Death has been confronting me from all sides.

Death has been confronting me from all sides. The first time was when I almost lost my life in a hold-upping (is there such a word) scene. The second confrontation was when I learned that my highschool classmate and buddy Jerome Juralbal died because of his eye infection. The third one was when I was informed that my high school principal died.

I am afraid of death, definitely. I am so afraid of it that I don’t want it to catch me off guard. I want to face it bravely. I just can’t stop with being afraid of it. I know I couldn’t possibly avoid Death just like I can’t avoid being afraid of Freddy Kruger. But I can definitely do something to make my life worthwhile—spend every minute of my life by savoring the fact that it’s good to be alive.

 As much as possible, I make every day special. I keep records of my daily experiences because I don’t want to be remembered as just another person who has lived. No one knows when I will be gone.

I don’t know why but it concerns me that I should finish all of my desires before I die. But of course, it would be very impossible to do that. My life is not a version, of Nicholas Sparks’ “A Walk to Remember.” I cannot depend on somebody to fulfill my dreams for me because, as it is, that somebody is yet to be given to me. All I can do for the mean time is to spend time with people special to me, be they friends or family. To tell them how much they mean to me. And to create memories that can mean me so much to them.

This might sound pathetic. But I can’t let these thoughts be buried with me until god-knows-when, literally and figuratively.

splash of orange

Philippines has its own “cherry blossom trees.”—Don’t be fooled, I am not advertising the country, nor trying to fool anybody that we do have “cherry trees.” I am trying to express my interest and somehow influence other people to get interested in these trees that bloom every summer. Instead of pink blossoms, they bloom orange(red orange) flowers. You can find it along the LRT line. Hotspots are R. Papa, Central, and Pedro Gil stations respectively.

I don’t even know its name, not that I didn’t even try. I asked many of my friends already about that tree. Here is a shot. I know I don’t give justice to how beautiful they are. I don’t have a proper camera, you see. I just use my phone cam whenever I see something good. Aside from that, I get to take photos while I am aboard LRT—needless to say, I love my “sports” application now. Anyway, if you have the time, and you take the LRT, or you live near the stations I have already mentioned, you will easily find them.

As I look at those trees while going to my present work, I ask why people, particularly Filipinos love cherry blossoms. I don’t know the answer to this one since I myself am interested in them.

. I am quite guilty of loving other nation’s beauty than my own and the “orange” trees have just reminded me about that.

All I can say is those splashes of orange on the green, blue and grey background beat any kaleidoscope in the world.

Facebook can connect you to your friends from the different part of the world. This is a big “yes yes” to one of the largest e-sites. But Facebook’s advantage doesn’t stop there. It also connects you to your friends’ “howe,” as my Chinese students call them, even if you don’t want to meet them—and this irks me.

It has been quite a long while since I had a decent contact with some of my highschool classmates. Thanks to interactive sites, I can manage to drop them a message or two and see how they have been getting along. Once, I posted a comment about a high school classmate’s profile picture. Lo and behold! Someone retorted with “wag mong awayin ang baby ko.” Suffice it to say that I was stunned for some minutes; I didn’t know how to react. All I know is the girl got into my nerves (obviously).

I just can’t see her point in butting into some other people’s business. The big question is who she is anyway. Was I even talking to her? As far as I can remember, I posted the comment on His wall, not on Hers. Was I even ridiculing my high school classmate? Didn’t I know my limitations of how much I can joke around with him?

Fine. She wants me to know that this guy is her boyfriend already. But why? I wasn’t even thinking of asking him to be MY boyfriend.

I don’t care if she’s the girlfriend and she knows him better than I do but I knew him first. And I am certainly not in the mood to know a jejemonic girl who doesn’t do anything but to check on her boyfriend’s facebook wall.

I was about to respond with “???? Sino ka????” or “ was I asking if you were his boo” but I stopped myself. Doing so would earn me a bad shot.

My only concern is, how many girls like her would I meet in facebook? Are they many? Are they as vicious, as obsessive, as possessive?

For the mean time, I rest my case.

what is the most important sound for you?

for me the most important sound is the sound of breathing. It's a significant proof of living.

My list of reasons that old friends are better than new ones

• as any of my lists, this list would probably be longer than intended no matter how few i put on this page for now. Whoever wants to include something to the list may post contributions on the "comments" portion. You will be properly acknowledged. thanks. 

• 1 assuming a new personality is NOT needed—and it works both ways. I don’t need to “change” since they think it’s crappy. They don’t need to because I think it’s funny. Both ways, we don’t have to put on effort and airs to conceal how stinky we smell in the morning or how we like our green mangoes with soy sauce and sugar.

