I'm done for the semester! Just came from UP to submit my final paper for my Lit class. Yey! Its supposed to be a postcolonial reading of NVM Gonzales' The Bread of Salt. Yey!I beat the deadline by around 35 minutes! Yey! I think I irked Prof. J. Neil Garcia when, upon telling me that he'll mark my paper late when he announced it very clearly in class that the deadline is April 2 at 5pm, I shot back, "Eh kelan bang deadline n'yan?" Yey! Sorry, sir! Despite your attempts to mimic valley girl accent and the kaartehan that you pass of as criticism, I did learn a lot from your class. Sorry for the absences! Yey!
I'm listening to Melissa Etheridge's "I Run For Life" to celebrate. It's cheesy! Yey!
Monday, April 2, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
What's my line?
So it has come to this. Our office, usually busy-boring and dreary during regular weekdays, is jolted by a hostage crisis happening somewhere in Manila. The pain of having the internet, although this one's not exactly a case of technology providing us real-time world surveillance. While we followed it up in the internet as if watching armageddon strike the White House exclusively, the heads up came when a former colleague who now works for ANC texted to inform us that a scheduled guesting by some of our students on the show he produces is to be postponed to give way to the hostage coverage. It appalls us that men would endanger 32 young lives to achieve anything, whatever it is. My colleagues, for wanting to hear the latest news straight from the tube, and I, for simply wanting breakaway from what I was doing the exact moment they wanted to exercise their right to chismis, decided to retrieve the 21" television from our satellite office. I went without thinking twice, there have been plans anyway to salvage what we can from that office since its "temporary shut down."
It has come to this. That I would decide to lift something that heavy in the middle of summer afternoon heat is something big. Our all-around man Mang Boyet helped me of course. But still, even he would admit, it was heavy. The boredom and uneventfulness of my life has taken a physical toll on me. I know I'm involved in some worthy cause, and I thank the gods in all dimensions that I'm enrolled in literature classes to protect my brain from sheer atrophy. But good work is not necessarily mind-stimulating. It is farther even from exciting.
But it has come to this. That I know, deep in my heart, I feel less sorry for those kids than I should be. And I know that I've lost my logic in this case. But on second thought, I really don't use much of that anyway. But its going against everything out of sheer hatred of something. It is after all politics that drove Ducat to such lengths. Of course, I would not resort to such acts to call attention to my opinion, but the question is where really should I resort to? I am shit-slapped every night with political ads of aspiring senators who are yet to prove they deserved my vote. Someone who resorted to military means to achieve his goal still ranks in the survey. Not certainly the media, who puts profit first before credibility. It's a true social gangrene even. I'll certainly not simply kneel down and pray for the world to change in the churches. These very same people, who have sat in power most of their lives, have the balls to tell me that we need to vote for them again when the country is in deeper dung heap when they weren't there? It escapes me sometimes, but I think logic is with me here. If they are already in a position of power, wherever it may be, and they're claiming the country is worst off now, I think fingers shouldn't be pointed anywhere but at themselves. And despite these realizations, the cries for injustice, incompetence, shits continue to fly in our face.
The hate that comes from all these, the anger, eats at humanity. I hate them politicos so much that I feel I am according the hostage-taker some sympathy when I shouldn't. It makes me forget moral and social taboos. It is legitimate rage for me, only I wouldn't have taken a bus full of kids but Batasan during SONA. But something should happen that would put the blood in the politicians hands. I even think some blood should be spilled for real change to occur, and I feel it should be theirs. I don't think another EDSA will do us good.
It has come to this. That I would decide to lift something that heavy in the middle of summer afternoon heat is something big. Our all-around man Mang Boyet helped me of course. But still, even he would admit, it was heavy. The boredom and uneventfulness of my life has taken a physical toll on me. I know I'm involved in some worthy cause, and I thank the gods in all dimensions that I'm enrolled in literature classes to protect my brain from sheer atrophy. But good work is not necessarily mind-stimulating. It is farther even from exciting.
But it has come to this. That I know, deep in my heart, I feel less sorry for those kids than I should be. And I know that I've lost my logic in this case. But on second thought, I really don't use much of that anyway. But its going against everything out of sheer hatred of something. It is after all politics that drove Ducat to such lengths. Of course, I would not resort to such acts to call attention to my opinion, but the question is where really should I resort to? I am shit-slapped every night with political ads of aspiring senators who are yet to prove they deserved my vote. Someone who resorted to military means to achieve his goal still ranks in the survey. Not certainly the media, who puts profit first before credibility. It's a true social gangrene even. I'll certainly not simply kneel down and pray for the world to change in the churches. These very same people, who have sat in power most of their lives, have the balls to tell me that we need to vote for them again when the country is in deeper dung heap when they weren't there? It escapes me sometimes, but I think logic is with me here. If they are already in a position of power, wherever it may be, and they're claiming the country is worst off now, I think fingers shouldn't be pointed anywhere but at themselves. And despite these realizations, the cries for injustice, incompetence, shits continue to fly in our face.
