to.

Ako din maglalagay ng sched

2008-09-27T15:44:00.000+08:00

Course	Units	Section	Lecture
COMA 190	3	X	2:30-4 TTh
COMA 200	1	AR(1)	TBA TBA
ENG 107	3	G	4-5:30 WF
NASC 2(MST)	3	B	8:30-10 WF
PHLO 171	3	W	1-2:30 TTh

TOTAL UNITS:	13

Dammit

2008-09-22T08:04:00.000+08:00

Can't. Write.

Because English 106 makes our heads spin, or because I just loved the assignment a little too much

2008-09-14T23:14:00.001+08:00

We're supposed to look for our single favorite poem for English 106 (Creative Writing) class. And since the poetry part of the class has been something I had admittedly been looking forward to, I took the assignment to heart almost immediately (sorry, SOSC 2, you and your dumbass of a teacher will probably never reach this state, not even with your "My Utopic Philippine State" paper due in a few weeks).

So for the past week or so, I've been racking my brain, trying to remember every significant piece of verse that has helped me shape my life into whatever it is now. Heck, I've even spent several hours reading through my old blog, looking for anything I've written in the past that could pass for "poetry" in a world where even a blank piece of paper already counts as a poem. That, and also because I'm only a pathetic poseur of a poet who's probably only a margin above those sad emo kids who put "blood" and "pain" in their "poetry" just because it sounds darker (ergo, "cooler") that way. And because I'm a pathetic poseur, I like reading my "works".

I may be no poet, but I've always liked reading poetry. My love for Latin American literature translates to admiration the verses of Borges and Neruda. My love for vivid images translates to my reading "Love Song of Night and Day" and memorizing Death Cab for Cutie lyrics. And no mention of poetry, I believe, would be complete without those poems of William Shakespeare, who captures human conditions so masterfully that he now appears cliche.

Where is this seemingly tautological piece going, you ask? Concerning the assignment, yes, I did find out which my current favorite poem is. Problem is, though, in the course of my retrospective, I found too much good stuff along the way, and now I have no place to place them in.

Ergo, this post. Presenting, in the following order, my current (meaning it can change within the next hour, or it may not change until the time I quit my first job, or... you get the point) top ten favorite poems.

X: Sa Poetry (Rolando Tinio)

Sa poetry, you let things take shape,
Para bang nagpapatulo ng isperma sa tubig.
You start siyempre with memories,
'Yung medyo malagkit, kahit mais
Na mais: love lost, dead dreams,
Rotten silences, and all
Manner of mourning basta't murder.
Papatak 'yan sa papel, ano. Parang pait,
Kakagat ang typewriter keys.
You sit up like the mother of anxieties.
Worried na worried hanggang magsalakip
Ang odds and ends ng inamag mong pag-ibig.
Jigsaw puzzle. Kung minsan, everything fits.
Pero sige ang pasada ng images
Hanggang makuha perfectly ang trick.
At parang amateur magician kang bilib
Sa sleight-of-hand na pinapraktis:
Nagsilid ng hangin sa buslo, dumukot,
By golly, see what you've got---
Bouquet of African daisies,
Kabit-kabit na kerchief,
Kung suwerte pa, a couple of pigeons,
Huhulagpos, beblend sa katernong horizon,
You can't say na kung saan hahapon.

I remember way back in high school, when we were discussing this poem during Filipino class, one of my friends was giggling because he thought "isperma" meant "sperm" and that the only way to let sperm drip onto water was to masturbate it out. The mention of "medyo malagkit" in the next line probably didn't help either. Even years after and apart from the incident, though, it still serves as a beautiful description of the anxieties of writing, not only poetry.

IX: When I Born, I Black (anonymous)

When I born, I Black,
When I grow up, I Black,
When I go in Sun, I Black,
When I scared, I Black,
When I sick, I Black,
And when I die,
I still black..

And you White fella,
When you born, you Pink,
When you grow up, you White,
When you go in Sun, you Red,
When you cold, you Blue,
When you scared, you Yellow,
When you sick, you Green,
And when you die, you Gray..
And you calling me Colored ??

Anybody who's watched MAD TV, The Simpsons, Chappelle's Show or any similar material will have to admit sooner or later that racism is funny. This poem turns it around and slaps the racist with it in such an entertaining way that I just had to spoof it back way back when. Oh well.

VIII: Jolography (Paolo Manalo)

O, how dead you child are, whose spoiled
Sportedness is being fashion showed

Beautifuling as we speak -- in Cubao
There is that same look: Your Crossing Ibabaw,

Your Nepa Cute, Wednesdays
Baclaran, "Please pass. Kindly ride on."

Tonight will be us tomorrowed-
Lovers of the Happy Meal and its H,

Who dream of the importedness of sex as long as it's
Pirated and under a hundred, who can smell

A Pasig Raver in a dance club. O, the toilet
Won't flush, but we are moved, doing the gerby

In a plastic bag; we want to feel the grooves
Of the records, we want to hear some scratch-

In a breakaway movement, we're the shake
To the motive of pockets, to the max.

The change is all in the first jeep
Of the morning's route. Rerouting

This city and its heart attacks; one minute faster
Than four o'clock, and the next

Wave that stands out in the outdoor crowd
hanging with a bunch of yo-yos-

A face with an inverted cap on, wearing all
Smiles the smell of foot stuck between the teeth.

It may have started with Rolando Tinio's Sa Poetry back in high school, but it was this poem that told me what the potential of Taglish poetry could be, given such a postmodern cultural hodgepodge such as ours. Furthermore, how could a coñotic "Patay kang bata ka!" in the first line not be appealing to a Taglish reader?

VII: Sonnet XI (Pablo Neruda)

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

A poem that seems to talk about the insistence of an unrequited lover, but animalistic and imaginative enough to not be seen as emo. I believe the eating part, in particular, is what makes this my personal favorite among the poems in One Hundred Love Sonnets. I'm probably just yet another repressed horny animal Id that way.

VI: Poetry (Pablo Neruda)

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived in search of me.
I don΄t know,
I don΄t know where it came from, from winter or a river.
I don΄t know how or when,
no, they were not voices,
they were not words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say,
my mouth had no way with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened
and open planets, palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated, riddled with arrows,
fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of mystery,
I felt myself a pure part of the abyss.
I wheeled with the stars;
my heart broke loose on the open sky.

My favorite part is the part where the persona confesses to writing something he/she is not sure of. Reminds me so much of the first time I tried to write poetry, especially the part where I didn't know if what I wrote was simply senseless or maintaining a sufficient semblance of sensibility in order to be called poetry. Probably reminds you of your first attempt at poetry too.

V: Robin Goodfellow's Soliloquy from A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Shakespeare)

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I'm an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call:
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

Abuse of the fourth wall and of suspension of disbelief from a master of his language. Plus, it rhymes, which is a huge factor in a world where people are too lazy to put rhyming words together anymore. Need I say more? (Hey, that kind of rhymes!) Honestly though, I was disappointed when the guy playing Robin Goodfellow at the ComArtSoc's tagalized version of the play (Pangarap sa Isang Gabi ng Gitnang Tag-Araw) didn't even say something similar to this piece, which, for me, was the only way the play should have ended.

IV: What Sarah Said (Ben Gibbard)

And it came to me then that every plan
Is a tiny prayer to father time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU
That reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself
That I’ve already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD
Took you a little farther away from me
Away from me

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines
In a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend
On a faulty camera in our minds
And I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose
Than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground
As the TV entertained itself

‘Cause there’s no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes ‘round and everyone lift their heads
But I’m thinking of what Sarah said
That love is watching someone die

So who’s gonna watch you die?

My problem with most singer-songwriters these days is that they either make really good music but with crappy, usually even repetitive lyrics, or that they write good lyrics but sound forced to the point of being boring when placed onto melodies. Death Cab for Cutie, for some reason, manages to balance the two so well that their songs sound good whether recited or sung. Lyric-wise, this is my favorite. It's so emo, it's beautiful, which goes to show that you either not be emo or be emo all the way.

III: Ars Poetica (Jorge Luis Borges)

To gaze at the river made of time and water
And recall that time itself is another river,
To know we cease to be, just like the river,
And that our faces pass away, just like the water.

To feel that waking is another sleep
That dreams it does not sleep and that death,
Which our flesh dreads, is that very death
Of every night, which we call sleep.

To see in the day or in the year a symbol
of makind’s days and of his years,
To transform the ourtage of the years
Into a music, a rumor and a symbol,

To see in death a sleep, and in the sunset
A sad gold, of such is Poetry
Immortal and a pauper. For Poetry
Returns like the dawn and the sunset.

At times in the afternoon a face
Looks at us from the depths of a mirror;
Art must be like that mirror
That reveals to us this face of ours.

They tell how Ulysses, glutted with wonders,
Wept with love to descry his Ithaca
Humble and green. Art is that Ithaca
Of green eternity, not of wonders.

It is also like an endless river
That passes and remains, a mirror for one same
Inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
And another, like an endless river.

Love how the poem goes back into itself especially in its first stanzas, in order to screw up the reader's notions of reality and unreality (does time flow like a river, or does a river flow like time?). Borges loves dreaming and the infinitesimal nature of things as much as I do.

II: Love Song of Night and Day (Jenny Scott)

He (Night) / She (Day)

Wrap yourself in your best bright clothes, your red and purple scarves of silk.
Run with me to the festival, where we will dance until sunrise.
The dwarves will beat their funny drums of zebra skins and hollowed trees,
while stiltwalkers perform, and the musician blows his bamboo flute.

And late in the night, the poets and storytellers entertain,
delight us with their dancing words, as we listen, clapping by the fire.
Enchant me with your tale-telling. Tell about Tree, Grass, River, and Wind.
Tell why Truth must fight with Falsehood, and why Truth will always win.

I will tell my father's stories: how the giant mantis fooled Death
by holding still as a felled tree; how the elephants trampled
the leopard cub, and its father, though he knew, killed nine goats instead;
how pirates gambled with a djinn and lost the thing more dear than gold.

Tonight we'll eat a farewell feast. Cold corn porridge is not enough.
Let's peel papayas, pineapples, and mangoes, drink coconut milk,
and bake bananas. We'll dine on crocodiles, wild birds, and turtles,
perhaps a hippopotamus--if only you can catch it first.

I'll build a palace made of stone. Two hippo-headed guards will serve,
and tigers carry in your meals. I'll capture flying zebras
for your steeds, and fill the stable with every kind of unicorn.
Butterflies and salamanders will decorate your garden.

I'll strand long strings of beads for you, blue, the color only kings may wear.
I'll carve a soapstone lioness, a wooden box to lock it in,
girded with sapphire amulets, ostrich feathers, ivory.
These things will protect you while I'm gone, remind you of my love for you.

Your voice resounds like a songbird's, every word is a sweet, soft song.
When you run you're graceful and swift, sleek as a powerful panther.
Mysterious chameleon, you're a thousand women at once,
sharp and strong as a lioness, yet gentle as a striped gazelle.

On this our last day together, let us walk across the grasslands.
Hold my hand and let's walk slowly, seeing everything as children.
Let's walk on the Daraja Plains, where leopards hang from trees, dosing,
tasseled tails swaying in the shade, near villages of tree-dwelling elves.

Glorious, to walk again across the savannah with my beloved.
A lion walks commandingly, a general among his troops,
camped the night before a battle. A snake, colorful and coiled, loops
around his bough, mischievous, hanging over the village path.

We'll find termites in their nests, hard tall towers above the plains,
and point-eared cats, taking their turns, guarding their many entrances.
We'll find the basket-nests of birds hanging from the acacia tree.
Rhinoceroses and dragons for once will let us walk in peace.

When lightning tears the sky's dark cloak and heaven's bird beats the water
on the muddy plains with its big wings, termites and frogs escape their homes
toward the lamps in the nearest village. Spiders dry themselves indoors,
the spotted lizards that never fall from ceilings suddenly appear.

In the forest, fires light the sky as the black clouds unfold their weight.
The black-and-white sacred monkey holds her children to her, and waits.
Love, like lightning hits suddenly. It sparks the heart with blows of light,
its fire extending, bends, expands, beats and breaks your hiding places.

* * *

Remember when we were children, herding the sheep together,
leading them over the grassy hills with long sticks. Your silly songs
made me laugh, and in the evening, you'd enchant me with your stories,
lying on your back beside me. Even then my heart was yours.

I remember your sacred rites. You were so funny, so grown up,
so stiff and serious, all arms and elbows. You went in a girl,
but you returned a warrior. You marched back with the others--
your hair was cut, your eye tattooed with the red triangle of war.

Tomorrow I must go, my love. I will tattoo my head with braids.
My shield will bear a shining sun so you will always be with me.
Inlaid with gold, it will shine like glowing embers. I will return
with lizard skins for your sandals. Paint your eyes black and wait for me.

I am the sun, you are the moon. Wherever you lead I will go,
following across the wide sky, as long as I live and you love.
Sun follows Moon until she tires, then carries her until she's strong
and runs ahead of him again. I'll carry you, too, my beloved.

My love, we are not Sun and Moon. Instead we are like day and night.
The old ones say Day is a woman, who works only while it is light.
She herds her goats and catches fish, fills her fields with golden corn,
shows her children what is just and protects them from the cobra.

