Not So Victor

Undead

2011-10-30T20:56:00.009+08:00

Fitting that my return to life in the graveyard that is my blogspot blog should happen on the midnight of Halloween. (That timestamp lies). My blog and I are officially undead.

I feel like I owe notsovictor an explanation as to why he's been abandoned. But all in good time. At the moment what I really feel like doing is celebrate All Hallows' Eve and share some of the scariest stories I've heard recently.

There are many scary stories and urban legends out there. Just ask the folks at Psicom who've made an industry out of "True Philippine Ghost Stories" volumes 1 through 2339039403. But personally, even with this deluge, what becomes salient to me are those stories which are firsthand experiences of people I know or of people they trust. Because in my frail reasoning, if a good friend of a good friend says it's true, then it must be legit.

And so, submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I bring you The Stories of The Undead.

1. BODY SNATCHERS

My sister is a busybody so it came as no surprise to anyone that when she was supposed to be handling a case outside Manila, she was spotted back in the office much earlier than expected. She had perhaps wrapped up her court appearance quickly, and made it back to the firm to work on pleadings for her other cases.

Her more junior officemates saw this as a good time to badger her with questions about their own cases. Needless to say, when they saw her enter the firm's main entrance, they immediately followed her to her personal office where, of course, she disappeared into thin air. Calling her cellphone, her co-workers were able to confirm that she was still stuck in traffic at the North Luzon Expressway.

My sister has never had the power of apparition or disillusionment. But it appears that something in their office is a very good shapeshifter. Two weeks later, my sister, being the bosses' pet, was working late in the firm. She and one of her bosses were the last two people there. Through with her work, and catching sight of her boss walking to his office, she followed him to have her work checked. She entered her boss' office. It was of course empty. Her boss had never entered his office. He was absent that day.

It's a simple story, true. But what I find absolutely unsettling is the fact that there are things scrutinizing you all the time, studying how best to mimic you in your everyday life. And as soon as you turn a corner, there you are, only with someone very different running the show.

2. AN ANSWERED DOOR

The bedroom I had when I was smaller was on the second floor, overlooking the garage and the doors between the garage and the kitchen. The gate to the garage is never oiled so it's always creaked and moaned like the undead having sex. From the garage, there is an old rattly door that was never varnished or finished. It doesn't fit the door frame properly so when it's opened, it has to be pushed hard, which if course makes the door rattle loudly once pried off the frame. This door leads to the dirty kitchen which has another door into the main house and the dining room.

From my room, I used to listen for the sounds of the moany gate, the rattly unfinished door and the opening of the kitchen door because it meant mom or dad were home. They usually had pasalubong - something which only reinforced my behavior of listening for them and rushing down the stairs to greet them in their arrival.

One night, just like any other, I was on my bed, listening for the sounds of the gate and the doors. Sure enough, the large iron gates moaned open and close. The door from the garage to the dirty kitchens rattled open and rattled shut. I rushed downstairs right in time to see the doorknob of the kitchen door locked but twisting. Maybe mom or dad lost the keys. I opened the door to find no one there. My parents wouldn't arrive until hours later.

Since then I had been wary of rushing to greet my parents when they came home. And rightfully so. Several more times, I had lain on my bed listening to the gate and the two doors, but not hearing the subsequent footsteps or voices of my parents shuffling about in the kitchen or coming up to their room.

I have since moved to my sister's old room on the first floor of the house adjacent to the kitchen. Sometimes when I study late into the night in the kitchen, the familiar noises of the gate and the doors creak out of nowhere. I see the familiar twisting of the locked kitchen doorknob. And even more familiarly, no one enters or calls for the door to open.

I've never told this to anyone because our family's not big on the otherwordly and I'm not a big fan of having my facts belittled. However, a couple of months ago, my sister and I found ourselves working in the kitchen. She was reading a book, I was making notes for an exam. She asked me, "Do you ever hear noises here at night?"

I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew what she was hinting at, but decided to play it cool, in case I was wrong. "Noises like what?"

"Well, when I used to study here late at night, I'd hear the gate open and close, and then that ratty door, and then sometimes someone would try to open the kitchen door, but when I look out the window, there would be no one there."

3. HOUSE BLESSING

Most of the time, blessing a house is a good thing. Sometimes, it makes matters worse.

My mom's friend used to spend his Friday nights with his drinking buddies playing poker at a friend's townhouse basement somewhere along Balete Drive. Recently, the friend who owned the house confessed to him that they were looking for a priest to bless the house. My mom's friend was perplexed because his friend's family had been living in that house for years, and blessings usually take place the first couple of months after a family moves in.

The friend explained that for the longest time, their maid had complained about ghosts walking about in the house's basement and that sometimes when she ironed clothes there, they would just watch her from the minute she stepped in to the minute she stepped out. She endured this of course because her employers did not believe her, and dismissed her claims as vestiges of her rural upbringing. They were forced to believe her, however, when a high chair (complete with a baby sitting on it) was sent levitating back into a wall right before their very eyes during dinner.

My mom's friend caught up with his friend again a few weeks later. They had finally had the house blessed. He explained that the priest was careful to bless the perimeters of the house so that no malignant entities could enter it. Ever since, the maid has reported that the basement has been free of any ghostly sightings, and nary a piece of furniture has been thrown against a wall.

"But we're still moving out," the friend added.

"But I thought the blessing worked? No more ghosts in the basement?"

"No more ghosts within the entire perimeter, actually. But it's still disturbing when you're trying to sleep at night and all the ghosts you cast out are just staring at you from outside the window."

4. JOANNE

My sister's friend went to one of the old law schools in Manila. For one particular class, their room was on the building's top floor where no one usually went. Wishing to go unnoticed in the professor's class, she chose a seat by the window.

The class was progressing normally enough. Until she heard someone calling her name. She looked around the classroom, thinking that a classmate was trying to get her attention. The voice kept calling "Joanne, Joanne!" but no one's mouth was moving - everyone seemed intent on the lecture, and no one seemed to be hearing the voice apart from her.

Becoming more and more anxious, she decided to block the voice out and pay really close attention to the lecture. The voice continued to call her name for ten more minutes. And then it ceased. The class ended, with no one at all telling her that they had heard someone calling her name. Outside the room, however, one of her classmates spoke to her.

"Did you feel anything strange during class?"

"Why?"

"It's just that in the middle of the lecture, someone sat beside you."

"Who?"

"All I could see was a shadow, but it moved towards you and sat with you throughout class."

On the day of the next class, Joanne chose a different seat, but as her bad luck would have it, the seat beside her was empty. This time before she heard anything, she saw a figure which, according to her, almost looked like a man, but was too heavily obscured by shadow. It walked towards her and sat beside her. It again proceeded to call her "Joanne, Joanne. . ."

Trying to employ the same strength of will she had used the other day, she blocked out the now-embodied voice and paid as much attention to the lecture as she could.

The thing sitting beside her merely leaned in closer to her, pressed his head so close to her face they were almost touching and continued, "Joanne, Joanne . . ."

5. HUNGRY

My mother called me for dinner. As I sat down on the table, she was slicing a green mango into strips. As she finished, I took one strip, ate it, and then proceeded to pile food onto my plate. She on the other hand, turned around to get some rice from the rice cooker. As she set down the rice on the table, she accosted me:

"You finished the entire green mango?"

By this time, I was slicing through my tough porkchop and had already forgotten about the green mango.

"Huh?"

"The green mango, you ate it all."

"No I didn't."

"Then where is it?"

That was a good question. But I had an even better answer to prove my innocence: The green mango seed was missing as well - even I couldn't have eaten that, or hidden it within the time she turned around to take some rice from the rice cooker and then turned back to set it on the table.

Even more proof of my innocence: the plate itself where the green mango slices were placed was gone. We searched the entire house, all our cupboards and trahsbins for the wandering plate of green mango. Up to this day we are short one plate and one green mango.

Growing Needs

2010-12-27T01:03:00.005+08:00

The other day, I was riding in the backseat of my aunt's car, my cousin beside me. He's 10 years old and boisterous. And as boisterous 10-year-olds tend to become after hours of chasing after equally energetic cousins, he also happened to be very sleepy.

He put his head on my shoulder and slept. I've never been a fulltime Kuya to anyone and having a little person feel comfortable enough to fall asleep on me gave me an oddly warm feeling, like I was deemed big enough and trustworthy enough to be protector and pillow all at once.

My cousin stirred a couple of minutes into his nap, trying to find the best spot on my shoulder to drool on. He also found my wrist, and held onto it tightly. Every fifteen minutes or so, his grip would slacken, and blood would rush into my grateful hand. And then he'd stir and reclaim it. It was a gesture sweet and sincere and unguarded - something which springs from nowhere else but a child's needs.

I can't remember the last time I held onto someone just because I needed to feel safe. It's not because I never feel unsafe. It's mostly because I've grown up.

When you're a kid, expressing your needs is expected - good, even. You tell your parents when you need to be fed, when you need to take a leak, when you need a hug, or a wrist to hold onto. You feel a need, you respond to it. As you get older though, you learn to negotiate with yourself, judging which needs have to be attended to right away, and which can be put off for a while.

I think a lot of us put off the need to feel safe and secure. And only time can really tell how much it's been costing us.

