Pure and Applied Pointlessness

Plans

2010-03-24T14:46:00.002+08:00

I've been blogging for five years. Wow. That's a pre-tty long time. I've come a long way since then, done so many things I didn't know I'd be doing.

It just goes to show - plans are just, well, plans. They're guidelines, but nothing you can do with finality.

Car Robberies at The Podium and The Fort

2009-03-14T15:42:00.000+08:00

We all know that crime and murder is happening everywhere around us—but we don’t mind, since it’s not happening to us. Only when it’s close to home do we realize how vulnerable and helpless we really are.

Last night, Marco lost his new Macbook Pro, which he got not more than a month ago for P100,000. He left it in the car trunk of a friend, which was parked by The Podium in Ortigas. They left the parking lot at 9pm for dinner and came back 1am which is when they discovered that the trunk was broken in and three laptops were stolen, including his friend’s Macbook Air (this sells for P80,000 each) and a Dell laptop .

I don’t know any more details than that because Marco doesn’t really want to talk about it yet and I didn’t ask since I know this is hitting him hard. I know how he loved his Macbook Pro because every peso of it was something he worked for. He’s so proud of it. It’s central to what he does, which is web design. He actually didn’t only lose the laptop and miscellaneous gear worth $2,000 but he also lost priceless data related to his work. We are both devastated because it will be hard to raise money for such an expensive gadget again, as well as recover the data in it.

A couple of things are bothering me about this incident. One, how did the robbers know where to look, and what to look for? It’s either they got lucky, which I doubt, or Marco’s party was followed around. Two, it happened practically beside an exclusive place, The Podium, where high-income people are a norm. How could the security be so lax as for this to happen? Ortigas is not Quiapo, Recto, Divisoria, or Baclaran. And yet…

From Pau

Just last week ago a similar incident happened to another friend, Pau: his car window was broken in and he lost two cameras, a Nikon D40 and a Canon G10, and his laptop to another fucker. It happened at The Fort, in MC Home Depot. His car was parked no more than 15-20 meters from the security guard! OMG right? Read more about it here and please help him get in touch with people who might give him assistance or know the man in the sketch.

If you’re interested in helping Marco, please do

Refer him people who can help him recover his laptop if you know of any.
If you have any leads on the people who have stolen the laptop, we’re willing to offer a substantial reward.
If you happen to see a Macbook Pro on sale or have bought one without a box, manual, and drivers, please check the serial number. The serial number of Marco’s laptop is w88522kh1g0. We’re willing to offer a reward for this information as well.
Blog about this incident and spread the word. This isn’t only to help Marco and Pau recover their rightful belongings but also to help other people avoid the same fate. It seems to be a modus operandi by some group. People should be aware and be paranoid about leaving their stuff in cars or bringing out their gadgets in public. Upscale shopping places are no longer safe, if they ever were to begin with.

Please, please spread the word. You can email me at lizlanuzo[at]yahoo[dot]com[dot]ph if you have any relevant info. Thank you!

I am never one to pay attention to titles

2008-12-22T11:21:00.004+08:00

Sometimes I go back here to read my old blog posts, to tell me what I thought and felt around any particular time of the year. This space...it feels like home. An old home, where I grew up. I love my I.ph blogs to bits but they are so different from this one. I am different now.

I set up this blog back in 2005, when I was still seventeen. I don't need to read back too far to know that the seventeen-year old Liz is radically different from the twenty-year (nearing twenty one, ugh) old one. Aside from the new tiny wrinkles on the crease of my eyes and a few pounds on my thighs and arms, the way I think and feel now is worlds away from three years back. I love that I have this blog to keep track of how I evolved. I would like to think I did, you know. It would be sorely depressing if things were otherwise.

I'm not concerned about being witty now. I am not conscious of how I write anymore. I am not so interested in impressing people, either. I don't think about philosophy stuff anymore because I realized that it's pointless; one has to live in the now, think about the now, and reality is only what you think it is---there are so many philosophers who have said this in so many different ways, but they are never this blunt. Life is simple. Change has its time and it can't be hurried up. I am more shallow and more friendly. I am more forgiving and patient but not any less smug and over-confident.

In my eyes, I am both perfect and imperfect. I love who I am.

So many things have happened and I have met so many people. There is one in particular who keeps me grounded. His name is Marco. He tells me when I'm being stupid, corrects me and points me in the right direction. In exchange I buy him Minute Maid and isaw and remind him not to miss his meals. He also calls me a lot when he's particularly stressed out and this is our second Christmas together. Well, I don't blog about him anymore in my current personal blog. What is there to say? That I love him? That's overrated, and no one else but him needs to hear it.

I love my Mom and Dad and my dumb brother. I love my dogs, Hector, Bogart, and Toopy, who are all fat and nice-smelling since they like to lie in the sun like dirty pillows.

I love my life and I am glad that I have it.

Hah, take that, future Liz. I know you'll be in the mood this time of the year to go back to this blog and find out what you thought and felt today. I hope things are even better for you now.

All full sizes of mineral makeup at P50 off and free shipping for orders around P600

2008-08-04T01:55:00.000+08:00

hi guys! im trying to get rid of some of the mineral makeup i ordered from the US. im so lazy to sell. :( so its P50 of.f on all full size products. if were really close, i'll sell it to you at P80 off. so yay!

please visit http://themineralmakeup.multiply.com for details. thanks!

I'm Selling Makeup!

2008-04-05T04:47:00.000+08:00

Hey guys! I just put up my multiply site selling mineral makeup by The She Space (About Face), a cosmetics company based in Illinois. I'm selling finishing powder, blushes, and eyeshadows in full size and convenient sample sizes. Please do visit!

http://themineralmakeup.multiply.com

Also, don't forget Project Vanity at http://projectvanity.i.ph for your beauty updates. ^_^

Kikay Loot

2008-03-02T13:52:00.000+08:00

Lookie look! I finally got my prize from Ellana Minerals.

I won it from a contest in Kikay Exchange---sheer luck, I tell you. The package was very very late, but it's okay, I love the stuff! I got the Too Pink lipgloss, the White Dew Radiance Mineral Finishing Powder in Almond Coffee Cream and a sheer blush in Serenity (peachy shade).

Nothing makes me happier than free makeup. The finishing powder gives a light, velvety sheen. Best after foundation. The blush is indeed sheer, its perfect for my natural look. I actually have a promise to myself, because Marco is so makulit and anyway I want to make him happy. What's the promise? I'll go for the makeupless look most of the time. Yeah. That's still a lot of effort, but anything for my prissy luffy. Like this! I didn't wear eyeshadow here, but to top the look off, I'll wear white and gold eyeshadow for school. Plus mascara of course.

Anyway, check out the stuff I got this week. I was in the mood to splurge on makeup the past few days. I have a horrid suspicion that it's the stress from school. :( Anyway, I'm one happy ho'.

From left to right:
Elianto eyeshadow in Sunrise
Ellana Finishing Powder
Ellana Blush in Serenity
The Face Shop Dewy Flower Moist Loose Power in 23 Natural Beige
Palladio Rice Powder in Natural from The Beauty Bar
Miners Aqua Shine lipstick in Peachy (also from The Beauty Bar)
Ellana lip gloss in Too Pink

Yay! Marco hates it when I'm giddy over make-up, but what the hell, this stuff gives me a really shallow joy. It's shallow, but it's still joy. So yeah.

Oh, I'm going to buy a foundation from Ellana. It's cheap, and I really want to try Mineral Foundation. Also, I obviously have a thing for finishing powders. I don't like foundation kasi, but of course, I can always change my mind.

NOW

2008-02-25T09:15:00.000+08:00

I am unbearably busy. Gods, I hate that word. Busy. It stars with a nice rounded sound in 'bu' and then ends up with a sharp, hissing noise in 'sy'. So many papers and reports to do. I hate this time of year, but I suppose things will end pretty soon. Just less than a month and boom! Vacation! Also known as practicum, meh.

I can't wait for school to end. Since this year started, two people sort of offered me a job. As in a real job, with real pay. You can't believe how tempted I am---so near, and yet so far, graduation. School isn't that terrible for me to drop out of it. Well, not yet, even considering the state that I'm in. But stiiiill. Job equals living on your own equals late night outs equals more time with Marco equals my own money to buy the stuff I really like equals tons of other things I want to have right NOW.

Ah well, as usual, one just lives with it.

A Deeper Struggle

2008-02-19T08:57:00.002+08:00

In politics, we usually view the Left as radical and violent. In other countries, being “radical” and “violent” is something that is welcomed or simply ignored, but in Philippine society, these two words are anathema. We are a very conservative and traditional people. Anything that threatens the way of life that we are used is to something that we should fight. It doesn’t matter if our lives are steeped in inequality and abuse from the ruling class---as long as we get a salary to feed the kids, as long as we live in relative comfort and peace, it doesn’t matter how many people die on the streets fighting for better things that we deserve.

I think that is one of the reasons why the leftist elements in the Philippines do not receive the support they ought to have. They are fighting for our rights, our future happiness, but most Filipinos ignore this and even respond to it with hostility. Roland Simbulan said that as long as there is oppression, there will be a Left. However, it might be that while there is a Left, it might not gain enough power to fight this oppression effectively and thoroughly due to the lack of support from a majority of the Filipinos.

It is easy to say that we don’t support the Left because of the threat from the ruling elite (including the government), but I believe that it is more than that. The Filipinos, as a whole, have become cynical and apathetic throughout the years, especially after Martial Law. We would rather look after ourselves and our families as life becomes harder along with the unstable economy which in turn leads to the loss of a sense of community and social cohesion. It’s hard to think of the greater good, of noble things, when the stomach makes a familiar, painful dance. This hopelessness is harder to fight than the government.

“Social change does not belong to one group or another, but it has to be the work of the entire people,” says Simbulan. There is no question of the Left having a future since oppression has an uncanny staying power, but there is a question of the Left having a successful future. As long as the masses remain ignorant, cynical, and apathetic to what the Left really stands for (equality and freedom, among other things) the movement will never be truly triumphant.

Love Love

2008-02-19T08:57:00.001+08:00

I love love. I like seeing people fall in love with each other especially if these people aren't really the sort to fall in love. Okay, okay, maybe it's too early to say it's the four-letter word yet---but my heart is seriously bursting with the news! Have you felt ever your heart burst? This should be my first time. It's so amazingly uplifting to witness two people have a go at romance for the very first time.

When I read the complementary blog posts of my two friends who obviously have a thing for each other, I felt so happy. Why? Because both of them are probably what you'd think to be the last two people to fall in love. It might be difficult to think about it, but when you meet them, you'll know.

Ting is cute and chinito. He's stick thin, but he's the sort of dreamy guy that girls like. He's smart, he spends all his money on books instead of food, and you can talk to him for hours without getting bored (OMG does Liz have a crush on Ting?! OMG!). Seriously, I did have a crush on him last last year, and if I were single right now (which we know would be impossible as I am in love with Marco) and if Ting is fatter and straighter (which we know to be impossible as the man has a fucked-up metabolism and is bisexual), I would totally do him. Reighben would too. I can't even count how many times Reighben has seduced Ting under my nose---well, the point is, Ting is cool.

However, Ting is also a tuod. He's insensitive. He likes the idea of love, but when the opportunity presents itself he would (and has been) too lazy to follow it up. He has this impossible idea of falling in love (the head over heels sort, the whirlwind romance type, you get the drift) which is why he's never really done it before.

When I first met Uretz, I thought she was a guy. She usually wears really loose guy pants, big guy shirts, big hoodies, and Chucks. She would call herself anti-social as she is very picky about the people she hangs out with. She has never had a crush before, she sneers at love and thinks that it is impossible. Well what do you know!

So we have two people here who seem to be androgynous, loves anime and video games, wears glasses, looks Chinese, have pale white skin, and even has the same hairstyle for chrissakes. When I saw them together, I was the first to start teasing them. I seriously didn't think it would end up this way but boy am I glad. It's second-hand, but it feels like the first time I fell in love (naks!). You know, the kilig moments, the sugar rush, the cluelessness, the works---you can see how my week is made now.

The Absence of Will

2008-02-11T03:55:00.000+08:00

The textbook definition of a democracy is a government that is of the people, by the people, and for the people. Thus, the most important feature of any democracy is a competitive election which reflects the people’s will. The most obvious and direct manifestation of this will is the Congress, wherein we confer the power to make laws to 240 individuals who we trust to represent our interests from the grassroots. The executive and the judiciary serve secondary functions: one administrates and the other judges according to law. This is how a democracy ought to be. Of course, we know that what is is very far from the ideal—in fact, in this case, the ideal does not truly exist in practice anywhere in this big chunk of rock we call Earth.

Now so what? The point is, don’t feel too bad whenever you hear of news that trample your right to a democracy. Such an emotionally loaded word, democracy, for something that does not exist. What you should really feel bad about is a dictatorship. It is here in the Philippines, right now, and we are letting it happen.

When we allow the President to remove the Speaker of the House and replace him with a new one, we have a dictatorship. In allowing this, we allow one person to control our country’s law-making body which we voted to represent us. The Executive having the Legislative in its pocket and letting the world know it is a dangerous thing. Yet we let it happen.

However, I think it’s not a matter of letting but of not caring and deciding. Apathy and neutrality seem to be reasonable standpoints but both of them contribute positively only to the status quo. You see, not caring or doing anything about an issue is as good as supporting it. Dissent without action is consent, as General Lim is so fond of saying. He forgot to add: inaction, in the very first place, is consent.

A popular will precedes a democracy. An absence of will precedes a tyranny.

I Want To Learn Something New

2008-01-25T20:06:00.000+08:00

I love clothes and makeup but I'll be the first to tell you this: they're stupid obsessions. True, a new set of quality eyeshadow gives me the happies, but it is a shallow kind of happy. It's temporary and more than a little inane. Lately, this unholy obsession does not make me feel as good as it used to. Therefore, I have to learn a new skill, something more lasting and useful. This skill should make me happy when I receive a stamp of approval from inside myself and not from other people (unlike, say, people's appreciation of my physical appearance).

So what else is there to learn? I know how to play the guitar and I've been told I have an okay voice. I used to compose songs. Maybe I should venture into the broken glass-strewn path of creative writing? I could maybe learn some photoshops. Or coding? Or Flash? I could also upgrade my blog I guess. All this is from the top of my head.

I have plans, right there. The problem is the will to execute any of them. However, if you ask me what skill I'd like to learn or upgrade more than anything else I named above, it would be my guitar-playing. It's an achievable goal, thanks to the internets. After all these years I still want to play, I still want to make songs, I still want to sing. So there.

So-and-so

2007-12-16T13:13:00.000+08:00

When I fall in love, I can only fall in love more. I am not capable of loving any person less than I have loved this person at any given point in time. When I find no reason to remain in love with someone or when I can't seem to plumb the feeling from anywhere within me, then this person is marked for filing in the cabinets of my past. I have never believed in holding on to people. I try to, but the command (or plea) "hold on" apparently never stuck well in my psyche.

Is this wrong, that I can leave people just like, I dunno, that? You must understand that I never ask anyone this simply because I don't really care about what anyone's answers might be. I'd love to hear them, but concern for them is an entirely different thing. I might care, but only in a purely intellectual exercise.

Ethics

2007-12-05T23:05:00.000+08:00

I'm taking the required Ethics class this semester. I was pretty excited about it, really, because I feel strongly about the subject. But after a few sessions, I am totally disillusioned.

The arguments that I expected would come from the professor or my classmates did not materialize. Why?

Most of my classmates don't understand what they're talking about and hearing most of the time. We're in UP, christ.

The professor simply explains concepts, but that's it. This is this and that is that and class, do you get it? And he gets a bewildered collective nod. The hell. He doesn't challenge his students. Well, I don't feel challenged. I am not saying that he should impose his beliefs on students or that students should impose their beliefs on everybody else, but wouldn't exploring the concept at hand rather than just defining it broaden everyone's understanding? How can one do it? By asking questions. By having their beliefs challenged. Critical thinking should be encouraged.

Since the class is 1-2:30 PM, I just almost but not quite fall asleep. I'd rather read the readings, where I actually learn something.

Wet Feet

2007-12-03T10:19:00.000+08:00

I have having wet feet. It's the worst feeling in the world. Well, that's excluding the feeling of being fat.

Kahel Na Payong

2007-11-27T22:30:00.000+08:00

They treaded the dirty street of Pedro Gil carefully because they were sharing only a small umbrella against the cold, grey world pressing towards them promptly at 5:30 PM. The deep screams of vehicles pound from the green light, increasing intensity, and recede into the dark of the rain, borne by the glistening black asphalt. The woman looks up at the glowing red sticks telling the time at the LRT station: six.

It wasn't raining hard. But the rain was insistent (which is worse), pattering in billions of little rat feet on a small umbrella shared by two damp people. The man wraps his arm tighter around the woman while adjusting his grip on the cold metal handle of the umbrella.

I wondered. When did he do that last?

The Discovery

2007-11-27T21:10:00.000+08:00

What do I want more than anything else in the world?

That's passion---that feeling when we want something more than anything else in the world. Why is this suddenly so important, you ask. Well, it's a toss-up between Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and a confusing discussion in ethics class regarding freedom and free will. I waited in Pedro Gil for thirty minutes around 5:30 today in cold rain, and the question of my passion has been running around my head in loops. There's no answer.

I'm nineteen, and nineteen-year olds shouldn't ask question like this. Nineteen year-olds should...well, what are nineteen year-olds supposed to do nowadays? Watch television? Mind their books? Have fun with their friends? Wonder about freedom and free will and what they really want to do, fighting the chest-painful feeling that they don't know and might never know, or that once they do know, that brilliant and uplifting feeling of knowing what they want to do for the rest of their lives, they can't?

Dominique Francon is one of the characters in The Fountainhead. She is simply described by Rand as "the woman for a man like Howard Roark [a man as man should be]". She spent the first two and a half decade of her life doing things she didn't really want to do. She did them because she knew that if she found someone, or something, that she wants more than anything else in the world, she would destroy it along with herself. Destruction is one of the facets of passion. You can create with it, save the world with it, be happy with it, but in the end you plant the seed of your and the object of your passion's destruction . Once it's taken away or has proven to be unattainable in the first place, this object, you will self-destruct. And you will take this object with you because the world does not deserve it.