Day loves Night, who works in darkness, walking through heaven's milky sky
collecting stars with his quick arms, piling them into a basket
like a child collecting lizards and piling them into her pot
until the pot overflows with lizards, 'til the basket overflows with light.

Night wears a black cloak lined with fire, studded inside with gleaming stars.
At dawn and dusk he spies his love. Across the rolling hills of sky,
they glimpse each other--so briefly. They throw each other kisses, cry.
Their tears spill over Jamuraa. Mixed with blood, they wash everything red.

But once, with a magician's help, Time was stopped and Day stood still.
Night spread over Jamuraa, wrapped Day in his dark cloak and held her.
In their miraculous embrace, the two became as One. Until
pulled from Day's arms, Night sank, commanded by the western horizon that always beckons him to come.

I won't give up hope, my love.

Our love is like the river in the summer season of long rains:
For a little while it spilled its banks, flooding the crops in the fields.
But soon it will evaporate with the dry heat. Like Day from Night,
I'll live my life apart from you, just glimpsing you across the sky,
because you cannot change, my dear, and nor can I.

This was a poem composed by a member of the creative team behind the fictional continent of Jamuraa in Magic: the Gathering mythos. Think of the African landscape, put a few magical creatures here and there, and you'll see why I like the imagery of this poem. The fact that it was quoted in seventeen Magic cards is also a cute little testament to how reliable this poem was in building a world for planeswalkers (eternal über-sorcerors in the game) to battle in.

I: Poor Fellows (Pablo Neruda)

What it takes on this planet,
to make love to each other in peace.
Everyone pries under your sheets;
everyone interferes with your loving.
They say terrible things about a man and a woman,
who after much milling about,
all sorts of compunctions,
do something unique,
they both lay with each other in one bed.
I ask myself whether frogs are so furtive,
or sneeze as they please.
Whether they whisper to each other in swamps about illegitimate frogs,
or the joys of amphibious living.
I ask myself if birds single out enemy birds,
or bulls gossip with bullocks before they go out in public with cows.
Even the roads have eyes and the parks their police.
Hotels spy on their guests,
windows name names,
canons and squadrons debark on missions to liquidate love.
All those ears and those jaws working incessantly,
till a man and his girl
have to raise their climax,
full tilt, on a bicycle.

If there's one thing Ferdinand de Saussure, Michel Foucault, Perez Hilton and Kris Aquino have taught us, it's that gossip is simultaneously more constructive and destructive than most of the other forces in society. Pablo Neruda here shows us the destructive side. Also, gossip has been simultaneously bonding and ruining people for years (not only in the CommAts batch, mind you, though it's a pretty big factor there).

So there. Like I wrote earlier, all this can change within the next hour, or it may not change until the time I quit my first job, or... you get the point. What matters is that these are the win in the now for the me. Whee. (Hey, like I said earlier, I'm no poet.)

Maybe I just did love the assignment a little too much.

Frankly...

2008-09-12T07:11:00.000+08:00

I'm getting tired too.

But to Hell with me if I ever sincerely wanted to just keel over and die.

Forever the Empath

2008-08-31T06:52:00.000+08:00

That's what I like about you.

iHate-U

2008-08-29T10:40:00.000+08:00

There's more than enough people around you nowadays anyway, which is probably why you can afford to toss your now utterly meaningless words around.

And here I was, stupid enough to believe you actually invested something in the things you said.

Well, no more.

No more.

Dammit, you're obviously more fucking sanguine than I am.

And that's saying something.

And no, I'm not listening to you anymore.

Information Overload

2008-08-17T18:33:00.000+08:00

Sound: Papa's playing a playlist of Bukas Palad and whatnot that's been looping over itself the entire afternoon to show off the new digital picture frame he won just this week. Bro's blasting through Filipino versions of Umbrella, With You, Low and New Found Glory songs (which I hate) and Death Cab for Cutie songs (which I like) amidst the pearl drop-ish sounds of his perpetually busy Yahoo Messenger-ing where his friends interrupt him to affectionately call him gago or wassup or any TLA (Three-Letter Acronym) they wish which he gamely responds to with his own affectionate gago and he will reply back and they will go on much like the fashion of sending sweet nothings, but with more testosterone. The built-in speakers of my laptop suck so there's no way my attempt to play Massive Attack on Youtube can compete with the combined sonic dissonance of a digital picture frame drifting through Panalangin ng Pagiging Bukas Palad and a desktop pseudoheadbanging through I Will Possess Your Heart and a bunch of YM pearl drops. When bro gets tired of blasting, he will go to the other side to bang the drums using my headset which I do not wear since it smells so much like the sweat he leaks when he gets too enthusiastic in his banging which is why I have no way to shut the extra noises out.

Sight: The LCD (whee TLA) I am typing into shows this screen with tabs for the aforementioned Youtube attempts, the Friendster Bulletin Board where I am doing surveys for the heck of it which is a short, pretend apathetic way of saying OMG (whee another TLA) I hope somebody reads this and sees how mysteriously interesting a person I am, and of course there's also my own YM, where people are either too busy to be sending sweet nothings to each other or have outgrown the activity or I'm the victim of some sort of conspiracy where everybody else is sending each other their sweet nothings and sending none to me, which is utter bullshit because I believe in their maturity. To prove this, the lone chat window open is the remnant of a conversation with Jin over the assignments for Creative Writing and the question of which requires more effort this semester: Creative Writing class or Acting class?

Touch: My fingers are tapping the smooth plastic of the laptop's keyboard. Every now and then, my thumb goes to the trackpad and uses its not smooth but not exactly rough surface to scroll across the pages and switch between windows.

(None for taste and smell, since I have a cold. Woe if I didn't have one.)

No wonder ADD is such an issue nowadays.

Do not read this unless you're sure that you'll still love me in spite of the following rant

2008-08-10T21:49:00.000+08:00

(DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU. SERIOUSLY, I'M NOT PROUD OF THIS. CALL IT RELEASE, CALL IT FREE, CALL IT CRAP FOR ALL I CARE, BUT AGAIN, DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.)

Too much to do too much to read too much to write ergo no time to write right which means you have to fight the time at night when everything's heavy and the only thing you hear are the sound which have always been there but you only notice now there's the whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr of the computer and the whuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur of the disk drive when you stick a CD in this time i picked bob marley swing out sister and lighthouse family because theyre cool to have around in the laptop and because theyre good music to chill to the problem with chilling music though is that on one hand it calms you on the other hand it gets you to sleep which i believe is the ultimate waste of time i ean you are said to sleep roughly a third of your life away fuck that fuck this fuck everything else im tired and i know theres so much to do yet im bored and i just read something about people with adhd who dont know how to multitask and im thinking because my hypochondria is sinking in that maybe i too have adhd because and sometimes the temptation to get away from it all whichever way youd want to interpret that and they say intelligent people are more likely to commit all these kinds of things and unlucky me because i have enough chutzpah to classify myself as an intelligent person which is why i sometimes get into bullshit situations and which is why my dumbass of a social science two political theories teacher gives me crap on the exam because shes scared that i know more than her and everybodys scared because im not scared to say what i know and what i dont know and now theres a bird or is it a cricket going chrpchrpchrpchrpchrp in the distance to the left its probably a cricket stupid insects they get into your ears when youre trying to make up for all the sleep you lose over nothing and it is this unproductivity that particularly sucks because you waste time and time as we all know or maybe not because some people are just stupid is of the essence to put it in laymans terms time is the one resource that cannot be replaced ever more than the stupid oil and gas and shit which stinks like hell which is where i will go to if ever i went stupid and considered suicide myself in a big thornbush where every movement i make or try to make will result in me scarring and bleeding myself among a bunch of harpies going harpharpharpharpharpharpharpharpharpharpharp like a lot of people nowadays who just talk and talk and talk but dont say anything stupid people like what slipknot said people are shit even im shit for not knowing why i even put this here but now i put a cd with all sorts of weird stuff in it and it goes whuuuuuuurrrrrr again dammit im going crazy i know im suffering from information overload i need to enter a state of mind where its impossible for me to think and do anything total boredom if youd like to think about it because its been me me me me me me me me me me me me me so far so its your turn its you you you you you you and you and you and you and you and you and maybe you too even if youre a stupid person or fine even though i think youre a stupid person wahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha people always laugh at the end of their statements as if its a way to punctuate themselves its stupid actually you can be sarcastic or sincere or farcical over this internet crap ok i think i have to end this now because this is taking up too much space but what the hell this is my moment yes you see its me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me all over again its me not my stupid bro who cant write a coherent blog entry to save his life or my stupid conservative dad who thinks being raised by a military man gives you the authority to do so with your kids in a sort of stupid reciprocity which does not work because of the dynamic nature of things and people to put it yet again into laymans terms for you noobs is that people change and once i was jacks docile mouth but now i have transformed into jacks screaming head screaming at the world and everything it stands for and i am also jacks crying eye shedding a tear for suicidal anarchists and people who play them in movies to be shown to people for mere entertainment i wish i had the guts to kill myself right now

Two centavos on writing, twenty nothings for twenty people

2008-07-20T20:02:00.000+08:00

Writing is not for cowards. There is nothing cowardly about wanting to express your thoughts in a medium that places a lot of, if not the most, importance in choosing what elements (word? phrase? sentence? other?) and how to place these elements in order to bring forth the clearest-as-possible emotions and messages. And yes, even obscurity counts as a medium and as a message.

Those two centavos given, the following are the twenty nothings. For twenty different people with twenty different names and twenty different faces and twenty different minds. In order not to jostle the emotions of any potential reader, I managed to place all the not-so-good (I'm not one to judge your idea of 'bad' after all) ones first and all the not-so-bad (I'm not one to judge your idea of 'good' after all) ones last (they are in no particular order, though). As Dante once wrote somewhere, you have to pass through Hell and climb up to Heaven, not the other way around.

(Funny, though, that a tag such as this comes out just a few weeks after I did this, though in poem form.)

1. Stop living in your worlds. The real world is also a fun place to be in, if you stop leaving it and if you stop comparing it to the ones in your mind. You should know, one aspect of your major thrives on comparing things.

2. Wow, you're way more than psychic. You're probably even meta-psychic, considering your ability to talk and blackmail people about thoughts that they never thought of in the first place. On second thought, you're not psychic and certainly not meta-psychic. Just a dumbass. Shut the fuck up already, dumbass.

3. Let's face it: what you did was stupid. Let's face it: my thinking you couldn't possibly do what you did, that was also stupid, if not stupider. So let's just not talk about it. Honestly, I'm so tempted by the idea of personally coercing you into a vow of eternal silence, but I guess I trust your sober self enough not to do so. Now, what to do with your drunken self?

4. You have no right to tell me what I'm going to be in the future, be it near or distant. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't care what happens to you in the future. After all, you have no idea what I busy my life with anyway. And I prefer to keep the illusion up. Someday, though, you'll regret ever telling me anything of the sort. That's a promise.

5. I know we started this for fun and because of its truths, but you've gone too far. Face it, your credentials are unimpressive at best, you flaunting them the mark of a pompous ass at worst. So stop it. There's a huge difference between practicing something and criticizing it, especially on the receiving end. You never caught on.

6. You either don't trust us, or are hungry for more attention than can realistically be given you. That's why you're always trying to make yourself look more intriguing than what you really seem to be. But as you can see, people are already getting sick of all your faux intrigue. So either start changing, or just shut up. In the end, after all, everybody only cares for their selves.

7. We haven't seen each other in years. Heck, even back then we hardly saw each other. We've grown up and lived and loved our separate lives. Despite these said years, you still hate me when you see me. Don't worry, I also still hate you when I see you. Touche.

8. All those years, and you're still trying to one-up everybody around you? That is not what I expected of you, but I guess the fact that I expected at all was kind of stupid in itself. So I will leave you to your devices. You see to be happy enough with them anyway.

9. Come on, admit it. Nobody's going to love you less for it. You probably feel it yourself, but I'm not one to talk about what you really feel. You're the only one who can do that. I hope you know you know that, and you probably do.

10. Do I literally have to whip you into shape to convince you that you can do much better than what you're doing at the moment? I hope not. But you know that I do what I have to do. You, after all, are partly my responsibility, at least for now.

11. I want to be able to talk to you more openly, to know you better, but you seem to have this aloofness, almost as if you thought my eyes displayed an ulterior motive, or something of the sort. Trust me, malice is the last thing on my mind when I'm talking to you. Don't take him seriously either. He's just like that. I think.

12. I miss the geekiness. All of it. I wish we just never grew out of it, at least in that aspect. For the escapism of our geekiness was an otherworldy bliss that a non-geek will never be able to relate to. And this probably applies to all our other geek-friends too.

13. Ideas are just that. They don't do anything for you, unless you enjoy the romance of struggling for transcendent causes. Might as well conform with everything until you can see yourself with enough power to do something about it. At the very least, chances are that it will put you in a much better position than what you are in now.

14. So I've heard you're literally an alien back there. One of those green things with eye stalks and dripping with gunk. I guess your heart never found its way there, after all. I hope it's already in the right place, though.

15. I haven't seen you in some time. I've heard rumors, and they don't say anything good about you, but I guess that's what rumors inevitably end up as: blackmailing bad news. I just hope that you know what you're doing, whatever that means to you. You're too nice a person to get messed up the way some of us are now.

16. Time after time, your life has been undeniable and inexplicable proof that people still listen to the select few Renaissance men of this day and age. I'm happy to be doing in-your-face level insane things with you as your friend. And I hope everybody else who also does is as happy as I am.