Current State

2010-07-07T00:20:00.002+08:00

Hours are spent thinking up ways of how to strike up conversations with you :">

PS
I'm turning twenty and I'm still finding time to be fourteen. Ah well, Filipino personalities tend to settle at later ages :))

I, The 5-Minute God

2010-04-04T23:36:00.010+08:00

Yesterday, I discovered something which shall be the envy of all who tend towards megalomania. Right here in the comfort of my own home, I unearthed a portal which, when entered, allows anyone to become omniscient as God and see what God sees for five entire minutes. It took me across the seven seas, and gave me glimpses into the living rooms, bedrooms and offices of the world to catch up with what humanity, the darlings of the Earth were up to. And here, is an inventory (and commentary) of what my eyes have seen:

1. Bored middle-aged Caucasian man in a dark room.
2. Bored middle-aged Arab man in a spare white room.
3. Bored punk with piercings (your body is a temple; if God were here instead of me, He would not be pleased).
4. Little blonde boy swinging on a swivel chair (where are your parents?).
5. Blonde teenage girl with the largest most marvelous eyes on earth (good job, God!).
6. Bored lady in her thirties.
7. Two dudes with guitars in what appears to be a garage.
8. Little girl on her bed (seriously parents, do a better job!).
9. Paper that says "I dare you show tits" (God would be displeased with the grammar and the sentiment).
10. An action figure on a table.
11. Asian student (let us play to stereotypes).
12. Chubby guy masturbating (if God were here instead of me, you'd so be going to hell).
13. Another guy (at least with with abs this time) desperate for The Eternal Fires.
14. Two laughing teenage girls (yeah i know right, Brindi has totally become a fat bitch after camp!).
15. Hot lesbians doing the nasty in a moodlit room (*became a fan*).
16. Spanish guy says "ola!" (he missed an "h" but I said "de donde eres? soy de filipinas." anyway)
17. Office with three employees at their desks.
18. Snake about to eat a chick (as in baby chicken, not babygal).
19. Cute teenage girl with brown hair and cute glasses.
20. If I were God, I wouldn't send you to hell anymore; that dinky little thing is punishment enough.
21. German guy with ski cap in a computer shop.
22. Grandmaw.
23. Tween on his bed.
24. Old guy licking his lips, saying "hi" (I shuddered in fear a bit before the portal whisked me away).
25. Frat guys laughing.
26. Two black guys looking intently in front of them.
27. Bored tween who looked kinda like Abigail Breslin (well hello, lil miss sunshine!).
28. Two teenaged guys playing some computer game (try a book before your brain rots).
29. Cleavage.
30. Guy who could seriously be a model.
31. Okay so men aren't the only ones God'll be damning (damn, shaved!).
32. Jonas Brothers on a TV screen.
33. Someone's crotch (methinks this is seconds before someone gets sent to hell by God).
34. Lady who looks like crayons threw up on her face (it's called a mirror).
35. Gothgals' slumber party (or Wiccan gathering? The power of three will set you free, babes).
36. Mother and child (well at least there's a parent, but good luck explaining all the hell-bound souls).
37. Nondescript blonde guy.
38. Big biker dude (will be getting out of your way now, sir).

And that was where my spin in the portal ended. Yes, those are five short minutes, when you're getting a kick out of being all-seeing like God. But after 10 minutes, you can start anew. Them's the rules on Chatroulette.

Bower-rox-my-sox

2010-04-01T19:40:00.010+08:00

We'll get to Crystal Bowersox in a minute.

But before anything else, I would like to officially point out that Tim Urban is the most underrated contestant in this season of American Idol. I know there are only three of us in the whole entire universe still watching the show, but don't you agree that it's awful how much the judges nitpick on Tim's performances when, vocally, they are not only sound, but stellar.

Tim Urban's soaring rendition of Anita Baker's "Sweet Love" showed so much potential, and I feel, hinted at the kind of artist he is. I do not understand why Simon hated that performance so much when he said next to nothing about Tim's vocals and instead chose to focus on his - wait for it - smiling. I know it's Simon's last season on the show, but I think he could stand some reminding that this is a singing competition and Tim Urban can definitely sing!

And apart from singing, I think Tim Urban has also shown us a lot of personality. He may not be as charismatic as, say, someone like Adam Lambert or Fantasia, but heck, that one slide across the stage had the same amount of personality as around 387 minutes of footage featuring Lee Dewyze.

I'm hoping Tim makes it to the Top 2 to show all the unthinking haters out there his undeniable talents.

And that, my friends, is how to make an April Fools' Day blog entry. And no, I don't think that was mean. The man has abs; he can take a few punches.

But on the serious, with the black hole of talent and charisma that is this season's American Idol, I am ecstatic that we have ourselves Crystal Bowersox - the sole reason for tuning in to the show at all. Every week, I cannot wait to see what song she covers and how she does it. She comes onstage and performs her bluesy-rock arrangements, her voice vacillating from earthy hums and whispers to soulful howls (Yeah I know "howling" doesn't sound like an appealing sound, but there's really no other way to describe the high, clear, notes she delivers. I guess you could call it "belting" but that term has a negative connotation in my head where Idol contestants are concerned, so I shall refrain from using it in the same sentence as Crystal's name).

Mamasox's songs are infused with so much rawness and honesty and sometimes, even pain and longing that she almost improves on every song she covers - and she's covered some pretty legendary songs. She took CCR's classic "Long As I Can See the Light" and gave it some tinges of gospel. She gave force and tenacity to Tracy Chapman's otherwise good but somewhat sleepy "Give Me One Reason". On the other hand, she tempered and smoothed out the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and brought a lot of melody and soul to the song. She also tackled "Me and Bobby Mcgee" and I would venture to say that her rendition of the song is better than the great Janis Joplin's.

It's that feeling of earthiness and humanity coupled with a compelling groove that's gotten into my head so much these past few weeks, causing me to loop her songs in my iTunes. And if she gets voted out early, there will absolutely be no reason to sit through song-rape performances from the likes of Tim Urban, and I will happily pronounce my American Idol fandom dead.

Flesh-carving

2010-03-27T21:09:00.011+08:00

Meaning something isn't about saying it. It's not even about walking the talk. You can say something, commit to it and direct all future actions accordingly but still not mean it, not feel it (Ahem, loveless marriages).

For me, meaning something has an affective component. The few times that I've really meant something, I felt it to my marrow. So much so that if someone had doubted me, I would have been frustrated. Enough to want to carve out a pound of my flesh and show my non-believer Exhibit A of every living (well, in this case, dying) cell in my body thrumming, marching and screaming to the tune of whatever it is I mean.

I never feel like I really mean something unless I'm willing to carve out my flesh for it.

My uncle just got a divorce (or a legal separation or annulment or whatever it is you get when you get married in the Philippines but your spouse is now in another country and has just realized that it just isn't worth the trouble anymore). Apparently, his commitment to his matrimonial vows has been held increasingly questionable by my aunt. Questions about how much he meant "love and cherish" were raised. Why, specifically and with how much validity? I'd rather not discuss.

My aunt's decision to divorce/separate/annul, to me felt like being hit on the head with a frying pan. It was swift, decidedly not painless and, for the first few seconds before the blunt pain settled in, it left me stunned and confunded (Pardon the shameless thievery from JK Rowling's list of favorite adjectives. I only just saw HP 6).

Even before she got married to my uncle around 15 years ago, I remember my aunt being one of the most well-loved people in the family. She could do anything. She was a doctor, a wide reader, a really good baker and Christmas ornament maker, a badminton player and a scrapbook keeper. She did everything with joy and without ever uttering a single snide remark. She was kind and cool and awesome all at once, like a good guy from "Hey Arnold." Her decision felt completely out of character - well at least that's how it seemed to me and that's why at the start, I felt like things could still be reconciled between her and my uncle.

I genuinely, deeply love very few people and my aunt was one of them. It's been thoroughly unsettling not having been able to say goodbye to her. I haven't seen her since she went abroad six years ago, and have not communicated with her since a year a before the divorce. But I clung to hopes that she and my uncle would work it out or that she would at least talk to the family. But there were no goodbyes or see ya laters or lets keep in touches. No facebook friending or YM adding. It made me feel disposable - like all those times I spent as a kid babbling with my aunt over breakfast or making her cards or going on random excursions meant nothing.

When someone dies, you get to say goodbye. And because death's such a mystery, you get to pretend, no matter how feebly, that the person's still with you, watching over you, or guiding you, or whatever. But when someone is divorced from your life like this, you don't get the same luxury. You know that the person is alive and well, just living separately from you and choosing not to be with you.

I love my aunt, and when I really think about it objectively, I don't doubt that she loves us too. For her to carve us out of her life like this, without a goodbye, without any reassurances, well, that's when I finally realized she meant it when she asked for a divorce/separation/annulment and that things could not be fixed.

Book Resolutions

2010-01-04T10:51:00.013+08:00

So the first entry of the year was supposed to be something a bit more depressing. But. I figured, that's just some bad juju right there, starting the year with depressing thoughts. That post has thus been shelved but shall nevertheless be appearing soonish.

Bad juju or not, one thing is certain: My months-long blogging hiatus has officially ended. I welcome you to Notsovictor 2010 where we can't wait to get our hands dirrrty with the new decade (and with you, dear reader, should you be willing, heehee).

And now, to the blog entry!

-o-0-o-

Sadly, my 2009 adventure with the written word wasn't one for the books. Yes, I met Neil Gaiman, Oscar Wilde, Ayn Rand and Malcolm Gladwell. Yes, I forged deeper relationships with Zadie Smith and Ian McEwan. But I also struggled with F Scott Fitzgerald, Chuck Palahniuk and Joseph Heller. Even worse, I fell out of love with JD Salinger.

I used to like almost a hundred percent of the books I read. But with age comes a more discriminating palate and I'm struggling to find books that are not simply good, but magical, and powerful. The last one I read was "Atonement" and that was in December of 2008. Sadly, reading has not felt like fun in the past year, but rather like weeding out the bad seeds from the good, passable crop.

Fortunately, the kingdom of books is vast. Ever-present is the hope that somewhere in its dominion are the texts that will not fail to enthrall and to change its reader. So for 2010, the resolution is to get on with the hunt for the treasure trove of brilliant books by reading at least twice as much as I did in 2009, and thus, increasing the chances of finding the right titles.