Howard Roark is an architect, a creator for his own sake. He is the ultimate egotist---he lives for no one but himself. His passion is in designing buildings. I would like to be like him, but that's just silly. People like him only live in books, and if people like him, by accident, live outside of books, they are very rare. I happen to be not one of them. My happiness depends on other people's approval. This truth is one of the most disgusting truths I ever have to accept about myself.

I suppose there's no need to hurry about finding what I really want more than anything else in the world. I have a good seventy years ahead of me, if all goes well. Maybe one day, when I'm fifty-two and walking on a busy street, I'll realize that the last fifty-two years of my life has been a waste because I didn't discover my passion earlier. But who cares? I'll save the sinking feeling when I'm fifty-two. Right now, I'm nineteen, and I like my life. I try to do my best regarding the things I care about.

A little part of me wants to postpone The Discovery, though. The word destruction leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

A Pain In The Chest

2007-11-24T01:23:00.000+08:00

I dislike people who overreact. Why? Because it's annoying. We're not in the medieval ages, for chrissakes, with their snuff boxes and salts and corsets. We're in the 21st century when romance is better expressed inside, like muriatic acid eating through a bloated drain. Expressing it otherwise makes whatever it is you're expressing about trite, common, inane. The world is too much nowadays. Making a big deal of it rather insults it.

There is this one person, however, whom I know. She overreacts about totally unimportant things. Sometimes it gives me a pain in the chest to watch her do it, and sometimes I watch other people's faces watching her with a kind of embarrassed apology to no one in general, and to themselves specifically, looking as if they have a similar pain in the chest. The feeling of observing her is very close to revulsion, for me. But it's not revulsion. I find her antics charming.

She seems to have never grown up. No, no, not in that conscious, offending way that some people do and take pride of. She hit ten and she stopped. That's it. Her boobs grew out, the blood poured out to scratchy napkins every month, but she stopped at ten. She's as self-centered as kids go, but not vain as most teenagers are. It's difficult to dislike her. She says something, and you do a little internal dance somewhere in the duodenum, and smile. Patronizingly, condescendingly, happily, boringly---but you smile. There's nothing else to do.

I am cruel when I'm honest.

Plagiarist Scum

2007-11-22T22:09:00.000+08:00

Plagiarists are the scum of the earth. They are way below imitators because unlike imitators who just copy another's work, they claim another's work as their own. Isn't that evil? Let me put it more emotionally: plagiarists steal a piece of a creator's soul. Like Satan, only with sweaty armpits and a bad brand of deodorant.

Suicide

2007-11-22T11:15:00.000+08:00

Here's a delightfully easy way to kill yourself: get a syringe, any type of syringe. I think you can get one at any Mercury Drug store for less than twenty pesos. With the syringe in hand, pick a healthy, innocent looking vein and inject air in it. Wait for an x period of time until you start to have difficulty breathing, after which you will slowly have the sensation of drowning—but in air. Then you die an utterly clean and (just a little) painful death.

Suicide is an in thing nowadays; I wont even elaborate. In fact, it's so in that the evangelist in the church behind our house had a nice little talk regarding it just last Sunday. He said that suicide is evil and that whoever attempts and succeeds in doing it will go to Hell, wherein the person will burn in eternal lake of fire. He said that suicide is a sin because any form of killing any human being is a sin, since god gave us life and it is just plain insolence to take it away with our own hands. Destroying one's self, I think, is the ultimate insult to one's creator (if in fact a creator does exist, and if this creator is amazingly egotistic as the holy books are interpreted to say).

Have you ever thought of killing yourself? I haven't. Sure I've had some unbelievably low points in my life as all of us are bound to have sooner or later, and in increasing vehemence, but I've never considered suicide as an option. I don't just love life, I actually like it. There are are many things I'd like to do before I die. I'd like to go to Europe, visit the moon, and have green eyes, and so on. So why kill myself? I understand that other people are not so lucky to live the life I live and thus have the opportunities I have. Some of them resort to killing themselves at twelve or twenty-five or sixty-three and you know what? I think it's perfectly all right to do so.

My philosophy is simple: do whatever the hell you want, and I'll do whatever the hell I want. It's not even a philosophy, per se, but a statement of fact. People do whatever the hell they want. Battered women want to stay in violent and unproductive relationships, so they stay. Alcoholics want to get drunk, so they drink and ruin their livers and their lives. People want to die so they kill themselves. Should we stop these people? We could, if we want to, else we leave them alone and keep the condolence to ourselves. The world is a battleground between what any number of people want and don't want. Join in if you feel like it. If you don't, then you'd best keep to the conflicts you care about.

So you want to kill yourself? Okay. It's your choice, a conscious decision. Whatever rocks your boat.

Kidney Kidney Don't Leave Home Without It

2007-11-19T10:28:00.000+08:00

Do you know how much you'll get if you sell one of your kidneys? Around P200, 000 minus the P30, 000 referral fee you pay to your agent (if you have any). That leaves you with P170, 000 which can buy you a secondhand car, a small franchise business, a few months' rental in one of Divisoria's malls plus the merchandise, around 8,500 bottles of C2 Green Tea, fourteen years of broadband internet connection, or 1,700 McDonald's quarter pounder value meals—you get the drift. One-seventy grand is a big, big thing compared to a relatively small and useless other kidney.

Just a while ago, I was watching Jessica Soho's report on rampant kidney selling among our poorer countrymen. The report emphasized that besides being illegal, it is immoral and unethical. We can also put it this way: selling one's kidney is immoral and unethical, therefore it is illegal. As such reports go, however, the words immoral and unethical are not clearly defined. Their framework has something to do with donating one's kidney rather than selling it is a good thing, that exploiting the poor is a bad thing, and that showing fresh-ish, scabbing surgical wounds on television every other second or so is cool. That's it.

Let us use a more concrete framework to determine what is ethical or moral: a capitalist one. Capitalism is a very impersonal market structure. In its purer forms, it doesn't care shit about parity or poverty eradication—its main concern is efficiency in allocation, the achievement of equilibrium between supply and demand. Now this is the situation: a woman will die if she does not have a kidney compatible with her body. Another woman's family is starving. Both women need something very badly. One has money but is dying, the other is dirt poor but has a compatible kidney which can extend a life. In a capitalist framework, the most logical, efficient, ethical, moral way to solve this dilemma is the facilitation of a kidney sale. Supply and demand are met. One goes home two hundred grand lighter and the other a kidney less. Everybody happy.

I Obviously Like This Picture Huh?

2007-11-07T00:16:00.000+08:00

Yep.

I just re-read Richard Bach's Illusions. A biplane pilot who sells rides for three dollars ten minutes meets a real life messiah who was a mechanic. They become friends, and before the messiah dies a gruesome death (as is fashionable with messiahs), he teaches the pilot to become a messiah himself. Well, it's still a wholly likable book for people who can stand philosophical slash New Age crap---and I can. Stand it. Some quotations I can't stand, however, like

You are led
through your lifetime
by the inner learning creature,
the playful spiritual being
that is your real self.

Gods. If I wrote something like this and meant it to the very bottom of the abyss of my heart, I shall not be able to live with myself. It makes me cringe and whimper deep inside. It's supposed to be from the fictional Messiah's Handbook in the novel which contains various quotes/instructions on how to be a messiah. Hm, if I have to think that way in order to be a messiah, no thanks. I suppose turning water into wine is more my thing.

The book is passable, but it is pretentious as most books go. Add some few notches in the average pretentious meter though and you'll get a better picture. It could be your ultimate solipsist's handbook, if you may, and it could also be rather helpful. Not by much if you believe in god though.

The
truth you
speak has no past
and future

It is,
and that's all it
needs to be.

Why I am not yet an atheist

2007-11-02T12:14:00.000+08:00

I have an atheist friend. He's gay. He kisses his cute boyfriend in public and kisses harder when people give them The Look. He's an intelligent person and he spends thousand of pesos on hardbound books with topics ranging from evolution to political science . He would probably hate me for mentioning this, but about a year ago he is a raving, spittle-showering Catholic zealot. We were not friends then.

Now that I mention it, my closer friends are either atheist or agnostic. People who are sure that a god or gods exist tend to make my right eyebrow shoot up. How can you be sure? How can you possibly be sure about things like this? I ask. Sometimes, the person tells me that he's just not sure, he knows god exists. Sometimes the person tells me that it doesn't matter if god in fact does not exist—humans need a god. Pascal's wager. Or I'm told god is love. I don't lose respect for people who think like this, but I tend to bury their religious beliefs deep in my subconscious. I'm just not a god person. Period.

I guess I was moderately religious when I was a kid, but then I became addicted to reading. It can be traced to the fact that I only learned to read at seven years old. Can you imagine the frustration, being the only one in your class who can't understand the white squiggles on the green board? By ten I started reading adult fiction. I consumed books as if they were food. Somewhere between ten and sixteen, I became a confused relativist and started questioning the existence of god. Having too many voices in your head while reading books could make you realize that there is no such thing as a universal truth. And one such universal truth that people have been postulating for thousands of years is the concept of god.

An all-seeing, all-knowing, vain, cruel and fickle god is something I definitely do not believe in. I think that the Bible is a valuable literary and historical manuscript but that's it. Religion is mostly a pain in the ass but I think our civilization will eventually outgrow its need of it. I go to church (when forced to) but it's not something I hate as most churches in the country are beautiful places with interesting histories. So. By all intents and purposes, I seem to be an atheist. But I'm not.

Why? Well, that's a good question. I'll get back to you in a couple of years when I have my answer.

Stalking

2007-10-18T23:04:00.000+08:00

Oh shit, I can't write. I can't write anything worthwhile anymore. I'm starting to worry because...because....well, my other blog is dying. I don't have any more useful inputs. I can't think of anything, I can't write anything, I don't know why. Gods I sure hope this is temporary. Sigh.

Tomorrow We Can Drive Around This Town

2007-10-07T02:30:00.000+08:00

I can't get enough of Hit the Lights's Hey Jealousy. Don't get me wrong, I like the version of Gin Blossoms---but I love upbeat. Upgrade upbeat into something more upbeat and you've got me hooked.

Something I also don't get tired of is K's Choice. I have their whole discography, I'm listening to it now, I'm rediscovering them. I didn't know that the Almost Happy I know is just an "acoustic" version of something more...well, upbeat would be the word for it.

and i don't know what you want
cos you don't know so
what's the point of asking?

Well, the point of asking can be something as mundane as having something to do. I like asking questions, even if they don't have answers. It's something to do to fill in the dead air.

Vibration

2007-10-01T23:14:00.000+08:00

I'm supposed to talk about how my schedule for next semester sucks. Suddenly though, I don't have the energy to rant. I don't have the energy for much these days. It's just like dragging your feet left, right, left, right, kshh, right, slump. It's like waking up wanting to go back to bed again because you know the day ahead is just like the day tomorrow---dreary.

I was dreaming when the phone vibrated somewhere below my ribs. It was a bad dream, as lately I am wont to have. It was raining torrents and the water started to rise; I was panicking again. I was trying to save my stuff from the clutches of the cold, muddy water when I saw the plug of my desk lamp spark and then burn up the floor. Water and fire. Incessant vibration below my ribs.

"Hello?" I ask.
"Hi luffles," he says.
"Hey luff," I say.

And thus Murphy's Law was thwarted.

Jollibee, Bakit Ang Taba Mo?

2007-10-01T00:57:00.000+08:00

I think there is something very wrong when all a kid looks forward to is seeing Jollibee on his birthday party. An obese bee swathed in spandex and plastic, adulated by a child, is one of the ugly manifestations of capitalism at its best. It can be argued that this bee is a symbol of family and good times (binge-eating on Chicken Joy and soggy spaghetti), but come on, you'll only buy that crap if you're brain dead from all the television you've been having since gestation. All Jollibee cares about is your money—not you or your family's happiness, or your health. I mean, come on.

Fastfood is fast comfort: you dial a number or go to a branch and happiness is within your oily-fingered reach. Do you get that good, homey feeling whenever you inhale the delicious smell of Chicken Joy? I have. Many times. It's irresistable, and I find it difficult to understand because I'm not a big fan of fried chicken in the first place. While puzzling it out, I went back to this happy memory when I first visited Megamall. I was four or five then and I was fascinated by the giant place with the bright lights and the big people. It was a family excursion: my cousins, aunts and grandparents were there too.

We had lunch at Jollibee. They didn't have plastic playgrounds back then, because rigid, metal things painted in the guise of animals were the 'in' thing, and that's what we kids rode. It was a great time to be alive. Maybe our stomachs have memories too, at least, I'm reasonably sure that mine does. It perks up whenever it senses Chicken Joy (that's all what it does though, because I can't remember the last time I ate a Chicken Joy. I'm more of a burger and fries person).

I 'm sure I'm not the only one with this magical childhood experience stored somewhere in the catacombs of memory, nor will I be the last. Jollibee, or any fastfood chain for that matter, may give one a good feeling and is therefore good. Anyone can turn to it and receive immediate satisfaction so why go the extra mile blah blah blah I just totally lost my point. I'll fix this when I post this in my other blog. Bah.

I'm not a sheep.

2007-09-30T10:33:00.000+08:00

Marco is one of the most annoying people I know. I'm used to being right most of the time the past nineteen years. This man, however, is used to being right the past twenty-six years. It makes all the difference when the man in question is an intellectual Nazi---and no it doesn't sound as cool when you're on the receiving end of constant intellectual bullying.

I'm not used to being the immature kid in any relationship, romantic or otherwise. I'm usually the practical one, thinking, saying and doing the practical things any situation might require. This gives me an unnecessary and oftentimes overblown self-assurance which turns people off---but I get things done the way I feel the should (not necessarily correct of course) with minimum hitches. But with Marco? Gods.

He fights me every step of the way. Sometimes he's doing it because he believes his way is the righter way, but often he's doing it just for the hell of it. I have a nasty suspicion that he just loves being the one right, even though I am as right as he is. Maybe this is what they're saying about two opposite poles being attracted to each other, but opposite poles my ass. The novelty is wearing off and at this point, I just don't want to argue about abortion or if we should go out on a Saturday or if Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo can be blamed for the staggering numbers of extrajudicial killings in the past six years. Fuckit.

I'm not saying I'm always right because I'm as good as hell not. I don't mind being told I'm wrong, but the telling does not have to have a "you're really dumb do you know that?" undertone to it. It's just plain insulting because whatever I am----vain, self-centered, selfish, egotistic, disorganized, obnoxious, whatever---I am not dumb. There are so many ways to correct or criticize a person without sounding condescending and patronizing. Marco, apparently, is not aware of such methods.

"Why don't you ever listen to me?" he says. In my book, this question translates to: why don't you ever do everything I tell you to?

"Because I'm not a sheep. If you want subservience and meekness in your partner, get a sheep. She can keep you warm at night. If you're hungry, you can cut off her limbs and get a first class dinner," I said to his face.

Songs I Know

2007-08-30T22:34:00.000+08:00

There's particular comfort in knowing that a semblance of eternity can be found in a song. It can be revived, but the original remains. You can go back to it and it wouldn't change---the meaning, the essence, whatever it stood for you when you first heard it. Eternity in a time capsule of melodies. The idea is fascinating.

Whenever I feel particularly sad, I seek solace in the songs I know. They don't have to be good or immortal like The Bohemian Rhapsody, I just have to like them. Songs won't judge nor care who I am and they won't be mad at me if I don't turn out as they expect me to be. They don't have the physiological signs of being alive, but the people that made them live through them. In a sense, songs are like people because they have feelings. What makes them inhuman and thus, perfect, is the fact that these feelings never change.

I have use for feelings that never change. You might think that such feelings are more often than not unneccesarily obstinate in the face of impractical situations, but they can be useful too, in the proper context. Unchanging feelings give a song, and a person, identity. They are something to hold on to. We all need something to hold on to.

Ultimate Super Fantastic Blogging Rule of the Millennium

2007-08-28T00:22:00.000+08:00

You know, I suck. I violate the Ultimate Super Fantastic Blogging Rule of the Millennium: thou shalt reply to comments and visit the commenter's blog. When I began in this blog, I was eager for any comments that might come astray my way. But in my iph blog, comments are a norm and I can't really faithfully follow the Ultimate Super Fantastic Blogging Rule of the Millenium anymore.

Some of them are intelligent and some of them are dumb. I like intelligent comments. Dumb comments make me wonder what-did-I-do-NOW? Rest assured, you people who still read this drivel from your feeds or for old time's sakes, that I try to visit the commenter's blog when I get the chance. I try hard with replying too.

The point of all this? It's PE tomorrow and I'll be jogging eight rounds. I overpicked the nail of the small toe immediately next to the big toe of my right foot, and it kind of hurts. My Converse trainers are hopeless and they look so tee-hee I don't want to be seen in them, so I'm using the pair of Vans I just bought, which means that I'm still breaking them in and they. Hurt. Like. Hell. To use.

Deducing from the above information, we find that PE will be hell tomorrow.

I don't know why I'm still awake. Before I went online (about 11:50 PM), I peed and a random thought occured to me, or rather, a random line: ako ang kunin mo ako ang kunin mo! Familiar eh? That's Kris Aquino before she jumped off the bell tower with that thingy in the movie Sukob. I liked that movie. I thought about the thingy after the magic line. It looks like a malformed bride person with rotten rose petals swirling all over it like there's no lunch tomorrow. Sweet thought at midnight, really.

If I drink, I most probably will be drinking now because I'm lonely. I seem to have a habit of estranging people I love, and it's almost always just a matter of time. It's a bad habit, and I will never be proud of it. I still haven't talked to Betch. I don't know if I should. I'm thinking everything will just fall into place, but I'm also afraid that they won't and then where would I be? I keep on remembering Marchelle, back in freshman highschool. She was a great bestfriend, but because of a trivial reason which I will not disclose because it reminds me if just how horrible a person I am---well, I just stopped talking to her and that one I never fixed. I don't want that to happen again. What the hell, it feels like it is happening again. I'm not doing anything about it because I don't know what to do about it.

Ah, well. Everybody's changing and I don't feel the same, fuckit.

I have a boyfriend. He's nice and supportive and we understand each other pretty well, but sometimes I wish that we understand each other more. I have become acquainted with his view of the world these past few months and admittedly, some of it does not make sense to me (don't ask me what, it's just a general feeling) or I totally disagree with. Maybe I'll get used to it. I do love him, but this asymptotic thinking sometimes makes me feel isolated even when we're together.