17. You are a person who's drawn to people who have what you think you don't have (which I have), and I'm a person who's drawn to people who have what I know I don't have. And you're right: this, among other things, is probably why we've been friends until now.

18. Thanks for the books. Thanks for the time. Thanks for putting me down. Thanks for keeping me up. Thanks for listening. Thanks for talking. Thanks for everything else my memory and paranoia do not permit me to mention at the moment. You help keep me sane.

19. I don't know what it is that makes me feel like I can tell you everything. Maybe it's because of the things we have in common. Maybe it's because I feel you won't get offended by all the shit that comes from my mouth for some reason. Maybe it's because you somehow remind me of an old friend of mine who swore that she'd personally beat me up if ever I ever even considered turning gay, even though you said nothing of the sort.

20. You're really hot. You're so hot, in fact, that I don't believe you deserve to be with just anybody, just because you crave more than what every day can give you. I'm saying this because I think you deserve much more than the pile of shit that was handed to you last time. Because what happens to shit when it gets too close to something hot? It explodes.

An oldie, but one helluva goodie

2008-07-20T13:14:00.000+08:00

Note: not for those who are easily offended, religion-wise. Taken from here.

Close-to-complete Ideology and Religion Shit List

Taoism: Shit happens.
Confucianism: Confucius say, "Shit happens."
Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn't really shit.
Zen Buddhism: Shit is, and is not.
Zen Buddhism #2: What is the sound of shit happening?
Hinduism: This shit has happened before.
Islam: If shit happens, it is the will of Allah.
Islam #2: If shit happens, kill the person responsible.
Islam #3: If shit happens, blame Israel.
Catholicism: If shit happens, you deserve it.
Protestantism: Let shit happen to someone else.
Presbyterian: This shit was bound to happen.
Episcopalian: It's not so bad if shit happens, as long as you serve the right wine with it.
Methodist: It's not so bad if shit happens, as long as you serve grape juice with it.
Congregationalist: Shit that happens to one person is just as good as shit that happens to another.
Unitarian: Shit that happens to one person is just as bad as shit that happens to another.
Lutheran: If shit happens, don't talk about it.
Fundamentalism: If shit happens, you will go to hell, unless you are born again. (Amen!)
Fundamentalism #2: If shit happens to a televangelist, it's okay.
Fundamentalism #3: Shit must be born again.
Judaism: Why does this shit always happen to us?
Calvinism: Shit happens because you don't work.
Seventh Day Adventism: No shit shall happen on Saturday.
Creationism: God made all shit.
Secular Humanism: Shit evolves.
Christian Science: When shit happens, don't call a doctor - pray!
Christian Science #2: Shit happening is all in your mind.
Unitarianism: Come let us reason together about this shit.
Quakers: Let us not fight over this shit.
Utopianism: This shit does not stink.
Darwinism: This shit was once food.
Capitalism: That's MY shit.
Communism: It's everybody's shit.
Feminism: Men are shit.
Chauvinism: We may be shit, but you can't live without us...
Commercialism: Let's package this shit.
Impressionism: From a distance, shit looks like a garden.
Idolism: Let's bronze this shit.
Existentialism: Shit doesn't happen; shit IS.
Existentialism #2: What is shit, anyway?
Stoicism: This shit is good for me.
Hedonism: There is nothing like a good shit happening!
Mormonism: God sent us this shit.
Mormonism #2: This shit is going to happen again.
Wiccan: An it harm none, let shit happen.
Scientology: If shit happens, see "Dianetics", p.157.
Jehovah's Witnesses: >Knock< >Knock< Shit happens.
Jehovah's Witnesses #2: May we have a moment of your time to show you some of our shit?
Jehovah's Witnesses #3: Shit has been prophesied and is imminent; only the righteous shall survive its happening.
Moonies: Only really happy shit happens.
Hare Krishna: Shit happens, rama rama.
Rastafarianism: Let's smoke this shit!
Zoroastrianism: Shit happens half on the time.
Church of SubGenius: BoB shits.
Practical: Deal with shit one day at a time.
Agnostic: Shit might have happened; then again, maybe not.
Agnostic #2: Did someone shit?
Agnostic #3: What is this shit?
Satanism: SNEPPAH TIHS.
Atheism: What shit?
Atheism #2: I can't believe this shit!
Nihilism: No shit.

Just a Saturday

2008-07-20T13:06:00.000+08:00

Woke up around 5:00am, because I wanted to reach Diliman by 8am so that I could spend as much time as possible in the library. Catch a near-empty HM bus at around 5:30. Will make good time, since the morning rush hasn't arrived yet.

Papa texts that he wants to bring be to Diliman and asks what time I'll be in Cubao, so I say 7:30. Around 7:15, I ask him where he is already, he answers he's still in Antipolo, a good 45 minutes away. Wondered why he bothered to waste his load to ask me what time I'd arrive if he'd disregard it anyway. Read a few chapters of Banana Heart Summer while waiting in front of the Araneta Center parking lot.

Reach Diliman at around 9am. Papa and I get lost while looking for the CAL. Ask a lot of people for directions. Try to hide the UP seal on the UP shirt (note: not UPLB shirt) I realized I as wearing as I asked. Quietly hate myself for getting lost in Diliman every time I visit, without fail.

Finally find the CAL. Since Papa's battery is low, he asks me for a time when he can pick me up. I play it safe, so I say 12 noon, just so that I have a lot of time. Papa leaves me in front of the walkway to the CAL.

Enter the CAL and wander around for a bit, the way I always do when I visit a place for the first time. After a few more questions, a lot more wandering about and repeatedly flashing the ID I just had made last Monday (the security in the library always asked for a closer look, because they obviously aren't used to UPLB students flashing their IDs at them), I learn that the material I need is in the Graduate Studies Office, which is closed on weekends. Wander around the Faculty Center for a long while before I find out there really is no way to get what I need on a Saturday. Wander around even more before I found out that there is really nothing else to do, so I sit down and eat cheap palabok and read more Banana Heart Summer and take down notes and realize that this book is really quotable at times:

"Every story has its own taste, Every storyteller has her own taste; so does every listener. So when I speak in a particular flavor, I know my words taste differently on your tongue. While it is the ear that receives a story, the main event happens in the tongue repeating it..."

-Chapter twenty-one: The Flavoured Tale

Go back outside before it turns 12. Text my angst about libraries and the UPLB main library (which is often only useful for Biology and Agriculture students at best) to several friends. Run into Ai while waiting. Chitchat about Lola Mad's awarding speech (which I wasn't able to attend because it was a weekday) and a short debate about the culinary and etymological roots of Adobo (which she threatened to ask Michael Tan about). Feel funny talking about literature and cultural history on a graduate student level, for some reason. It's raining by the time Ai leaves.

Get rained on while waiting for Papa, so I am wet and shivering and wanting to go home when he arrives. He wants lunch in Sta. Lucia first, though, so I oblige, the two pieces of penoy I ate that morning already reduced to nothing.

On the way to the mall, two words suddenly resonate in my mind: DARK KNIGHT. I ask Papa if he has time to go watch a movie. We see if the new Yoshinoya branch in Sta. Lucia is any good (which it is, and besides, Papa loves Yoshinoya), we check for the prices of laptops and buy a new mouse before watching. Watch the movie, almost go gay over Heath Ledger's acting (note: almost, and besides the guy's dead already). Epicfailed to predict the length of the movie, which meant that we would be late for Tito Arcus' birthday dinner at Rockwell. Have a quiet angst episode when Papa and Mama are both too flustered over each other's personality quirks to coordinate on how to get everybody to Makati.

After much humming and heaving and calling and texting about, finally reach Le Souffle only thirty minutes late. Proceed to dig into talking with cousins and into a supposedly medium rare ostrich steak which was still kind of tough for what it was. Feel they are redeemed by the dessert of cheesecake, sorbet, souffles and mousse though. Fall in love with my sweet tooth for the nth time.

Everybody votes to pass by Lola Tess in the Loyola Memorial Crematorium before going home. Remember that Mama texted about Lola Tess' death some time in the week. Hate receiving news late as a consequence of staying in LB.

Arrive at Loyola Memorial. Visit relatives. Share a few tears and a few prayers. Fall asleep on the ride home.

I am analytical

2008-07-05T18:44:00.000+08:00

Or at least this test says.

Dammit, I wish I read more of Carl Jung's work a long time ago. But Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" kind of distracted me along the way. Now all I think of is that people just want to eat, sleep and get laid.

Verses for Silence

2008-06-28T22:13:00.000+08:00

(NOTE TO READER: These poems were composed over these past weeks in lieu of straight-up ranting prose over all the shit that has happened over, yes, these past weeks. Each one corresponds to and is dedicated one real Other human being. Kudos to you if you understand some of them, or if, God forbid, you understand them all, and are therefore aware of all the said shit. Kudos to you if you find out you are dedicated to too. Welcome to the shit.)

PROLOGUE

Darkness no one hears

As it settles, a black blanket

Over the mountain

A world of renaissance cattle

Trapped within each other’s nuances

Fenced into their own awkward poetries

Suffering with the silence

Suffering in the silence

I: SADNESS WORDLESS

Sadness wordless

Even more deafening than the million

Millions of enthusiastic screams

For attention

For contention

For competition

But now, nothing,

(For contemplation?)

But mere echoes, bouncing

Off the walls of a heart, beating

For more noise than what it can make

II: A MOUTH, CLOSED

A mouth, closed

Is replaced by an open body

Sweeping sweeps and flicking flicks

Replacing nouns and verbs

Who, then, knows the meaning?

Certainly not our mere eyes

Both ears on the wordless mud

All the while thinking, maybe yes

Yes, maybe you do

Or, maybe even, did?

III: DOWN HIGH IN PEDESTAL CITY

Down high in Pedestal City

Is where the folks live

Lives separate yet inseparable

From the ramble of the rabble

Which the folk talk about

Yet never talk to

IV: YOUR PRINCE IS NOT A PRINCE

Your prince is not a prince

But a frog

Maybe, a prince among frogs

But still a frog

Ergo, victim to all the froggy impulses

Befitting the slimy little amphibian

That licks its way in the world

After getting licked, do not get licked

Not anymore, hopefully

V: A WHITE FLAG? YOU ASK

A white flag? You ask

Yourself, among everybody

Drowning in a soup of paranoia

While trying to navigate the

Sincerity of a wired, wily vixen

This, simply, is too much gossip, girl

You know I know you know I love me

You know I know you love yourself

But do you know if I love what you love?

XOXOXO

VI: ÜBERMENSCH

Übermensch

Needs neither diva

Nor prima donna

To hinder the flight

Towards perfection

Übermensch

Wants neither foe

Nor friend

To hinder the descent

Towards contentment

But Übermensch

Is still perplexed by the question

Of what you are you really too

EPILOGUE

Silence is not silence

But a scream

For more screams

Statistics, my foot

2008-06-28T21:40:00.000+08:00

Whoever started this was either bored as hell, or desperately wanted to get laid. Maybe even both.

Statistically speaking, unless you are a total hermit, a social retard, or ugly as a putrid bum, there is at least one person in your multiply network that has a crush on, wants to date you, wants to sleep with you or simply just wants to kiss you. So... let's play "No Guts, No Glory!"

The rules are simple.

1. If you want to date the person who posted this, send a Personal Message, not a reply to this post, saying "Coffee?"
2. If you have a crush on the person who posted this, send a Personal Message saying"You're hot!"
3. If you just want to sleep with them & stay friends, send them a message that says "Nice shoes!"
4. If you simply just want to kiss the person who posted this, send a Personal Message saying, "I do!"

SCARED?

The only rule is that, you must not make anyone who sends you a personal message feel stupid for feeling that way about you. Acknowledge. Say thank you. Move on.

IF YOU'VE READ THIS, YOU HAVE TO REPOST THIS, EVEN IF YOU'RE TAKEN & see who replies.

SO... re-post this as "No Guts, No Glory", as it doesn't matter if you're married, in a relationship, or single.

You opened it so you HAVE to repost it! A test of your bravery!

Rant: Bad Trip

2008-06-28T20:21:00.000+08:00

Woke up at around 10am, starving. Decided to grab something to eat at Jollibee before taking the HM bus to Cubao. Waited ten minutes for one Tuna Pie. Was doing okay in the bus, until a big guy that smelled like sweat and cigarette smoke sat beside me for the remaining hour of the trip. Head hurt, so I still tried to sleep. Almost missed my stop in the process. Walked to the FX terminal, sat down and waited a hour for the vehicle to leave, partly thanks to a stupid couple who were, over several minutes, hesitating to ride because they would have to be not beside each other. Found out that the FX people raised the fare by ten pesos, throwing my budgetting off track. Old man at the back grumpily demanded to be dropped off at the small space between Sta. Lucia and Robinson's Metro East, which turned out to be an illegal spot. FX driver got caught and, with shaky hands, handed over his license to the cop. By the look on his face, cop wasn't going to be returning the license anytime soon, so driver apologized, refunded our fares, and asked us to get other rides. Decided to take another route, just in case my luck turns out to be better. Jeepney's brakes failed right before reaching my stop, with me walking the remaining few meters. Boarded a Tanay-bound jeep so that I can get off right in front of our street, which was thankfully not as eventful as the preeding ones. All in all, a trip that, in addition to being really exhausting, usually takes two and a half hours, takes almost four hours. Arrived home, plopped down on sala couch, and slept the afternoon off.