Luckily, I've an inkling as to which books I should start with:

1. Sigwa nina Efren Abueg atbp.

One of the things I love about UP is that it's immersed me in my country. From the kind of news I pay attention to, to the movies I watch (or want to watch, anyhow), and now to the kind of books I want to read. "Sigwa" is an anthology of short stories and is considered to be one of two which contain the most influential Filipino short stories ("Mga Agos sa Disyerto" being the other). Published in the early '70s, it's themes, of course, revolve around social injustice and action - themes that are still - if not even more - fitting in our times.

2. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

It's been a while since my last thoroughly chilling novel, and this gothic tale about a haunted mansion , familial drama and murder seems very promising. And the fact that Stephen King himself hails it as the best novel of 2009 certainly increases its appeal.

3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

This is my sister's favorite book of all time. She swears by it. I usually share her taste in books but have refrained from reading this one because I have a feeling people are right when they pejoratively label it as "chick lit." I've cause to read it now, though. I want to understand all the references when I read "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". And who knows, I might actually fall in love with the Austen classic along the way anyway. Feminine side, get ready for some soul food.

4. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Over the holidays, I received a text message from a teacher I had in high school: "Currently reading 'Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters'. It's hilarious. If there's anyone who'd appreciate it, it's you." I'd read "Sense" but it's the thematic sequel of "Pride". It makes more sense to first read the book which started it all. And, anyways, I secretly want a reason to read the original Austen novel that can override my reason not to.

5. Para Kay B (O Kung Paano Dinevastate ng Pag-Ibig ang 4 out of 5 sa Atin) ni Ricky Lee

The quirky title tells us a lot about this book. It's about love. It takes on a light, casual tone. It's set in the modern day Philippines and is about the modern day Pinoy. And if that isn't enough to entice a reader, there's always the name of the author. Ricky Lee wrote the movie "Himala" which, according to thousands of CNN voters, is the greatest Asian movie of all time. While it's true that scripts and novels are very different things, just based on instinct, I have a feeling that this novel will speak to me.

6. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

The gods and demigods of ancient Greece, alive today and residing in the Empire State Building's 600th floor? That's all Ineed to know about this book. I'm a complete glutton for tales about Greek gods (I blame Disney's Hercules for turning me into an addict with the help of their glorious songs) so this fantasy series, to me, is inherently interesting. I hope the writing keeps me interested throughout the five books, though. I've been looking forward to a Harry Potter-esque series to come my way, and this might be it. Sorry twihards. Your vampire tales don't count.

7. The Model Millionaire: Stories by Oscar Wilde

One day, I found myself alone and with nothing to do in Eastwood. What's a nerd to do? Loiter in Fully Booked and unabashedly peruse their collection, of course. I had hours to spare so I went through all their shelves of fiction, author by author. When I was nearing the end, this neon book screamed at me, amidst all the beige Oscar Wilde books. Being one to judge books by their covers, I picked it up and started reading the first few pages. Love at first read. Sometimes, it isn't so bad to judge books by their cover, as I am sure Melanie Marquez has told you.

(I looked for it again when I returned with money weeks later, but it was gone. Anyone spotted a copy?)

8. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I think it was one of our high school english teachers who told us that it's a crime not to read "Crime and Punishment" but it is a punishment to do so. The "crime" part always stuck in my mind and luckily, I'm a mental and emotional cutter so the "punishment" part doesn't scare me much. Each year, I promise to read this book, but usually end up using my moolah for other titles (books with razzle-dazzling covers, haha. I kid.). This year, I fully intend to make my promise stick.

9. On Beauty by Zadie Smith

Summaries didn't do "White Teeth" justice so I'm willing to ignore the alarmingly vague summaries for "On Beauty". I've been postponing reading this book because I wanted to explore new authors in 2009, but now I'm ready for my fix of caustic wit, vibrant characters and thoroughly human themes. Please and thank you.

10. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

The title of this book is offputting to me. It sounds like one long philosophically-grandstanding novel. Reading synopses online has done nothing to change my opinion. But I am a slave to my friends and one of them makes it sound like the best thing ever so I figured I might as well give it a try. And besides, my friend's already quoted some of it to me and I must admit it's very intriguing:

"Tomas came to this conclusion: Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinitenumber of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman)."

Home Alone

2009-10-18T20:41:00.003+08:00

When I was a kid, my all-time favorite movie (after Hercules) was Home Alone. 1 or 2, I didn't really care. My favorite part of either movie was always that sliver of time right after Kevin's parents (Jon and Kate's big screen predecessors) would lose him and right before the bumbling baddies would arrive. The part when the possibilities of total freedom would dawn on Kevin and he would, predictably, seize the opportunity and give in to his id. How I envied him.

As I surveyed our home this morning, I felt like all my childhood Kevin McCallister fantasies finally came true. True, it's a decade or so late, but what the hell. No grandma - went to Florida. No uncle - went to Cali. No neat freak mom - went to LA. No help always dithering about - went on their day off.

And because after the age of 10 my emotional quotient plateaued, I, predictably, seized the opportunity and gave in to my id. As another pleasure-seeking-principle-guided-fictional-kid would put it, I "let the wild rumpus start."

First thing I did: Ate on my bed. Let the kitten into my room. Left the dirty dishes on the sink - without washing them. It felt nothing short of liberating, and I was just getting started.

Watched porn without the headphones on. Sang along to Kings of Leon at the top of my lungs. Drank milk from the carton. Drank juice from the carton. Walked around naked. Checked myself out at every mirror available. Turned the TV up really loud so I could watch it from another room. Inhaled bags and bags of chips (which I shall pay for tomorrow at the gym). Masticated a chicken leg a la Cro-Magnon man.

But just as I was getting ready to play lead air-guitar to the tune of Aerosmith's "Janie's Got A Gun" in front of the big living room mirror, I was wrought with a sudden, foreign urge to do dishes. The thought of piles of plates all soiled with pasta sauce and chicken bones inexplicably sent my skin crawling. Possessed by a higher power, I trudged to the sink, began dutifully rinsing kitchenware, and in one fell swoop turned into my mother.

In the movies, there always comes a time when Kevin McCallister gets tired of living in hedonism. I just wish that time hadn't come so quickly for me. Elbow-deep in suds, I couldn't help but wish that this day had come earlier. Years and years earlier when reason was still prone to weeks-long vacations. Maybe then I could have really made a mess of being home alone.

When Parents Become People

2009-09-07T01:05:00.004+08:00

The One with the Boobies.

That was the Friends episode I was watching last night. I usually find it the most difficult to relate with Joey, but on this episode his plight struck close to home. Upon realizing that his dad was having an affair with Ronnie the pet mortician (leave it to sitcoms to create the best jobs ever), Joey vented his frustrations to his friends. This prompted Rachel to express empathy by asking one of the more profound questions on the show (next to "How you doin?" of course):

"Why can't parents just stay parents? Why do they have to become people?"

We all think of our parents relative to ourselves. We intimately know their history from the time we were old enough to remember until the present, and we basically form an image - a summary even - of them based on this. Dad is good at sports, is patient and loves the Beatles. Mom likes fashion, can't cook and is short-tempered.

I've remembered most things about my parents since I was three. I know the different looks they've sported. My dad loved his army pants which my mom and sister loathed. When they succeeded in smuggling it away from home and gave it to charity, my dad begrudgingly acquiesced to their demands of a more buttoned-down style. I remember my mom's hair, cut like a boy's, but now hanging just below chin-length. I remember the different jobs they've worked, from my dad's car shop to his garments distribution; from my mom's jewelry business to her real estate sales. I remember all the fights they've had from the most cost-efficient way of squeezing out toothpaste to money to money to money.

But whenever I look at their album pictures, when they were a much younger couple (I was born some 13 years into their marriage), I can't help but wonder if they were different, perhaps happier then. I knew my dad had a little fruit business back then, but how did that sit with my mom? I knew my parents were both basically heartthrobs, so did they guard each other jealously or have they always been this relaxed about each others' fidelity? Have they always been loyal at all?

Parents have always been people before becoming parents. They've had entire selves before we were born. But I guess, with the pressure of raising children properly, they feel the need to project an image of good role models their children can believe in. Therefore, we know about our parents only the things they allow us to know.

The more we offspring get our hands dirty with life, the more we wonder about our parents. The more we realize, as our lives grow in complication, that our parents' lives pre-us must have been replete with as many gory details as ours.

I can't help but think about my parents' lives B.C. (before children) and even their lives W.C. (with children). It's so delicious to feed the curiosity about the secrets they've been keeping from my sister and I, to wonder about the possibility of pregnancies out of wedlock, of affairs kept hush-hush, of initial squabbles with in-laws. It's in these times of wonder that I wish I could just walk up to my parents and ask. But Dad's passed far too early, and Mom's failed to gain my confidence and my friendship. As it is, any information I've gathered, have been slipped my way by chance.

And the more information I've gathered, the more I wish I hadn't been told. Thing is, I've always known life can get so much gorier and dirtier than pregnancies, affairs and squabbles. But I just never thought of putting my parents in those extreme situations. They did their job well, I guess.

After all the little things I've learned, I'd rather not know any more. I'm quite content letting my parents be parents, not people.

It's funny that when people want things to matter to you - animals or trees, for example - they say "what if that were a person?" But sometimes, the more ideas become enfleshed as true people, the more difficult it is to appreciate them as such.

Politicians: Clever and Subtle!

2009-08-08T23:14:00.013+08:00

I was innocently munching on a particularly succulent cauliflower in front of the TV during dinner. It was TV Patrol time and I was half-minding the advertisements and half-wondering how the hell Karen Davila keeps her hair stone-still while gabbing away (honestly, though, how do ye do it, woman?!).

I was sitting perfectly content, when a barrage of the most subtle and intelligent advertisements ever in the history of humankind assaulted my defenseless eyes and ears. It was ever so difficult to figure out what the cleverly-produced gems were trying to tell me. I mean, public figures hugging children, harping on about their love for the poor, professing their oneness with the poor, grating my ears with their messages of Obama-esque hope, listing in bullet form (for easier comprehension) all their accomplishments? And a few months before election time? Color me puzzled, but I just really wonder what they could be telling me.