My, my. I intended this post to be just a few stray paragraphs long but lookee what we have here! A whole bunch of pathetic, if-I-drink-I-would-be-drinking-now bullshit. When I go this low, I just remember what Sir Ronald, back in junior high, told me---a writer should not feel self-pity. It made sense to me then because I was competing for editorial writing, and editorials should have conviction and an almost arrogant self-confidence to be effective. But now I am competing for a life I want, and I feel sorry for myself.

The mantra, a writer should not feel self-pity, is just a mantra now since I heard it four years ago. It doesn't make sense anymore, but it's comforting to mutter it anyway.

A Depressing Decision

2007-08-24T23:19:00.000+08:00

Right now, I want to stop school. Political science is just not my thing. Sure I'm interested in hearing about European politics, the obsolescence of capitalism, the Indonesian socio-political culture, and how half-baked taxes are the worst things you can do to a country---sure I'm interested. I'm interested in a lazy, heavy-lidded way, like how cats regard a crawling salagubang or how drunk people regard their vomit on the car floor. I'm interested, but right now I am not willing to spend another goddamned year and a half studying political bullshit as if I'll remember it after graduation. You know and I know that I won't.

It's frustrating. I want to stop college, but that decision will make my parents very, very sad. Education is an important advantage to anyone these days, that much I can't deny; neither can I deny that it's their most important and lasting gift to me. Maybe going through this mental drudgery everyday will pay off someday, but right now? I'm just a whole bunch of tired and bored with this gig. The only things that keep me going are my parents' expectations of me and the vision of their happy and proud faces when I get my diploma.

Should I shift? The answer should be yes. The problem is, I don't want to do another couple of years. I can take comparative literature, fine arts, philosophy, or maybe fashion design, but I don't want to, now that I'm this near to getting my plastic sash in a year or so. I guess I'm sticking with political science like a limatig with no cigarette smoke for miles.

Whatever. This depressing decision still doesn't stop me from wishing I'm working in a decent office getting decent pay right now. It doesn't stop me from wishing that everyone should just go to hell and let me be a starving artiste in the streets of Belgium. I don't mind being a basket-maker in Polynesia, a cobbler in Copenhagen, a septic tank cleaner in New York, heck, maybe even go to Nepal and raise llamas if that's what it takes! So long as I'm not here right now.

Hoarder

2007-08-20T16:18:00.001+08:00

I'm a hoarder. I like, no, love hoarding things as if the holocaust will descend on me tomorrow. This habit might be a useful thing if the things I hoard can be used to help me survive in a holocaust, but no. Can 200 odd books, a closet full of clothes, art supplies, make-up and tons of paper shield me from radioactive fallout and the decline of civilization? A rugby boy would have a better chance in hell.

I do it unconsciously. Last time I had a really bad itch, I went to two second-hand bookstores and ended up blowing my dough on fifteen books, three of which I think I haven't even read yet. It wasn't a planned thing, really. I saw one book by Alduous Huxley, and then another by H.P. Lovecraft, and I was lost. A sales lady looked at my pile increduously and asked whether I'm doing it for a school requirement. Of course I wasn't, and it gave me a smug pleasure to say it. I love reading, and I'm rather proud of it.

I don't like throwing things away even if the chance of them being useful is as thin as an anorexic. I rationalize and rationalize and put off throwing my junk until they pile up in my room and eventually gather a thin film of dust. I have a tendency to hold on obstinately to my material belongings and why? I don't know. All I know is that I'll feel bad if I won't ever see them again.

Never Been Madder

2007-08-19T02:14:00.000+08:00

Maybe opposite poles attract, but when they eventually find that being opposite poles isn't as glamorous and romantic as they thought it would be, they get bored. The cohesiveness falls apart along with the initial fascination. It could be anything, but I'm sure that's not love.

I always thought that a connection between two people supposedly in love covers far more than physical attraction. Intellecual attraction is far more important, because after all the kissing and the snuggling and the anything-you-can-think-of, all that would be left is conversation. If two people in love can't pull that one off properly, I believe that they are in love for all the wrong reasons.

I've always been after the perfect fit. I don't settle for so-so fits, okay fits, blah blah fits—just the perfect fit. But maybe, just maybe, I settled for a so-so fit. It's causing me unbelievable amounts of stress and angst. I don't like stress and angst is overrated. It's wearing me out. I don't want to stick to someone just because I want to prove all my friends wrong. I'm sure there's a bigger reason other than that and this so-called love. I just can't figure out what it is right now.

Let's hope I figure it later, after this tantrum has worn off.

Tell me, am I boring? Do I have to know all about concepts such as Web 2.0? Do I have to be damn good in Photoshop? Tell me, what should I do to be interesting and to deserve some of your time online? Maybe a video of me doing cartwheels would do the trick. I can't do cartwheels, but I might try and me falling flat on my ass might amuse you.

I have never been this mad for a long time. I don't cry often either. But just for making me mad and making me cry a bit, don't expect to hear from me for a long time. Hit the caps lock, turn on the fuck meter—the only time you actually care enough to tell me something in more than two sentences is when you're mad at me, so what the hell.

A State of Calamity

2007-08-13T00:25:00.001+08:00

It's just like one of those rains: blustery and cold, loud and crass, forgettable. It was met with celebration. Water levels have reached critical and we Filipinos love our baths, after all. People have been panicking about the Angat Dam, rice supplies, the next exam, and unicorns. And then it rains. Hard. Celebration morphs to tragedy as several municipalities were declared under a State of Calamity.

Including mine.

I just found out a few minutes ago actually. Apparently, several areas surrounding our subdivision have been flooded. It's on the news—footages of people looking miserable in a bastketball court, sitting on the cold cement as the mayor makes a pathetic show of bravura in front of the lenses. Right now, I don't feel pity for them, although I know exactly how they are feeling (much too exactly to like it really). I just feel this big relief that me and my dogs are not one of them. It's fucking horrible to be one of them.

I was one of them last year, although I am definitely less fortunate because I spent half of Milenyo swallowing mounting panic as water rose to almost five feet inside our bungalow. My other dog, Hector, was stupid enough to not know how to swim and so clung for dear life in a window ledge, wherefrom I rescued him by pulling his ass through the grill. Realizing that the water won't stop rising anytime soon, me, my brother and my mom swam outside to a wall to sit on it for a couple of hours.

It's not very nice sitting on a wall, especially when it's raining lightly and all you have about you is a soggy jacket. I worried about my clothes. I worried about that CPU mom dropped in the muddy water. I worried about my stationery set, which I spent half my life collecting, and which also shared the fate of the CPU. Amongst all this tragic anxieties, I decided to save my dogs. I swam back to the house to get Hector, who scratched my face; and I swam to the garage to get Bogart, who was more sensible than Hector because she intelligently perched on a floating couch. Yes, we kept a couch in the garage. After the rescue attempt, I started worrying about my hair because the water was as filthy as such found in a toilet bowl.

After the deluge, we spent two weeks cleaning the house. The waters left mud which was two to three inches thick and was very, very difficult to remove. I'll spare you my life story and just tell you that it wasn't a goddamned field trip. Not a goddamned field trip at all.

I hope it doesn't happen again. But fat chance. When I get my own place, I'll live in a condo at the 27th floor if that's what it takes.

The Stuff of Fairy Tales

2007-07-08T14:08:00.000+08:00

I grew up with fairytales. My mom loved buying me books with them in it, and one could say that they motivated me to read until my eyes are the sorry mess they are now. Princesses and magical toads, shimmering castles and Prince Charmings—these things fascinated me when I was little, and they still do. Not that I believe in magic nor am I a hopeless romantic, but the stuff of fairy tales are more exciting than the stuff of real life, and thus, more real.

Sometime in the early 90's, an aunt of mine brought home a thick book of fairy tales, with Sinbad, Aladdin, Snow White, Cinderella, and even Bluebeard living inside its pages. No, it has none of the sugary nonsense of Disney retellings with happily ever afters ending each story. It has big words and small text. It has blood and gore, and is often morbid. I found out the real nature of whimsical fairy tales: not all of them ends happily, and most of those that do tell sad stories anyway.

The Little Mermaid, for one, is the saddest story I know. In the original version. she didn't end up getting married to her Prince, and in the first place it wasn't only the Prince she wanted, she wanted an immortal soul too. When the Prince got married to another girl, her deal with the Sea Witch came to a conclusion, and the conclusion is death by sunrise. Her mermaid sisters attempted to save her by giving their beautiful hair to the witch in exchange for a magical dagger. This dagger can give her back her tail and her three centuries of mermaid lifetime. The way to use it, however, is to stick it in the sleeping Prince until his blood pools at her feet and turns into her tail. Of course she couldn't do it, and by the time she decided so, the sun was already rising. She turned into sea foam.

That is not the ending to the story though; it turned out that there is another way to attain an immortal soul other than marrying a human being. Read the story by Hans Christian Andersen to find out.

There are online sources where you can find the complete text of The Little Mermaid, but having a book in your hands and reading it on paper is far better than in a monitor don't you think? It saves you eyes for one. At Powerbooks, you can find Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales translated by Tina Nunnally and Jackie Wullschlager. It's a collection of Andersen's fairy tales, from the well-known (The Ugly Duckling, Thumbelina, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Steadfast Tin Soldier) to the almost obscure (The Red Shoes, The Ice Maiden, The Traveling Companion, The Nightingale), among others. One of my favorites stories is The Red Shoes. It's unbelievably gory. Oh oh! Trivia: Hans Christian Andersen is gay. It turns out that some of his stories were made to express his homoerotic frustrations. Interesting eh?

Parting shot: maybe the reason why I like fairy tales so much (besides my obvious glee with them being twisted after all), is that I want a fairy tale life for myself. Gowns of eiderdown and shoes made of glass—itchy clothing and uncomfortable footwear—small price to pay for a life in a fairy story. I guess Prince Charmings can be icky little beasts after all, but as long as the castle has electricity and good plumbing, I'm cool. Else this fairy tale nonsense is stretching it a bit too far.

Dorm?

2007-07-08T14:05:00.000+08:00

The commute to Manila from Cavite and back is killing me. For the first time in my college life, I am seriously considering getting a dorm. Maybe for the past three years, too many people started living in Cavite and buses started breaking down; maybe my schedule simply sucks; or maybe I'm just really old and I have no more stamina or patience for five hours of travel everyday.

You heard it—five hours. It used to be only three hours. But now the traffic is the shiznit! I mean just last Monday I spent 45 minutes in one spot. Record breaking. To top it off I was standing up along the aisle. If that happens again I swear I'm gonna give up college and just raise chickens somewhere in Bukidnon. I hear they don't have roads there.

I'm thinking, I can do a lot of things with five hours. You know, study, read the handouts (although seriously just looking at that pile of photocopied pages depresses me within seconds), go to the zoo, go to Divisoria, stuff. Lots of stuff. I'm wasting 25 hours every week, or to put it in a sadder manner, one day every week goes up in an unproductive puff of air. Not that I'll get productive if someone gave me that day back after Sunday, but you get my drift. It's 25 hours of solid exhaustion while on the road.

Mary is thinking of the same thing. She wants to get a dorm too and I'm all too happy to share a room with her; she's the kind of roomate one would not mind having. She has a laptop, and my phone has 3G. I think we're good to go. Now all I need is to 1) find a cheap, nice, quiet place 2) convince my mom to let me live there 3) convince myself to live there. I'm just really really tired right now and it's just the second month of the first semester. I have to start maximizing my time.

Meaning, I have to start sleeping more. Twenty-five hours of extra sleep? Not bad.

Some Stupid Fight Last Night

2007-06-30T09:20:00.000+08:00

I'm so fucked up. I don't know what I want and I don't know where to go. I keep on hesitating about my feelings. I keep holding back. That is no way to run a relationship. The only way I can think of doing is to just end it.

Why am I like this? Sure I love him, I definitely do. But I have to find a way to get used to it. Fast.

Back

2007-06-29T22:00:00.000+08:00

My blogger has just been revived like a regurgitated piece of crap from an ancient toilet. Okay, metaphor sucks I know. I just figured out how to sign in using my Gmail account so now we're back in business! I'll be using this as frequently as I can manage.

You see, this is my first blog love. My i.ph blog never really measured up to the quiet drama of this blog. There I have to blogwhore, which means that I can't say just anything I feel like saying. I have to please my readers, the few who are left anyway. I'm at home here, and to risk cheesiness, I always will be.

I'll repost my i.ph posts here, but I'll put in some random, non-reader friendly posts just to let them out. I doubt anyone still goes here. So what. That's the freedom of it.

Anyway, I just came home from class and I'm really tired. Can't write anything proper. Until next time.

Yogurt Is The Absolute EVIL

2007-04-19T09:43:00.000+08:00

The other night, my mom got home from the grocery and gave me a cup of yogurt with yummy strawberry chunks. This is all very well and I was enjoying myself while watching Lupin (yes, I watch Lupin and all those other corny blah during prime time when I get the chance). I never really was fond of yogurt in my younger years because I always imagined it tastes like sour piss. I think I have in fact tasted piss when I was a kid. So sue me.

Anyway, I gave half of that yogurt thingy to my mom because I rediscovered that I still dislike yogurt after all. So much for paradigm shifts hunh? I just went online and chatted with my online friends. And then suddenly! My stomach got all queasy. The bad kind of queasy. I typed 'brb' and ran to the bathroom and before shutting the door, I grabbed the business section of The Philippine Daily Inquirer. I had a satisfying read about blog marketing. Very interesting shit. Anyway, my communion with the toilet ended in no time and I was back in front of the computer.

Soon enough, my stomach had an unscheduled coup d' etat, again. Horrible. I have a fairly healthy digestive life, which simply means that my tummy doesn't act up as much as it should, compared with other people. It really distresses me when things like this happen. I slept with a bad stomach and woke up with pretty much the same. That is why I was in all black, emo, brink-of-bitch-fit mode yesterday. A bad tummy to me is more than equivalent to a bad menstruation day. Ugh.

I swear never to eat yogurt again. Well..real yogurt anyway. I still have a thing for Dutch Mill. Thank the gods for Immodium.

Lights

2007-04-15T18:38:00.000+08:00

I look out of the train window and find the world condensed into a few dots of moving lights. The cars, jeeps, buses and trucks below wearily inch their way towards their destination, and they bring their lights with them until they fade away into the distance, replaced by new lights.

Something about city lights attracts me like a moth to a gasoline lamp. They are brilliant and twinkling like stars, only nearer, and I am drawn, awed. Imagine how civilization used to consist of scattered fires over windswept plains, and the gods would peer over the world and see Man as the small and dirty animals we are. But now we’re small and dirty animals with concrete cities and magnificent lights to cover our smallness and filth. The gods may have withdrawn to their smoking rooms a little less smug.

I think about all this as I stare out, hypnotized. The background hum of the people swaying in the train dies out, the smell of dried sweat blown around by the jacked up air-conditioning ceases to bother me.

Happy and Comfy?

2007-04-15T18:33:00.000+08:00

People almost always know how to solve their problems. But sometimes, the solution is too good for comfort, hence they ignore it and keep on trying inferior solutions which may only solve the problem partially, not solve it at all, or even make it worse. This is a pretty awful mindset, but it exists.

Everybody is a fan of comfort and it is probably one of the harder things in life to give up, because it takes so fucking long and too fucking hard to get it. ‘Comfort’ is subjective---a comfortable relationship for me involves me being able to fart in front of the guy like there’s no tomorrow, or pick my nose, or drool sticky icky-smelling saliva, or talk about the questions of the universe over a bunch of fries and floats. If I can do that with you, then I will find it very hard to leave you. That’s comfort for me. For you it may be doing your Fries-in-Nose demo in front of the girlfriend and not feel self-conscious at all. Depends. And I don’t say that only because it’s a safe answer.

When the comfort is lost, then there is a problem. The human brain goes: oh noes there’s a problem and my comfort zone is violated! What do I do what do I do what do I do! Oh I know! I won’t do anything or just do this thing which I am sure will not make me lose more comfort zone ground. Nevermind if another better solution exists---I can’t. Too hard. But thing is, something that makes you comfortable does not necessarily make you happy, and vice versa. And this is where the concept of strength comes in.

Giving up comfort requires strength. But strength allows you to pursue happiness. Like I’ve mentioned above, happiness and comfort aren’t synonymous. If given a choice, I would rather be happy and strong than comfortable and weak, because I’m still stupid like that.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: reorganize your priorities. Think about what makes you comfy as opposed to what makes you happy. Then junk that bitch of a girlfriend and move on with your life. If not, stop griping and hold your tongue until a random seizure twists your body into a horrible position and you die of choking on your saliva. Something like that.

It Is or It Isn't

2007-04-13T15:59:00.000+08:00

I said somewhere hereabouts that I don't like explaining. People are supposed to get me the first try, and if they don't? I shut up and give a blank smile. The problem is out of my hands, and I rarely try harder than the first try.

It could be months. Years. Decades. So think hard.

Mindsoup

2007-04-12T11:20:00.000+08:00

Manong, wag!

Brain dead at about 9.30 last night, I heard a short scream from a girl sitting behind me on a bus. A tallish man in a blue shirt and a cap bolted down the bus as it came to a sudden stop. I looked around in confusion and found the other passengers doing the same, trying to figure out what happened within the five seconds at the start of the scream to the blur of a body jumping off in a rush.

A busybody asked the girl—what happened? Cellphone stolen. What model? 6600. Good thing he didn't have a weapon with him. "I have a cut," she says.

That line, no one seemed to hear. The busybody (a guy) sitting in front of me was regaling the other passengers about how the same thing happened last week, and how he wanted to tell people to keep their phones in their pockets because he knew it would happen, he was, and he would've grabbed the isnatser if there were more men in the vehicle (there was three, includng him). He asked me if I was also using my cellphone that time and I just gave him a tight smile, no. See, I was too tired to.

He went on. It was pretty annoying, and half of his story may simply be a lie. It was annoying but quite comforting. I know it was just a cellphone and it was just a cut, but I suddenly felt very mortal. And alone. The wind was blowing on my face and the night was a little humid so during the bus ride, i took my jacket off. Five minutes after the five-second incident, I surreptitiously wore it again and held on to the irritating voice of the busybody-tall storyteller.