• 2 telling the most confidential and most intriguing thought is NOT as embarrassing at it seems—because they have worse things in their heads. We don’t need to cover our faces to hide our surprise, our shock, our disappointment. Hiding these things is a bigger crime to friendship as they say. Let’s say for example, they talk about the absurdity of morality and sex and I choose to sulk in a corner. They just laugh my incapacity to participate in their intellectual talk. Even, they scowl at me, thinking that I am too close-minded to accept the fact that they are all liberated.

• 3 planning to meet again is NOT as vague as it sounds—we can go anywhere and anytime we feel like it. Sometimes, the more we plan the lesser the chance for us to see again. “we are just a text a way,” materializes whenever we go out. My recent hang-out with some university friends happened through Facebook. Without a plan. Without even a good budget.

• 4 Going somewhere is NOT really a question—Old friends don’t laugh when I suddenly want to go to Manila Bay. Or a Karaoke bar. Or even just a small-time canteen. New friends sometimes find excuses that they have to go somewhere or they simply don’t have money. 

killing My Antonia

I have just finished Willa Cather’s My Antonia, a highly recommended book in my Masters’ Degree. It is not as beautiful as I thought it was. Give it to those who had the time to analyze the book.

One reason I see is I don’t see Antonia as a heroine. Her character is strongly built up from the start of the book. I am really disappointed that she doesn’t end up being successful. The one who has analyzed it in one of my classes shared that the perception of being successful is being happy and contented in life which Antonia “clearly” embodies.

 My problem is I can’t see in anyway how having a poor life in Nebraska and having many children can be a measurement of success. Sure, she is happy. Sure her family loves her. But wouldn’t it be better if she would have money to spend on good clothes, quality education, and sufficient food? Yes, this is a modern and quite materialistic view of things. But happiness surely can’t feed hungry stomachs. If it could, then we shouldn’t have culprits.

The other reason is the style. Perhaps I am more into the fast-paced straight to the point story of Arthur Conan Doyle and Jack London. Perhaps I should learn more about stylistics and appreciate the beauty of local color and the likes. Nah.

The third reason is,….actually this is not as a good reason as I think it is. I am frustrated that Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda don’t end up with each other no matter how I read the book. They end up being friends. You say I’m quite being romantic but hey, The  voice of the story somehow hints romance between them and ofcourse I expected that at the end they would be together. But no.

I am aware that this is a very unprofessional book review. Immature for a Literature student. But I am not going to pretend that I like the book even for a single bit. I’ll give it 20% because od the characters’ behaviors though. But as I was saying, I don’t want to make myself believe that I appreciate the book because like what I have read from C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, (poorly rephrased though—haven’t the knack yet to accurately say lines from books) “human beings have the knack of believing a lie they have made themselves to believe.” The sad thing is they believe in that lie until they die. And I don’t want to die lying against myself because of a book. And a boring book at that.

...

I have already sighed for the nth time and i am sighing once more. It's the only thing I can do without inflicting pain to anyone but myself.

hold up

I honestly don’t have any idea how I would best describe the horror I felt this Wednesday, 5 May. I don’t even have a clue on how fast things went that time. All I am sure is, I have a paranoia in riding a jeepney now specially at the wee hours of the morning.

But let me blabber for awhile. I hope I could see things straight.

I have just recently disclosed to some of my friends that I didn’t have blog or journal posts in May these past few years. I am thinking that may be God is giving me reasons to break that habit of consciously and subconsciously blotting May out of my calendar.

It could have been that I didn’t say my prayers that day…or that I didn’t go to the church last Sunday. Or is it because of the unusual schedule of my summer job. Or probably I was at the wrong jeepney at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people.

Or whatever.

I was completely startled when I saw a gun pointed at me.

And I thought it was all a joke.

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

video message for Chrisgene Castillo

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

At any rate....

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

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. 

i am restless

Joyce, Maria and I went home together last Wednesday evening—erm, 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.

I’m 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 didn’t transfer anywhere but remained in that cat-shit hole (I’m not cursing—this 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 me…if 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 3^rd year college. That’s 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 irony…Hello, Makati). 

blurbs

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

praying

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.

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 2^nd 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.)

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..