Campaign period has yet to start but we have begun to witness the rise of political ads in television. In print, however, I know for a fact that all 24356 Belmontes (Vincent, Kit and Joy, to name a few) have been papering Quezon City with their perfectly-conyo faces since a couple of months ago. Supposedly, there are rules stating that candidates for election can only begin campaigning once campaign season has officially begun. Logical enough, no? But our politicians, ever clever at worming their way above and around our laws, have resulted to putting up advertisements of themselves and passing them off as "personal advertisements" or "personal messages" and not "political campaigns." See, by spawning random posters and videos of themselves, without directly saying "vote for me," they cannot be held accountable for breaking the "no campaigning till campaign season" rule, because they can claim that technically these ads are not for campaign purposes. But we all know that's a load of bull and so do they.

No one believes that these politicians are shelling out millions to have their freshly-Beloed faces on TV during primtime just for kicks. We all know there's an agenda - a political one, at that.

I therefore propose that any public figure who appears on any advertisement (political or not) pre-campaign season be disqualified from the elections. If not to level the playing field with those politicians who have meager finances, then at least just to spare us a few months of the most ass-clench-worthy taglines (Seriously, Secretary Puno, "pag maganda ang PUNO maganda ang bunga"?!)

I also propose that we withold our votes from anyone who appears in these advertisements. Firstly because their douchebaggery is flimsy and transparent. They don't even respect us enough to fools us properly, with actual subtlety. Secondly because anyone with money enough to appear on TV is quite likely from the same vein of leadership as most of our previous and current politicians. We all know how well they've been working out for us. And thirdly because investing in mega-million advertisements is proof of IQ deficiency. Everyone knows you can just buy votes directly, why spend your time and money making adverts when you'll be drowned out by everyone else's taglines anyway? Stupidity in epic quantities.

And in case I haven't convinced you to detest these advertisements yet, let us run through several of them in excruciating detail.

Senator Mar Roxas

For the second batch of "Padyak" ads, Sen. Roxas listens to the problems of normal Filipinos in a wet market.

Problem number 1: Every single one of the people the good senator encounters has his face arranged to say "PITY ME." Eyes bugged out, eyebrows raised and knotted together, and lips a-pouting. I dunno about you but I really don't think Filipinos ever look like that willingly, not even when they're talking about their problems. We're a happy people, we talk about our problems with a shy grin, a shrug of the shoulder, sometimes even a slight bounce.

Problem number 2: The senator fails to inspire confidence when he raises his head in what the swelling music indicates as triumph and tells the people "randam ko kayo . . . lalaban tayo." Maybe it's the fact that he did not list down any of his accomplishments or plans or maybe it's his degree in Poker Face Wielding from The Lady Gaga School of Facial Expression, but nothing about his demeanor comes off as compelling or reassuring.

Problem number 3: Ad suffers from Huggingrandomchildfromnowehereritis. In desperate need of Keepitreal Ointment or Cheezitoff Capsules.

All in all, this, I feel, is the most contrived and awkward ad. I suggest that the senator ask his fiancee Korina Sanchez for tips on how to arrange his face to even just appear engaged and sympathetic. She's the best at it.

See for yourself here.

Secretary Ronaldo Puno

It's a testament to the poor production of this advertisement that I had to google Secretary Puno's first name. For his debut in Philippine TV, the DILG Secretary chose to highlight an accomplishment of the Department of Interior of Loal Government: the creation of Women and Children Protection Desks in 100% of all police precincts.

Problem number 1: Although Secretary Puno is more convincing than Senator Roxas as he cuddles in arms length the random child running from one corner of the screen, everything is but ruined when his tagline is stated in the background. Pag maganda ang puno maganda ang bunga. Seriously? Whoever came up with this needs to be castrated and put in public display for prodding with sticks.

Problem number 2: Secretary, are you sure you want to be wearing yellow right now? Those are veeeeeery big shoes to fill. Not to mention, you might be calling upon yourself a world of stark contrasts.

Problem number 3: Mentioning ONE achievement of the DILG, should not merit your saying "Marami nang pagbabago ang naidulot ng DILG . . ." I'm nitpicking, I know, but still. . .

Problem number 4: This is probably just my beef. But I loathe Santino and his good-boy-po-ako face/voice/everything. Playing a couple of lines of "May Bukas Pa" in the background wins you no points. From me at least.

See for yourself here.

Senator Manny Villar

To be fair, I have very little to moan about when it comes to this ad. Senator Villar lists down the numerous ways he's helped people (although a bit vaguely) and establishes a real connection with our impoverished brothers (he hails from a small shanty in Tondo). I guess my only problem with his advertisement, apart from the fact that it looks 98% like a political campaign (the previous two looked 95% like political campaigns), is that it just doesn't sit well with me how he keeps pointing out that he came from a meager background, and yet whispers abound about his land-grabbing. I've heard from numerous people that he now owns vast lands in Muntinlupa near Ayala Alabang. And though I know these are just rumors, when it comes to Filipino politicians, most people feel that where there's smoke, there's usually fire.

Kudos though, for the patronizing and indulgent rapping which irritates only very slightly. Although after "mali na namaaan" I half expect the singers to continue with "PCSO." Hehe.

See for yourself here.

Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay

This advertisement to me feels like the most deliberate political campaign among the four. And while this bothers me quite a bit, I must admit that this is quite an effective advertisement. Mayor Binay tells us of how prosperous Makati is - 100% free education, medical services, benefits for the elderly. With all this good news, however, I just wonder just how accurate these statistics are. And very much like my issue withe Senator Villar, I just don't know how convinced I am by this ad when it's juxtaposed with my mother and grandmother's dinner commentary on how corrupt Mayor Binay~~'s wife~~ is.

See for yourself here.

NB: This isn't exactly the TV ad, but it's very very close.

MTV Cribs

2009-07-21T21:33:00.008+08:00

MTV needs to make a reality show with just babies. They could call it MTV Cribs. Again.

Seriously though, I visited CRIBS (Create Responsive Infants By Sharing) yesterday, as in the NGO for abandoned children and all the silent tension and unspoken drama among the crawlers (babies of the crawling age) was as palpable as any reality TV show. You could see it in their eyes as they looked blankly at one another, drool trickling from slack mouths, down their chins as pressures mounted and emotions ran rampant. Kinda like "The Hills," really. Just real and with protagonists you don't wanna bludgeon with a remote control.

There were seven crawlers in the nursery. 5 boys and 2 girls. Already a recipe for a pre-naptime disaster. At first, none of them wanted to have anything to do with me. They avoided me like the plague, instincts for slef-preservation on red alert, screaming THIS HUMONGOUS BOOBYHEAD WILL DROP YOU DOWNSIES IF YOU LET HIM GIVE YOU UPSIES.

So I focused my attention on one little sheep who strayed from the flock. A little girl named Joana, and cruelly called "Kagandahan" by the nanny-in-charge. She just stared at me with her big, unblinking eyes as I tried to win her over with tickles and silly faces. This girl was not ticklish at all. Either that or she has been paying too much attention to Lady Gaga and was giving me her best p-p-p-poker face.

Interestingly enough, the minute I started holding her hand, she jumped towards me and flung her arms around my neck. Babies are warm and cuddly. They smell like warm milk. That is all.

I was finding myself made into a personal chair for little Joana. She tried sitting on my lap, on my knee, beside me, before settling on just lying down across my lap.

Just before Joana could start purring, though, trouble found her, in the form of Jan - the only other girl, and who, for all intents and purposes, was the nursery's Queen Babee. She was sitting on the lone rocker situated in the middle of the room, where she could keep an eye on every inch of her vast dominion. Her eyes sharply followed every little movement, and where her face turned and her eyes narrowed, drool fell.

She and Joana, apparently were always jealous of one another and seeing Joana, her mere subject, treated like royalty, lying on her own "throne" made her shake in terrible fury. She unleashed a fearsome howl such as only infants can, and the basis of her sovereignty was no mystery to me anymore.

I inched myself and Joana towards Jan so I could rock her gently on her chair and hopefully pacify her. It worked. Her face relieved itself from contortion and she watched me with eyes like wet beads. She was an adorable little thing, all curly hair and watchful eyes. She stared at me bored, like she was willing me to bring the swaying of her rocking chair to the next level. I froze.

I slapped myself mentally for not figuring out how to make an infant laugh. She's barely a year old. She doesn't need a witticism riddled with allusions to make her smile. Peek-a-frickin-boo, man! I did, and my liege was pleased. I quickly graduated to making stupid faces, the likes of which would send hardcore clowns back to their 34-man cars. Yes, I was that funny, or at least, based on how Jan was laughing, I was that funny.

But alas, her highness was capricious, and just as I was executing a funny face I'd been formulating in my head, she averted her gaze and stared at the ceiling. Electric fans were now trumping my carefully-planned funny faces. Children do wonders for the ego.

It was just me and Joana again for a while, but then as quickly as she had looked away, Jan turned her head our way, drool flecking in the air. Another baby was making his way into her court. Gary. He came with gifts from the exotic lands he reached in his travels to the right side of the nursery: a little duck wagon and a red toy train. He lumbered towards Jan and sat down beside her rocker. He was sliding the wagon up the rocker's legs, but Jan was no longer interested. She'd seen it all before, and decided to let her gazes lay on anywhere and anyone on her dominion but Gary. Poor Womeo.

I'd stayed in the nursery for two hours (visiting hours are only from 2-4 as the kids need to rest) and the entire time, there was one crawler whom I had noticed circling the general population, but never settling in with them. He was always just watching. Dan. If Jan was the queen, Joana the threat to the throne, Gary the conquistador, and me the jester cum lazyboy, then Dan was the vagabond. He had a roguish quality about him, walking alone, little chest puffed forward, smouldering in his little diapers. He came near us once, to take poor Gary's duck wagon. He had a silent authorty about him. No protests were made and he went on his way, walking backwards, smiling like the cat that got the canary (or in this case, the canary yellow duck wagon).