On a lighter note, though, I finally heard the Tagalog versions of "Low" and "Umbrella" I've been hearing so much about.

I'm too happy to make one of those emo-introspective "I'm one year older" posts...

2008-06-13T19:23:00.000+08:00

... Instead, I want you to play a memory-meme (well, it SOUNDED catchy) game with me.

(repost from too-many-people-to-mention's blogs)

If you read this journal, even if I don't speak to you often, post a memory of me.

It can be anything you want. (Important)
It can be good or bad, just so long as it happened. (More important :D)
Then post this on your journal too! (Most important XD)

Please, even if you don't really feel like it. Think of it as a really pretty gift. Or a stuffed panda toy. Pleeeeeeeeease.

Mwahug. :D

Randall Munroe is a genius

2008-06-01T18:38:00.000+08:00

Yet another XKCD gem. Am really relating to this one, despite my severe lack of sleep these past days.

Silence is only relative to the faintest sound you can hear

2008-05-27T04:42:00.000+08:00

It's for in the mourning, and there is a calm melancholy brought about by the dark stillness of the world's soundless sleep. But there is no silence, for if you listen hard enough and the place is free enough of distractions, you will notice it is but a single note that borders between the highest audible pitch and what, like batsong, is inaudible to the naked ear. And in the same way one's eyes cannot be shut once they are opened, it will be impossible to shut this maddening, deafening buzz of a silence from your ears. So you stare blankly at a wall in front of you, a tortured wait for your slowly fatiguing body to once again free you from this reality, if only for a few hours before the world demands you to go get up and havemake some breakfast amidst the increasing noises of a waking world you nevertheless watched sleep.

"When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep, and you're never really awake."

--Fight Club.

Fooled around

2008-05-25T10:17:00.000+08:00

We agreed to fool everybody,
Even each other.
In the end, though,
We did such a good job of it
That I'm starting to wonder
If we've already fooled ourselves.

Cheesy lines have been filling my brain since the moment I heard Patrick Nuo's "Beautiful" on the radio

2008-05-12T10:40:00.000+08:00

She's the rising sun above a lake
That warmly kisses you awake
She's the hundred thousand cricket calls
That liven up your forest strolls
She's the rush of wind blowing through your hair
As you speed off to God-knows-where
She's a thunderstorm seen from far away
That lights the dark sky as bright as day
She's the dark and contemplative hush
Of a sleepless night from a coffee rush
She's the waves that rock you as you snore
After laying all day on an ocean shore
She's the lantern with the golden beams
That guides you to your pleasant dreams
She's the reason you just love to say
"Life is one big summer holiday"

This explains a lot...

2008-04-17T18:13:00.000+08:00

Read the link title, and you'll see what I mean. I hope.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15231_7-reasons-21st-century-making-you-miserable.html

(For a humor site that sometimes borders on the sick, Cracked.com does have its gems)

Lurve Patriarchy: Three score reasons to love being a man

2008-04-13T09:07:00.000+08:00

Because I'm feeling trippy. Reposting from Brian's Multiply, just to see how many people (not just members of the opposite sex, mind you) react to these.

1. Phone conversations last 30 seconds
2. You know useful stuff about tanks and airplanes
3. A 5 day vacation requires only one suitcase
4. Bathroom lines are 80% shorter
5. You can open all your own jars
6. Old friends don’t give you crap if you’ve lost or gained weight
7. Dry cleaners and haircutters don’t rob you blind
8. When clicking through the channels you don’t have to stop on every shot of someone crying
9. You don’t have to lug a bag of “necessary” items with you everywhere you go
10. You can go to the bathroom without a support group

11. Your last name stays put
12. You can leave a motel room bed unmade
13. You can kill your own food
14. The garage is all yours
15. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness
16. You see the humor in “Terms of Endearment”
17. You never have to clean the toilet
18. You can be showered and ready in 10 minutes
19. Wedding plans take care of themselves
20. If someone forgets to invite you to something, they can still be your friend.

21. Your underwear cost $7.50 for a pack of 3
22. None of your co-workers have the power to make you cry
23. You don’t have to shave below your neck
24. You don’t have to curl up next to some big, hairy guy every night
25. If you are 34 and single, no one notices
26. Chocolate is just another snack
27. You can quietly enjoy a car ride from the passenger seat
28. Flowers fix everything
29. You never have to worry about other’s feelings
30. Three pair of shoes are more than enough

Srsly wrd wrtng (or you could always call it experimental)

2008-04-09T12:16:00.000+08:00

Three Flash (Non)fictions

Dream I:

Lola, did you see the drinking fountains beside the hotel driveway? Yes, those shiny new metal ones. Well, your new chauffeur pissed into one of them after he opened the door for you, before he drove the car to the parking lot. I tried to stop him, but then he chased me all over the hotel with a knife in his hand and a murderous glow in his eye. When he stopped chasing me I desided that I had to make him pay for his crime so when I caught him shopping with his mom (who looks about your age) at the grocery in the hotel's basement, I walked up and told his mom about what her son did instead of sneaking up and beating him senseless with the teflon frying pan I was holding (heavy duty, they said in the commercials) which what I planned to do before I saw that his mom was with him. What's worse than what her son did was his mom asking me so what's wrong with that before turning her nose up, turning around and walking away as her ears suddenly became completely deaf to my explanations. That's wrong, right?

Right?

Lola, please answer me!

Lola, at least tell me if I'm wrong!

If the chauffeur's mom was worse, then this must be the worst.

When by breathing is heavy enough I could burst into tears at any moment, I wake up.

Dream II:

It is an eLBi night, one of those rare nights I am perfectly content, not to mention unbored, with chilling all by myself in my dorm room, when a text message from an unfamiliar number instructs me to go to the NCAS Annex 2. ASAP, it says.

In front of the building I see a circle of people discussing something serious. I recognize a lot of familiar faces as I join the circle: Migy, Nikko (he texted me), Lei, Andie and Charet among the students, Ma'am Giselle and Sir Gupa among the teachers. As a serious Ma'am Giselle and an even more serious Sir Gupa are having a heated argument, Migy whispers to my ear that Sir Gupa is planning a new production for the semester. As he says this, Ma'am Giselle and Sir Gupa quiet down, and Sir Gupa faces me, the expression on his face giving meaning to the term deadly serious. Franco, he says, we're planning a new production. It will be a sequel to Ang Bagong Cristo, we're calling it Ang Bagong Bagong Cristo. Will you be willing to help with the publicity?

I am thinking of an answer when I wake up still thinking of an answer.

Dream III:

My eyes still closed, I move my right hand to stroke the Siamese kitten I know is sleeping beside me. I stroke what is supposed to be the back of its neck when I feel a purring throat there. I open my eyes and look at my side. To my horror, the kitten beside me is sleeping peacefully even if its head and neck are on upside down, its forehead where its chin is supposed to be and its throat where the back of its neck is supposed to be.

Horrified, I jump out of bed, and when I wake up, I've already fallen halfway down to the floor.

Natural Low

2008-04-03T21:46:00.000+08:00

And it creeps in. Slowly, but surely. According to schedule. As always.

And it takes on many forms, as many forms as there are people. Different manifestations, almost like symptoms of some mysterious, consequently incurable disease. The malaria, perhaps the bubonic of our age, wreaking havoc beside AIDS for the brutal one-two punch beating: the first hits you in the head when you don't feed your hunger, the second hits you all over your body when you do.

I have always wondered on the timeliness of this phenomenon. Are our body calendars (evolved body clocks, for your information) actually attuned to this, or are the chemical mixtures simply a product of our unfortunate yet inevitable circumstances, victim to the tinge of what we feel more than smell in other organisms?

Nobody ever said reading too much was bad for your health (AKA linkspam ranting)

2008-03-23T06:20:00.000+08:00

Trust the wacky Japanese. Jin Kobayashi (the guy who draws the School Rumble manga) is either insane, emo, or a wacky genius.

That said, I've been addicted to this manga for several months now. This, plus the Naruto manga, Questionable Content, XKCD and the Perry Bible Fellowship make sure I have next to zero progress when it comes to academics during the weekends. And let's not forget the occasional Wikipedia browsing (and suddenly noticing you have at least four or five new tabs open, because you were right-clicking every link as you read) with the even moar occasional Encyclopedia Dramatica and Maddox for a dose of retardation.

Post-gig (old ramblings I almost forgot about)

2008-03-14T19:35:00.000+08:00

It was in the middle of the van ride home where their family decided on a midnight snack of burgers fries and sundaes while there was enough pica-pica in the gig to keep one full until the next morning so I decided on just coke to wash off the five-and-a-half beers and they gave me a large one which I sipped thoughtfully while I talked with the older niece about people’s tastes in music while the younger niece was resting on my lap and it was this way all the way up to antipolo at four o’ clock in the morning and while she talked about guns n’ roses and my chemical romance and while she dreamed in my lap about a world without the noise pollution of a thousand amplifiers blasting the anger of a hundred fledgling rock gods I sipped my coke and felt the liquid sugar stream through my alcohol-laced blood and thought and thought some more and finally decided that I want to have a family of my own someday

Se7enmeme

2008-03-09T18:14:00.000+08:00

Because I am tagged by Pen (and probably Elaine, but I was really busy at the time).

Seven things that scare you:

1. Balloons, especially those that look inflated to near-bursting
2. Hypodermic needles, which is why I won't be having any piercings anytime soon
3. Sleeping in a dark room with a light on and a bunch of moving shadows in the next room
4. Centipedes, especially the ones with big fangs
5. Cigarette smoke (more of hate than fear, actually)
6. People who wallow in self pity and get high on all the attention they get from it
7. The idea that I might lose my hearing (and not be able to listen to music) someday

Seven things you like the most:

1. Pandas
2. Transformers
3. Magic: the Gathering
4. RTS computer games
5. Doughnuts
6. Books
7. Notebooks

Seven important things in your room:

1. Bookshelf
2. CD collection
3. Transformers collection (still growing)
4. Wardrobe
5. Complete set of (the short-lived) Culture Crash Comics
6. Full-body mirror
7. Big bed

Seven random facts about you:

1. Already had typhoid, chicken pox, mumps and hepatitis A and all my wisdom teeth removed
2. Despite all my seemingly bone-breaking activity, I've never sprained or broken anything
3. I'm an M2M fan
4. My email address and first blog's title came from my favorite Magic: the Gathering cards
5. Can write in Futhark (Old Norse runic script)
6. Read the first Harry Potter book in three nights
7. Taught my brother how to play the drums

Seven things you plan to do before you die:

1. Skydive
2. Learn to play the saxophone
3. Write a novel
4. Create my own alcoholic cocktail using arnibal and/or honey and/or panutsa
5. Become the first Filipino Nobel Prize for Literature laureate
6. Teach high school English
7. Have a son, name him Melquiades, and make him read One Hundred Years of Solitude when he gets older, so that he gets to learn just how uniquely cool his name actually is

Seven things you can do:

1. Sleep for 18 hours straight
2. Play the drums
3. Burp-talk
4. Handstand/Handwalk
5. Ride a bike no-handed
6. Tie a cherry stem with my tongue
7. Totally freak/creep someone out by simply staring at them

Seven things you can’t do:

1. Go on real all-nighters. I have to at least nap for five minutes every few hours
2. Play the guitar, but I don't really have any plans to learn
3. Eat more than two bars of white chocolate, I get queasy
4. Smile a sincere smile. My smiles always look sarcastic or exaggerated
5. Write neatly
6. Draw and cut in a straight line
7. Cook

Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex:

1. Nice eyes
2. Enough tolerance to tolerate my assholeness
3. A wit that is smartass enough to counter my smartassery when needed
4. A sense of humor. Or else the numerous jokes bubbling in the soup of my head will have to stay there
5. Being well-read. Talking about nothing but books and writing all day is actually fun. More people should do it
6. Strong tolerance to alcohol
7. Nice taste in music. I mean, even pop is good, as long as it's in moderation

Seven things you say the most:

1. Weh
2. Kainis
3. Putang ina (and its various contractions)
4. Shit
5. Ano ba?
6. Kumusta ka naman?
7. Anong drama mo?

(so yeah, I cuss and asshole people a lot)

Seven celebrity crushes:
(okay, the first three are bringing out the homo in me)

1. Ben Gibbard
2. Johnny Depp
3. Brandon Boyd
4. Kelly Misa (do models count?)
5. Anne Hathaway
6. Hayden Panettiere
7. Renee Zellweger

Seven people you tag:

The first se7en who read this post. Will list them when they do.

Because I will never be able to resist the allure of music surveymemes

2008-03-09T14:29:00.000+08:00

RULES:

1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer to the question even if it doesn't make sense.

NO CHEATING!

1. How are you feeling today?

Fat Boy Slim - Weapon of Choice ("Don't be shocked by the tone of my voice")

2.Will you get far in life?

Death Cab for Cutie - Passenger Seat ("With my feet on the dash the world doesn't matter")

3. How do your friends see you?

Bon Jovi - Living on a Prayer (Halfway there!)

4.Will you get married?