The hate that comes from all these, the anger, eats at humanity. I hate them politicos so much that I feel I am according the hostage-taker some sympathy when I shouldn't. It makes me forget moral and social taboos. It is legitimate rage for me, only I wouldn't have taken a bus full of kids but Batasan during SONA. But something should happen that would put the blood in the politicians hands. I even think some blood should be spilled for real change to occur, and I feel it should be theirs. I don't think another EDSA will do us good.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Someone or something really should pry me off BtVS. I earned a two and a half day retreat from work which I spent in our family house in Novaliches, and rest did not come easy as I expected it to come. In fact, there was no resting. The days were spent watching Season 1 and 2 BtVS from bootleg DVDs for the nth time, and there are no signs that I'm moving on, that I'm getting satisfaction. Despite the hair, despite the bad lighting. I traded precious sleep time for quality slaying sessions with B and the Scoobies. The craving just keeps getting worse. My brother advised me that I should find something to replace it with, like what he did when he finally slayed his own inner demons and jumped aboard Battlestar Galactica. I maybe crazy, but I'm not that crazy. Might as well ask Faith to stick something hard and shiny through my chest. I think I have a major addiction/obsession problem. Maybe I should ask Willow how she got over hers.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
When stars go blue
Awww. What a title.
The other night a house mate and I decided to spend it on the rooftop of our boarding house to escape the heat of our rooms down below. We welcome the approaching December winds, and the rooftop is a calming and soothing refuge for our tired bodies who walked one of urban Manila's most depressed areas earlier during the day. We consciously but implicitly agree to spend our time there and talk about almost anything (how the day went, the food we're eating, the tambays around the corner who speak with weird Californian, valley girl accent, the cockroach traversing the veranda's rails, anything), but that night, she was her usual self. We've had this tens of times of before. And yet somehow, every night that we decide to spend our last waking hours together, I expect it to be different.
Maybe because she was tired that night. Or because she's painfully in love. We talk for a few minutes while I find the most comfortable spot - and position - in the place and as soon as I do, she's gone. The wind takes her. Me noting the wind earlier is not intended to suggest anything. She just floats away, while I look at her from my cozy spot, not with longing (desiring) eyes; without anything.
That night the spot was in the center of the veranda, lying down first plainly on the dusty floor, then later with my bed sheet and a pillow. In this position I have an unobstructed view of the sky. It too was clear, and for the first time I saw the stars as they were meant to be seen; twinkling brightly against the dark sky, without the shameless light of the moon in the periphery, and without any structures around to remind you of the earth where you stand - or lie. Heaven embraced me that night, a dark cocoon offering nothing (not even protection) but sheer awe while trinkets of light flirted with me (they did, believe me). Do they want me to follow them? And then touch them, feel them burn my skin and soul? I want to know so I did, but they quickly hid behind a thick blanket of clouds, teasing me even more.
But where was the girl? I guess the stars took her and hid her behind the clouds.
I pick up my bed sheet and pillow, and I sigh, half-frustrated, that I let the lights take her. But then I suppose, in fact I know, she's happier there.
Where do you go when you're lonely?
The other night a house mate and I decided to spend it on the rooftop of our boarding house to escape the heat of our rooms down below. We welcome the approaching December winds, and the rooftop is a calming and soothing refuge for our tired bodies who walked one of urban Manila's most depressed areas earlier during the day. We consciously but implicitly agree to spend our time there and talk about almost anything (how the day went, the food we're eating, the tambays around the corner who speak with weird Californian, valley girl accent, the cockroach traversing the veranda's rails, anything), but that night, she was her usual self. We've had this tens of times of before. And yet somehow, every night that we decide to spend our last waking hours together, I expect it to be different.
Maybe because she was tired that night. Or because she's painfully in love. We talk for a few minutes while I find the most comfortable spot - and position - in the place and as soon as I do, she's gone. The wind takes her. Me noting the wind earlier is not intended to suggest anything. She just floats away, while I look at her from my cozy spot, not with longing (desiring) eyes; without anything.
That night the spot was in the center of the veranda, lying down first plainly on the dusty floor, then later with my bed sheet and a pillow. In this position I have an unobstructed view of the sky. It too was clear, and for the first time I saw the stars as they were meant to be seen; twinkling brightly against the dark sky, without the shameless light of the moon in the periphery, and without any structures around to remind you of the earth where you stand - or lie. Heaven embraced me that night, a dark cocoon offering nothing (not even protection) but sheer awe while trinkets of light flirted with me (they did, believe me). Do they want me to follow them? And then touch them, feel them burn my skin and soul? I want to know so I did, but they quickly hid behind a thick blanket of clouds, teasing me even more.
But where was the girl? I guess the stars took her and hid her behind the clouds.
I pick up my bed sheet and pillow, and I sigh, half-frustrated, that I let the lights take her. But then I suppose, in fact I know, she's happier there.
Where do you go when you're lonely?