So what will Jan do about the growing threat to her throne that is Joana? Will Jan ever give Gary more than a passing glance? And what about the mysterious Dan? Was taking Gary's wagon a sign of things to come?

I'm not sure. Babies are fickle, and are thus, the best storymakers and characters. I can find out, though. I'd love to go back there. Kidding around with the babies for a couple of hours is an afternoon well spent. Better than watching TV for sure. You can't make this kind of drama up. Everything else pales in comparison and is just.

Infantile.

-o-0-o-

Please do not treat this as part of the little narrative above. I'm quite proud of myself for resisting the urge to proselytize in that narrative, but I'd just like to say: Visit CRIBS. Go for the drama, if you want. Go for the free hugs. Go for no particular reason. Just go. I have a feeling playmates mean more to kids than they ever let on :)

Lost Mournings

2009-07-12T20:39:00.007+08:00

I attempted this blog entry thrice. With each attempt, I found myself backspacing entire paragraphs into nonbeing even before they were completed. The contrived sentimentality was palpable. My stuffy sentences would have done nothing to convince anyone, even myself.

I had suffered two losses a couple of weeks earlier. I watched as our Dalmatian slowly degenerated, growing weaker by the day, until all he could do was wag his tail at my or my sister's voice. On the very last day, at the vet's clinic, he could barely manage breaths. Funny how hospitals sometimes are more of places to die, than places to heal. I also waited for Manang to return from her vacation. She never did. And while she did not die, she is not with us either - a loss for all intents and purposes.

It was for them that the three failed blog entries were supposed to be. Those were to be eulogies of sorts. I'd lived with them both for six years, ever since Dad died. They had been comforts to me in this house which has steadily grown bare of joy for six years. But the grief over losing them did not come to me in powerful waves. I could not bring myself to bawl over in tears like my sister or bitch ruefully like my mom. My grief came in whispers of sentimentality.

I'd read somewhere that when we grieve, we mourn not for those whom we lose, but for ourselves and the losses we suffer. There is a selfish aspect to mourning, and glass-half-emptyists would point out that mourning a loved one is barely a leap away from regretting the loss of a trusty pencil. But we of the silver-linings know better. Mourning is not simply a statement of loss, but a statement of value. We mourn because we realize that people possess characters that enrich our lives.

And therein lies the poverty of my grief, and the failure of my attempts at eulogy. I could not realize fully how losing Manang and the dog made my life any less rich. What is a dog's death, but one less mouth to feed? What is a lost cook, when a new one is serving you hot sinigang? I admit that while Manang was around, I stood up for her whenever the momster was mouthing off. I'd consoled her when the momster got too harsh. But what is her friendship worth now that she's gone and replaced? So what if they had been comforts to me? They have been replaced with ease.

I can't help but feel like Dorian Gray right now. He grieved nobody, either. When lovers laid their lives at his feet, he merely stepped over their prone bodies. His soul was a pity and at the moment, mine might be too. This is something I must mourn, while I have the chance. And the lucidity to muster contrition.

When we grieve, we mourn not for those whom we lose, but for ourselves and the losses we suffer. But sometimes, we mourn for ourselves because there is no suffering from losses.

Catfight!

2009-06-25T21:18:00.010+08:00

Talk about breaking the fourth wall.

The other day, a friend and I witnessed a scene that seemed to have jumped out of a TV screen. The scene would not have been out of place at a Cinema One Gladys Reyes Marathon. Out of nowhere, in the middle of the afternoon, in front of an audience of 30 stunned people, a catfight!

I fully intended to report on the titillating chain of events here first, but since I'd already told the story to a friend in such riveting fashions, which, I fear, I cannot recreate with as much brio, I would like to post our YM conversation here instead.

notsovictor: did i offline you about my excessively violent visit to manila?
bjorkfan61090: you just told me that you survived
notsovictor: oh
notsovictor: i witnessed a car collision like three feet away from me
notsovictor: but that was the boring part
notsovictor: there were these two trashy girls
notsovictor: wearing tight everything, dyed hair, fakeup
bjorkfan61090: 0_0
notsovictor: anyways
notsovictor: they were inside dairy queen
notsovictor: we were eating in the seats outside
notsovictor: and then suddenly there's this loud "PAK!"
notsovictor: as trashy girl B falls, ass and back flat on the floor
notsovictor: i thought she merely slid off her stool improperly
but then as she stood
notsovictor: trashy girl A
notsovictor: takes her by the shoulders and shoves her against the dairy queen glass window/wall
notsovictor: and slaps her hard, with her right hand, on the right cheek, left cheek, right cheek left cheek again
notsovictor: screams PUTANGINAMO PUTA KA wildly at her like 30 times
notsovictor: and then, oddly, starts to text, nostrils aflare
bjorkfan61090: OMFG ARE YOU SURE THEY WERENT TRANNIES BECUASE THAT WOULD MAKE THAT SEEN SO FUCKING PERFECT
notsovictor: meanwhile trashy girl b, lacking any IQ, merely stayed in the corner looking away from trashy girl A
notsovictor: and holding back sobs
notsovictor: trashy girl A, returns from her texting reverie
notsovictor: and proceeds to slap trashy girl B around once more
notsovictor: and exposes her to another round of verbal abuse
notsovictor: i swear to god, those slaps were masakit
notsovictor: i could hear each one
notsovictor: that was awts!
bjorkfan61090: woooooow
notsovictor: and no one did anything. like the dairy queen personnel were just all
notsovictor: mesmerized like the rest of us
notsovictor: as in not even a cherie gil
notsovictor: and princess punzalan and jean garcia affair could have that much slapping
notsovictor: it was awesome
notsovictor: bow.
bjorkfan61090: i would have loved to have been there
bjorkfan61090: the closest ive come to seeing one of those
bjorkfan61090: was when i went to eastwood one time
bjorkfan61090: and was eating at the palce across dencios, pasto
notsovictor: pasto! <3>bjorkfan61090: and there was this girl inside (i was outside, so no audio)
bjorkfan61090: intimidating another girl to stand up
bjorkfan61090: and when she wouldn't, she threw her water at her and around three platefuls of food
notsovictor: she threw her water at her?!?!?!
notsovictor: as in a la "yourenothingbutasecondratetryinghardcopycat"
bjorkfan61090: yeah but the food and water was on the clothes lang
bjorkfan61090: it was so bituing walang ningning
bjorkfan61090: like i would like to slap you around but this guy conveniently placed beside me will stop me
bjorkfan61090: so instead i will just leave in a huff
notsovictor: i bet for the other girl, its more like "bukas luluhod ang mga tala"
bjorkfan61090: i think the girl was having an affair with "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"'s boyfriend
bjorkfan61090: which might explain the catfight between your trashy hoes
notsovictor: yeah i was actually thinking that too.
notsovictor: but a more ribald part of me suggests that
notsovictor: trashy girl a is threatened by trashy girl b
notsovictor: in a memoirs of a geisha kinda way
bjorkfan61090: mameha <3
bjorkfan60190: like we arent all
bjorkfan61090: OMG ARE YOU SERIOUS?! HOW NAKAKAHIYA!
bjorkfan61090: KAWAWA NAMAN THE GIRL!!!
bjorkfan60190:we're just analyzing it, making sound theories and even making pop culture references 0.0

Funny thing about witnessing (and talking about) things that you think are reserved to the small screens and silverscreens: our brains seem to refuse to function while the show is on. Had they continued their day-jobs, somebody would have had the presence of mind to break up the fight (sure you could chalk that up to the diffusion of guilt in a crowd, but we're in Manila, and I don't think that psych theory applies as strongly here). We stand around, transfixed, as if we were merely appreciating a favorite primetime dramedy.

I guess all that practice of spending hours and hours turning into zombies in front of the television set has finally honed our brain for a purpose: Disengaging when entertained.

Not So Presidentiables

2009-06-05T21:56:00.015+08:00

Let's imagine for a second that incumbent president and wannabe-prime minister Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo fails before May 2010 to amend the constitution and to extend her term. That would imply that the ANC Leadership Forum held earlier at the University of the Philippines' School of Economics featured four possible candidates for the presidency.

As a virgin voter, it is my responsibility to gather information on all the people vying for my ballot if I want to make the most well-informed decision I can (I'm still regretting not seeing the first forum with 5 other not so presidentiables). It really is just one vote, but it's my vote, my right and my privilege. I'm compelled to make the most of it kinda like when a person thinks long and hard before finally picking numbers for his one lottery ticket.

After watching the four "front-runners" (none were too enthused about confirming themselves "candidates") display their skills (or lack thereof, *cough*Bayani Fernando*cough*) in sidestepping tricky issues, only two made an impression of competence and readiness. The other two looked to be in desperate need of an English 1 or a Komunikasyon 1 class. Charm school wouldn't hurt them either.

Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay

I'd written off Mayor Binay as little more than a nuisance candidate, since outside of Manila, relatively few people know of him. In an ideal Philippines, however, where everyone judges on policy, rather than popularity, he should be considered a serious contender in the presidential race.

Mayor Binay answered questions directed at him sufficiently. He had concrete ideas and plans, most of which, I found to be at least sound, if not smart. I particularly liked his plan to eliminate corruption by eliminating the middlemen between the national government and the local governments. Indeed, much of corruption occurs because funding passes between so many different government agency hands on its way from president to mayor. Centralizing the distribution of funds would lessen the opportunities for corruption, and would make local officials more accountable for glaring lacks in progress.

