29.4.10

photography

I'm quite fond of taking pictures nowadays. And there are a number of times that I told myself that I should have been a photographer...

Nah...  am just fooling myself...Haha

28.4.10

video message for Chrisgene Castillo


*earlier posted in http://www.walaakongkwenta.blogspot.com/

27.4.10

At any rate....

At any rate, that is happiness,; to be dissolved into something complete and great. -Jimmy, My Antonia

20.4.10

the comedy of tardiness

I’m not really sure why my friends do it to me but they seem to like keeping me waiting for them whenever we go out. Mind you, I’m not pertaining to any specific person. I am not also trying to make an impression that they aren’t good friends. I am merely pointing out the common denominator of my friends: tardiness.

My as-though-keen-observation of this doesn’t mean that I don’t get tardy myself. I usually get tardy in morning schedules since being a little bit insomniac, I sleep quite late in the evening or even early in the morning and I find it difficult to wake up at 5 am. It is not a secret that I had a number of tardy days when I was working in Chiang Kai Shek College. It isn’t also a secret that even before working in school, I had attended some of my undergraduate classes just whenever I would feel doing it. But of course, tardy though I was, I didn’t neglect my jobs and responsibilities—but that is according to my biased point of view.

But when it comes to social appointments, I think I get very much excited that I got to the venue some minutes—or even hours—ahead before my friends can say “Oops…sorry I’ve just woken up.” In these situations, I often blamed my overly excited nerves—thanks to the coffee! After all, it isn’t my friends’ fault that I can’t think of nothing else but meet them.

There were times that my friends themselves appointed the schedule. I, thinking that they would definitely stick to their given time, would try my best to get at the chosen area on time or a little after the schedule so as to appear not that excited. But I would just find myself in my solitude, waiting for them to arrive. Sometimes I succeeded making them wait. I wanted to congratulate myself for those times but I usually found myself guilty.

Now, upon reading this, you may think, “if this is the case, why do you still consider them as your friends?”

Before I answer that, let me just explain my purpose in writing this: to share my amusement at the comic denominator of my friends and not to spite them of their inaccurate wristwatches. It is so comic that no matter how hard I try to summon a negative feeling from the deepest recesses of my heart toward this un-“friendly” behavior, I find myself laughing and asking why.

Probably that is how they trust me that I will be on time no matter what. Probably they know  that I will be waiting. I really cannot confirm these unless I would have my friends' brains in a box.

I am sure, though, that the only thing I can surely give my friends is my time. I am not the type of person that anybody can depend on for material needs. I am not also an interesting conversation partner as I claim to be. In short, I can really be a bore. They are really doing me a big favor in sticking with me (accdg to Chinese Culture humility is power...even though it's only false humility, it is still power. haha). This reason enables me to just whistle and look for things while I wait for them endlessly during our appointments. 

Aside from that, I have this subconscious thought that I have recently realized: they aren't my friends because they come on time. They are my friends because they have somethings, values, characteristics that I lack. I bear their tardiness but I am quite sure that they bear more things about me and my kaleidoscopic personality.

It still is funny though, that out of all the possible common denominators that they can have, I only see one: tardiness. 

19.4.10

i am restless

Joyce, Maria and I went home together last Wednesday eveningerm, I mean Thursday morning ( I got confused with my abnormal job schedule). It has been awhile since the Mogwai event (Karen where are you?).

We are starting to miss the old place and company once again and right now, we are in the middle of planning to live in a house in Makati. Due to our work schedules, it is best for us to rent a house near our work areas. I am torn between getting excited or not in this plan. Somehow, I know it will solve my most of my problems. But of course, once I step outside the comforts of my home, I know I have to start learning how to live real far from my family.

Im sick and tired of staying in our Caloocan house. I thought my family would be able to move to a different area this summer. Move to a bigger place. Move to a better environment. Move to a place that can provide my poor cell phone a good signal. And since we didnt transfer anywhere but remained in that cat-shit hole (Im not cursingthis is but an understatement to how many cats exist in that area), I start to rebel against my parents, the house and the cats.