For Manoy

2007-04-10T12:11:00.000+08:00

I know we don't get to communicate as much as we used to nowadays because college does that to people. We live separate, different lives now---and we are separate different people, now. I know we both miss the times when everything was simple and we can talk under the narra trees of our high school as if nothing would ever change. But more importantly, I do know that we both do not want to go back there. We are loving our lives too much now, already.

You don't have best friends. But you are probably one of the bestest friends I ever had, and much of my damaged but pragmatic thinking can be attributed to you. The matters of the heart and the mind fucks I'm having now is not something I panic about anymore---if I ever panicked. It's been years man. We're not uniformly close throughout but you've been an ubiquitous figure in my life for the past, I dunno, twelve years? Shit. Twelve years.

You deserve more than three paragraphs. But really? All I ever have to say about this has been said---this is just for posterity, for when my memory fails me (as it usually does, meh). Emo shit! Just call me up, you know where to reach me. And please visit my house this summer ha? I'll cook spaghetti! And let's do that movie marathon. Maybe not this summer because I'm kind of busy but you're there, I'm here, we're never very far.

I so suck at birthdays y'know? Like a lot. What I'm trying to say is, you're legal! Happy birthday honey.

Dance, Dance

2007-04-07T07:02:00.000+08:00

Contrary to popular belief, I am a very shy person. It comes off as being mataray or suplada, and honestly? I encourage that. It makes me sound less weak. So when I pass you by in a corridor without so much as a side glance, it’s not that I’m doing the snub routine. It’s either I didn’t see you, I honestly did not remember you, or I’m too shy to say hi. Yea. Go snort.

So I surprise myself when I find me dancing in public. Its starts with a harmless tapping of the fingers, and then of the toes, and before I even notice it, my hips start to shake to the beat. I forget about being shy. With the right music, I can do this anywhere!

Here’s the list of songs I’ve been dancing to lately, anytime, anywhere:

1. Monkey Baby by the Scissor Sisters (monkeh babeh why you lookin’ at me? monkeh babeh why don’ you climb that tree?)
2. Good Boys by the Scissor Sisters featuring Goldie (good boys never win, good boys never wi-in!)
3. My Coco by Stellastarr (my Co-co-co!)
4.This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race by Fallout Boy

I danced My Coco while mom was buying sans rival from the bakery at the mall the other day. It was a good dance, considering that I’m having my first-day period and the dysmenorrhea was acting up just in time. Cramps and all, I felt pretty good about the whole show. To hell with people who were looking. I say, get a life. Everyone’s got the right to bop whenever they feel like it.

If people danced more to their private beats, then I think this’ll be a happier place to be. To fuck with smooth moves and right timing. It’s all about the dance, all about the music. Do it as self-expression and not as self-repression, which happens when you dance for other people rather than for yourself.

And it’s also good for the PMS, I swear.

Nineteen Forever

2007-04-05T10:55:00.000+08:00

Summer mornings like this one, the pace of my life slows down.

The next two months are bound to be interesting. I’ll be working in Ortigas the whole time for an internship gig, which will not be counted for my course at all, but which I will do anyway because I’m after the experience and the lessons that will come with it. Also to avoid boredom and the seasonal brain death during April and May, duh.

I started work yesterday. I didn’t do much, the HR lady just asked me to read the company policies and to look around. I surfed the net the whole day and acquainted myself with Linux. I was also introduced to my officemates blah blah all very mundane really. I like the place, I like the people, I like Ortigas. It looks definitely more comfortable than Manila, hah! There are like three malls within walking distance from the office (Robinson’s Galleria, SM Megamall, The Podium) and there are plenty of restaurants down the street. Commuting is relatively easy since I take the train everyday. So all in all? It’s cool.

I got there 30 minutes early so I decided to get some coffee from the Starbucks down the street. I thought I needed extra energy and really, coffee makes me a bit more sociable than I normally am. So I really, really thought it was a good idea. Not. I spilled some coffee over my white ribbed jacket and pink spaghetti top, and to add it up, I was more than a bit tipsy when I left the accursed coffee shop! Coffee does that to me, unfortunately. So while I was on the elevator all the way to the 27th floor, I was dizzy and buzzed and generally out of sorts. Woot, first day and drunk!

But I guess I handled it pretty well. The dizziness went away early in the afternoon and the only proofs of my misdeed are the stains and the coffee stink that clung to my clothes. Well okay it did not stink, but the smell was quite strong. So there.

You’re just jealous cos we’re young and in love
You’re just jealous cos we’re young and in love
You’re just jealous cos we’re young and in love.

These lines are from Brand New’s song Soco Amaretto Lime. Perfect for today. Sky’s a little dark, smoke wafting from burning leaves in the backyard, birds chirping like mad, the smell of coming rain---there’s something slow and sad about everything today.

Just jealous cos we’re young and in love

I’m young alright, but not in love.

Shiny Black Balloon

2007-04-01T19:16:00.000+08:00

I dislike kids. They’re mewling little things with fully intact egos, and that means they still believe the world revolves around them. Right, I don’t hate them. Just this mild dislike---me being a girl at this point in my life when my maternal instinct supposedly awakes, I guess it’s weird.

Maybe I dislike them because they require too much patience. That’s why I never wanted to be a nurse or a teacher; I just don’t fit the mold, and I don’t think I even ever did when I was littler. You know when you’re young and you want to be everything? I wanted to be an astronaut, a broadcaster, a writer, a corporate lawyer. You’d notice these professions have very minimal, if any, to do with kids. I don’t think that’ll change any decade now.

So that’s why I get really annoyed when my mom gives me her standard Don’t Get Pregnant for the Stupid Life of You Sermon. Why the hell would I want a kid of my own? When she gives me the sermon she makes it sound like making babies is primary goal of my life. I can’t even stand kids and my younger cousins are scared of me. I know she’s concerned about me and all that, especially now when teenage pregnancy is all the rage. But the concern is useless.

I think only stupid girls get unwanted pregnancy these days (barring rape victims of course). Sex education is very accessible today---you can find it on television, on the Internet, in classes, and hear about it from experienced peers. If you don’t get it you’re living in the wrong decade.

Of course I’m generalizing, but I hold that sex is not as taboo as it used to be say five years ago. People talk about it, people do it, and no one is about to stop. Everyone supposedly knows that getting a bare penis in a bare vagina has a very high chance of producing a baby. Everyone supposedly knows that a baby means care and attention, and time, and money---basically demands the mother’s life out of her. You don’t make one too early unless you’re willing to give up schooling, and a lot of other convenient things like respect from other people.

And that is what contraceptives are for. If you can’t control the urge to copulate, then bring a condom about your person at all times. Any non-stupid girl should know that. And because they know that, they don’t get pregnant. And you know what? I’m a non-stupid girl, in this regard.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t do it. If I did do it I’ll probably tell people because I see nothing wrong with premarital sex. I haven’t done it so far because I’m not interested in it. See, I’m a boring bitch who’s hedonistic, but not of the physical sort. Intellect can give me an orgasm, because I’m all cold like that.

So I wish my mom would stop giving me that sermon. I don’t like kids and I don’t do sex. If I can get those two points across, maybe she would trust me more. And quit ruining my Sundays.

Mister Rainbow Unicorn

2007-03-30T22:34:00.000+08:00

Meet my new friend, Mister Ru. He’s a stuffed animal. I don’t particularly like stuffed animals, but someone gave him to me and I like free stuff. So Mister Ru is okay with me. And as K’s Choice hits it: everything’s alright, stuffed animals are always right.

Because I’m crazy and shit and school’s over and I feel inspired, here’s a little interview with the one and only Mister Ru.

Me: do you like the name I gave you, Mister Rainbow Unicorn?

Mr Ru: no you fucking shit don’t you see I’m a dog? If you wanted a rainbow unicorn you should have tole the person who bought me!

Me: well how could I have guessed someone’s giving me a stuffed toy? The last time was like, five years ago dude.

Mr Ru: shut up. I don’t like the name because it makes me sound confused with my identity. I know you want to sound cute by naming me cute, but come on. Rainbow unicorn what the fuck!

Me: well do you want to be named Mister Fluffy? Mister Doggy? Mister Peepee? Mister…

Mister Ru: next question, bitch.

Me: okay. why do you sound so nasty?

Mr Ru: because I am a being born of air and light and existentialism. I have a big ego and being cute is not helping. I can get away with anything I want to say, because I am me and I am invincible.

Me: hmkay. Do you watch Super Twins?

Mr Ru: that show? Never seen anything more idiotic since my production date. Do you?

Me: as a matter of fact, I sorta do.

Mr Ru: get a toner and a social life, dear.

Me: what?

Mr Ru: your eye bags are horrible and your skin tone is uneven. In short, you look horrible.

Me: I have never taken any beauty advice from any stupid stuffed animal.

Mr Ru: well missy now you are.

Me: oh what’s the worse thing you can do to me you dumb fuck?!

Mr Ru: I can tell everyone about that time you…

Me: You know Hector and Bogart?

Mr Ru: yeah they’re your real dogs.

Me: they eat everything, especially soft stuff, like cloth and stuffing and fake fur.

Mr Ru: …

Me: they never had indigestion.

Mr Ru: if my giver hears anything about this…!

Me: then your giver will just smile at me and get beaten in thumb wrestling. Which would be, great.

Mr Ru: you’re boring AND pathetic. Get a life.

Me: I will, as soon as I remove that smug smile from your cloth lips.

Mr Ru: fuck off.

Me: (lame) you too.

Beyond Tied Tongues and Euphemisms

2007-03-27T23:21:00.000+08:00

I think there's something sad about stars. They are basically small pinpricks of light that traveled thousands and thousands of years for us puny Earthmen to admire on clear, humid nights. The stars are, from our point of observation, just a few centimeters apart. But in reality, they are lightyears from each other, and lonely. As far as we are concerned, they are brilliant and awe-inspiring. But what about them? How might their massive nuclei hearts feel as they grow old and die---alone? Immortality, even just a few millenia of it, exacts a savage price. The price of detachment, and stubborn fatalism.

I don't look at stars too often. They're covered by the roofs and trees of the subdivision I live in, and in Manila they are covered by the city lights and the smog. They say witnessing another's misery is comforting. I don't know, it doesn't work now. And why bother looking at stars when we are like stars already in our own unfortunate right?

And so we are like stars. Near, far, and lonely. We are beyond tied tongues and euphemisms now. We're running out of time. But I do not regret anything, I am not sorry for anything, and I do not hate or blame anyone for anything. This is just how things go. And because I'm so smart, I know how they would end.

Horribly.

Squished!

2007-03-26T20:19:00.000+08:00

I have nothing against fat people, but I have something against fat people who sit beside me on buses with especially narrow seats. Like this afternoon. The heat was suffocating already, but after this humongous man sat beside me, space and air became a thoroughly serious problem.

I mean, I know I'm quite petite and I am really a logical choice for fat people to sit beside with. But I can take it if it happens, at the most, once a week. But the last time I came home from Manila (last Saturday) another fatty sat beside me! And it's the Cavite bus with the narrowest seat ever. Shit. I'm supposed to be used to it by now, but is it just me, or the cosmos are conspiring against my petite little curly self?

So karma. Maybe this is karma. Good enough explanation, since I have been a not-so-nice girl lately. Well okay shut up I'm not-so-nice usually, but the intensity has increased along with the heat. Karma, okay, I can take that. But please please not more than once a week!

Me, distressed, to say the very least.

Offspring of the Tofu

2007-03-23T20:01:00.000+08:00

There are plenty of the books lying around the floor of my room (duh, what is new?). I spot titles like Conan and the Amazon, The Once and Future King, School of Hard Knocks and Clan of Cave Bear. It suddenly strikes me that they are diverse. Too diverse? Is there such a thing as too diverse, and if there is, is it something to be proud of?

I picked up a dusty, random book. Beloved, by Tony Morrison. One of the books I place under the ‘disturbing’ category, aha. I remember Richard Bach saying that opening any page of a book, any book, would tell you what you need to hear. Give you advice even. Here goes shit:

Page 255, second paragraph: she said she was always a little scared of my daddy. He was too good, she said. From the beginning she said, he was too good for the world. Scared her.

Page 172, first paragraph: …fact was she knew more about them than she knew about herself, having never had the map to discover what she was like.

Page 173, first paragraph: It’s better here, but I’m not.

I say, by all means, tofu is good for a person’s body. It has lots of healthy stuff in it which I shall name once I find my elementary PEHM book. Lots of healthy stuff really, but if you deep fry it and eat it with liberal amounts of soy sauce, I think the benefits may cancel out with too much salt and cholesterol.

I’m a fan of salty foods. Thus, I can’t live without patis or toyo complementing my meal unless absolutely unavoidable (read: Italian or American restaurants). I put patis in mechado, kaldereta, ginisang munggo, sinigang, menudo, omelettes, corned beef, etc. Toyo plays a lesser role, but it’s more available when I eat out than patis.

The point of all this inane chatter is not this: when someone tells you something then takes it back, and tells it again and takes it back, and so on, you can’t help but believe this thing that is taken back more than you’d (rather) believe the thing not taken back.

Anak ng tokwa, it’s either it is or it isn’t! It can’t be it is and it isn’t, or if it is then it isn’t. You can get yourself into a logic fuck and not get out sane, that way.

Light and dark, Dark and Light

2007-03-21T10:30:00.000+08:00

Yeah I dunno what I'm doing here either but keep the giggles to yourself and nobody will get hurt. Understood? What was that...!

Pensive.

The Brilliant Dance

2007-03-19T05:23:00.000+08:00

Me: [looks up to the sky, notices dark clouds gathering in the horizon] Ma, it looks like it's gonna rain

Mom: [looks down to the ground, sees the weak raindrops make marks on the cement] it's raining already.

I get dumb like that often. I have a habit of not noticing the obvious. It’s just that when I observe something, the rest of the world falls off without warning. Not good, I know. That’s why I lose 40% of my stuff and never find them.

Being oblivious has it’s up side, though. Zaphod Beeblebrox, this totally froody character from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series has glasses that darken whenever something dangerous happens within his field of vision. That way he doesn’t see anything that might cause him anxiety. Set aside the fact that he might lose his life in the process of not being anxious, but you get the drift. Being oblivious is fun, especially when this thing that you have to notice and feel bad about passes by with minimum negative effects. You feel relaxed, and fine, and healthy. And dumb.

But forget about the dumb part. I can be oblivious to that, too.

So it’s a Sunday. Have I mentioned that I dislike Sundays? With the schedule I have this semester, the days I dislike are Wednesdays and Sundays. They’re the days of the week when I have no classes which equates to not being able to get out of the house. Boring, with a capital G. I have a feeling this wanting-to-get-out-of-the-house thing is a relatively new phenomena, that I use to want to haunt this shiznit rather than see the sun, but I dunno. I don’t remember.

Oh fuck, I so don’t remember a lot of things right now. This slow Sunday afternoon, I feel as if I don’t have a care in the world. I know I should. There are papers to pass, finals to study for. I even remember what they are wow! But they don’t bother me the way they should a typical 19-year old kid experiencing the throes of her last semester as a college sophomore. Stress, bah. That comes later.

Getting Hit and Crossing Streets

2007-03-16T08:58:00.000+08:00

I'm not accident-prone, but I've had a few experiences. I remember when I was younger and loved watermelons. I was waiting for my mom in a curb somewhere with the watermelons she brought in the market when one of them rolled towards the road. Me being stupid, I went after it and the moral lesson of this story is: don't go after a watermelon which rolled towards the road.

I get nervous when crossing the street alone. I get more nervous when crossing the street with people walking beside me. I have this belief that while I am not very capable when crossing even on a Ped Xing, the people with me are definitetly dumber and will get me killed along them. Considering how Filipinos are a happy-go-lucky species, they tend to overestimate their lifespan. I get anxious when they overestimate it along mine.

See I'm quite careless. I might have this subconscious belief that I am invincible and lucky (although I tell myself I don't believe in, bah, luck), thus resulting in uncalled-for recklessness. Please do not, I repeat, do not be surprised when you find out poor Liz died in a hit-and-run. I am fairly stupid like that.

The ABC of Questions

2007-03-14T10:38:00.000+08:00

A. When you ask a question and you get a ‘yes’ for an answer, and a ‘maybe’ when you ask it again, the real answer is ‘no’. This also goes vice versa. Example: do you like me? Yes. Really now you do? Maybe, I dunno. This is a world of yeses and nos. The grey shades may lie in between, but there is a yes and no, generally. Know how to feel it out; unfortunately this requires a lot of cynicism on your part and a lot of vulnerability on the other person’s.

B. The best way to not answer a question is to ask another question. However, this strategy does not work if the said snotty person knows it’s a strategy. Do it subtly. Shift the conversation to a neutral topic. The best way to do this discretely would be to ask a question regarding something you know is more important to the other person than knowing this important thing about you.

C. Don’t ask a question which you might not want to hear the answer to. Some people are silly enough to destroy their illusions this way. Because you see, some things are better left unsaid and some people do not have the strength to hear them. If you know they’re there in the Other Dimension of Unsaid Slithering Things, and you even unfortunately know what they are, then you know what to do already. Stop being a smartass and stop asking. Being sure is a foolish talent.

Book Season

2007-03-11T12:13:00.000+08:00

So yeah, you might have noticed that the posts here for the past month or so characterized a period of intense soul-searching by truly yours. What the fuck did I just say soul-searching? It's nice to know I have a soul to search really, considering how much I care about the afterlife. Which is, nil.

I'm emo in a flat, sarcastic, matter-of-fact sort of way (which is not that much of emo if you ask me). But the recent posts shame me to the tips of my cuticles. You know how the back of your neck tingles and your cheeks heat up whenever you say something you know is embarrassing but has to be said anyway? That's how I've been feeling about the last posts. I say to myself: konti na lang, pagkasabi mo neto hindi mo na kailangang sabihin ulit kahit kanino, kahit sa sarili mo everytime. See, some things have to be let out. Some.

So now I'm closing this dumb chapter of my life and move on to having (humor me!) intelligent conversation with you. School's coming to a close, and I now have time for books. Since this year I think I've only finished one decent book, and considering my track record, that is so pathetic! Pathetic I tell you! Books are my life and love and all that.