To his detriment, however, Mayor Binay, was most evasive when asked to count the number of properties he owned. The uneasy way he dragged his reply on and on while never directly answering the question puts his transparency in question, at least in my book. Moreover, while the Makati Mayor has more-than-sufficient executive experience, the fact that it has all been focused on one city raises questions of whether or not he has the capacity to lead an entire nation. On this front, personally, I think that his ideas (like the tailoring of education to job demands) can be translated to a national scale. Let's just hope that the corporate world of Makati does not let him forget that the rest of the country thrives on agriculture.

Ex-President Joseph Estrada

Ex-president Estrada was the most eloquent I'd ever seen him, which isn't saying much, but is still, I think, laudable. He was also his usual charming self, drawing good-natured laughter from the crowd with his brash humor.

"Jokingly aside," however, the ex-president was adamant that he is neither confirming nor denying his candidacy in the upcoming elections. He states that his main goal at the moment is to unite the opposition. And I think he should stick to this goal. At 70-odd years, even if I did believe he were competent, I wouldn't think that he had the stamina for the job.

And while we're on the topic of competence, it is difficult to consider someone as a potential leader when every question sent their way was met with deliberate non-answers: a newfound relationship with God, an eternal debt to the support of the Filipino poor, the few successes of the Estrada administration - pertinence be damned! And if you're wondering why this write-up for the ex-president is seething with bias, yes, I am still reeling from the fact that a man, deemed corrupt by his nation, could have the gall to consider himself fit to be his country's leader.

But as a last-ditch attempt at objectivity, I will say this: I respect the fact that during his administration, Ex-President Estrada allocated the highest percentage of budget to education - something he so humbly highlighted in the forum. I would also like to go on the record that he was intelligent enough to point out that education is not a problem that can be solved simply with more funding. As he correctly explained, every year, more schools are built, but the numbers never suffice, simply because the poor condition of education in the Philippines is an issue of population as well.

Nice to know he learned some things while he was president.

MMDA Secretary Bayani Fernando

Despite my fears that Secretary Fernando might paint Malacañang Palace blue amd pink, I wanted him to do well in the forum. I was seriously considering him as worthy of a vote, what with his experience as Mayor of Marikina, and his no-nonsense, get-things-done attitude. I envisioned him as a Filipino Lee Kuan Yew - someone with the ability and the will to discipline the nation and to maximize its potential.

But after that interview, Secretary Fernando left much to be desired.

Owing to his supreme lack of charisma, I only remember one thing from Chairman Fernando's participation in the forum: He is against the Reproductive Health Bill, citing his faith as his basis for the decision against "modern" alternatives. "Modern." I thought he used the wrong adjective when he disagreed with the RH Bill. Saying no to something "modern" is not a very intelligent move. It would have been much less damaging had he chosen to disagree with something "risky" or "radical."

And while we're talking about wording snafus, the good secretary also declared himself "above the law," and only realized his mistake after horrified gasps erupted from the audience. He meant to say "abide the law" - a better sentiment, but an epic fail grammar-wise.

These mistakes would not have been made by more seasoned politicians, and I wonder if Chairman Fernando has the pedigree or the wile to go toe to toe with the crocodiles of the Philippine political arena.

As of now, Chairman Fernando is one of the small fish in the big pond of politics and he isn't doing much to give himself leverage in the public's eye. Most of the questions directed at him during the forum, he evaded gracelessly. All his efforts to sidestep issues were obvious and transparent. It also does not help that his personal assets mysteriously amount to nearly twice of all the personal assets of the other three politicians combined.

Senator Loren Legarda

During the forum, Senator Legarda was everything Secretary Fernando was not. Not only was every word she used chosen with purpose and precision, she was also regally eloquent (in both English and Filipino) and intelligent. She met every question with a ferocious openness and honesty, that, frankly, was a little unsettling. Her answers were perfect - just a shade too perfect, in fact.

Something in the way she urged the public to check her assets and liabilities statements and the dates of acquisition of her properties felt too much like a show. Something in her impeccable courtesy, perfect word-choice and contrived warmth told the public that she had been preparing like a maniac for this. It screamed desperation.

I think Senator Legarda is hungry for the presidency, if her all-but-subtle hints at her accomplishments were any indication.

It's good to show eagerness, but even in politics, the public never likes an eager beaver. She would be wise to borrow a page from Mayor Binay's book, who, throughout the forum, conducted himself humbly, enthusiastically and altogether amiably.

Her "lean and hungry look" aside, I thought Senator Legarda answered questions the best. I found very little I could disagree with. I particularly liked her top 3 priorities if made president: Agriculture, Education and Health Care. She stated that we cannot begin to even think about education and other things if there is no food on our tables, and if our farmers are to ill-equipped to rise to the occassion. If elected into presidency, she aims to give our farmers the tools necessary to maximize and hasten harvest.

I must also admit that while I generally found her entire being contrived, some sincerity did seep into her countenance when she talked about two advocacies which, I noticed, she has held dear ever since she was first elected senator - women's rights (she's pro-RH Bill and values educating women about their bodies and their options) and environmentalism.

And If I Were Voting Solely Based on This Forum, My Vote Would Go to:

Senator Legarda.

Despite the fact that I found her contrived, I thought she tackled issues the best and made important stresses on the right topics, including budget misallocation, corruption, health care, the environment and education. Moreover, as far as I can tell, she seems the least corrupt of the lot.

I say "least corrupt."

Planning Binondo

2009-06-04T18:37:00.022+08:00

It had taken a week of planning and I annoyed the bejesus out of my friends, what with my twice-a-day text messages and group messages and demands for "replies ASAP." But it was all worth it when we arrived at Binondo safely and began our food trip.

Our first few hours in Manila's Chinatown went according to plan. We fed our faces with as many varieties of dimsum as we could lay our chopsticks on. It was not a good day for the dimsum population of Binondo.

But the human stomach can only hold so much (around the same amount as 42 shot glasses, or so says Discovery Channel) and after a while, we were all feeling protests from our digestive systems. The discomfort in our bellies had a clear message: "No more force-feeding, if you don't want a full 'uprising' on your hands - and all over the sidewalk, if you know what I mean."

My friends had proper digestion as a priority and decided to bum around at our friend's house for a couple of hours. This was not part of The Plan. My dictatorial streak, pacified thus far by the smooth sailing of our trip, threatened to put a damper on everyone's desire for gastrointestinal health. A few choice words curtly outlining the reasons we were on the trip and the number of yet untasted territory to conquer would have done just that. But I bit my tongue, wisely reminding myself that dictators before me had paved their ways to hell by valuing well-intentioned plans above good people.

So we bummed.

That, I must admit, was a good decision. While bumming, we watched videos of Russell Peters, the comedian, laughed our asses of, and in the process jumpstarted our metabolisms. We emerged with healthy spirits and appetites. We went back to exploring Binondo. We were still having fun - something, I now realize, we would have failed to achieve, had we force-fed our way through Binondo's little tea houses for hours on end.

This time, I noticed that the most of the streets had themes. No I don't mean themes like "this street will be retro-inspired, that one 80's" (although that would be fun). I mean that each street had a specialty. One would have lots of lighting and lamp stores. Another would be all furniture. Another would be plumbing. I kept my eye out for a good-books-at-really-low-prices street but the most I saw were stacks of tattered textbooks here and there.

The organization intended of Binondo was hard to distinguish, what with all the happy chaos that surrounds it: Chinese grandparents shoving people out of the way to buy merienda, colorful kalesas unapologetically obstructing the already-congested roads, vendors hawking everything from school supplies to medicinal herbs, shopworkers lumbering along with long metal tubes and food trippers with dubious eyes busy not appearing foreign to Chinatown.

After a day there, I can't imagine a neat Binondo. Pedestrian-only sidewalks and no vendors and kalesas. Somehow I feel all its charm and vibrancy would vanish. Binondo seems to have let the whims of people comfortably vine over its original plans, and it's all the funner for it.

I think that is how you're meant to experience Binondo - driven by your pleasures rather than by your plans.

And as with a place like Binondo, so it is with friends. Sometimes, planning can only take you so far. Doing what feels right, in the end, pays dividends and is so much more important.

Voyeurism and Infanticide

2009-05-30T04:32:00.011+08:00

This is for all the silently suffering guys whose moms (to their horror) have asked them for help with downloading Dr. Hayden Kho's sex videos. May people start ignoring the scandal.

-o-0-o-

So the good doctor's been pretty busy lately.

He's had videos of his escapades leaked and doled out generously to the Filipino masses, much to the chagrin of his conquests, who at the time of filming, were unaware they were the stars of some sloppy homemade porn. But the good doctor, it seems, is expanding his horizons, no longer content with just interfering with his lovers' business (see: attacking the pink fortress, doing the horizontal mambo, hiding the canoli, knocking boots, making whoopee, bumping uglies, buttering muffins, crashing the custard truck, eating the creampuff in the enchanted forest, laying pipes, making bacon, porking).

Yes, friends, the good doctor is no longer limiting the application of his talents to the goodybags of hapless starlets susceptible to his charms (which, according to an acquaintance, has much to do with a "perky bottom"). He's going after everyone's goodybags! Including yours.

I know what you're thinking, as you sit there cradling your family jewels, suddenly fearful for their safety in the face of the vague but potent powers of a predatory celebrity plastic surgeon: Just what is he going to do to me, and how can I prevent it?

Well, as a victim myself, I feel it is my moral duty to share my story.

He will deprive you of all future arousal.

It all starts with the people closest to you. Examine them closely. Who's the type who likes porn and lasciviousness a bit too much? A brother? A brother-in-law? Perhaps an uncle who never quite grew out of the frat-boy phase of his life? To the best of your abilities, keep them away from any copies of the doctor's hanky-panky videos. This, I repeat: THIS is your only hope.

Between the muffled moaning and the cheesy song-and-dance number, they will be intrigued and compelled, under the pretense of disgust, to share the video with those closest to them: their wives.

And once their wives - your sister, your sister-in-law or your auntie - have seen the video, well, you're pretty much fucked. With a ten-foot pole. Because women will talk. To other women. Within the vicinity. Like your mother. Or worse, your grandmother.