I usually go home a little bit grumpy, dissatisfied (caused not only by the house itself but because of how poorly I do my summer job). I vent out my anger on my unpredictable brother, my indifferent father, my whiny mother (please note that I only say this out of boredom and plain ignorance of how much they love meif they really do).

So having companions in these turbulent times keeps my insanity and enables me to look forward to another day ahead. Look forward to a day where I will be able to move freely and do every single thing that I really want. That day will come once I move out of the cat hole.

My plan with Maria and Joyce is not the first. I thought of living with my friends since I was in 3rd year college. Thats how impatient I was to live my life the way I want it. After college, I had the taste of it.

Now that I am restless, I think I need a fresher air to breathe (which is yet an ironyHello, Makati). 

blurbs


 "Ooh I forgot..." is what I usually tell people that don't matter to me....because they don't...hehe


14.4.10

not really a memorable one: my first trip to the post office

It was my first time to go to the post office alone this morning. What an effort it was! I had to wake up quite early--and for me it was really early since it's vacation-- around 8. And I was rushing. I didn't have a clue whether the post office closes at 12nn for their lunch break. So I did my best to shake my lazy bones, and grumpy that I was, being awaken early, I endured the two-hour ride to the giant mailbox (it wasn;t supposed to be that way...it should have been and hour only but greedy drivers are on their glory nowadays, they do stop at every corner of the street and I am not exaggerating). 

The point is I got there, not knowing what to do. I didn't even bring sufficient money for my parcel. i thought that a hundred is enough to send one book to the other side of the world. I'm a dummy I know. I got in the post office at 11:15. not bad. I still had 45 minutes to "send" the gift. 

But I wasted the 45 minutes that I had by moving around, checking windows, looking for signs or directions for sending things. Nala. I didn't see any thing. I only saw a poster of how to apply for a postal I.d. and yeah, I almost forgot, the list of weight plus the equivalent prize. I thought it was the thing that I really needed. But i couldn't convince myself.

So I texted Joycee-jam for how-tos. However, she couldn't advice me anything aside from using the regular mailing way since she hasn't experienced sending a parcel yet.

I was about to take her advice and I ventured once again int he sea of faces and summoned my remaining courage before the city hall clock could say "time's up!" Since I am the type of person who doesn't admit stupidity, I searched for a friendly face. I found one. I thought, "At last! Here's the answer to my needs!"

After all was said and done, I ended up having the parcel in my bag. The reason? The book I want to send costs P499 and the sending fee is P1050.

In all honesty? I still ask myself why I woke up early this morning.

6.4.10

HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO BE ABSENT FROM THE MASTERS’ CLASSES*


·         you enjoy your vacation and sleep too much. Sometimes even, you sleep the whole day and you get muscle cramps. You forget your requirements. Guess what, the requirements you have been avoiding to do knock on the door now. Haha. And you are confused. Where are you going to begin? What do you need to finish first? The point is, you have to finish them all. That’s the problem.
·         You endure the “sniders” your know-it-all classmates throw at you. Nah. Of course they won’t say it is you. Who would be that brave if not stupid? Well, they are stupid in a way because they think you were stupid and they could make you look more stupid. If that isn’t what you call stupidity, I don’t know what it is then. They do what they do because they think they know more than you do, because they have already been in the Masters’ class since before you were born and you have to give them the credit because up until now they haven’t graduated and that’s saying something. And they even think they look better than you do? C’mon! Let that pass! If they are comparing their looks to yours, just let them be. Who would believe them anyway seeing the pounds of flesh they did not care to conceal. And yeah, you are younger anyway. Just give it up for your grannies.
·         You answer a very difficult finals exam-and to think that you took one as hard earlier. What is worse is awhile ago, you took a one-shot exam. This afternoon, you are taking a 7-question exam; you have to choose five that you can answer. The problem is all of them are difficult. Almost to the point that you can’t answer any. And if you can, you can’t get your mind straight. And you know that each question needs a two-page answer. What a day, don’t you think? You ask yourself why you decided to attend this final day. Ah! So you are afraid of failing the class. You must have not been absent in the first place, you idiot!