Sunday, November 19, 2006
A city by the river
It's easy to fall in love with a city like Marikina. Last night a friend and I decided to visit the many peryas and bazaar set up along the riverside by the city government in preparation for the Yuletide. The place was teeming with Marikeños, and one could immediately feel the sense of community pervading the atmosphere. I've never experienced anything like it in any place I've been to, much less here in Metro Manila where I grew up.
As my friend described it, it couldn't be any happier than any fiesta anywhere in the country. But for someone who grew up in communities where feasts are hardly celebrated, my point of comparison come pathetically only from TV shows and magazines; travel guides with pictures of people in flamboyant costumes dancing and prancing on streets to entertain (foreign) tourists or, if I subscribe to their position, their patrons (saint or no saint) . But what makes Marikina extra special is the intimacy of the place, of the now-positively-famous Marikina riverbanks.
I can't stop myself from romanticizing a river that runs across a town. It is not the cleanest, mind you, but the Marikina river is relatively less "colorful" than Pasig, and way clearer than the typical urban esteros. At least water here has current, and gazillions of janitor fish swim about. At least there's life here. What's more, people really don't mind being around the river. There were about 5 carnival spots along the riverbank on both sides, and at least a hundred food booths and tiangges. Entire families have their picnics on green spots beside the river, and with the volume of people in that place last night, the place was surprisingly clean. These people must be really proud of this place to actually care for it.
As my friend described it, it couldn't be any happier than any fiesta anywhere in the country. But for someone who grew up in communities where feasts are hardly celebrated, my point of comparison come pathetically only from TV shows and magazines; travel guides with pictures of people in flamboyant costumes dancing and prancing on streets to entertain (foreign) tourists or, if I subscribe to their position, their patrons (saint or no saint) . But what makes Marikina extra special is the intimacy of the place, of the now-positively-famous Marikina riverbanks.
I can't stop myself from romanticizing a river that runs across a town. It is not the cleanest, mind you, but the Marikina river is relatively less "colorful" than Pasig, and way clearer than the typical urban esteros. At least water here has current, and gazillions of janitor fish swim about. At least there's life here. What's more, people really don't mind being around the river. There were about 5 carnival spots along the riverbank on both sides, and at least a hundred food booths and tiangges. Entire families have their picnics on green spots beside the river, and with the volume of people in that place last night, the place was surprisingly clean. These people must be really proud of this place to actually care for it.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Introduction: Points of Departure
I find it incidental that my first venture in the blogging world coincided with the first day of my literature class. I should clarify: I've been blogging for a while (around 4 posts now) in Yahoo! 360, not really to blog blog, but only to try out its features. To be honest, that site's a fine thing - it beats friendster.com and myspace.com by a mile in terms of user-friendliness and ease of use, and of course, it's got the Yahoo! server for better photo uploading and sharing sessions. But then again, I've never really been fond of the online social networking culture, which made the all the effort to customize my account and fill up fields and forms a total waste of my time.
Now on this blog and my class. I will not admit that it's the "literary bug" that bit me to take blogging seriously, because it did not. Contrary to most assumptions, I decided to pursue further studies in literature not to be a writer and not, more importantly and this point I should make clear, because I'm "inspired." I've already given up on the possibility of me writing for a living for, if it's still not obvious, I'm kind of boring and unimaginative - writing-wise. But who said one needs to write prize-winning entries for blogs?
Tomorrow is the second day of my literature class. The course is an introduction to post-colonial studies; a subject I am fond of, but I cannot claim expertise nor mastery. If it's any help, I took several courses on post-modernism in undergraduate Sociology, which exposed me to the whole "post-" phenomena. Whatever it is, I hope both their "post-"'s mean the same. Scholars are wasting valuable intellectual resources debating over its meaning - which they are most welcome to use for ending global poverty - if Chomsky's "post-" is nowhere near Said's. Or they can also dismantle nukes. Or unseat Presidents (the bushy one or the short one).
My bad. At least Chomsky's not missing the big picture.
Now, why this blog? Simply because I decided I should keep one.
Now on this blog and my class. I will not admit that it's the "literary bug" that bit me to take blogging seriously, because it did not. Contrary to most assumptions, I decided to pursue further studies in literature not to be a writer and not, more importantly and this point I should make clear, because I'm "inspired." I've already given up on the possibility of me writing for a living for, if it's still not obvious, I'm kind of boring and unimaginative - writing-wise. But who said one needs to write prize-winning entries for blogs?
Tomorrow is the second day of my literature class. The course is an introduction to post-colonial studies; a subject I am fond of, but I cannot claim expertise nor mastery. If it's any help, I took several courses on post-modernism in undergraduate Sociology, which exposed me to the whole "post-" phenomena. Whatever it is, I hope both their "post-"'s mean the same. Scholars are wasting valuable intellectual resources debating over its meaning - which they are most welcome to use for ending global poverty - if Chomsky's "post-" is nowhere near Said's. Or they can also dismantle nukes. Or unseat Presidents (the bushy one or the short one).
My bad. At least Chomsky's not missing the big picture.
Now, why this blog? Simply because I decided I should keep one.
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