So, as per schedule, I am rummaging through my library to reread the best books I have in my collection. Since I am nice and all, I am inviting you to go to my house and rummage with me. I'll lend you anything.

But not The Death of Ivan Illych and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoi. Betch has it. Also my Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Andy has it. Also the Wind In the Door by Madeleine L'Engle. Mishee has it. Also not my hardbound Treasury of Science Fiction---Ting has it. You evil, evil people!

The Pokers

2007-03-10T04:52:00.000+08:00

We live in strange times.

We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say things like, ‘Oh hi, Ed! Nice tan. How’s Carol?’ involves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the contemplation of the chaos through which they seethe and tumble. So give your kid a break, OK?

Extract from Practical Parenting in a Fractally Demented Universe

-from Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams

Parents are crazy animals. You live with them for nineteen years and for some unfathomable reason, they don’t understand why you are what you are and why you do what you do. Who the funk said that parents are instant psychologists? Psychologist, my ass! They’re just being nosy and know-it-all. Come to think of it, isn’t that what psychologists are paid to do?

Like yesterday morning, I was quietly and happily eating breakfast, making peace with the world, when this conversation ensued:

Mama: Break na kayo ni Geronimo no?
Me: [calmly says to self] My, what a wonderful piece of egg!
Mama: Break na kayo no?
Me: Whee this is fun! For some reason Ma finally remembered to salt the damn thing.
Mama: Break na kayo di ba?
Me: Easy on the rice, luv, you’re sorta gaining again.
Mama: Bakit ba hindi ka sumasagot, break na kayo no?
Me: Fuck, but I want another piece of ham! Where’s the ketchup fer chrissakes?
Mama: [pikon na] Break na kayo!
Me: [finally stops holding crazy convo with self and talks to mother] No comment.
Mama: Sabi ko na nga ba eh, ang showbiz mo naman.
Me: No comment, Ma.
Mama: Sus, sabi na nga ba eh, sa susunod dapat mahal ka talaga! Ang dali mo kasing makuha eh.
Me: [highly annoyed] Ma pwede ba wag kang magsalita ng ganyan, hindi mo alam kung anong sinasabi mo! Wag ka na lang mag-komento.

This ruined my morning. Why does she have to say insensitive things like that? There are so many other things she can tell me, so many other ways to poke. But she just has to find the one sore side, eh? The sorest side.

But I can sortof understand why she did that. Lately we haven’t been talking much, because as we all know, February-March are the hell months for those who find themselves unfortunately still in school. I’ve been busy, not only with school, but in other ehem aspects of my rather boring life. But. I still didn’t deserve that. Or did I?

Now I was supposed to write a long rant regarding parents and their eccentricities, but for some reason I lost interest. I’m a forgiving sort of person really. After breakfast.

Fascinating Fact, My Ass

2007-03-07T08:30:00.000+08:00

For some reason, I was really interested in food yesterday. Yes, I’m the sort of person who can choose to be interested or not in food. Food to me, lately, is just about as attractive as a doorknob: you wouldn’t mind too much if it’s not around, but you need it anyway. But yesterday I was all for eating.

So during lunch I went to my favorite stall in the cafeteria (closely contested by the stall behind it which sells Corn Bits Special) and was happily surprised that besides pancit palabok, lomi, arroz caldo, spaghetti, siomai and carbonara they are now selling (drum roll please) macaroni salad! I ordered a plate, along with some siomai. I am very fascinated by the fact that I am the only person I know who eats siomai and macaroni salad at the same time---in alternate mouthfuls, at that.

Truth be told, paper tastes better than their so-called macaroni salad. When I mentioned this to Betch, she was very surprised because to her I looked like I was having the time of my life consuming it. Rolls eyes.

After lunch, I went to an internet café along Taft. When I came out, I spotted calamares and immediately honed. Have you tasted this shit? Not the clean sort, but the filthy kind. All the dustified boogers, spit and vehicle exhaust add to the delicate flavor of flour-coated squid sold for three bucks a pop. Fascinating fact for this paragraph: with my penchant for street food, it is highly amazing that I haven’t yet gotten typhoid. Yet. I feel guilty sometimes and lose sleep over it but hey, street food has interesting ingredients as mentioned above.

I walked back to school and saw a cotton candy thingy parked in front of the gate. These pink gunk sell for five pesos and if you’re adventurous, you can request Manong Cotton Candy to put some powdered ‘milk’ into the pink gunk. ‘Milk’ in quotes because the powdered mixture is 3/4s flour and 1/4s milk. Talk about cost-cutting. Anyway I bought some.

I was looking for Mary and Mishee so I wandered all over campus. Imagine a girl in a red-and-white candy-striped shirt with pink ribbon in her hair clutching a bag of fake-ish cotton candy with a lost, blank expression on her face. Yea, that’s me. After ten years I received a message telling me that they’re at Sushi-ya, like, five thousand point sixty-seven miles away from where I was looking for them! D’oh. To assuage my feelings I bought orange juice and was pissed off enough to dip cotton candy in the juice and eat it. I swear, try it. It tastes greater than great.

Contentedly walking along Faura, I saw more food. A camote-que stall caught my eye and I did a double take: I want camote-que! I was staring at it with all the desire I can muster, trying to forget that camote has tons of carbs and will make me fat. Stare. Stare. Then besides a waiting shed, I saw a girl giving this guy a pedicure. My eyes strayed to his feet. A toe was a bit bloody from the nipper and looked like the ugliest thing I ever saw in my entire life. It was hairy and dark and dirty.

I shuffled to Rob Manila and moved on with my life, sans appetite.

What the Hell Is Love

2007-03-05T20:04:00.000+08:00

He was not so tall and rather fat
Had a Labrador and a limping cat
Bored in the city with a broken heart
Had enough money and a credit card

..what the hell is friendship
He must have turned it off
And most of all he wondered
What the hell is love?

Have I said here that I love K’s Choice? The only songs I’ve been downloading lately are theirs. So far I have thirty, out of how many I don’t know what. This band is old. I don’t think they’re still in circulation, but their songs are powerful enough from the past to touch me.

My current favorites: ‘If You’re Not Scared’, ‘Wait’, ‘Until I’m Fine’ and ‘Busy’. They’re far from deep. But I like them because together they play what I’m feeling at the moment. And that is sleepless and horrible.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that my life is in the dustbin or the toilet lately, and to be fair to myself, I’d say it’s far from it. I’m supposed to be enjoying the things happening right now, and I guess I am. ‘Fun’ is not enough to describe the wonderful things that have been up lately. After all, I got 1.75 for the final exam in bowling (Betch please eat that and stop hankering about Math 11). S’all good.

And so why am I sleepless and feeling horrible tonight? I hate paradoxes only when they apply to me. Otherwise they’re cool. But now they’re not and this paradox makes me lose sleep, and the paradox itself is that I am happy but I feel horrible. You know what, I’m going down in front of me. Now if you don’t know an emo line when you see one, go to hell.

What the hell is love? I took it seriously overmuch. Next time I’ll be suspicious. And next time I’ll probably eat those words but what the fucking burning hell I’ve been eating too many words lately and I’m suffering from a bad case of indigestion. Screw you. Screw me. This is how I pay for being too sure about everything, for being too right in some things, and for being too concerned about nothing important.

So what the hell is love?

I don’t want to know again.

An Unholy Light

2007-03-04T19:47:00.000+08:00

Have you ever been stared at by a male with a stare that by all designs and purposes is one of naked desire? Have you gotten that weird feeling of ‘um okay, er, eww’? I suddenly remember Paz Latorena’s short story, Desire. It’s about a homely woman with a perfect, hot body that all men leer at, making her incapable of being loved. It’s one of the saddest stories I know. Read it if you come by it.

I say, if looks could kill, two people might have been murdered last night.

The Saddest Girl I Know

2007-03-04T07:32:00.000+08:00

“Anong kurso mo?”
“Political Science po”
“O? Eh di magiging pulitiko ka?”
“Hindi naman ho.”
“Mag-law?”
“Siguro po, kung hindi ako tamarin. Pero parang malabo.”
“Eh di anong balak mo pagka-gradweyt mo?”
“Gusto ko po sanang pumasok sa advertising.”
“…”

How many times have I gotten into this conversation? I’ve had it with anyone who got around to asking what my course is. It’s so standardized, I can fire off no-maybe-advertising without having to wait for their next question. So why advertising? And if I want to get into it, why am I not shifting to a more appropriate course?

I find advertising unbelievably fascinating. I find selling happiness unbelievably fascinating. To do so, you have to have the knack for knowing the mentalities, motivations, and irrationalities of a whole culture. There are many, many definitions of happiness, yet advertising can narrow it down to sell a bar of detergent or pancit canton. How hot is that?

Political science and advertising are not so different from each other. Political science does not only cover governments and institutions; it enfolds the whys and wherefores of human interaction within or through governments and institutions. If successful advertising involves knowledge of mentalities, motivations and irrationalities of a whole lump of people, then political science is a tool to achieve it.

On a totally maybe unrelated matter: I need a summer job, badly. I care fuck about the money. I need to have a valid enough reason to get out of this house everyday, and if it involves me slaving my ass off at some call center and depending on frappes for my mental health, I swear to gods I would. I’m very restless in school lately. What if I have to live with it at home for the next two months? Fucking shiznit.

Of course I’ll probably get lazy to go through the whole job hunting and application process, but who knows. There may be other desperate reasons to want a decent office job. Oh and there are. But the knowledge is of no use to you because I know it is of no use to me.

This Blog Is Easy On The Brain

2007-02-28T06:44:00.000+08:00

So Reighben said that this blog is easy on the brain. Since he is the repository of all knowledge in The Whole Sort of General Mish Mash i.e., the Universe, I, as Overlord, decree that you believe him. No, no, really. He did say that.

A little backgrounder on Reighben: we've been blockmates since forever. There's a saying that if you want things done, ask Robert. If you want to know something (and be relatively sure that it is correct) ask Reighben! If he stops being a reliable source, I shall buy a big bag of Cheetos, grab a random cheezy piece, lace it with arsenic, put it back in the bag, relax, watch a movie, and die in a while. That, my dear ladies and gentlemen, is the extent of my faith in my gay friend Reighben.

Well besides saying that this shebang is 'easy on the brain' (har!), my friend also said that he likes the flow of my writing. Whoa that phrase just plain flattened me to the floor of my college yesterday afternoon. The whole flattery session simply made me laugh. Because it's funny shit.

Just yesterday morning I was telling someone that this blog is a very funny private joke with, who else, myself. From the layout to the posts, everything is sarcastically and ironically encrypted. I mean duh, I don't want to tell you the details of my life! I'm sure you care more about your asscrack than the updates on my day-to-day existence. And besides I'm a very private person. Knowledge is power. I don't want to give you that, luv.

So what the hell is this for, then? I don't write this to gain more readers; I care crap about popularity. I don't write this for anyone but myself. I want to be able to look back and laugh at my stupidity, when the time comes. If I don't get lost in the complicated doublespeak, sarcastic paraphrasing and gods know what other crap I do just so I can express myself by not expressing myself, that is.

I mean, sure, I have had moments of being 'very sad that I have no more tears to cry' or 'very hurt that my heart seems close to exploding' or 'very frustrated that hope seems like a distant bird flying in the sky'---of course. But I try my darndest to say it some way else. Because, there is always a some way else.

Just yesterday a two-year relationship ended. But you won't read me talk about how I cried a bit later, thinking back on the plans we made for a future we were so sure about. You won't read me talk about how happy I am that human beings have invented water-proof eyeliner. No siree. You won't read me talk about it, because this blog---

Is easy on the brain.

Incendiary

2007-02-27T06:03:00.000+08:00

I’m taking to biking now every Sunday for the past few weeks. I take out the bike shortly before the sun sets, watch the sky turn pink then indigo as the wind rushes past my face, and turn in after twilight. This habit gives me peace of mind, and by Jove, I need it badly today.

I got on the bike, set my player on shuffle and swore that I won’t stop until Frou Frou’s Must Be Dreaming plays.

The past few days in retrospect were as great as they go, even with this restlessness hounding me like a sexed-up alley cat. But they are very, very confusing. I have two major exams tomorrow and my concentration (whatever exists in the first place) is zilch, nada, nil. I’m drowning in photocopied pages here, and I don’t know what to wear tomorrow. How horribler can things get?

I have this little fantasy: I’d like to get a cottage somewhere in a nice, clean valley located on the rim of a nice, clean forest with minimal undergrowth and wild animals. Preferably there’s a pond or waterfall somewhere within walking distance. I’d grow rose bushes and chrysanthemums and dandelions and I’ll cook mushroom soup everyday! Imagine Snow White and Rose Red’s place. What the, you don’t know Snow White and Rose Red? You’ve missed a lot on your fairytale education, buster.

Anyway, I wouldn’t mind having a cow too, to milk so I don’t get malnourished. I’ll plant a vegetable garden with potatoes and carrots and onions. And okay, okay, listen to the best part: there’d be no guys in five thousand miles! Wahoot. No I don’t really mean that.

And chickens. Add chickens to the list.

Someone said strong people don’t run away from, they run away to. Fuckit then. Who ever said I have to be strong?

But yeah this is just a fantasy. Because: a.) I know nil about planting a garden. Any garden, unless you count science-class experimental bean sprouts b.) I don’t know what type of mushroom goes in mushroom soup, seeing as I only get away with Knorr or Campbell’s; I don’t want to die of fungi poisoning c.) This piece of prime real estate would cost me how many bajillions of pesos, and the cow and chickens are not even included in the package. Bummer.

Do you believe that man is not a ground animal? I do. I believe there is an innate desire in all of us to fly, glide or swim---to feel weightless. This realization struck me as I watched a small dot of a kite last Sunday after biking. I used to ask, where’s the joy of flying a dumb kite? You hold the string, the kite flies, you don’t. You keep on holding the string, standing on a small piece of earth, watching. Holding. And that is it.

But I think…what matters is the pull of the delicate contraption of paper, plastic and walis tingting, the pull from the sky to the hand grasping the string. The exhilaration of the inanimate object is communicated to the kite-flyer---the exhilaration of flying.

My train of thought was interrupted as I almost ran over a wittle wittle puppy. My player almost hit the concrete and I was close to doing the same as I pulled the brake. Stupid puppy, I muttered under my breath. Unlike most females, I am not very fond of very cute things. I tend to look at them suspiciously lest they turn into a nightmare any minute now. Yeah I’m that sick, so back off.

Must be dreaming or
We’re onto something

Frou Frou sings, and I go home.

[This is a post for last Sunday. It was written on scratch paper, after I sneaked away from myself while cramming for my Macroeconomics exam. Am I cool or what?]

This Boring Piece of Window

2007-02-24T10:40:00.000+08:00

I used to have mice as pets, those little, white, fluffy things that shit and pee on you as they cavort over your arm. I fed them bits of cabbage and uncooked oatmeal, and they show their gratitude by escaping from their cage after one, two weeks of easy life. Soon enough I find half-white and half-black mice furtively darting under the couch or behind the stove. So much for loyalty.
---

Do you know what I like most about Robinson's Place Manila? It's got all sorts of people there. Promdis, jologs, snotty rich kids, snottier middle-class kids, foreigners, hookers, corporate employees, everyone! That mall is my favorite people-watching place. It's like a window to the shadows of other universes. Complex lives all combined in one area, open to observation, criticism, amazement, envy---name it. Instant intellectual heaven.
---

I think I am slightly claustrophobic. Whenever I'm anywhere with four walls, I want to be beside a window. This applies to restaurants and buses. Especially buses. I can't stand the mass of butts rubbing on my shoulder, cutting off the air and the light. Thus, I have formed an affection for windows. I have even determined two classifications for them: interesting windows and boring windows.

Interesting windows have a lot of people passing in front of them, doing mundane but interesting things. It may be a guy lazily scratching his arse. Or a woman dragging three bratty children with her to a crossing. Or a badly-dressed, awkward-looking tween pre-occupied with her cellphone. Or a piece of human shit. Things like that. Boring windows, on the other hand, look out to a street where people just walk by with a blank expression on their faces, everything settled, everyone quiet, trudging to their destinations. Nothing happens.
---

I just explained things very very badly and this is also very badly written. However, if there's one thing I learned as a fanciful okay writer, it is to never say sorry for anything. And I mean never.

Don't Read This; This Is Just A Waste of Your Time. How I Knew? Well, It Was A Waste Of Mine. Feed Your Boredom Somewhere Else Where It's Sunny.

2007-02-21T11:53:00.000+08:00

What am I doing now? Waiting. Waiting for something to write here. Someone to text or call me up. Something to eat. Something to listen to. Someone to fix himself up. Something to...well. We all know I dislike Wednesdays to the very tip of my...toes.

I want to get out of here. This restlessness is getting to my nerves. Good thing there's bowling tomorrow, I can take it all out. Oh. And that Buddhist temple is just across the street from it. I just might visit.

The Word 'Inevitable' Sounds So Hopeless

2007-02-20T23:03:00.000+08:00

"...when both partners in a relationship are overly demanding, when each expects the other to live in his or her world, to always be there to join in his or her chosen activities, an ego battle inevitably develops."

-The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

Oh my fucking underpants. This passage sounds like it came off a pathetic self-help book written by a bored American housewife. Anyone can think this up, even with half a working brain.

So why didn't I?
---

I think I've been using the word 'pathetic' too often lately here. The impact has long worn out, but I can't think of a better substitute at the mo'.
---

I'm not one of those born with the gift of patience. I find that as I get more commited to a person (not only romantically), my patience invariably decreases. But if the wait is worth it, that is, if i can be reasonably sure that it is in fact worth it, then I don't mind so much. I'm the practical one here, and as someone so bluntly put it (I had a Vague Feeling that whispered I should take offense, but I am a little deaf now), I am always after that which is most convenient. So blunt, that statement. Still it did not draw blood.
---

Expecting is a bad habit. As the cliche goes though, old habits die hard. But can they fade away? Maybe they fade away. Well I want them to.
---

One thing you must know about me: I am detached. I deal with problems by detachment. I've been doing it all my life, it works as well as (takes a deep breath) Clean and Clear Pimple Clearing Speed Gel, I have no consumer complaints. Sweet. So while I am saying all these seemingly emotionally charged things, and while you are imagining a dumb girl with tears verging on the corners of her kholed eyes, I sit, type and listen amusingly to Bakekang. That show is so funny for its own good, methinks.