Sandwich - Butterfly Carnival (No idea how this answer goes)

5. What is your best friend's theme song?

Incubus - When It Comes (Walking pile of tension)

6. What is the story of your life?

Incubus - Wish You Were Here (I do, in fact)

7. What was high school like?

Robbie Williams - She's The One (There was no 'she' back then)

8.How can you get ahead in life?

Linkin Park - Breaking the Habit (I have few enough vices as is, so this must be talking about my bad habits)

9. What is the best thing about your friends?

Five for Fighting - Easy Tonight ("You wore hearts for me")

10. What is today going to be like?

Savage Garden - Crash and Burn (More like 'crash and chill and stuff my face with chocolate', actually)

11.What is in store for the weekend?

One Republic - Apologize (Apologize for what?)

12. What song describes you?

M2M - Everything You Do (I wanna go oo oo aa aa!)

13.To describe your grandparents?

Tori Amos - Sleeps With Butterflies (Maybe my father's side grandmother, who is 'sleeping')

14. How is your life going?

Joe - Somebody Gotta Be On Top (JOE HORNY PLAYER SONG WTF)

15. What song will they play at your funeral?

Mae - Runaway ("Reach out you can go overboard if you want to")

16. How does the world see you?

Incubus - Circles ("What would it mean to you that it'll come back around again?")

17. Will you have a happy life?

Europe - The Final Countdown ("We're leaving ground will things ever be the same again?")

18. What do your friends really think of you?

Kaskade - Steppin' Out (Love this song, but I don't know if it's supposed to refer to me or to my friends)

19.Do people secretly lust after you?

Gym Class Heroes - Shoot Down the Stars ("And we bring ourselves down and build ourselves up in disappointment")

20. How can I make myself happy?

Mae - Someone Else's Arms ("I just wanna wake up in someone else's arms")

21. What should you do with your life?

Incubus - Earth to Bella Pt. 1 ("Before you swim you gotta be okay to sink")

22. Will you ever have children?

Soulja Boy - Crank Dat (LOL wut)

23. How do you picture yourself 5 years from now?

Typecast - Breathe Through the Glass ("The day has ended and so has life")

24. What is best to describe your special someone?

La Caution - A La Menthe (No lyrics to quote here, so I dunno how this answer works)

25. What is in store for you in this world?

Paramore - Pressure (Will I ever be free from it, anyway?)

26. What would your life be 10 years from now?

M2M - Give A Little Love (Moar LOL wut)

27. Will you be successful?

Bryan Adams - I Will Be Right Here Waiting for You (So how is waiting related? LOL wut)

28. How was your childhood?

The String Quartet - Yellow (Happy, string-quartet happy)

29. What song best describes your mood right now?

Black Eyed Peas - Fly Away (I so do miss those vivid flying dreams of mine)

30. How was it answering this survey?

The String Quartet - Screaming Infidelities (Mellowing out)

...

Wurd, to say the least.

Random Intraspection

2008-02-17T21:50:00.000+08:00

Ever felt that people are just tolerating you?

Five things I want, two months into 2008

2008-02-09T21:24:00.000+08:00

Because I am tagged by Elaine some weeks ago, and because, as my favorite teacher, Ma'am Bheng, always said, "the false sense of empowerment that stems from financial stability and surplus is a fetish of our consumerist society". (Well, something like that, at least.)

(WARNING: TOUCHES OF EXTREME GEEKINESS IN THE CONTENTS BELOW)

In no particular order...

1: Every Optimus Prime figure ever made.

Screw Bumblebee and his movie-spun icon status among today's spoiled-kids-with-rich-parents. Back then, he was just this funny-looking little guy. With horns. And back then, Optimus Prime ruled. He's probably what Darth Vader would sound like if the Sith lord were a good guy.

Note that the above pic doesn't even contain half the Prime figures out there today.

2: The Power Nine (Magic: the Gathering)

Even though I really started playing it around Grade 2, high school was my real Magic: the Gathering phase. I played the game RELIGIOUSLY, to the point of reading articles on theories of playing and all that. Going to college in eLBi has forced me to stop playing seriously (also the lack of funds and a geekfriend playgroup), but I've never actually stopped. I also owe a lot to this game for boosting my vocabulary. I mean, words like "Tithe", "Respite" and "Pedantic" will hardly ever pop up in normal conversation nowadays.

Yes, I still drool at the sight of these nine shitty-looking pieces of cardboard. More so when they're together like that. To think that the each one of the cards costs almost $500 nowadays if it's still in good enough condition.

3: A Lamboghini Gallardo

One of the (few) things that would get me off my procrastinating arse to have my driver's license replaced ASAP (for those who don't know, I haven't done anything about it since the time when my wallet got stolen, which was about a year ago already). Two things: one, it's a really cool-looking car, and two, it almost rhymes with "Regalado". Smack that.

Too bad we don't live in Italy. I'd love to see one of the police car versions of this guy patrolling the streets. Or something like that.

4: A trampoline

Not those little things you see in carnivals. I want one of those big, olympic-sized trampolines (and probably a stadium to put it in), and I'd de-stress by jumping up and down on it all afternoon and probably break my neck, or something like it, in the process.

5: A complete set of parachuting gear, a Beechcraft 18, and a pair of pilots

Since they don't work without each other, consider these as one complete set. So I can finally complete one of the things I REALLY want to do before I die, and I feel will actually be the cause of my death in the distant future.

...

So there.

HateVomit

2008-02-09T16:19:00.000+08:00

Oh, so now they can do whatever the fuck they drunken want to, but because their egos are as deep up their asses as yours is, you tell--no, you insist--that everything is "so fine", as a certain Angel's Ploy wrote. And then you sincerely believe we've got enough tolerance in our not-so-soussed bodies to designated drive your sorry drunk ass home? You're lucky, so goddamn lucky, that he, in all his seeming immaturity, still believes in chivalry. I would've just spat in your face and left you lying on the asphalt.

Purging the week's intellectual and emotional binge

2008-02-01T20:43:00.000+08:00

*This weak, me wasted. This weakened, me sleep.

*Anata wa asa ni hayaku okimasuka, osoku okimasuka? Iie, watashi wa gogo ni okimasu. (BANGAG desu ne!)

*To the Odin's night: Is it not funny that the audience, now their own cast, frown AFTER the comedy? Perhaps tears really are the yin to laughter's yang.

*To the Thor's night: You are a kite. I hope you know that the last thing I would ever want to do is tie you down.

*To the Frigg's day: Drowned in Pepsi. Hung over, but happy. Want doughnuts.

*(According to the Wikipedia) Ginebra San Miguel's flagship brand, Ginebra San Miguel, is currently the largest-selling gin brand in the world, with 22 bottles consumed every second in the Philippines.

*If I'm bitter, you're wrong.

*"In Mexico, women are said to carry la luz de la vida, the light of life. This light is located, not in a woman's heart, not behind her eyes, but en los ovarios, in her ovaries, where all the seed stock is laid down before she is even born." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Sorry can't relate sad face.

*This is a line about a cat (Meow, meow!) with seven feet.

*Altruism, as a goal, does not exist. It is simply the means and not the end, which is ultimately egoistic in nature. The only reason why it becomes viewed as such is because the supposedly altruistic act is viewed by the aided Other, who will always view his/her surroundings in relation to himself/herself, which makes him/her blinded to the true goals of the supposed altruist.

*Things I have to do: Study for Eng 104 exam, make handouts for PI 100, look for a copy of the Eng 102 assignment, prepare coat and tie for Spcm 104, finish the folio story for Pantas

Things I want to do: Finish the folio story for Pantas, eat a 6-box of doughnuts with ice cream and/or a pitcher of iced coffee, finish reading "The Screwtape Letters" and "Women Who Run With the Wolves", make cartoon-y vectors of friends (crap, I left my mouse in the dorm), get a good copy of (and watch) "Sweeney Todd", buy Angge's saxophone

One out of four. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

A midnight's dream a.k.a. an excuse to show the one part I waited for (and was denied me) in "Pangarap"

2008-02-01T20:30:00.000+08:00

"Finally," William said as he put down his pen, went to bed, and dreamed of faeries. One of them was unusually happy and hyperactive.

Charet EXPLAINS What Being Tired Feels Like

2008-01-27T07:12:00.000+08:00

charet Mendioro: wala lang
charet Mendioro: pagod na talaga
Franco: dahil saan?
charet Mendioro: galing ako ng pila kahapon
charet Mendioro: whole day kaming nakatayo
charet Mendioro: ayus-ayos
charet Mendioro: ganun
Franco: shit
Franco: no wonder
charet Mendioro: kaya nga
charet Mendioro: my legs feel...di ko ma-explain
charet Mendioro: my back feels... di ko ma-explain
charet Mendioro: my neck feels.... di ko ma-explain
charet Mendioro: basta para akong jello
Franco: somehow, that seems so... quotable
charet Mendioro: haha

A Study on Empathy

2008-01-26T21:57:00.000+08:00

"Imagine you're an animal. An animal with a long tail, say a squirrel. Or perhaps a ring-tailed lemur, because they look way cooler. So you're a ring tailed lemur, and you're chasing the tail of another ring-tailed lemur. But it just so happens that the tail you're chasing belongs to a ring-tailed lemur who is too busy chasing the tail of another ring-tailed lemur to notice that you're chasing its tail. All you can hope for now is that the ring-tailed lemur whose tail you're chasing will one day stop, or at least turn around and see you.

That's what love feels like."

-Douglas Adams

Just kidding. I wrote that.

Because I can't sleep...

2008-01-12T22:10:00.000+08:00

Maybe I'm overly romanticizing that's happening in and around me.

Double-tagged

2008-01-12T16:20:00.000+08:00

Might as well spread the meme. Oh nose, LJ is invading!

***

Leave a comment and I'll reply by doing the following:

1. I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll tell you the very next person/place/event I think of when I think of you.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal. (See? I told you it was from LJ)

Sabbaticale

2008-01-04T23:20:00.000+08:00

I'm really, really, really starting to believe in the superstition that says people with moles on their soles (sorry, couldn't resist (^_^)) really love to travel.

I mean, here I was, spending the entire afternoon turning lethargic and going insane over a half-finished paper (5 pages out of 10, to be exact. And it's about poetry. And not just any poetry, it's about a sonnet about the immortality of love. In Olde English.) that's already due Monday, when some unseen force tells me that I need to get up and go somewhere. Anywhere. And this is, like around 8 in the evening. I finish dinner in 5 minutes, and just take a tricycle to the station, go all the way down to an already closing Sta. Lucia, walk around, and spend almost an hour looking at DVDs at the small tiangge outside.

The moment I got home, everything changed, though it still was what it was before I left (Jonas of The Giver-ish comments aside); the night was darker, the garden was greener and smelled better, and even the house looked warmer and more inviting than what it was an hour or so ago. In short, the place literally became a breath of fresh air.

And I am now typing my seventh page out.

Unorthodox Reminiscing

2008-01-02T15:52:00.000+08:00

Do you know these guys?

Happy New Beer!

2007-12-31T18:25:00.000+08:00

Just as crusaders once cried "Saint Michael!" to invoke their patron, so do we cry to invoke ours. And he does come, golden like a kwitis tail, guided to the bottlefield by the torotots of war.

Of course we celebrate. In fact, we not only cry gold, we even whine white and red. And as we feast and debate on whether or not tomatoes are a legal candidate for the dozen, we only look at and only listen to how people have worked fire this year: into p5 rockets, into p250 Judas belts, into p500 Dragon's Shooting Stars (tm?). And we revel, for we have saved much this night (tm!).

All breaks loose when the bell finally tolls: cars and cardboards scream in discordant unison, cloth is suddenly down with chickenpox, and children turn into kangaroos. Everyone must participate in the ritual; rodents, despite their small size, are nevertheless difficult to summon.

After the revellion, the air is thick with soot. So much soot, in fact, that if you listen hard enough, right before he goes to sleep, you can hear Dad's old lungs sigh.

Special Needs (Guess what, Migy? It's another playlist survey!)

2007-12-29T15:21:00.000+08:00

Moar boredom-killers from teh Frendstar. I'm starting to get addicted to these.

RULES:
1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next
button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN
NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

1 IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU
SAY?
- Agent Orange - Slapshock ("Get up,
get up, get up!" labo)

2 WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
- Love Fool - New Found Glory ("Say
that you love me" yun yun e)

3 HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
- The Boys of Summer - The Ataris
("Nobody on the road, nobody on the
beach" borrd is more like it)

4 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
- Someday You Will be Loved - Death
Cab for Cutie ("You'll be loved,
you'll be loved like you never have
known" someday day. someday...)