These are the people the good doctor will use to interfere with your business.

Oh that's right, now you can cradle and shield your family jewels. Because come mealtime, as you watch your grandmother watching the good doctor's video on your uncle's ipod, your mother will ask you to download the video on the computer, so she can see the positions clearly. Nothing as precious as tender mother-and-son moments like this.

Call me a prude, but there are few things worse than hearing your mother discuss sexual positions. Your grandmother responding with a quip on male endowment is one of them.

And that is just what your grandmother will do. As you sit there, already horrified at your mother's request, feeling your willy quickly shrink and recede into your groin for protection and safety like a turtle on amphetamines, your grandmother just might choose that moment to share a charming gem of a thought like, "What is he so proud of that he wants to make videos? Ang liit naman eh. Not proportionate!" and you will wonder if you'll have another erection ever again.

Perhaps not.

Say goodbye to the little Vera, Chuck and Dave you've dreamed of having in your future. You can thank the good doctor for that act of mass-infanticide. And until your familystops calling the doctor "sick and disgusting" while perversely enjoying the video, extend the gratitude to them as well.

Math in the Ayer

2009-05-22T23:40:00.013+08:00

This was my scratch paper from the last Math test of my life. Being anal-retentive when it comes to grades, I am rarely this flippant or smug (or detailed with my doodles) during examinations. I recognize the weight of academic processes on my future and hold genuine respect for them. Which basically means my pasty skin usually pales as much as it can come exam time.

But this one Math exam, as you can judge by my blase' and altogether clever doodle, was special. It was the blessed final nail on the coffin bearing the remains of my relationship with Math - enough, surely, to send anyone's spirits up flying in the (sing it with me) ayer-ay-ay-ayer. Moreover, this Math exam, for me, finally, was proof that I gots me a brain, yo!

I've always considered myself intelligent enough. But not intelligent per se. I've had distinctions and awards over my grade school and high school years. Even teachers and peers always considered me bright. I can say this without an ounce of arrogance or pride, because I still feel that I did not deserve any of the accolades.

I played the system well and that was it. I wasn't smart, just practical. Prior to college, every subject I took up (save for Physical Education) was counted equally for my general average. Fully aware of this, I capitalized on the softer subjects - Art, Religion, Social Studies, Filipino - and prepared for them meticulously, knowing that they were easy A's. English (by no means an easy A where I come from) was always my strong suit. With these five subjects, I knew that I more than made up for my Math and Science performances which were lackluster compared to those of some truly gifted people.

But in college, grades are weighted. Subjects like Chemistry and Calculus are given more credit compared to the likes of Social Science. I couldn't just keep working around them anymore. To keep my average afloat, I've had to work hard at subjects which, long ago, I gave up trying to conquer. Never have I exhausted five Chemistry books and internet resources simply to understand oxidation numbers. Never have I studied entire days for a long test. Never have I stayed patiently with a single problem for hours, trying to figure out a solution.

Never have I received such a high pre-finals grade in a subject like Math either. I can ackshully do this if I works for it, y'all! And the knowledge of this, as our professor passed around our grades during finals merited my high spirits. Or at least just my highness - that would explain the clever doodle.

So with burgeoning trust in my abilities, with the end of my relationship with Mathematics, and with the summer season still in full swing, who's up for partying 'til the a.m.?

And by the by, yes I did hear Flo Rida's song on the jeepney on the way to school, and was struck by a bout of Last Song Syndrome throughout my test, thus the doodle while I waited for the period to end. That and I was fantasizing about Smucker's Blueberry Jam.

American Idahl 8

2009-05-21T20:33:00.015+08:00

So the most frustrating season of Idol has finally ended. It wasn't particularly important to me who the winner was (unlike the previous season) because Kris and Adam were both my favorites (along with Megan and Allison) - Kris since "To Make You Fell My Love" and Adam since "Tracks of My Tears."

Allow me this though: Doesn't this season's resolution feel like it could have been scripted by Roald Dahl? Quiet, unnasuming underdog rewarded for all his humility in the face of effrontery from the judges and producers?

I think he'd call this masterpiece "Danny, NOT the Champion of the World."

Think about it. Almost everything wrong with this season was rooted in the show's determination to impose its wishes upon the viewers and to wrest power away from the fans. That is fine, but if producers want a Danny Gokey to win so badly that they make his airtime is equal to the airtime of six other finalists combined, then lose all pretense and do away with the votation altogether.

Maybe then I wouldn't mind the fact that they allowed Bikini Girl to progress, in what was obviously a whim of Simon and Randy. If there is any doubt about this, I urge you to watch her audition on youtube, and wait for Randy to sum up her triumph with a "Welcome to Hollywood, whatever."

Maybe I wouldn't mind Norman Gentle, who, I'm sorry, is not funny by any measure, engaging in coitus with the semifinal stage. And still this idiotry is dwarfed when compared to Tatiana del Toro's bipolarity and contrived sincerity.

Maybe then I wouldn't mind that they chose Jasmine Murry over Jesse Langseth, with the former (as my friend Gerry astutely pointed out) having three straight performances which America loathed. Maybe I wouldn't mind Danny making it to the top 3, even after "Scream On" - the overwhelming support from the judges and the production from Day 1 catapulting him at the expense of Allison, who was not pimped out as the best thing since sliced bread, and had to rely on pure talent.

Thankfully, though, the season ended with justice. The guy who stood for the things this show has neglected won. In the end it wasn't about pimpage or airtime or bombastic vocals, but creativity, talent and purpose.

If Adam had won, it would still have been a triumph for creativity, talent and purpose, but for the producers as well. It isn't his fault Simon and Co. loved him, he deserved it. But I think that a Kris Allen win has a better chance at demonstrating that the producers aren't the voices which get to decide who's who and what's what. Here's to hoping that the next season will learn to leave everything to the great equalizer: the fans.

-o-0-o-

And before Season 8 becomes but a distant memory, I would just like to say:

MEGAN JOY CORKREY I LOVE YOU! MARRY ME!

Caw!

The Book Blockade of 2009

2009-05-13T16:02:00.004+08:00

You are a Hermione Granger and your Vanishing Charm is merely exceeding expectations when you know it can be outstanding.

You are a Jane Eyre out of Lowood School with no job prospects, poorer than poor in Victorian England.

You are a Prospero powerless to stop Caliban's advances on your daughter, Miranda.

You are an Atticus Finch watching Maycomb degenerate into a hotbed of prejudice and lacking the know-how to combat Ewell-mentality and deter the evisceration of justice.

You are a victim of literary-deficiency. You are a few minutes away from becoming Napoleon's slave and Screwtape's new patient.

And if, at this point, you are still confused, read this first.

You are now furious, I hope.

Furious because of the brazenness of our foulest government officials. Furious because said pigs will, for no apparent reason, tax one of the precious few things we have to be thankful for. Furious because said pieces of filth will have the power to make less accessible the one thing that stands between us and complete desolation.

I firmly believe that books are one of our biggest allies in the fight against poverty, corruption and inhumanity in general.

If there is some part of Espele Sales and her henchmen not simmering with greed, then I implore that part to take control and jerk their heads free of their assholes long enough to see that limiting the accessibility to books does not solve anything.

And if they fail to see this, then I have but five words: See you in hell, bitches.

Chain Mail

2009-05-03T21:00:00.010+08:00

As a rule, I never forward chain emails. I think that next to self-pity, they're the worst wasters of time and energy. The fact that each is probably started by some lonely teenager who's exhausted the resources of xtube.com and who's failing at finding an outlet to combat his loneliness does not help either.

And no, neither I nor my family have died within 10 days of my failure to meet those chain mails' requests to forward "the message of love" or faith or whatever. Neither has Bloody Mary appeared by my bedside to claim my soul or claw my eyes from their sockets. And my crush definitely did not find a boyfriend who wasn't me within a week (hee hee).

I absolutely refuse to lift a finger or spare a second thought, no matter how positive the chain mail's message might be, if said chain mail tries to motivate me with fear.

But I recently received a piece of ~~work~~ chain mail that I just must share with everyone.

BEWARE OF THIS BOOK THAT OPRAH IS PUSHING!

If you have children or grandchildren, work with children at church, or you have neighborhood children whose parents you know, please take note of the information below and pass it along to others. Schools are distributing this book to children through the Scholastic Book Club.

The name of the book is Conversations with God... James Dobson talked about this book twice this week. It is devastating. Parents, churches and Christian schools need to be aware of it. Please pass this information on to church/e-mail addresses, Parents, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, friends.

Please pay special attention not only to what your kids watch on TV, in movie theaters, on the internet, and the music they listen to, but also be alert regarding the books they read.

Two particular books are, Conversations with God and Conversations with God for Teens, written by Neale D. Walsch. They sound harmless enough by their titles alone. The books have been on the New York Times best sellers list for a number of weeks, and they make truth of the statement, "Don't judge a book by its cover or title."

The author purports to answer various questions asked by kids using the "voice of God".. However, the "answers" that he gives are not Bible-based and go against the very infallible word of God. For instance (and I paraphrase), when a girl asks the question "Why am I a lesbian?" His answer is that she was 'born that way' because of genetics (just as you were born right-handed, with brown eyes, etc.). Then he tells her to go out and "celebrate" her differences.

Another girls poses the question "I am living with my boyfriend. My parents say that I should marry him because I am living in sin. Should I marry him?"

His reply is, "Who are you sinning against? Not me, because you have done nothing wrong..."

Another question asks about God's forgiveness of sin. His reply "I do not forgive anyone because there is nothing to forgive. There is no such thing as right or wrong and that is what I have been trying to tell everyone, do not judge people. People have chosen to judge one another and this is wrong, because the rule is "'judge not lest ye be judged."

Not only are these books the false doctrine of the devil, but in some instances quote (in error) the Word of God.