A General Review of Life. Mine, Specifically.

2007-02-16T18:30:00.000+08:00

What I want more than anything else in the world is nothing. Sure I want tons of stuff seeing as I am probably the most materialistic person I know; thing is, I have no burning desire to acquire anything beyond everything at all. I just cavort through life in a seemingly pointless manner.

I say, where are the days when romance was the The Thing? When it was all or nothing? When things like love and hate, good and evil, beauty and truth were defined in absolutes? It’s just probably, no, definitely me, but an inordinate number of things in life in general strike me as bland and ascetic. To my mind, the level of artificiality in the 21st century has risen to dizzying, depressing, and suicidal heights. Fuck it. Sure this is the Age of Raging Hormones, of Capitalism, of Rock n’ Roll, of Homosexuality, and a bunch of other seemingly romantic notions. But it all seems to me superficial, manufactured, and shallow. I think deep down, something is dying within the human race. Something important (imagine Gandalf or Aslan saying this, I swear you won’t snigger).

I’m pretty sure I’m sounding like one heck of a bored, bitter girl right now. Well FYI I’m not. I live a fun life. I have great friends, okay grades, and though my romantic situation is notably unstable as of the mo’, it’s alive and kicking my non-existent balls hard.

It’s fun. Everything’s so fun and happy and good, and I say this with a minimum amount of sarcasm.

It’s all fun.

But pointless.

What have I done in 19 years? I won a few academic competitions which gave me an enormous ego fuck back in high school, but I hardly remember them now, much less the feeling. Medals are dead, cold, useless things. They’re only warm four-point-five seconds after some honcho hangs them on your stringy neck.

With the above-mentioned wisdom gained so early, I do not attempt to spend my college days as I did in high school. ‘Reclusive’ would be a fair adjective to describe my activities in the university. To go back to the question: what have I done in 19 years? Nothing too important. I just exist. Period. So now what?

Maybe I need a religion. You know, one of those thingummys that keep a lot of people in an opium-high. It would be, like, everything I do and don’t do would have a reason, a point! Whenever I feel miserable I’d have a good explanation: it’d be [insert name of deity HERE]’s will. The package would come with set, working morals, commandments, an afterlife and all those other stuff that keep people half-sane. Yeah. Religion appears to be a brilliant idea.

But like I keep asking: who would I be kidding? I don’t indulge in blind faith, too bad for me. Religion takes too much of that, and I don’t know how long I can keep it up, assuming that I can rationalize it to existence first. No deal.

Ah hell, don’t mind me. I’m just having one of those existential fits again. Do carry on, I just need a donut, and I’ll resume being happy.

The Sacred Day of Capitalistic Hearts

2007-02-15T22:49:00.000+08:00

As a self-effacing girl with self-effacing friends, spending self-effacing time with them is the best way to spend Valentine's Day. We cavorted our afternoon away at that cryogenic crypt also known as the Senate building, 45 minutes of which I spent drooling on the table of the conference room where a long and boring lecture was delivered. Well, why isn't anyone surprised?

After the fieldtrip, we went to that conglomeration of restaurants located besides CCP and had dinner. We tried to watch the sunset and wished it was somewhere in front of us rather than off-left; it's just so depressing, don't you think? No? Oh-kay. Then we scooted off to Vito Cruz in a taxi with a driver who muttered something totally incomprehensible about Jollibee---where was I?---we scooted off to Vito Cruz to Cello's for some donuts. So far, so good. The whole Valentine's thingummy seemed like a bad nightmare far removed from my little dateless world.

Since I'm a stuck-up bitch with a fairly colossal ego, I decided to test my resolve regarding my arguments against Valentine's Day. They are:

1.) Valentine's Day is a purely capitalistic exercise
2.) Affection must be displayed every day, not only on one pre-set date
3.) The damn day makes single people feel so horrible, more so when they are not single in the first fucking place

The Test was quite simple: I just entered the concentration camp of the lovey-doveys, i.e., Robinson's Place Manila. I sat on a stupid bench watching stupid couples with stupid balloons and flowers with a stupid expression on my face---don't ask what. Suffice it to say, I felt horrible.

Conclusion is, no matter how smart you fancy you are, rational arguments convince nothing more than that grey matter called your brain. Not your hypothalamus, unfortunately. Not that. Also: cynicism and a heightened sense of irony are no match for the hormones and general euphoria spawned by Valentine's Day. Lastly, avoid malls next year unless you're with someone you can blow your payday money on and not feel sorry the next morning.

I sound bitter. So maybe I am. Aren't you, too?

Ms. Sleepyhead

2007-02-13T05:13:00.000+08:00

As mentioned in my last post, I sleep anywhere now. Before I know it, my head is lolling off to one side even if I'm listening to highly energetic music, say, of Scary Kids Scaring Kids. This usually happens when I'm commuting. I do it in classes too, and benches, and floors. When I wake up, a general feeling of heaviness ensues---like indeterminate echoes along the halls by unknown ghosts. Yeah, humor me.

I did not use to be sleepy. In highschool and early in college, I slept early and woke early, no fuss, and I didn't need music to keep me up. Coffee was also an almost unknown concept then. And now? I'm not used to being tired, dreary, and plastered. But it seems as if I have to evolve faster recently, or I'll just fall off my feet one of these days and get run over by a goddamn speeding bicycle.

I would just love to do something about this little problem; however, I am too tired to go about it. Heck, I don't even have the energy to read Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams, the last book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series! Gods! It's Douglas Adams! What is wrong with me? Something horrible, to my mind.

I'm sure I'll get out of this rut in a while. Sleeping early, however, is not working as of the moment. Gahd.

PS---I am newly in love. Jomar, please give me your guitar? I cannot bear to be away from it else my poor heart shall break into tiny little morbid gory pieces.

XIX

2007-02-11T12:01:00.000+08:00

Nineteen is just a transition. I don’t care much for the age itself, but what it means: I’m one year nearer twenty, one year nearer the two-decade mark ending my teenage stage. As if it was something to mourn for, no. But it is something to miss.

Time is an illusion, age (and pretty much everything else) is a state of mind. I’m not in the mood to preach—is this a change? Perhaps, a symptom of getting older. The whole the-world-is-against-me-and-don’t-understand-me phase is old enough to be discarded for something more practical, lasting and devoid of romance. What?

Surrender.

At nineteen, I don’t think I have the right to sound world weary yet. I still have a long way to go, with a closet three fourths full of tragedy waiting to be worn like black ill-fitting clothing. But don’t you think everyone is forced to grow up faster nowadays? Technological innovations, social revolutions and individual rebellions hasten the pace of this permanence which is change. I am told I don’t sound like anyone below twenty. Maybe this observation pertains to the general cynicism, hypocrisy and world weariness which I seem to exude like miasma.

Random, maybe fun question: am I a happy person and/or am I happy? I think there’s a difference. I don’t look like a happy person most days, because I’m always mooning and gloomy as I stalk the halls of the university. I am not a happy person to be with most times too: I’ll snub you if I don’t like you or even if I liked you I would still snub you if I find that we have nothing interesting to say to each other. By all appearances, I am not, I repeat, usually a happy person. But I’m usually happy.

I have existential angst and realize the pure and applied pointless which is life. But I’m not the sort who lets it get in the way of my hedonistic tendencies, which are relatively shallow. Clothes, good conversation, books, shoes, fulfilling relationships—these make me happy. I try not to look for absolutes or for things which can never be found. Sometimes I ask: who am I kidding? I know there are things beyond myself and my world which maybe I should spend my lifetime trying to understand. But that wouldn’t make me happy, would it? This is the road I choose to take, so far at nineteen. A road of denial and contentment.

Who am I kidding? Well, just me. And I’m happy at it.

Purposive Delay of Scholarly Issues

2007-02-10T07:22:00.000+08:00

For the life of me, I can’t believe I survived this week. Just one more report to go for tomorrow and I’m…three more research papers, three reaction papers/critiques, one Philo 11 homework, some number of exams I’m scared of finding out…and I’m done! What the funk.

The whole week was fun, but I found myself falling flat on my face on the bed every night. I fall asleep anywhere now---baby buses, aircon buses, benches, any place where I can remain static. I dislike this lifestyle. I’m a sedentary sort of person so all this activity is physical overload.

I’ll write about my thoughts on turning nineteen next time. Fark this report, as usual, I’m purposively delaying my scholarly issues, i.e. cramming. Later.

An Imaginary Analogy That Everyone Shall Miss

2007-02-05T21:52:00.000+08:00

I fancy that I am an okay writer. This fancy is one of the foundations of my identity, meaning that it is unstable at best---that if this fancy morphs into a will-o’-wisp, I shall be lost.

While I have a bloated writer’s ego, I know when something I turn out is awful, or worse, mediocre. It’s this feeling you get the next second after you throw that bowling bowl and be sure that it will not hit a pin even if the said pin was five feet wide. It’s the same feeling you get when you swing that dos-por-dos at a pot of candy, money and flour, and be sure that you will hurt only air. This feeling manifests after I write something: an essay, a poem, or a song. A colossal ego and its vast army of defense mechanisms are sitting ducks to, this. Whatever it is.

Sometimes I know just why I failed (isn’t it failure when you did not live up, not to what other people expect of you, but what you expect of yourself?) and since a finished piece is not a sad, un-editable past, I can correct my mistakes. Sometimes it’s a misspelling, wrong grammar, an awkward-sounding phrase or statement---something concrete. But most times the mistakes are not obvious. I know something is wrong with the finished piece, something gone awry during the whole effort of creation. Something. Not knowing what it is makes me feel discontented and unfulfilled.

The unknown nature of the error leaves me incapable of doing anything about it. Wouldn’t it be easier if ten thousand readings can convince me that the mysterious mistake is just a manifestation of my screwed imagination? But nothing is ever easy, is it. I can always ignore my discontent and frustration with how my writing turned out and go on sharing it with other people. That’s it, ignoring. When all else fails to make a bad feeling go away, just ignore it. Ignore it. You won’t be denying its existence, or trying to rationalize it to extinction. You just refuse to acknowledge it.

I think, if one dwells too much on mistakes, they take on dimensions of importance they do not really have. While nothing can be done about mysterious mistakes, something can be done about feeling inordinately bad because of them. This is how I get by as a fanciful okay writer, doing fanciful okay brain farts.

Just so nothing will break.

Fieldtrip Yay!

2007-02-04T22:36:00.000+08:00

It’s been nigh four years since I had a fieldtrip. The years in between was a life spent pining for a fieldtrip. The next few years will be a life pining for another fieldtrip. I’m a fieldtrip buff. So while I narrate this four-year long accumulation of frustration and desire, suffer the sucky pictures taken by the palsied hands of three self-confessed camwhores.

Ay, germonster.

The first stop was at a Hindu temple, located at (why are we not shocked?) Mahatma Gandhi St. along UN Avenue. We had a cool bus, with nice drink holders, ash trays and that pouch thingie in front of you where you put the trash. And where did we go? Sa kabilang kanto!

We were asked to remove our shoes before entering the temple proper. Me having this sardonic and sadistic humor, I narrated the horrors of athlete’s foot.

Kachichas Scare: Green Socks (Betch’s), Striped Mismatched Socks (Lizette’s), Bare Feet (Mishee’s). Make a wild guess as to who gets attacked by the kachichas germonster.

Ultrawave!

I liked the temple. The air smelled sweet, the wide space gave me an illusion of peace, and this Nepalese guy lecturer gave us a chunk of food served by hand---literally. The gunk was okay, if you don’t think about all those things Captain Safeguardian warned you about. And I doubt if anyone understood his heavily accented rendition of English while explaining the Hindu religion. Fieldtrips were made to be fun, in my world.

The next temple was the Sikh’s. It was along UN Avenue. Do you know how it feels to ride a fancy air-conditioned bus to somewhere within walking distance? And paying P550 for it? Well. Before entering, all of us were asked to remove our shoes and socks and wear a bandanna. The lecturer was straightforward and asked us to ask questions. Dedma. There was so much dead air, it could have strangled all of us dead and kicked our butts for good measure. Whatever happened to UP students being dynamic and inquisitive?

I know. They became camwhores.

Sikh food, tastes like espasol, sweet, chewy, looks like poop. Served by hand.

Lunch time. Guess where we ate lunch, at three, two, one…Robinson’s Place Manila! Wahoot wahoot! At this point my sarcasm fails to sustain me.

Sam oh Sam, where have you been all my life? Fag.

The next temple was Taoist, along Coastal Road. It was the farthest point in the whole trip, so I felt a little pacified and generally comforted. I would just looove to post pictures of Betch and Mishee snoozing (titties!), but they know too much blackmail-ish details about me, so.

This is the point where my camera died on me. Low batt. Next, we went to the Buddhist temple near Rizal Memorial Stadium, along Adriatico Street. The lecture was interesting, and I am interested in Buddhism itself---it being atheist, and also because I am attracted to some features of the Buddhist way of life. Mishee, Betch and I intend to go back to the temple to take a pot shot at enlightenment. So, if you meet three girls, two fat and one thin(!), walking around with shaved heads, you know who they are.

The trip was happy and all that. Blah blah. Good night, get a life.

Germonster

2007-02-03T20:29:00.000+08:00

I get a kick out of that Safeguard 'Safeguardians' commercial. It's the stupidest thing I've seen this month, and I laugh out loud at the hardcore line: ay, germonster! Amputa.

Captain Safeguardian (I believe he is called): Hindi ko ibibigay ang diarrhea mutagen sayo, Germax!
Germax: (after a long explanation on just what the fuck the diarrhea mutagen is for) Akin na ang diarrhea mutagen!
Captain Safeguardian: Eto o. Saksak mo sa baga mo leche.

Well I made that last line up. That's not a child-friendly line, is it? If you haven't seen the commercial, don't attempt to at night. It usually airs on mornings, when kids are watching the cartoons. Yes I'm a kid, and I watch the cartoons and those Japanese superhero shows. I Love Ultraman! Best comedy show ever. I know how to do the Ultrawave, stupohs, so back off.

On other things. I'm rarely busy, mostly because I'm lazy. I guess I tend to do things which are horribly unimportant to my general academic and/or mental and/or physical well-being. Example: I shuffle to my room carrying a bowl of Korn Bits. I set the bowl of Korn Bits on my battered coffee slash study table. This action triggers an avalanche of photocopied readings and piled books read for the past month or so. I stare at the mountain of paper. I stare at the Korn Bits. I stare back and forth trying to figure out what to do. I stare at the ceiling and live happily ever after doing absolutely nothing.

As I was saying, I rarely get busy. I don't have much of what they call a social-life, seeing as one of my hobbies involve a ceiling and a forsaken bowl of MSG-saturated junk food. When I DO get busy though, the heavens take revenge. All the papers and reports pile up, all the social engagements seem to sprout like unwanted boogers, all the important things decide to side against indolent me. Why oh why? Karmic damage? Probably.

My schedule for this week is hell. One hardcore report, one impromptu speech, one birthday partay, one debut, one performance, one film-showing, two 'meeting of minds' (gods what will I ever do without euphemisms?), two symposia, three papers. Fuck. And did I mention I was busy? Yes? Douche bag.

I Hate Nice People. In A Nice Way.

2007-02-01T22:52:00.000+08:00

I know this is old, old, OLD news, but I'm a bitch. I have this vague feeling somewhere (emo line coming up) in this stone called a heart that that statement used to sting. Or it may just be my freak of an imagination.

But yeah. I have the bitchy qualities other bitches may envy. Sometimes I scare people; again, I have this vague feeling that I'm supposed to be guilty about it. But I'm not. I think it's because only one person has the guts to tell me off---the other one I fired, or so I believe. Now there's a replacement. This person says it doesn't hurt to be nice. I roll my eyes and resume my 'attitude', this person twitches an eyebrow as I turn away. Big deal.

It doesn't hurt to be nice? It does. People walk all over you. They take you for granted, they bully you to your hair roots. What kind of life is that? I'd rather fancy I scare people than people fancy scaring me. Being overly nice is being sick. Stupidly sick. Before you know it you're caught in a loop and can't do shit to save yourself from users.

I understand that symbiotic relationships must of necessity exist---use and be used. That's why I 'hate' nice people in a nice way. They delectably ruin the balance.

A side note:

gayrunnerness: once upon a time there was this bald frog with a bad wiggayrunnerness: no one could really figure out why a frog would need a wig in the first place, since frogs really dont have hair
gayrunnerness: --not in places we can see, anyway
gayrunnerness: this frog was so self conscious about being bald that one day the wind blew his wig off the tippity top of his head and when he saw his reflection in the pond he choked on the leg he bit off this toot guy named toot and died.
gayrunnerness: the flies lived happily ever after--which lasted about 24 hours. the end.
gayrunnerness: oh, and liz lived happily ever after too

Just the Thing

2007-01-31T07:38:00.000+08:00

A few inspiring words from my Histo 2 prof before the exam:

Be optimistic! Don’t say you’re not going to pass. Say you’re going to fail.

On other news, do you know what really makes me cranky? I wake up at 3 am to cram for a test, I leave the house at 8 to find that it’s abnormally cold outside, I board a bus to Manila to find that it’s colder inside. As I huddle shivering, I deny myself some decent music just so I can continue cramming (notice that I never use the word ‘study’---because I don’t), which means that I have to endure 1.5 hours of Love Radio. Just in time for Kris Chuper and Nicole Lihiyala’s morning show.

I have a class before the test, Comm III. The topic was non-verbal language. The prof kept on yappering and yappering and forgot the time. By 11.30 I was jiggling my leg. By 11.35 I was drumming my fingers and sending I’m-miserable-please-shut-up-now vibes, because the room where I’ll be having the exam is cursed to run out for chairs for the next century, and I didn’t want to take the test on the floor wearing a white mini. By 11.40 I was jiggling my whole body. Non-verbal language. Snort.

So comes test time. The instruction for the 37-ITEM EXAM (the readings were at least 50 pages of hard-core condensed info) was: answer briefly (as briefly as a man’s brief). No joke. That’s the kind of stuff we have to endure every Tuesday and Friday.