5 WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
- Dito Tayo sa Dilim - Pedicab
("Diretsahan na!" hahaha)

6 WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
- Crazy For This Girl - Evan and Jaron
("I'm crazy for this girl" No comment
na nga lang)

8. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
- Can't Fight the Moonlight - LeAnn
Rimes ("Underneath the starlight,
starlight, there's a magical feeling"
nocturnal)

9 WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BESTIE?
- Memory - Sugarcult ("Go back, back
to the disaster" high school days,
sigh)

10 WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU
LIKE?
- Pushing Me Away - Linkin Park ("Your
testing me pushes me away" this answer
sucks, really)

11 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
- Queen Paranoia - Slapshock ("I'm
sick and tired of all these games"
moda laaaang)

12 WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU
GROW UP?
- Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton
("And the wonder of it all is that you
just don't realize how much I love
you" modang good husband LOL)

13 WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE
THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
- Rake - Sufjan Stevens ("You are the
rock, you are the rake" take the good
with the bad, I guess)

14 WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
- So Sick - Ne-yo ("'Cause I'm so sick
of love songs" galit sa mushiness...
daw)

15 WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR
WEDDING?
- The Touch - Stan Bush ("You've got
the touch, you've got the powerrr!"
anybody who reads this, please try
downloading a copy of this song!
Cartoon Optimus Prime theme song is
win! ü)

16 WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
- Sukiyaki - A Taste of Honey ("You
tok your love away from me" aww
touched)

17 WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
- Higher - Creed ("Can you take me
higher, to the place where blind men
see? Can you take me higher, to the
place with golden streets?"
transcendental, I am haha)

19 WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
- The Middle - Jimmy Eat World ("Don't
you worry what they tell theselves
when you're away" sorta kinda malabo
ha)

20 WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
- A Sorta Fairytale - Tori Amos ("Like
a good book, I can't put this day
back" I love you guys)

21 WHAT WILL BE THE SUBJECT WHEN YOU
REPOST?
- Special Needs - Placebo ("Remember
me, special needs" haha emo)

Frustration

2007-12-29T09:23:00.000+08:00

Seriously, am I the only one who thinks popcorn and ice cream make a really really good combination!?

Playlist survey, while waiting for the New Year (and possibly the MMFF gimiks before that) to come around

2007-12-27T19:18:00.000+08:00

1) Open up your library (iPod, Winamp, iTunes, etc.)

2) Put it on shuffle

3) Press play

4) for each question, type in what song is playing

5) hit next for each question

----------------------------------------------------------------------

1. What do people assume when they first look at me?

Honesty – Billy Joel (O RLY?)

2. What will be a big challenge in life for me?

Mamaw – Kayokasee/Michael V. (My ENTIRE life? NOOOOOO)

3. Am I a good boyfriend/girlfriend?

It Ends Tonight – All-American Rejects (No, at least according to this song)

4. Do I have a Secret Admirer?

Painless – Mae (Turned apathetic at the idea of secret admirers, methinks)

5. Will I ever become manically depressed in my life?

Torn (Punk Goes Pop version) – Off By One (If this doesn’t mean I’m manically depressed already)

7. Is someone trying to kill me?

Lightness – Death Cab for Cutie (“Oh, instincts are misleading; you shouldn’t think what you’re feeling”)

8. What is my sexual preference?

Everybody Hurts – The Corrs (Unintentional emo)

9. What am I afraid of?

Baby I Love Your Way – All Star Reggae (Nothing, it seems. LOVE LOVE LOVE!)

10. What will I be doing in a few years?

Losing My Religion - REM (Can’t get more direct than that, I guess)

11. What is some good advice for me?

We’re So Far Away – Mae (Go mushy over other people, I guess)

12. What should I do instead of this quiz?

Kundiman – Silent Sanctuary (Mush up even moar, this thing tells me to)

13. Will you get married?

Ice Box – Omarion (Moar unintentional emo, methinks)

14. What is the story of your life?

Departure - Noriyuki Asakura (Even moar unintentional emo)

15. How can you get ahead in life?

For a Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic – Paramore (Bipolar creme-of-teh-crap cliches aside...)

16. What is the best thing about your friends?

Out of the Blue – Michael Learns to Rock (They take me ”right out of the blue”! Whee!)

17. What song describes you?

Ride the Lightning – Metallica (But I’m not Ky Kiske, dammit)

18. How does the world see you?

Champagne Supernova – Oasis (I’m not THAT much of a drunk, you know)

19. Will you have a happy life?

Stepping Out (Late Night Slow Dance remix) – Ministry of Sound (“Could you think it over when we get older?”)

20. How can I make myself happy?

The Joker (Fatboy Slim remix) – Fatboy Slim (As they say, laughter is the best medicine)

21. What should you do with your life?

The Suffering – Coheed and Cambria (Contemplate suicide?)

22. Will you ever have children?

Theme from Noontime Show – Itchyworms (“Sali na, pati ang pamilya!”)

Teh Olde Starcraft Christmas Carde

2007-12-25T12:22:00.000+08:00

For some reason, Christmas always makes me think back to this picture. Just a remnant of my Starcraft days, I guess.

Merry Christmas, y'all. (^_^)

Braindump 3

2007-12-08T07:29:00.000+08:00

Lets face it, people are a drug.

Braindump 2

2007-12-08T07:28:00.000+08:00

RHYME CAN ALSO BE SPELLED AS RIME

My muse

My princess

My myrrh

My incense

My fault

My wrong

My mantra

My song

My throb

My ache

My wave

My quake

My sweat

My blood

My stone

My mud

My rose

My thorn

My halo

My horn

My thought

My breath

My life

My death

Braindump 1

2007-12-08T07:24:00.000+08:00

SILENCIO, DISTANCIA

Your silences come in

Fathoms, kilometers, miles

That even the waves of my loudest

Voice cannot walk

The ¡DISTANCIA AMIGO!

Of the pasts, on the rear ends of

Dieseled oracles, screams

Into the pupils, now crying

From the soot of

Extinguished heart(h)s

Seems that this hedgehog must now search for its own bonfire/s.

Since Bob Ong once wrote about how we seem to be fixated on drawing human penises on restroom walls

2007-12-01T13:10:00.000+08:00

Of course, one could conduct a thorough analysis of the handwriting and handpick the culprits, but of course nobody has the time and the effort to do this, not when there are so many more problems in the world to attempt to fix and maybe even procrastinate about along the way.

This is why you will never get caught after you finish creating your statements, opinions, philosophies, illustrations illustrious or not and whatnot on the public's porcelains.

This is why graffiti is the perfect crime.

Things swimming through my mind while remembering the CASayahan while looking at everybody else's CASayahan pictures

2007-11-23T19:46:00.000+08:00

(Dedicated to all CommArts peeps, especially the Yapo Grinderz: Elaine, Olga, Telai, Barok, Pen, Maikka, Ranie, Migy and Andie, and to anybody who has ever performed on stage)

Not only do we go on stage, we know the stage the way we remember a familiar face. As staff, actors and actresses, we've paced back and forth that surface enough times to know how to walk the stage walk. We are, after all, the reputed and reputable performers of the University.

Being performers, our audience expects nothing less than a performance from us, for performing is not only executing every needed move, it is also that inexplicable magic that suddenly attunes each performer to each other performer, so all move not as indivudual beings, but as the individual parts of the one being they are envisioned to be. Fortunately, judging by the volume of applause that reached our ears, we seemed to have met, if not exceeded, their expectations. And we have our coursemates' enthusiasm to thank for that.

Of course, no yang is complete without its yin. Let the two weeks of sweat, tears, bruises, frustrations, aching muscles and walks in the night rain attest to that.

Every drop of sweat we wipe of our tired expressions, every night we go out and have dinners that almost count as midnight snacks, every minute we spend in that old internment camp, and in the end every pose we strike and every move we execute, we do for the sake of art. In the end, we perform not for a prize, not for the possible euphoria of victory, but because we wish to create something beautiful, for beautiful things motivate and uplift the human soul to unfathomable heights, even if for a few fleeting--yet unforgettable--moments, something not even victory can achieve.

And maybe, just maybe, this might just be why WE ARE BORN.

This is What Happens When You Take Too Many Pictures of Your Cat

2007-11-06T20:35:00.000+08:00

A Tribute to Ravage

This is our cat, Ravage. We named him after one of the original Transformers, a panther whose first version transformed into a cassette ta pe, which was way cool b ack in the 1980s because people had never heard of an mp3 file then. Unfortunately, our Ravage does not have that talen t, due to a number of reasons, the least of which is because cassette tapes are at the moment nearly extinct. The newer Ravage toy is a panther that ironically tr ansforms into a Jaguar sports car, yet another talent our Ravage does not have.

Ravage is a camwhore. Every time a camera lens is pointed at him, he does one of two things: either he stares at it until the shots stop co ming, or he shuts his eyes and put both hands on his head and makes a cute face as if he had a cute migraine and as if the photographer were some paparazzi wanting to post something in the tabloids about the cute migraine he never had because migraines are not cute to begin with anyway. Every now and then, however, his laziness prevails, during which time his interest in any lens pointed at him instantly vanishes, thus he continues sleeping, which is what he does most of the time during the day. Even when sleeping, though, he still manages to appear as if he posed for the shot.

Ravage hates being carried l o nge r than three seconds. He will struggle against and eventually scratch and bite anybod y who tries to break this rule.

Unlike other cats, Ravage actu ally likes fruit. But he is picky with his fruits, thus he only chooses to eat melons. T his is why w hen we buy melons we have to keep the someplace where he can’t get to them; the last time we bought melons and left them on the table for a few hours, they had Ravage’s tooth mar ks all over them. Thus, we had no choice but to give him almost half a melon , which he proceeded to nibble the entire afternoon and evening. We tried giving him watermelons too, but I guess the similarities between the two fruit s only goes as far as their names, at least where Ravage’s tastes are concerned.

Despite his appearance, Ravage is not an entirely black cat. He has tufts of white fur on his chest and crotch that are shaped like a cross and a brief, respectively. W hether this an omen of how the world will end that needs further interpretation or just some genetic dice ro ll is up to the reader to decide.

I <3 class="insertedphoto">.

For Those Who Just Finished Thea 107 and 108...

2007-11-06T18:33:00.000+08:00

Naruto = Coolness. Wala lang.

The last story I remember writing before the semester ended

2007-11-03T16:14:00.000+08:00

(Because I haven't written anything these past weeks, and it kills me...)

For English 101. Felt really experimental and really emo during the time Sir Dennis said you could submit an extra short story for extra points. Felt like playing around with the idea that an utterance was not simply that, it also denoted the action of uttering it.

The result?

Record

Of all the places to meet, why here?

So that neither of us will be tempted to shout.

I see. Now, what do you want to talk about?

I’m breaking up with you.

Good thing we’re in a library.

No need to thank me.

Have you thought about this? You sure you know what you’re saying?

As sure as I think I’ll ever be. You were never there for me.

I was always there. You were always looking the other way.

Where were you, then, when I got caught in the accident?

I was in a meeting then! I was in danger of losing my job last month!

Don’t shout. At least now you don’t have to be insecure either.

I’m sorry.

For shouting, or for not being there?

Both.

Don’t be. You taught me a lot of important things about relationships during the time we spent together.

I don’t remember teaching you anything of the sort.

We were students once, too. And we both know that students can also learn things even if their teachers don’t teach them.

So you’ve been learning from me.

More than you know.

The trouble with being a sociologist like you is that you people think you can explain every bit of behavior a person does with all your theories.

The trouble with being a physicist like you is that you don’t deal with living people often enough, in addition to the fact that you and your fellows think that we’re always that selfish when dealing with theory.

Don’t talk to me about theory.

And why not?

I’m a physicist. My head is stuffed with enough theories already.

Theories on inanimate objects.

Theories all the same.

You’re hopeless.

So, what exactly did you learn about relationships from me?

What not to do.

That’s pretty harsh, considering what we went through.

Was it? Everybody told me this was not going to work out, that our differences would eventually interfere with everything. Sometimes, I feel so stupid for not having listened to everybody.

But because you’re a sociologist, you manage to come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation for your behavior by twisting your theories toward your own desired ends, despite what the world says. Am I right?

It’s not that simple.

Everything’s actually much simpler than it seems.

Now that’s a physicist talking.

My God, now you’re putting my dealings with inanimate objects into this.

Don’t start putting God into this.

I don’t see a reason not to.

You’re making this a three-way conversation.

And third parties are a bad thing?

Listen, this is just between you and me.

Fine, though I won’t be able to tell if God will be eavesdropping.

Will you stop putting God into this conversation!

Now you’re the one shouting.

Sorry.

For shouting, or for thinking that God didn’t hear you?

Both.

Don’t be. Being sorry makes you look pathetic in God’s eyes. Nobody likes looking pathetic in anyone’s eyes.

There’s just one more thing I need before I leave you.

And that would be?

I need to make sure you have nothing to remember me by. Give me our video.

What makes you sure I haven’t reproduced it yet?

You’re not the type. You always liked keeping the sex sacred.

If you know I keep it sacred, you’d know that I wouldn’t just give that tape away.

You’ve got no choice. I did half of that tape too, you know.

***

Our final conversation replays itself in my head for the third time. There are only two passengers in the car: me and the tape. The cool night air is pregnant with both love and sorrow. Hundreds have thrown their lives away on this Lover’s Leap, the first in the country. I hold the tape over to the cliff’s edge, and tell the ground below sorry, I’m not the one whose life you’re gonna take tonight but don’t worry, this once had a life of its own too. I throw the tape into the darkness and immediately walk away, fearing the sound of its shattering and the moaning of its remains might forever echo inside my hollow heart. I feel a sudden urge to shout at the top of my lungs too, but that’s another story.

For the record, yes I am still bored (rants, but this time FORTIFIED WITH LINKS! AND PICTURES!)

2007-10-24T18:14:00.000+08:00

(taken from www.xkcd.com)

My sentiments exactly. I guess this is a big part of why being a UPLB student sucks: It's so easy to get used to a life where everybody who plays a significant part of your college life literally lives within radius of five minutes' walking, so that when it's time to finally leave the magic mountain of knowledge and once again float down into the separate and separated narratives we each call our real lives, we're basically lost. No matter how interesting your life is, you're back at square one every time you board that bus, jeepney, or whatever back to where you're really supposed to live, before you decided that you'd want to spend a few semesters in semi-retreat from parents and from driving. No matter how much you want to fuck those people and have an adventure, you can't.