After a long while I saw a helicopter

After a long while I saw a helicopter, soaring in the evening clouds. I felt nostalgic of the things I used to do when I was still working in parańaque. I used to work in this company in Pacific Coast condominium/hotel (?) (owned by a particular Ybasco… If I were related to that Ybasco, I never found out) somewhere near Coastal Road and NAIA. The main office was located at the 24^th (was it 23^rd? oh my, I can’t remember anymore. It has been two years already when I had that job) floor, and the employees quarters are at the 11^th floor. Our room then was 1101, the room facing the coastal road. I have good pictures taken from the windows of the room and somehow those pictures upset me since I don’t live in an open area anymore. I’m stuck in the cave my family chose to live in and I still have to wait for 5 months before I can get my phone’s signal properly.

In that job, I usually slept late as I listened to my bosses’ somehow inaudible rants of improving the company (what’s good about Koreans is they don’t stop planning even it’s already the wee hours of dawn. They don’t stop working until the job is done. Bunch of workaholics if that’s how you like to describe them.) and as I did so, I watched how the sky changed its colors from the lightest of blue, to the darkest, and to its lightest once more. I couldn’t take for granted the airplanes and helicopters that passed by. I even waved at a helicopter once, and attempted to create a music video out of nothing to do. Well, right now, the only flying things I see through our windows are bugs.

Somehow it is unnerving to know that I did not appreciate my life back then. I still have a copy of my journal when I started working in that company. I wanted to get myself out of the work area because one of the bosses had a series (sessions, more like it) of arguments with his girlfriend. I couldn’t help but be affected because they fought in front of me. Not once did I think that they were talking about me. I ranted about not being appreciated for my hard work. I ranted for not being in the limelight.

Suddenly, those rants minimized when Mr. Lee started to exert his power in the company. I had opportunities laid down before me. I knew more people. I interacted with colleagues I hadn’t thought of befriending. There’s Karen, that loud and extremely raucous Krenggay who influenced me with her addiction to Radio Active Sago Project. Followed by Eminemskittles who was and still is into public service. Then Joycee-chan came into the picture and introduced to us this funny creature named…I forgot the name but it was a hamster. No it wasn’t Hamtaro. It was far from it. After a while, Joan came, brining a little bit of sophisticated femininity to the company’s life. Only to be disturbed by the “carpe diem” personality of Maria. All in all, we complete the “bombois” family of Mr. Lee.

now I want to do everything I can to pull those days back, now that I realize what I want. Now that I realize that I was already very close to my dreams, achieving what I want back then but I did not take the risk and here I am trying to get the time I have lost. Thanks to the helicopter, I have a good picture of how fast time can go and how I took it for granted.

two sides of a coin

After conveying my decisions, I had several epiphanies. I am not sure however whether these epiphanies are concrete or mere floating ideas again.

I took my final examinations in Mr. Mendiola's class last week. It was a whirlwind of an exam. So I soothed my nerve by shopping for a pair of shoes(gotta relieve the stress and i badly needed new sneakers). I dropped by BookSale (couldn't help not to).

I saw this book for "artists and artist wannabe-s" not really a How-to book. It is just a compilation of random thoughts from random artists. I got attracted by the following:

"Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better."-albert camus

-> basically, Camus echoed my thought and my situation. After my decision I felt free (nah..blame it to Joyce's A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man why I'm determined to search for my freedom).

But there are always two sides of the coin (just like what my former professor always told us back in the undergraduate years)

"You are free and that's why you are lost."- Franz kafka

And i couldn't help asking myself If i really know where i'm going to ( background song: do you know where youo are going to, do you like the things that life is showing you...eew)

....just random thoughts...please don't focus on my inability to organize my thoughts and capitalize what is needed to be capitalized....

decision

....i have already made my decision...it is now or never...

.i will probably regret my decision, but if i wouldn't do it now, when would i do it...when i am too old already?

..i will probably hate myself afterwards. probably i am just in search for what stacey orrico says as a "temporary high" but this high makes me happy.

...i will probably cry gallons of tears but i know, if i am indeed in search for true happiness, i should stick to the little joys that i find, and grab those opportunities that only pass my way once...

....i will probably get a little bit disappointed since this would feel as if i am back to step one. But if step one is closer to what i think will make me happy, then why should i not take the risk....

.....i will probably miss people...and people will probably miss me but i cannot let each minute pass by without making an effort to get nearer to my Personal Legend. I should not let this legend miss me.

......no matter what happens in the end, i only have myself to blame. But what is worse for me is to find out that i did not succeed because i didn't try. I don't want to cry bitter tears of regret for things i hesitate to do. I have had enough of regrets. I have already eaten my piece of cake.

........so whether things will turn out for the better or for worse, i will just have to remember, that i have made this decision on my own based on what i think, what i perceive, what i think. I will just have to remember that i have made this decision on my own with no one but the One who has lend me wisdom and bravery.

....i have already made my decision...it is now or never...