Afternoon I find out that I’m having my period. Didn’t have the necessary equipment, had to dash to a pharmacy to get Dolfenal 500. Before that, Mishee, Betch and I have determined the root of all evil---it’s not money or math. It’s a person. No one you know.

5.30. Philo 11. 8.30 pm. Wearily boards a bus to Cavite. Declines SE’s offer to eat at Gary’s. Hungry and wasted and splattered with pasta sauce from lunch. Sleeping the whole trip, waking up with drool on chin. Now this is the part where I got really annoyed and threw a tantrum.

When I got home, the only thing on the table is maki. From Tokyo Tokyo. Just the thing to have when I wanted to eat until food comes out of my nose after a 19-hour day. Just the thing to make me feel really really great about the beautiful things in the world. Just the thing.

I ate glue for dinner.

Split-second

2007-01-29T21:04:00.000+08:00

Rational choice theory assumes that all individuals are self-interested and make decisions based on the principle of utility maximization—okay I’ll highlight that—

What will I wear tomorrow? How about Mishee’s gift, that green skirt, and this mustard-yellow shirt I got in Divisoria for only a hundred eighty bucks…but I’m fat lately…how about—

I wish Ma would turn off the TV, I hate it when it mutters through my door while I’m studying. And I hate Korina Sanchez’s voice. Yeah I know I used to worship her, I wanted to be a broadcaster then, but I was ten and didn’t know shit—

Damn Jal, what’s this thing he’s got for graded recitations? I thought that went out of fashion already? That’s just probably me thinking awry again. Still—

Hey, how about a blog post on emo people? They’re annoying, but I have a soft spot for them because I’ve been through all that and I always wanted someone who’d sit down with me for three hours just to humor me and my misery. Emo-ness. What a fad. Fad? I think it’s been around for hundreds of years. But why did the subculture emerge only in the 21st century? There was Romeo and Hamlet and—

Brownout. The desk lamp winked out, the hum of the fan died down, and the murmur of the television ceased. My babble of thought quieted down to match the silence of the room, the house, the world. And darkness. I was steeped in it, staring at it…what a long-postponed communion. I have no time for traipsing on its mellow, black depths, and I don’t have the luxury to receive its gift of oblivion. Long time no see. A split-second eternity, nothing more. More than enough…?

The light returned. I went back to my Polsci 100 readings and resumed living.

Danced the Fever Off

2007-01-24T11:44:00.000+08:00

So here I am feeling like shit. I came down with the flu yesterday, and for a person who rarely gets sick, it’s equivalent to getting SARS. Naw, I’m just exaggerating. But I do feel horrible.

Ever seen a person in her blue fuzzy comfort jacket, green n’ orange checked pj’s, striped mismatched socks and a bad hair day dance to the Scissor Sisters Filthy Gorgeous? Well, I have. She looked the awfulest, insanest creature I have ever seen in my entire life. My dog gave her a stare that said ‘fuck off or I’ll never speak to you again’ before doing an abrupt walk-out.

Man I’m so gay. But at least I’m feeling better, sans the medicines I’m supposed to take. I’ll be staying home the whole day (as if I don’t every Wednesday, duh) trying to figure out how to cook an edible soup. Boring. Excuse me while I get back to America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction (I love Reighben), one of the funniest and historically inaccurate books ever written about American democratic history.

Oh oh oh! This is a passage in the book commenting on the outsourcing of jobs to Asia:

Breakdown of Typical Weeklong Business Trip to the Region

2 Hours--- Making a deal to send all your company’s jobs over to them
10 Hours--- Smoky hut, watching two sisters shoot ping-pong balls into a fish tank with their vaginas
36 Hours--- The Madness. (Hallucinogenic fever caused by getting off the plane.)
11 Hours--- Up at night wondering if the blister in your scrotum is humidity-based
8 Hours--- Blackout brought on by drinking liquor made from rattlesnake semen
3 Hours--- Paperwork on the outsourcing deals
14 Hours--- Panic.
9 Hours--- Making arrangements for wiring money that will convince the authorities that the girls’ death was accidental.
1 Hour--- Cab ride back to the airport where you reconcile who you believe you were as a person with what you did on the trip.

Er well. Suffice it to say that at least both Asia and America were insulted.

My Dog Needs A Bath

2007-01-23T07:53:00.000+08:00

If you've read and survived the existential bullshit we've been having here the past few days, well, congratulations. You win another existential bullshit post.

Naw, not really. So things have been going a little fast lately. Plenty of papers to pass, so-called 'research papers' when without the euphemism are actually called theses. At least those profs were smart enough to give at least only one exam for the whole semester. They're nice that way.

Pizza party later with my friends. I'll say this honestly, for once: to hell with my diet. I think the bathroom scale's broken, it says I'm only a hundred pounds. Still, I can pretend it's telling the truth right? Bathroom scales are woozy creatures. They'll never know.

Well, I'm off to school. Philo 11 exam results coming later, I think. Wish me the very very best.

One?

2007-01-21T20:42:00.000+08:00

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

-Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

So far, there are only two books of Richard Bach which I’ve read: Illusions, which explored the solipsist worldview, and One, which talked about a modified pantheist belief. Big stuffy words to describe them, I know, but he creates the simpler stories I’ve come across using the simplest words. A more familiar work of his is Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which was about an existential seagull who gets bored of his seagull life. I haven’t read it, but I’d rather watch it---the film version was released in 1973, winning a Golden Globe Award for its musical score.

But I digress. Illusions is about a Messiah who cures the sick, predicts the future, shares wisdom to the millions, and pilots a biplane. Oh, and he’s also a solipsist. He meets a nondescript loner, Richard (the author), who also flies a biplane for a living. The Messiah got tired of the limelight, so he left his followers (disciples? Fans?) to fly aimlessly until he gets together with Richard who found it convenient to stay with him: initially, because having a Messiah for a buddy has its miraculous perks, but later on, to learn.

The guy who lent me the book said it was ‘inspirational’. But the book only told me what I already believed: I create my reality, and I am at the center of it. I guess it would be inspirational if I believed otherwise, because it would be a whole new idea to explore---truth as a relative thing created by each individual according to his or her phenomenal world. Illusions, for me, is a philosophical novel. The story is secondary to the philosophy.

One is about a married couple who got involved in a one-to-a-trillion accident: they entered a dimension where they can observe the grand pattern of life. This pattern is submerged under a shallow, endless ocean, following the figure 8: infinity. The couple, (the author and his wife, Leslie) flies their seaplane onto a spot in the pattern, and they get into an alternate world, meeting their alternate selves. They do this a lot of times. Soon enough they discover that everything and everyone is one, that we are all a manifestation of a single consciousness, that while everyone has a predestined path, there are infinite choices leading to and away from it. More like a vein and the capillaries branching away from it, or like a highway and the roads and streets and alleys we can take.

I was walking home carrying a bag of sotanghon just this afternoon, when I thought: isn’t Illusions connected significantly with One? Pantheism is solipsism taken to another level: solipsism---I alone exist---pantheism---there is only one thing that exists, and that’s you and everyone else as a manifestation of it. Bach calls it consciousness, Plato calls it the world of Ideas, Spinoza calls it God.

I'm not saying all of this is truth; hardly. But I like to think (note: not believe in) about things like this, because it lets me put some things into perspective. Like, why i like listening to Hale, and why I like inebriating myself with shit such as The Buzz or Bakekang. That's another story.

The Female Manly Pride

2007-01-17T23:04:00.000+08:00

I dislike going dutch. I’d rather the guy pays for me, because I’m Kuring Kuripot in flesh and blood. The SE pays whenever we go out, although he has discarded the gallant gentleman act and now starts to mutter while handing out the bills: ‘jeez, I thought she was semi-feminist’.

Betch says I shouldn’t feel guilty about it, that’s what guys are for anyhow. She has no qualms about double standards. So do I.

But Mishee says I should pay for my own…! It is a matter of pride, she argues. The female has got to assert herself and proclaim independence within an established relationship, and a more effective way to do it would be to pay for herself. This is highly logical, but impractical: being assertive and independent does not have to cost a cent in this context.

For example, a man says that he loves you just the way you are, and in the same sentence adds that you should never wear your favorite miniskirt ever. Not that is an act of repression, and the female manly pride is trampled. He may mean any of the following: A.) your legs rock, but he’s a selfish jerk and doesn’t want to share B.) your legs suck, it embarrasses the hell out of him C.) you have no fashion sense. An act of war. There are many viable responses to such, ranging from mild amusement to unprecedented violence. This situation is worth taking up arms for. And going dutch? Just not worth it, for me.

But then again it is just a matter of priority. Some girls mind, some girls don't. I like being pampered and treated like a princess and some such shit. It wouldn’t hurt if I didn’t pay for it, would it? I’m a sucker for free stuff, and I try not to be a hypocrite about it.

But! It is a different matter entirely when someone I don’t know offers to pay for me. I don't want to owe the said theoretical person anything---the sucker-for-free-stuff attitude gives way to I’ve-got-moolah-too-you-watch-me-if-i-don’t. Such is a manifestation of the female manly pride in a slightly altered situation of two strangers meeting up, sans romantic inclinations.

The SE argues that going dutch is the wave of the present, but I snort that once he stops sending me dagger looks whenever I wear my favorite mini, I may consider the proposition.

Pure and Applied Pointlessness

2007-01-17T10:16:00.000+08:00

They say reality is stranger than fiction, and that if you walked by a street and saw, heard, and felt what actually happens among the throng of people and cars, you would find just how strange. But this awareness of absolute reality is not possible, because we are blinded by inhibitions established even before, and inherited after, we were born. For example, your mum says that aliens don’t exist. When an alien spaceship comes hurtling down from the sky, you’d think it was Bitoy doing his thing. Or some goddamned parachute.

Reality is subjective. It is relative and uniquely perceived among individuals. But there is only one objective thing for me: me.

I alone exist. Can I prove anything else beyond that? For all I know, you are just a figment of my imagination, scraps of thought drifting, coagulating, in my sea of consciousness. No Morpheus will come crashing my party and shoving down my throat some little blue and red pills. But I’m not insane, yet. There was a short story about a guy who doubted the existence of everything, until he came along doubting his existence. The only thing he ended up believing in is nothing---nothingness, space, oblivion. He filched a space suit, opened up the airlock of his ship, and drifted in space forever.

And so. A hardcore solipsist is a pure and applied pointlessness. No god, no beginning, no goals, no end. Being the only real thing in this so-called universe has its low point, and it is the pointlessness of wanting or doing anything. The universe began when the solipsist thought of it, and it ends when…when? Death is never a problem.

Time Is An Illusion

2007-01-15T22:12:00.000+08:00

“Hunishan, what if we don’t end up together?”
“What made you ask that?”
“Nothing really. It’s just that I’ve read some magazines and blogs lately where even relationships that lasted five or seven years ended. What if ours did?”
“Well, it won’t.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because there’s something special about us.”
(laughs) “They all thought that.”
“Remember our mantra? Stay together and stay away from each other?”
“Yeah, but for how long will that be viable? Petitio principii.”
Silence.
“If it ever happens, we’ll get back to each other.”
“How.”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s the problem isn’t it? We don’t know.”
“Well…”
“Well.”

Dunce

2007-01-13T16:15:00.000+08:00

“In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.”

-Politics and the English Language, George Orwell

Political science is not my thing. Now that I’m taking my majors, I’m suddenly walloped with the realization of just how much it’s not my thing. I dislike newspapers, and I dislike political science textbooks. I dislike professors with a dot of white saliva on the corners of their lips. I dislike bowling too, now that I’m at it.

I used to not care so much about what course I’d be graduating from. I think the degree doesn’t count as much as how you go about life---not as much as your diskarte. My mum graduated with a BA MassCom degree, and she’s worked in a bank ever since.

Used to not care so much…and now I do. While I fancy I am pragmatic and can sit through the next two more years of political science, my ass is itching. This itch usually starts when I imagine other better things I should be doing: like, ingesting philosophy, doing sketches for a fashion design class, or cooking up new advertising gimmicks for homework. It makes me feel sad, you know?

Mishee told me I’m just suffering from a bad case of Second Semitis, where all the bubbly energy recharged from summer evaporates during the first semester, leaving the victim all dreary and depressed during the whole of next semester. That’s a reasonable diagnosis, methinks. Or I’m just really getting lazy lately.

Whatever. The words of George Orwell will sustain me in the darkest days of my political science student life. If there is no such thing as keeping out of politics, then what the hell, I might as well study it. A jubunglous mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia is bound to be interesting, once I try to bother being interested.

Boom Taratter

2007-01-10T19:08:00.000+08:00

Tell me what you thought about when you were gone and
So alone
The worst is over
You can have the best of me
We got older
But were still young
We never grew out of this feeling that we won’t
Give up

The darn song has been stuck on my head for three days running. The lyrics are primitive, and so is the melody, but don’t the type stick? Like, boom tarat tarat, boom tarat tarat, tararat tararat boom boom boom? Between you and me, I know you sang that in your head. Huh.

The lyrics above are from The Starting Line’s Best of Me. While it’s a love song, what it means to me is anything but. It’s something which reminds me of high school, that far-away era of school buses and chalk dust motes. It reminds me particularly of my batch. I haven’t been appearing anywhere with them for the past month, since I missed the Christmas party and two birthday parties. I’ve been more or less loyal when it comes to attendance, but this cold-blooded snobbishness is downright wrong. Or so I feel at the moment.

It’s a love and hate relationship, for me. Maybe someday I’ll wake up and permanently dislike my batch mates, who knows, and even the idea of having batch mates who apparently can never let go of each other. But like the line in the song: maybe I’ll never grow out of this feeling (whatever the hell it even is) that I can’t give up (for some stupid reason or other). Who knows. Eleven years is a long time to cultivate a feeling you don’t even know what.

Boom tarat tarat, boom tarat tarat, tararat tararat boom boom boom.

Yeah I’m mean like that.

A Stupid Morning Joke

2007-01-05T18:07:00.000+08:00

WE TOTALLY FUCKED (Now go make me some breakfast. Bitch.)

Among the sea of backs crammed in the narrow aisle of a bus, the message above printed on a pink shirt caught my eye and ire. It is a chauvinistic and gender-insensitive declaration of the alpha male. First, it asserted that fucking is a favor done to women by men. Second, the ‘favor’ must be returned by domestic servility of the ‘bitch’. I had half a mind to tell off that guy who had the guts to wear such a stupid shirt (for what else could it be?), but I looked more closely first.

Above the shirt, perched on top of the head, are pink sunglasses. The man was wearing a cheap studded wristband and super tight jeans. He was still standing when a (woman) friend of his gestured at his ass; he looked behind him and did something extremely unexpected: he posed, jerking his ass up, in the middle of the fucking aisle.

Oh my god, I thought. He’s a homo.

Now the stupid shirt has become a stupid joke.

New Year's Eve and Margaret Atwood

2007-01-02T18:10:00.000+08:00

Really, I'm not as gloomy and cynical as I make myself out to be. I'm pretty nice while being pretty mean. And while I do wear black most of the time, I have this great sense of humor that very, er, few people appreciate. Okaaay. I know, I know. Pathetic.

So the relatives all went for a visit to Lola's house, which is just around the corner from ours. The usual scrutiny follows: Lizette, why is your hair so thin? Lizette, how's you and your boyfriend? Will you take up Law after you graduate? And so on so forth. The plus here is that as I get older, the questions are less embarrassing. Because now I know how to evade and avoid such potential disasters. Tee hee.

Anyway, in between trips to Lola's and the fridge, I tried reading Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye. Well, I gave up on it. It's simply not the sort of book you read during New Year's Eve unless you're manic depressive. Which I'm not, contrary to popular belief (defensive). Haunting---the word to describe Cat's Eye. It's the story of Elaine, a woman seeking release from the memory of her childhood bestfriend, Cordelia. In the style of Margret Atwood, all events, even the littlest (like the smell of rat pee in the Zoology building) are rendered as drama. She pays great attention to detail and atmosphere; every line reads like a verse in a poem. To appreciate the book in it's entirety, however, one must be in a particular frame of mind. Preferably the depressed, ruminative kind.

So. I can't wait to get back to school on Thursday. I'm rotting here, right here where I'm sitting. I need the polluted Manila air to rid me of this holiday lethargy.

Brave New World

2006-12-31T10:52:00.000+08:00

“…actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow of passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”

-Brave New World by Alduous Huxley

In the not-so-distant future, ‘mother’ is a smutty word, promiscuity is a social norm, and what passes for religion is having an orgy (orgy-porgy, Ford and fun, kiss the girls and make them One) every fortnight. A powerful anti-depressant is distributed freely (one cubic centimeter cures ten gloomy sentiments) among the masses. The brave new world is thoroughly stable: politically, economically and most important of all—emotionally.

In Huxley’s world, babies are created in factories. Each embryo is predestined to become an Alpha, a Beta, Gamma, Delta, or an Epsilon Semi-Moron. Alphas are engineered with beauty and intellect, travel in helicopters and have eight different eau de cologne scents running from the taps; the Epsilon Semi-Moron is semi-human in appearance and does the most menial drudgery. Nobody is unhappy; indeed, no one is capable of being unhappy. With intensive conditioning from birth to control desires and emotions, no one is capable of yearning for what is not, and will never be, given.

This bovine contentment is blood-chilling because it is inhuman. If what is human is equal to struggle, passion and misery, then, happiness for an indefinite period of time is inhuman. Of course the premises for what is human are no more than hasty generalizations, assumptions. Still though, for many of us it is truth.

Who does not want to be happy? The mere fact alone that it is considered as the highest intrinsic good implies that it is a rare achievement. Like god or beauty or truth, happiness has been the topic of countless debates among the philosophers simply because its nature and attainment cannot be compressed in a universal handbook for all. For Plato, the moral person is the truly happy person; for Aristotle, one must attain virtue, or excellence, first before achieving happiness; for Lao Tzu, it is gained through the recognition and acceptance of nothingness; and so on. Whatever the philosophers say, however, there is an intersecting point: happiness is achieved through some form of struggle against the status quo.

In Huxley’s brave new world, ‘happiness’ is achieved by genetic tweaking and Pavlovian conditioning. After the initial major struggle against what is human, against passion and instability, the world is considered a stable place eradicated of war and hunger. I believe that such a future is not impossible; just improbable. It has its merits. However, there are two questions which must be hurdled: what man or woman would be willing to give up his or her humanity for a future of stability? And once achieving such future, will he or she give up to the stagnation that is bound to follow?