Sorry. This from a guy who's bitter at the fact that his high school best friends are, respectively, driving wasted around QC, finishing a diploma course and doing exchange student stuff in Singapore.

While I'm on the subject of adventure...

Apparently people still equate eating balut with staring Death right in the face, at least in Cracked.com's 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World. That's what happens when people look a little too long at their food before eating it.

Beats drinking semi-luminescent blue (meaning there's no way that stuff could have been made after a fruit flavor) Kool-Aid though, in my honest opinion.

For the record, yes, I am bored (rants)

2007-10-22T17:02:00.000+08:00

So bored, in fact, that I tried to watch the crap that is the Spider-Man 3 DVD for the second time. And I couldn't stomach it, I only reached the part where Peter and Mary Jane were at the French restaurant. No cool action scene is worth going through lines like "This isn't about you, it's about me!" and "That was our kiss!". Ego, or should I say emo?

*"whatever"s self*

Speaking of emo, Ben Gibbard is a poet. Who else would've thought that "context" almost rhymes with "complex"?

*"whatever"s self*

I haven't written anything competent or creative since sembreak started. And the fact reminds me of the great child-lover (no, not pedophile) Roald Dahl's words, that "A person is a fool to become a writer". But it sucks not accomplishing anything for the previous week, and being fully aware of it. I hate myself. *emo*

*"whatever"s self*

All I really want to do now is satisfy my currently repressed wanderlust, to walk around somewhere in the city where I can get lost for hours at a time without immediate danger of getting held up and losing all means of getting home. Preferably with somebody as bored as I am. Anybody who reasons out that Antipolo is a city will have to talk to my hand. Nah, just kidding.

*"whatever"s self*

My life's not even a routine anymore. Time has turned fluid in this house, at least for my post-sem unwinding self. I don't get up at any fixed time, I don't eat at any fixed time, I don't sleep at any fixed time, I don't even calculate the number of hours sleep I get, unlike in eLBi. Every day is just a bunch of activities that take up random spots in the morning, afternoon and night's duration.

*"whatever"s self*

It's always been like this, semester in and semester out. Maybe it's a way for your body to adapt to sudden changes. Kinda like a hangover, where your body's trying to adapt to the sudden surge of alcohol in your blood. This time, your body's trying to adapt to the sudden absence of having to do anything, causing all the crappy mood swings and whatnot.

*"whatever"s self*

The 2007 Camaro Bumblebee looks to be one of the best Transformers Movie toys so far. To shell out 2k or not to shell out 2k for another Autobot?

*"whatever"s self*

Company of Heroes has too few 2v2 maps. The downloadables on the net look like crap though. Oh well, might as well overrun St. Hilaire with Axis Stormtroopers for the umpteenth time.

*"whatever"s self*

I miss Avenida, but I don't need a new wardrobe. I miss going to bookstores, but I still have a lot to finish. Heck, the Lovecraft compilation is still sitting there, all wrapped up in shiny plastic, waiting for me to finish reading the last few pages of Marquez's "Strange Pilgrims". So much for planning to read up on potential thesis material. I wish I has an extra pair of eyes and a brain twice as large. The headaches might suck more, though.

*"whatever"s self*

UP Pantas needs a place where we can workshop stories until 12mn at least once a week every week. Literary headaches and rushed readings, here we come.

*"whatever"s self*

I need money. Therefore, I need a jo... Nah.

Whatever. *"whatever"s self*

On sleeping on it

2007-10-07T11:29:00.000+08:00

What probing deep
Has ever solved the mystery of sleep?

-Thomas Bailey Aldrich

One of the final requirements in Learning Psychology class is a learning project, which basically means you have to teach yourself a skill and give a demonstration of it right before the semester ends. For creativity, and because drinking is the only vice I took to, I decided to include "How to Open a Bottle Without a Bottle Opener" in my proposal. Needless to say, it was the approved right away.

So I set two weekends aside for trying to teach myself the skill. Since I don't have time to sit down and ask for lessons from the dorm landlord, I try learning from a few YouTube videos and a bunch of posts about leverage and physics whatnot beneath them. Two weeks pass, and I still smell like Coke every time I practice on the sink, since every attempt ends up a sticky, sugary mess. Not what I put in the project proposal.

The weekend before my demonstration, the Comm Arts-Humanities Department assembly, the COMA 105 photography workshop and the alcohol taken the previous night mean that I fall asleep in my room the moment I get home. Eighteen dreamless hours of hibernation (with only about ten minutes for lunch) later, I wake up with a compelling desire to attempt my project again. I get up from bed and go straight to the bunch of bottles I bought to practice upon, and succeed on my first attempt, my spirit ascending along with the bottle cap as it jumped and almost hit the ceiling in our joint ecstasy.

...

One "Magic: the Gathering" novel tells the story of Jhoira the artificer, who went on what te Ghitu, her tribe, called a "spirit walk," a coma that struck after she became depressed with a dilemma that, if not acted upon, would kill a friend of hers that was stuck in a time rift. Upon waking from the coma, she immediately started drawing plans for the machine that, upon completion, solved the problem and saved her friend.

...

After my successful presentation just before this weekend, I told Ma'am Eloisa the story of what had happened to me, and asked her if there was a term for the experience. Apparently, as far as the psychology academe is concerned, there is no acknowledged term for learning how to do something, with neither past experience nor prior knowledge of doing it, by sleeping on it for a long period of time. Or if there is a term, it is probably one that is used rarely, as even Ma'am Eloisa's fellow psychology teachers did not have an answer.

Classmate?

2007-10-06T17:26:00.000+08:00

Tentative schedule for next semester. Any classmates out there?

ZOMG NO LUNCHBREAK ON TTH ROFLWTF.

what english teachers do with pieces of writing that are not necessarily good, but are too funny to keep to one's self

2007-09-29T19:28:00.001+08:00

(Taken from The English Blog, Brian's Multiply and an email)

Every year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners.
1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are won't to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

(Note to self: Avoid the temptation to put similar metaphors in essays, especially the rushed ones. LOL)

Sorry, Sorry

2007-09-22T17:23:00.000+08:00

I was trying to teach the Multiply blog to crosspost with my Blogger blog, and shit happened. The Multiply emailed all the Blogger's posts out.

My bad.

Sorry for spamming your inboxes. I feel so very humbled tonight that it's scaring me.

The Suspension Bridge Effect + The Bungling Bridgebuilder's Meditations

2007-09-22T16:41:00.000+08:00

(Note: Manga is read right-to-left.)

...

If man was indeed an island, and you were an island that was fortunate enough to have lots of hemp and wood, what would you build? Would you build a fence around you, to be caulked with satyr beard and serpent tears and with KEEP OFF! and NO TRESPASSING! written all over it? Or will you build a long bridge adorned with mermaid locks and narwhal horns to the mainland, so that you can make all the crossing people feel like falling in love with you? Yes, it will partly depend on how woody and how wooden you are as an island, for more wood is needed to connect yourself with the mainland than to encircle your diameter. In the end, though, it will all depend more on how you look at the time you spent on pondering these and all the many more questions life poses, as life cannot possibly be a poser: a straight path like a bridge, or closing back into itself like a fence.

from the last weekend to the coming of this one

2007-09-08T16:13:00.000+08:00

Remind me to never go to the international bookfair with only eight hundred bucks to spend, especially when the world is currently obsessed with graphic novels.

Funny, the people you see when taking the trains.

On the way home from the World Trade Center, the all-male car (since it's rush hour, and they're separating the women, most likely to avoid frotteurism the Japanese are notorious for, among other things) is quiet. Then, Pussycat Dolls music filtering from somebody's earphones. Not just any Pussycat Dolls music, mind you, but the And only one was wearing earphones at the time, and he had to be this big, dark guy that looked like a nightclub bouncer. In a train car that smelled of laborer's sweat and clattered on old tracks as if it would fall apart at any moment, the guy made my afternoon.

And that was just the first train.

The second train had this group of students playing around at being coño (many coños would easily notice the difference between playing at being coño and actually meaning it, and since I do not deny that I've been there, done that...), probably since everybody knows that playing coño will make everybody except the most coño of coños laugh. On the other hand, one can't put too many "What are you saying?"s, "You're right, you're right"s and "Oopsie"s within the duration of one train ride without sounding like you want somebody to punch you in the face, even if you are a girl. Posers, but they made my night. I confess, I really felt like punching something right after that ride, even if it wasn't somebody's face.

LOL.

At least I was able to get a brand-new copy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Strange Pilgrims" for two hundred bucks. Marquez + Lovecraft (I didn't know he was shelved in the "Classics" section nowadays) made my day.

...

I'd like to believe that there are few things in the world cheesier than a two-hour bus ride of nothing but Mariah Carey (the cheesy Mariah Carey and not the hiphop-ish one nowadays, mind you) and Celine Dion (CELINE-FRIGGIN'-DION!) music videos. "I Still Believe" and "To Love You More" are just pure cheese. I could be wrong, though.

...

Speaking of cheese, for some reason nostalgia's taking over my taste in music. Think about it, though: which would you prefer waking up to in the morning, a cheesy and melodramatic Air Supply song or something by Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance that just jolts you out of bed?

I miss the nineties, when not only Michael but everybody learned to rock, instead of trying to be emo.

...

Theater season is coming. Note the eyebags that have grown as large, if not larger than the eyes of everybody involved in a theater production these days. As for patrons like me (or at least I'd like to believe), it's "621, 987 Taon ng Paglilimot" in Diliman this week, "As You Like It" in Diliman again next week, and "Rashomon" in UPLB next-next week. Time to go see some legs break.

...

I don't know. For some reason, the world's been too depressing for anybody's good lately. And I've only recently found out that intellectualization is actually a defence mechanism. I cry for my brain.

Demotivating.

the inescapability of drama

2007-09-01T04:55:00.000+08:00

(Oh yeah, for those not used to reading the way the Japanese do, the page reads right to left.)

Never thought I'd see the day when even the characters from the Naruto comics would resort to saying things this emo, even with Jiraiya (the guy with the big hairdo) smiling and all, thus proving the fact that going into that sentimental phase when one just starts spouting things that would have them get laughed at is really that hard to avoid.

Want proof? Just ask anyone in the Comm Arts batch 2005, with the recent mania of (the Globe users, at least) spamming group messages containing every "realization" (note: random insights that may or may not be useful and may or may not make any sense to the reader) they come across.

Yes, I know, these random insights will probably have no use and will probably make no sense to you, unless you know exactly what I'm talking about.

This is what happens when real life gets in the way so many times that your thoughts can't catch up. Think about it: would a person who just spent the whole day seeing things happen and making things happen have enough time and energy left at the end of the day to crystallize the day's worth of experiences, thoughts and insights into words?

That's the hard part with writing, methinks: when nothing's happening to you, you have enough time and energy in your hands to think of and consequently write about a lot of things, but when a lot of things are happening to you, chances are your time and energy are too little to waste on thinking and writing about things, therefore you think about nothing, which is kinda like not thinking about anything...

*apologizes for the disjointed junk he just wrote and goes to sleep, since he's really starting to think he just wrote a piece of random crap into this blog for the sake of making a post, and seriously hopes that he can come up with something better soon*

metareality, metalearning, metaprayer

2007-08-05T02:56:00.000+08:00

Isn't it kind of ironic, that there's so much you can write about when there's so little happening in your life, and vice versa. Or maybe not, considering the fact that people nowadays tend to live in two realities: the one in which they live in, and the one in which they "live" in. Think Neo of "The Matrix".

Maybe Macalintal was right. Maybe I really am just an escapist.

"As an afterthought, it is amusing to think about how by thinking about thinking about how we learn, we not only learn more about how we think about how we learn, we also learn more about how we learn, ultimately learning more about ourselves in the process, to contextualize the ancient Greek “Gnothi seauton” (“Know thyself”)."

-On Learning and "Metalearning" (reflection paper for Learning Psychology class).

Or just somebody with a really big Douglas Adams hangover, now that I think of it.

"Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things I decided not to know about. Amen."

-Prayer for Arthur Dent (taken from Mostly Harmless-by Douglas Adams, of course)

Oshitforgotpositionpaperduethisweek. At least in the Other reality (yes, that capitalized O is intentional).

I take back what I said, maybe I really am just escapist.

Sigh, I love parsimony.

can't a person feel diary-ish every now and then?

2007-07-21T20:23:00.000+08:00

The back of my neck's been aching the entire week. Being the paranoid person that I am, I blamed it on all the sisig, kwek-kwek and softdrinks I've had the week before. The only person who was able to convince me otherwise was my healer mother, who proceeded to work the wonders of deep nerve massage therapy on my suffering lymphatic system.

It was worth taking a four hour-long trip back home and going back to elbi with only four hours sleep for her detox. I think I'm finally ready for that goddamn exam, something I haven't been able to feel all week. All of this may change, though, as the people who know me well enough know that my smug nature does not last, that my nerves will only begin to give way when it is only a minute or two away from the actual event, which really really sucks.