And right now, all you can do is to stare at the effortlessly blank page until sleep over-powers you. Well, you do have a decision. You can just end your agony by telling your professor that the exam is really difficult. It is beyond your super human intelligence. You can advise him to do other test that may assess what you have learned—if you have learned a thing from your absences. Or better yet, stop doing these useless and senseless ranting and start answering your agonizing final paper!

*I did this in the middle of answering my final examination in my 2nd subject, Contemporary Anglo-American Literature, also taught by Mr. Venancio Mendiola. I was absent for 2 consecutive sessions for reasonable causes. For this I was included in his black list. He even threatened that he was to give me a different set of test questions. But he didn’t. I learned my lesson the hard way. (20 march 2010, 1:25 p.m)

WHAT IS DIFFICULT IN TAKING YOUR FINAL EXAMS AT THE FRONT ROW BESIDE THE WINDOW*

·         You get to be relaxed…too relaxed you forget that it is your examination day and you are supposed to give an 8-page essay as a response to a simple(as in subject+verb structured) interrogative sentence. Yet you are there, writing something else, thinking of someone else, and doodling your paper with hearts.
·         You forget the time you are supposed to pass the paper. Not tomorrow, not lster in the afternoon, but soon, after two hours. Yet it doesn’t natter to you. You pretend you ask yourself why it doesn’t matter but you don’t really find for an answer. It doesn’t occur to you that you value the wanderings of your brain more than your examination paper.
·         You get to be entertained by simple things. You see the pale blue of the morning sky. You wonder how it feels to be up there. You see people pass by. You wonder why their faces look comic: serious and funny at the same time. You hear the merry laughter of the morning and probably “music” of the idle. You feel happiness from the faceless voices as they try to sing songs in tune but only manage to be a note near to the actual melody.

I could list as many possible reasons as I could. But these I know: what is difficult isn’t being distracted from your paper to the things that surround you. Distraction is a choice; you easily get distracted because you choose not to be focused. And that is not difficult. What is difficult is fighting the feeling of the voiceless regret that you are not there, outside, enjoying the summer sun. Instead, you are locked up in a room. And you remember that you have to pass your final examination paper after two hours.

*I made this amidst my final examination in my first subject, Literature of Emerging Countries. (20 march 2010, 10:20-10-45a.m.)

1.4.10

the clash of the minds

the problem in gaining a certain "reputation" is even though you don't like that label, you feel you are confined in that label and thus you cannot move freely without considering what people will say about you when you put a toe out of the line.
I know a number of persons-in-their-right-minds in all of their glory will raise their brows at this : Why confine yourself? Who's telling you to do that?
For all their rights, I plea to them to re-evaluate themselves and remember if there is really no point in their lives that they aren't affected by this "labelling." (another word for labelling?)
But that is not really my point(for goodness sake, I was inspired to write this entry because of something I really like not dislike).


Somehow, I hate to shatter the image that has somehow became my shadow since I was in third year college. Black has been my trend for some time now. Grunge and alternative music still is still a necessity to perk up my day. But colors start to seep into my system now (not that they didn't really exist in my world. They did, believe me, more than people may ever know). New Music wakes me up in the morning and lulls me to sleep at night...erm...early morning...


This new addiction is what I am not really sure I am proud of to proclaim. I am afraid that The Image that I feel comfortably in would shatter in front of me and I would very much hate to realize that I shattered it myself. I have been keeping this addiction for a very long time already and I can feel it bubbling inside me. There are times that I have already given hints of what this is and I have received different reactions--reactions that are not totally unpleasant. But I find myself trying to protect my Image by hiding this and thus making the addiction into obsession...


Sometimes, it is really better to keep things to myself... and preserve a fraud dignity..