I am taught not to ask rhetorical questions in a composition and then give no answers. But I have no answers now, although the questions must be asked.

Brave New World is considered an anti-utopia, or a negative utopia. Its other famous siblings, so to speak, are: Samuel Butler’s Erewhon, George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver's Travels. Interesting tidbit: Butler and Huxley are English, Orwell is British, and Swift is Anglo-Irish. So what the heck is it with their part of the world that makes them concoct such miserable futures? Good question. It will be the day when a Filipino writes an anti-utopian novel.

oOo

We’ve got more than enough misery for all, such spectacular, picturesque, grand misery.

Happy New Year.

The Irony of It Is

2006-12-28T10:15:00.000+08:00

Spongebob: Patrick, your brilliance is showing!
Patrick: Where?

Bah, Humbug

2006-12-25T15:43:00.000+08:00

Kids I've met for the lovely first time started their daily rounds today as per schedule chirping 'namamasko po!' in that high-pitched lilt particular to people below seven. Huff. I'm not amused.

I've never seen them before in my life and I know the feeling's mutual. So why do they come to my house asking for cold hard cash? Munniemunniemunnie? Is it because it's Christmas? Oh. Riiiiiight. Christmas is Legalized Extortion Season.

I am very distressed. I'm hiding out in my own home like some fugitive grinch. I know I'm not exactly the personification of the Ghost of Christmas Present (depicted by Dicken's as a jolly, robust woman with mistletoe in her hair), but I am also not exactly Scrooge. These kids...it's pure blackmail. How can you not give them anything? Even munnie? They chirp to you in their crisp new Sexbomb outfits and pants and polos. It's either you heart melts with aw or you hide besides the fridge pretending they don't exist.

I opted for the latter. I'm paying for my sins, thank you very much, what with extra four pounds mocking me from down the bathroom scale. Yeah.

So now tell me something: is this kid-begging-er-asking-for-money-from-strangers phenomenon exclusive only to Cavite?

What I’d Just Hate to Have for Christmas

2006-12-23T21:20:00.000+08:00

Christmas is for kids. Christmas is for people who are still innocent enough to believe in the more inspiring things in life. Like hope. Or faith.

I have long given up on regarding Christmas as an exercise of religion. The turning point may have been the time when it was stolen from me by Eli Soriano; who knows. But it may be the disillusioning atmosphere I expose myself to during the season of giving. Suffocating malls with the stench of money low in the air and Christmas jingles pathetically manufacturing the Christmas spirit—sickening.

Is it just me?

I can only speak for myself (so it may just be me, after all). I am agnostic but I celebrate Christmas like a good celebratory Roman Catholic. No sweat. I am not one who makes qualms about distinction, considering how most experiences in life are subjective. So has Christmas lost its subjective meaning to me? Yes. I did use to believe in Christ. I did use to attend masses. If we are to be technical about it, then to me, ‘Christmas’ is as real a word as ‘Hogwarts’.

I am a kid. I am still innocent enough to believe in the more inspiring things in life. But by golly, Christmas may not exactly be the thing for me.

Illogically Irate

2006-12-22T13:43:00.000+08:00

My period must be coming up. I got really roaring mad at the dishes this morning. I told them that if they don't stop being grossly uncooperative, I'm going to leave them to rot in the sink until New Year or until I get into a good mood.

Which of course I didn't do. I got more annoyed when the chicken I was cooking cooked so slow. And when I couldn't find my bag of candy loot. And when I barely understand Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities. As for that, it's either I'm just getting dumber as Christmas break progresses OR I just don't yet have the literary depth to grasp the fucking book.

I'm betting on the latter. This 'literary depth' thingummy first came into my consciousness after I reread a book (Beggar's Ride by Nancy Kress) I first came across when I was in Fifth Grade. It was an elaborate sci-fi novel with a kiss-kiss bang-bang plot and I appreciated it for not much else than that. Exciting, but it was not intellectually stimulating simply because I did not yet have the intellect to be stimulated.

I read the book occasionally in the later years, but I only appreciated it intellectually after my Philosophy I course from last year. There. Literary depth. I'm explaining my concept of it poorly. So let me try again.

A wide reader usually has a big vocabulary. A wider reader has an almost perfect grasp of the figures of speech and idiomatic expressions, along with their permutations. A wider wider reader knows the dirtiest slang available in the literary world. A wider wider wider reader knows philosophy.

I think, The Bonfire of the Vanities is as yet beyond me. Some of the figures of speech, the idiomatic expressions and the slang---beyond me. I'm writing this post so that one day, when I reread it, I may be able to fully grasp the impact of my ignorance.

Empty, Asexual, Smiley

2006-12-18T22:41:00.000+08:00

Smiling unto eternity, yellow and garish
Two blank dots for eyes
Nightmarish.

Horribly Funny

2006-12-16T15:59:00.000+08:00

I witnessed my first (and also second) Oblation Run this week! The first was in my college last Tuesday, and the second was at Palma Hall yesterday. It was fun. All the girls (and some guys) kept screaming their heads off whenever the group of naked men ran by. The first time, I screamed (emphasize ‘just once’) so I would know how it feels. I felt stupid.

A difference between the two Oblation Runs is that some guys took their masks off in Manila while the Diliman runners faithfully kept the tradition of anonymity. Also, the naked men in Manila were camwhores and would sometimes pose for the gaping girls. Those in Diliman were solemn.

The Oblation Run was an act of protest against, first and foremost, the UP system-wide tuition fee increase. Sadly though, the TFI was approved by the Board of Regents, 7-0. I was in that rally at Quezon Hall yesterday, as an observer. It was painful to witness students barricading the entrance of the hall so that the Board of Regents would be forced to hold the meeting outside where a table and chairs were put up. All for nothing, since the BOR decided to hold the meeting in another building altogether, the College of Law. Long, long story. Having an activist Spouse Equivalent doesn’t help much to make it less long.

Shit, I’m disgusted with myself. The paragraph above illustrates my apathy. I know I’m supposed to do something about it, but I’m too comfortable doing nothing, so why bother? I can give me a lot of reasons. All of which makes me feel more disgusted with me.

Activism would be the easiest way out of this self-revulsion. Maybe I can even pretend I’m doing something right for once, fighting for something real, for once. But I find that I am chronically incapable of deceiving myself. I’m not good at playing with paradoxes. I still hold that activism is not a concrete solution to anything, and what transpired yesterday is a sneering example. I also believe, though, that this apathy should be made to go away. Now what do I do?

Heck, I’m 18. But I still expect myself to save the world. I still indulge in the childish delusion of making a significant change, a significant mark, which will make this shithole better someday. Now I’ve said it out loud, it’s so horribly funny it could make me weep. Maybe I will, after the delusion has gone away.

Silly. I am silly.

For The New Lab Rat

2006-12-14T11:15:00.000+08:00

First lesson: if it's a yes, say so. If it's a no, say so too. If the question asked begins with a how or a why, then explain exactly how or why. You don't have to be right. You just have to think you are.

It's hard to live within a closed environment because, as in a pressure cooker, no air comes in and gets out---you become enclosed. Everyone around you is prodding you into conformity. To think otherwise would be to deny reality...if you have a guess as to what it is, really. Conformity begins with answering questions without answering them, because that's the safest way to get by. And the safest way to get by is to conform. Petitio principii.

The safest way, however, is not always the best way. Which is best anyway? Let me think about it, and I'll tell you one day. Do you even understand this? After you reach the ∞th lesson, you would.

Gung Ho Congressmen Give Me the Heebie Jeebies

2006-12-13T17:31:00.000+08:00

If Manny Pacquiao becomes president, I swear I shall stick a pump into my jugular and drain all the idealism out of me and bury it without ceremony into the deepest cesspit of this country. Well, okay, probably nothing that dramatic since by the time that horrible event would have come to pass, I’d have been out of college and into a crappy job. No sweat.

But seriously. President Manny ‘Pacman’ Pacquiao is a strange, choke of a sound the more enlightened citizens of the Philippines would love to avoid uttering one day. That is why the proposed shift from a presidential to a parliamentary form of government appeals to some intellectuals. Since they come from the middle to upper class, they are aware that they are outnumbered by the non-intellectuals who would vote for the most popular, and not the most competent. Popularity is an easy variable to measure. But competence? Who has the right to and who will be right in measuring competence? The answer of the pro-Charter Change is a parliament.

In a parliament, the MPs or the members of the parliament will be elected by the people, much like the way we elect congressmen. They would, in turn, elect and remove the Prime Minister as honest representatives of the people. Isn’t that great? We would have MPs who are smart and rich enough to get themselves elected into office. It should follow, of course, that they won’t elect someone like Pacman as Prime Minister. They would know that competence should be the middle name of the highest governing official in the land. Not Pacman. Nor Poe. Nor Erap.

However, the above situation is theoretical. Theoretically, the MP’s would be elected by the people. Theoretically, once they are elected they would honestly represent the desires of their voters by choosing and removing the country’s ruler. Theoretically, they would know who is most competent to lead the nation because they would, theoretically, be an educated lot who’ve heard about economic equilibrium and political stability and lots of other for-smart-people-only gunk.

Theoretically. Looking into the activities of the House of Representatives in the past two week or so, we have a pretty good picture of our future Parliament. We saw congressmen railroading a proposal in two days, breaking their own house rules which they ordinarily, elaborately, and lengthily follow amid public outrage. We heard a congressman screaming ‘you are not representatives!’ to the same people he represents. They are the future members of the parliament. Please do not entertain the illusion that a new breed of selfless politicians will emerge once a parliament is established. Please do not also dream awake of a competent prime minister, given that the same selfish, educated idiots would be the one to vote for her—and worse, she comes from them.

Education would not necessarily give people honesty, responsibility, compassion, and public accountability. The competence to govern a country may be measured by educational background, but the competence to govern well can be measured by virtue. Education and virtue do not come in a buy-one-take-one package. Charter Change can not make it so.

Brighter

2006-12-07T22:51:00.000+08:00

For Macroeconomics today, the professor showed us a graph mapping the trade surplus of the Philippines from the 1980’s up to the present. The line representing the trade surplus is depressingly taking a path below zero. It is very stable. Stably negative. The professor dryly remarked that the line would probably never change.

“Forever?” I had to ask.

“Forever,” he said, “unless the government does something about it.”

“Cha-cha?”

He gave me a non-committal look and mumbled something incoherent.
---

After class, my seatmate Reighben pronounced with some heat that the most horrible thing about Charter Change is the amendment giving parity rights to foreigners. For those who do not know, this is equivalent to suicide. While it is true that the capital pouring into the country from foreign investments would provide more jobs and thus more income to our countrymen, we would not own the capital. We would not own the profit. Just look at the depressing state our economy is in today given the scant protectionist measures our government is employing against exports and massive removal of foreign capital. Now imagine these measures totally removed. Suicide. It would be worthwhile to note that the most successful economies in the world (such as the US and Japan) are the most protectionist of them all.

Reighben and I are both baffled by this ridiculous amendment. Gloria is an economist. She knows these basic and obvious facts. And yet…the only reason we can come up with is that Gloria is simply out to please our beloved neo-colonial master, Uncle Sam. It does seem to run in the blood.
---

I believe that Charter Change is being proposed for all the wrong reasons. First, it is a brilliant maneuver which effectively deflects the public scrutiny regarding Gloria’s legitimacy as president to more useful channels—channels which are, ironically enough, designed to affirm her legitimacy. And last, it is simply a power struggle among the country’s political elite with no concern whatsoever about the public good. Now ‘public good’ is a vague concept at its best, and it would be very difficult to define the phrase objectively, if there is such a way. But let it suffice to say that the fight now is the Senate against Congress and the Congress against the May elections where the public exercises its duty and freedom to vote.
---

I have taken to the streets only once, but it was required for Political Science 14. It was a rally for human rights and I was not happy to be in it. You see, I do not believe in rallies. I prefer to wait and look for more concrete solutions to our nation’s problems and ‘rallies’ do not come under the heading of ‘concrete solutions’. Shouting myself hoarse does not give me a sense of fulfillment nor accomplishment, and I don’t see activism making significant changes today.

There must be another way.
---

I rarely read newspapers and I rarely watch the news, and I don’t care about politics. Ironically enough, though, I am a BA Political Science student in the University of the Philippines. What a place to be for a person such as me! And given the political situation today, what perfect timing for an apolitical political science student. It’s a great challenge. I have decided to finish the course.

Why? Let me think about it, and I’ll tell you one time.

Romeo and Juliet by Indigo Girls

2006-12-06T11:11:00.000+08:00

Love struck Romeo sings the streets a serenade
He’s laying everybody low
He’s got a love song that he made
He finds a convenient street light and he steps out of the shade
And he says something like,
“You and me babe, how about it?”

And Juliet says, “It’s Romeo! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“Yeah well.” — “He’s underneath my window” — “Now she’s singing” — “Hey la, my boyfriend’s back.”
“You shouldn’t come around here, singing up to people like that…”
“Aw anyway, what you gonna do about it?”

And Juliet, the dice were loaded from the start
And I bet and you exploded into my heart
And I forget, I forget
The movie song
“When you gonna realize, it was just that the time was wrong?”
Julie

We both come up from different streets
And they were both the streets of shame
You know they’re both dirty, both mean
Yes and even the dreams were the same
And I dreamed your dream for you
And, and now your dream is real!
So tell me honey
Now how can you look at me as if I was just another one of your deals?

Now you can fall for chains of silver
And you can fall for chains of gold
You know you, you fall for pretty strangers
And the promises they hold
Well you promised me everything, and then you
And then you promised me thick and thin
And now you just turn away and say
“Romeo? I think I used to have a scene with him!”

Oh Juliet, when we made love you used to cry
You said “I love you like the stars above, I’m gonna love you till I die”
There’s a place for us, ha
I know you know this song
Now when you gonna realize
It was just that the time was wrong?

Julie
I’m so in love
So in love, yeah

But I can’t do the talk
Like they talk on my TV screen
I can’t do a love song
Like the way you sing to me
I can’t do anything but I would do anything for you
I can’t do anything except be in love with you

All I do is miss you and the way it used to be you know
And all I do is keep the beat
I keep bad, bad company
And all I do is kiss you
Through the bars of this rhyme
When Julie, I’d do the stars with you
Anytime

Oh Juliet, when we made love you used to cry
You said “I love you like the stars above, I’m gonna love you till I die”
There’s a place for us, ha
I know you know this song
Now when you gonna realize
It was just that the time was wrong?

Julie, Julie, Julie

Well this love struck Romeo sings the streets a serenade
He’s laying everybody low
He’s got a love song that he made
He finds a convenient street light and he’ll step out of the shade
And he says something like,
“You and me babe, how about it?”

Id Est

2006-12-03T19:46:00.000+08:00

Another week ahead—just thinking about it makes my stomach lurch. One month into the second semester and I'm wasted. Now that's weird. Is it just me getting older or the world moving faster? A good question, but one which has been asked, and consequently unanswered, before.

I had intended to waste my time cataloguing all my books—you know, write all their titles and organize them according to genre. But I had to give up after Sweet Valley High Twins. My 'For Adolescents' books are too many, and I haven't even gotten to science fiction, fantasy, romance, classics, suspense/thriller, and mystery yet. So I just stuck everything wherever they would fit. Oh, and I was sorely disappointed when I did not find a trace of Stephen King's The Green Mile. All six books I bought for ten pesos each, and they are, sniff, lost.

I know, I know. This is all boring and unenlightening. So let me say something profound: ignorant people do not deserve intelligent conversation. Got that? Write it down. Ignorant people tend to stretch your patience. They cannot be reasoned with, not easily anyway. The bad part is that the effort would be worthless.

With that said, let me continue ranting. Rant. I'm sick of analzying myself, my friends, my dogs, my preference of soap operas—basically anything or anyone I care about. It gets in my nerves. As I keep telling Betch: makati sa kili-kili. I just want to be blank, the epitome of Locke's tabula rasa. I just want to hide in the bathroom forever reading Isabel Allende or Stephen King or Lloyd Alexander or Madeleine L'Angle. Rant.

I'm done.

The Prophecy of Merlyn

2006-11-29T09:42:00.000+08:00

“I do not think much of it as a quest,” said Kay. “He only went after the hawk, after all.”

“And got the hawk, Master Kay,” said Hob, reprovingly.

“Oh well,” said Kay, “I bet the old man caught it for him.”

“Kay,” said Merlyn, suddenly terrible, “thou wast ever a proud and ill-tongued speaker, and a misfortunate one. Thy sorrow will come from thine own mouth.”

At this everybody felt uncomfortable, and Kay, instead of flying in his usual passion, hung his head. He was not an unpleasant boy really, but clever, quick, passionate and ambitious. He was one of those people who would never be a follower nor a leader, but only an aspiring heart, impatient in the failing body which imprisoned him.

-excerpt from T.H. White’s The Once and Future King

Finding for a phrase which explains what I feel about this passage—

It broke my heart. I may have been Kay, for all Merlyn knew. Now I’m supposed to write about how frustrated I am about my limitations—about the things I knew I could do and wanted badly to do but somehow never found the strength to—but something keeps catching as I try to type them. Someday, when I put them down in words, I may have overcome them. But it may be a day I for which I could not afford to wait.

Diarya

2006-11-26T07:03:00.000+08:00

'Happy people don't keep diaries. They're much too busy living', Robert Heinlein says in his book Friday. This tells us about what he thinks of happy people. First, that happy people are of necessity busy and second, that they don't keep diaries.

Sounds redundant, but I'm doing it for emphasis. Why? Because I think he's wrong. Happy people are not always busy people. I am happy, but I'm not busy. That's why this blog gets updated so often; I have a lot of time to waste on non-existent readers.

But things are different, now. Surprisingly, I have a lot of stuff to bother about lately. Or maybe, there's just me wanting to bother about a lot of stuff lately. There's a fundamental difference. I've always thought that feeling busy and actually being busy are two different concepts. The latter complements your social life, the former says you're pathetic.

But yes, I do feel tired more often, if tiredness is any measure of busyness. Maybe I'm going through a paradigm shift. My relaxed, laid-back philosophy is slowly evaporating. Well. It may be inevitable. I don't feel any sorrow, though.