To think that I should be reviewing on how to write news articles, editorial articles, checking Philippine Daily Inquirer front pages as layout samples, doing the assignment I honestly don't think I'll be able to do tomorrow even though I'll have the whole afternoon and evening free, or something. Maybe the nature of Communication Arts as a course (think about it: deadlines > exams, skill > effort) does really bring out the procrastinator in a person.

Oh well, maybe I can consider writing this as an exercise in putting thoughts into paper (or HTML code, in this case), which is admittedly not always an easy thing to do. To quote Maddox: "If minds had anuses, blogging would be what your mind would do when it had to take a dump."

Yes, this blog is my toilet. Thanks for looking into the bowl.

The Surveying Survivor's Meditations

2007-07-15T02:55:00.000+08:00

Look around. Listen around. It is calm and quiet, but it is neither the calm nor the quiet of nature, where even the calm and the quiet themselves enjoy a semi-sentience, brought about by the lifeforce you can feel softly emanating from everything around you, even in the inanimation of wood and stone. No, this calm and this quiet are not alive at all, for you do not feel the binding forces you are supposed to feel with a natural calm and a natural quiet. Rather, the wood and stone are truly still, and you, instinctively empathic with your relationship with life, secretly wish you could share your lifeforce with them if only to feel the bonds with them even for a moment, for nothing is alive in the blasted landscape except for a black-clothed Death, striding calmly through the charred wood and scorched stone, praising himself for another job well done.

deliriants in a glass

2007-07-08T02:31:00.000+08:00

Start with Mister Pink, who takes the first gulps, praising Mister Zombie for calling him just when it was getting too dark to see the pink of his shirt. Pass to Mister Zombie, who, admitting weakness to rough wines, appears quieter than usual. Pass to Miss Alexander, who sings about a time when we were so alive do you remember that along with Mister Zombie in between drinks. Pass to Mister Peach, who is trying so hard to whistle because he was told it would keep him awake longer. Pass to Mister Season, who finally stops playing with Miss Alexander's cellphone to join in the bottle. Pass to Miss Nag who, passing, is trying to sleep because she has a math class at seven AM, all the while complaining of the heat and the noise, her nags making the noisiest racket. Pass to Miss Redbull, who passes due to caffeine intoxication. Pass to Mister Campingbag in the corner, who passes, insisting on resting his eyes because of a class at the same time as Miss Nag.

Now sit back and watch the magic happen: Miss Alexander and Miss Nag, normally the noisiest, are sound asleep on a poor panda. Mister Zombie, an insomniac, is fighting to stay awake. Mister Pink, Mister Peach and Mister Season, two guys and one gay, are fighting over a girl they only see in the classroom. Quote Mister Peach, who suddenly thinks he is the man who can satisfy all her needs. Quote Mister Season, who thinks he is a better man than Mister Peach by standing straight longer and proclaiming the fact every ten seconds. Quote Mister Pink, who suddenly thinks he is a man.

Now you, who talk of transformative power, drink.

every now and then, my frustrations on unlearning how to play the piano surface + l'esprit de l'escalier

2007-06-29T19:22:00.000+08:00

Beautiful. Just beautiful. This Pianocian guy owns.

I'm obviously a sucker for Linkin Park songs played on piano. The fact that "Minutes to Midnight" sounds even more emo than their previous albums makes me want to cry.

...

L'esprit de L'escalier. It's that moment when you look back and suddenly realize that you just thought of the perfect thing to say, the only thing wrong being the fact that it's too late to go back and say it without looking like an idiot who suddenly realizes he has been overanalysing his current situation and he has been standing there and looking like an idiot the whole time all along so he hides under the staircase, away from the eyes of those who watched his idiocy unfold and thought he was being one with the universe when in reality he just thought he wanted to say something.

Because Delirium walks paths that not even Destiny can comprehend

2007-06-22T19:25:00.000+08:00

(Those who didn't really understand the title, raise your hands and go read Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" series.)

Your results:

You are The Joker

The Clown Prince of Crime. You are a brilliant mastermind but are criminally insane. You love to joke around while accomplishing the task at hand.

The Joker 81%

Poison Ivy 73%

Lex Luthor 70%

Dr. Doom 70%

Riddler 68%

Mr. Freeze 68%

Venom 67%

Dark Phoenix 66%

Mystique 65%

Apocalypse 57%

Magneto 56%

Two-Face 53%

Catwoman 52%

Green Goblin 45%

Juggernaut 45%

Kingpin 45%

Click here to take the "Which Super Villain are you?" quiz...

Figures, even Krista says I'm insane ("must read", promise). Dammit, that girl made a better birthday post about me than I did.

June 8 was the spartan day I never got to write about + two years

2007-06-13T15:26:00.000+08:00

So I slept at 3AM that morning, then woke up at 5AM so that I could ride along with my bros who already have school. On the way to Ateneo I starve, so I get a muffin, fries and Coke from the drive thru at McDo Katipunan. I proceed so scarf the food and the Coke down. As expected, lots of fastfood, too salty fries and ice-cold Coke in the morning proceed to give me one of the worst stomachaches I've had in a long time. But there's an errand we have to run for Ma first, and it involves waiting outside Seedling Bank's Philippine Horticulture Society Office for several minutes (blame it all on Filipino time and my preference for ten-minute advanced timepieces). After the errand and now pale with cold sweat, I proceed to Lola's house for a very successful throne session and to finish the week's worth of articles on their computer, WHICH HAS INTERNET. I go back to Katipunan and hang around with my bro, who is waiting for a spot in the secret computer shop behind Greenwich Katipunan so that he and his friends can engage in a DotA bonding session, while I watch the last episode of Heroes (which was such an annoyingly anticlimactic waste of twenty-two past episodes of amusingly unexpected plot twists) with a crappy headset that only plays into the right ear and a fifth grader who's playing Counterstrike on full speaker volume and shouting like some crazy German Unreal Tournament-playing kid everytime he gets a kill. I tell myself that I can't take any more of this, so I relocate to the neighborhood-friendlier (and much quieter) Hobby Haven down the highway. The lack of sleep takes over me while I'm trying the new Command and Conquer 3 out for the second time, so I take a nap on the mezzanine sofa. Then I remember that Mikey texted some time ago that the drinking session at his house was cancelled, which ultimately ruins my plan of leeching off their Internet so that I could register in SystemOne at 12MN. Unfortunately, my cellphone dies out, and the fact that Hobby Haven grants me use of the landline is eclipsed by a memory lapse. I proceed to hang around the place and play DotA (they wouldn't let me leave until we finished the game, which we won anyway), unknowingly skipping lunch and realizing that I have not had any food since the evil McDo breakfast, but it is 11PM and only McDo is open at this time, so I walk to McDo and back for another meal. It is already 1AM when I proceed to check how I and the others are doing with the SystemOne thing. The sight of eighteen units makes me so happy I don't give a crap about my morning schedule, which I am sure I will regret in the near future. Stuck in Katipunan with nowhere to sleep, I take my chances by trying to get a ride home at 3AM, the time an Antipolo-bound jeepney passes by Katipunan once around every thirty minutes, if ever one passes by. Luckily, a jeep does pass by after the said half-hour long wait. I get home, and remember that I only have a key to the gate, no key to the house, everybody's asleep, all the lights are out. It is 4AM, and only the dogs notice my silent entrance, even then their racket is not loud enough to rouse the house from it's dreams. My brain is formulating the Plan B of sleeping in the vacation house beside our house (which has a grill I could easily slip through) when I remember entering my house through the window of my room. I then proceed with what I can only describe as a "contortionist/akyat-bahay" maneuver, fitting my body through a 10 inch long, 11 inch wide square of metal. Finally, with dirty feet and legs and arms and torso and head, aching joints, two fastfood meals (both McDo) and only 2.5 hours of sleep so far, I take a quick shower and jump into bed, remembering that it is the Transformers Movie Toy Launch in Megamall tomorrow, something I just have to visit.

And thus did the day, which I could only describe as Spartan and which I could not write about until now because OUR INTERNET IS DOWN YET AGAIN, end.

...

By the way, this blog is now two years older than the time it started, and so am I.

Like what high school friend Jonathan texted me several days ago, "You're another year closer to death, congrats."

Funnily enough, what bothered me was not his message, but the fact that he didn't spell death with a capital D, one which I'm more used to seeing from him.

I'm not a teenager anymore. What's that supposed to mean?

Schrödinger + Rant

2007-06-08T09:13:00.000+08:00

(I like paradoxes. See which ones you can spot here.)

Just a nice confuzzling jumble of a comic I thought of long ago. I've been wanting to post this here for some time now, if not for the evil, evil LOSS OF MY INTERNET interfering with literally everything I'm currently preoccupied with.

Just when I finally found a small part-time gig writing articles for a website.

Just when I finally felt like doing some research for writing a new batch of short stories for the coming school year.

Just when a friend finally found a way to play Guilty Gear XX #Reload online. OMFG 10FPS lag screw spamn00bs who cant FRC!!! LOL!!!111

Not a bad one-two with the evil, evil HD crash (see previous post), I've practically been knocked out. Because of this, I will not be posting as often as I want to for the time being.

I've said it a thousand times, so one more is probably not going to hurt: This sucks.

And Doom Did Come

2007-05-23T04:54:00.000+08:00

Just got the PC back from the repairmen over at Sta. Lucia. Turns out that some files in the HD were corrupted, so they had to reformat it and reinstall Windows to make it useful again, which meant removing my last two or so years worth of computer files down into the technological void.

At least tangible objects could always be retrieved from the trash, no matter how beat-up or rotted away they look. These streams of ones and zeroes are a different story altogether:

Thea 107 publicity pictures and poster designs? Gone.

Papers from my writing classes? Gone.

Unfinished short stories that were supposed to be Pantas material? Gone.

Two or so years worth of downloaded music? Gone.

Diablo 2 level eighty-something Whirlwind Barbarian, Warcraft 3 DotA maps, Guilty Gear XX #Reload and Guilty Gear Isuka save files? Gone.

Back at Sta. Lucia I was doing all shorts of shit to calm my shocked nerves. Lots of food, PS2, toy shopping, clothes shopping, hanging around at the old card shop, thinking of getting a new computer, etc. Thankfully, coffee did the trick.

Maybe this is bad karma due to the previous post. If so, why oh why does life have to be so ironic?

"Clean slate," my parents say. Easy for them to do so, they just backed their projects up a few days ago.

"Wake up call," my self tries to tell myself. Maybe fate is indeed telling me to go write on paper more often, to go find myself a real copy of Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" and Schopenhauer's "Counsels and Maxims", and to go ahead and buy those Up Dharma Down, Urbandub and Linkin Park CDs.

Still, I'm still trying very hard to stop myself from crying right now. Anybody who thinks I'm simply being sarcastic will be blinded by the salt of my tears.

Time Check

2007-05-22T12:12:00.000+08:00

"I'm gonna sing the Doom Song now!" -Gir

We're several months away from possibly being eaten by a CERN-manufactured black hole, a year away from an economic depression caused by a worldwide shortage of oil, three years away from being devoured by synthetic nanotechnology, twenty-three years away from a quantum vacuum collapse and several hundred years away from human extinction.

So sayeth the doom-prophets of the Internet.

At least we're 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 years away from the next Big Bang, which will only happen after the universe has collapsed itself enough, which will take about 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 years to happen.

Whee lotsa zeroes googol-sized LOL

Strip Blogging (Not That, You Dirty, Dirty Mind)

2007-05-18T00:22:00.000+08:00

Created by yours truly using the Strip Generator blog.

I've always wanted a new blogging medium. This is just so cool.

Why Douglas Adams Is One of My Favorite Writers

2007-05-15T17:33:00.000+08:00

Dirk: "... In the past, people would stare into the fire for hours when they wanted to think. Or stare at the sea.The endless dancing shapes and patterns would reach far deeper into our minds than we could manage by reason and logic. You see, logic can only proceed from the premises and assumptions we already make, so we just drive round and round in little circles like little clockwork cars.We need dancing shapes to lift us and carry us, but they're harder to find these days. You can't stare into a radiator. You can't stare into the sea. Well, you can, but it's covered with plastic bottles and used condoms, so you just sit there getting cross.All we have to stare into is the white noise. The stuff we sometimes call information, but which is really just a bubble rising in the air."

Kate: "But without logic..."

Dirk: "Logic comes afterwards. It's how we retrace our steps. It's being wise after the event. Before the event you have to be very silly."

-The Salmon of Doubt (by Douglas Adams, of course)

This from a detective Dirk Gently who's trying to explain to his friend how immersing himself into a random sequence of events solves one of his cases, not to mention doing it as objectively as he can.

Now that is what I call writing.

Too bad Mr. Adams died before he was able to finish this book.

Now that is what I call tragedy.

Oh well, only ten more days until Towel Day comes around.

Ecstasy and Emo Bashing... Are Not Connected

2007-05-13T01:17:00.000+08:00

There's nothing like hanging on for dear life on a public jeepney's rear end as it cruises down Marcos Highway at top speed and swerves the way a bad Need For Speed player would.

While drunk.

Hey, the alcohol almost made it feel like a roller coaster, only ( and weirdly and thankfully, might I add) without the nausea.

...

"... every time a child says, 'I don't believe in fairies,' there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead."

-James Barrie, Peter Pan

"... every time a child says, 'I don't believe in emos,' there is an emo somewhere that falls down dead...

... not that anybody cares, of course."

-Ocnarf, feeling all anti-emo tonight