And the list goes on. These books (and others like it) are being sold to school children through (The Scholastic Book Club), and we need to be aware of what is being fed to our children.

Our children are under attack.. So I pray that you be sober and vigilant about teaching your children the Word of God, and guarding their exposure to worldly mediums, because our adversary, the devil, roams about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). We know that lions usually hunt for the slowest, weakest and YOUNGEST of its prey.

Pass this on to every Believer you know. God bless! And, if you are in doubt, check out the books yourself

Really?

You intend to block the distribution to kids of a book that's neutral at worst when children can't even be bothered to figure out how to read entire sentences anymore?

Children are hanging themselves and you wanna tell them something's wrong with them the first chance you get?

There's a virus mutating faster than you can say "quarantine." There's an economic crisis plunging millions of people into poverty. There's an environmental maelstrom coming our way, and, at this moment, it is pondering whether it would be quicker to snuff out the human race with suffocation, drowning, starvation or freak tornadoes.

Apocalypse is about to unveil itself.

And you really want to expend all your time and energy challenging the few people who are merely trying to figure out a different way of understanding the world? Fully aware that the current way of looking at the world has not stopped us from coming face to face with our undoing?

Either you're incredibly stupid or incredibly evil. But since you have sufficient mental faculties to string together sentences aimed at spreading hate, I'm more than likely to call you incredibly evil.

The devil is in our midst, cleverly disguised, from something as benign as a piece of chain mail to something as formidable as a so-called protector of doctrine. But fear not, there is an infallible way of detecting him: Wherever fear is sown in the interest of a few, you can be sure there the devil is too.

Manila Vs. Kuala Lumpur

2009-04-29T15:51:00.011+08:00

Last weekend, my family and I finally went to Malaysia, after much ~~screaming, heckling, arguing, and throat-slitting~~ planning. It's been the trendy vacation spot for Filipino families for the past few years. It's like the second-coming of Singapore, what with its superior organization and numerous well-developed tourist attractions.

Travel, however, though it may purely be for "Holidays and Relaxation" as immigration forms state, is never fully innocent. The foreigner always has, at least at the back of his mind (folded neatly to make space for reminders on not losing his passport and airline tickets), a running tally of comparisons between his native land and the land he is currently in.

So it was with me and my family. During mealtimes, we would caucus about the various things that amazed us and the little things about Kuala Lumpur that stood out just enough to tug at our consciousness.

I took a healthy part in the discussions, giving credit where credit was due. But long before I set foot on the far-outclassed Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1, I made a promise to myself that while in Kuala Lumpur, I would remain decidedly biased towards Manila.

I have to say, I achieved my goals with the flying red, white, yellow and blue of our watawat. Even if categorically, mathematically and logically speaking, Malaysia should have won over my li'l ol' Pinoy heart. In almost every category I used to compare Malaysia and the Philippines, the former wins out by a landslide. But somewhere along the way, while adding the scores up, there is an anomaly - one of those Amelia Earhart, Bermuda Triangle things - that occurs to shift the tides in favor of the Philippines. See how:

(Note: I refrained from judging based on tourist attractions as I know a lot about the Philippines', but I only saw very few of Malaysia's. I also have a sneaking suspicion that, just like the Philippines, most of Malaysia's wonders are hidden not in its capital, which was our destination, but in its countrysides)

Category 1: Airports: Malaysia 1 - Philippines 0

I used the adjective "far-outclassed" to describe NAIA earlier in this entry. If you found yourself logically wondering "far-outclassed by what?" the answer is: Far-outlcassed by the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).

NAIA cannot even begin to hold a matchstick, let alone a candle, to the sunlit beauty that is KLIA. Though I haven't been to many airports, I think KLIA would be a supermodel in the airport world. Just like how anyone would know Heidi Klum is a supermodel, even if they'd never seen the likes of Claudia Schiffer or Elle MacPherson.

KLIA is all sleek lines, cool glass, sunlight and nature. Aerotrains, information booths, crisp air. It's contemporary architecture complimented to a tee with the best techonologies. Compare that to homely NAIA which considers electronic Vicki Belo adverts as its evidence of modern flair and boasts of its view of the Paranaque traffic scene. There's no competition. That means NAIA, you're out. Auf wiedersehen.

Category 2: Driving and Roads: Malaysia 3 - Philippines 0

Yes, they drive on the other side of the road, which, personally, freaks me out, but since that's a matter of preference, I will not be giving Team Truly Asia any grief over it.

In fact, I give them props for their wide, immaculate roads, anchored on both sides by greenery. I swear. These people and their trees.

And have I mentioned their roads were totally safe? Going down from Genting Highlands high up in the mountains by car - a feat that is Sagada-esque, in theory - was nothing short of comfortable. Gentle concrete stretched out generously to accommodate all vehicles. And on either side, the mountain's rocks were netted in place to avoid any mishaps. If that doesn't spell accident-proof, I implore you to drive through Quezon Province's Bitukang Manok at 3 a.m.

I also award Malaysians two extra points for their driving demeanor. It is impossible to go five minutes on any Manila road without hearing an irate driver honking his horn and fiercely advocating sound pollution. In Malaysia, we went three days without ever hearing even a single half-hearted beep. These people wait for each other on the roads and respect the drivers around them. Their government even gives citizens with newly-acquired licenses a sticker on their car that warns other drivers that they are ~~dangerous~~ freshmen on the road and that they must be given all the time in the world. Being a shitty new driver myself, I couldn't think of a better shield against all the buses here in Manila. Except perhaps a placquard on my bumper that says: Bayani Fernando's Son.

Category 3: City: Malaysia 2 - Philippines 0

I like staring out of airplane windows, and as we descended, I caught glimpses of Malaysia that had me scratching my head. Around the sprawling city that was Kuala Lumpur were neat little geometrical shapes all in one color, arranged in neat little geometrical rows. I didn't know Malaysia was ruled by an iron military fist and that their barracks were everywhere.

Apparently they weren't. Driving from KLIA to our hotel, I realized that these were their high rise apartments - arranged neatly around the city to open up room for trees and parks. The openness and airiness of their city is sacred, I think, to the Malaysians. And they guard these jealously - relegating actual houses to suburbs found in the outskirts of KL. Even KLIA is miles outside the actual city.

Which brings me to my main point:

Kuala Lumpur is a very well-designed city. Everything is accessible to everything via public transport. There is minimal traffic due to all the freed up space. Everything is scenic, owing to all the trees and ultra-modern buildings. Streetlights adorn the city, from the largest avenues to the narrowest alleys - a far cry from Manila, which, from 16,000 feet, looks like a pile of shredded newspaper bits - a mess of gray concrete with the occasional pixel of color (which is rarely green).

And brownie points for a stratified apartment system controlled by the government for the less fortunate and for a very active social welfare department which whisks beggars off the streets. Seriously, we saw like one beggar. And our tour guide said he'd be with social welfare within hours.

Category 4: People: Malaysia 1 - Philippines 1

The home team scores its first point and aptly enough, it's due to its best national resource: People.

Chalk it up to ingroup bias but I think Filipinos are a shade more cheerful than Malaysians. Filipinos are always talking and laughing. Laughing giant mouth-agape, saliva-showering, belly laughs. Malaysians preferred whispering and seemed more reserved.

And while in this light, it looks negative, I also have to see their timidness from a positive angle. Points to Team Truly Asia becaue their people are nothing if not courteous. Our tour guide, for one, was the best anyone could hope for - caring, cheerful, hands-on, concerned, intelligent but most of all, respectful. We met no one who was rude to us and who didn't greet us with a smile and a polite, albeit confused, stare (mostly because they keep wondering what country we're from, a lot of Filipinos don't look too Asian or too Non-Asian so it causes quite a ruckus). I even bumped into a couple of people in the malls and they apologized to me with hints of panic in their eyes, which might owe to the fact that I tower over most of them, but I'd like to be idealistic and give credit to Malaysian hospitality here. Here in Manila (yes, I have a quota for the number of people I bump in malls), I would have gotten a glare and a small huff.

Category 5: Food: Malaysia 1 - Philippines 0

I would be the first person to volunteer in a "Lick a Sizzling Plate of Sisig Clean with Your Bare Tongue" game. I would be the first person to try snorting Sinigang through my nose. I can differentiate between the different styles of cooking Adobo - pale and dry, pale and saucy, dark and dry, dark and saucy. I can even slurp my way through platefuls of sweet style spaghetti like nobody's business. I am a fan - a connoiseur, even - of Filipino food.

But dammit if I didn't fall in love with Malaysian food.

I admit I only had a sampling of their cuisine. But if just one serving of that spicy stir-fried squid with curry and shrimp paste wonder concoction could rock my socks of (not to mention my sinuses) and compel me to return to Malaysia, I'd say that qualifies me as officially "in love."

Category 6: Shopping: Malaysia 1 - Philippines 2

Could there be any doubt that I wouldn't think the Philippines is the best place to shop? I mean, it is one of our national pastimes, ranked right above sipa and right below Eat Bulaga.

The Malaysians have insanely pristine malls replete with high end clothing stores. But beyond that, there's not much to buy. On a budget, there are options. Not very good ones, but they're there. Compare that to Manila where almost every mall, save a few, embrace the entire spectrum of low-end to high-end shopping, and there's just no competition. Finally, and with relish, I get to say: Malaysia, that means you're out. Auf wiedersehen.

Non-sartorially speaking, though, Malaysia does have very cheap quality electronics, so 1 big point for that. But for everything else - knick knacks and what not, Manila still has the edge (even if it didn't, it'd still win out by default since malls in Kuala Lumpur are like Blue Magic central, which freaks the bejesus out of me. Plushness everywhere.)

Total Score: Malaysia 9 - Philippines 3

So obviously, Malaysia wins out. But we still must count the deciding supercategory, which this blogger reserves the right to use.

Supercategory: Books: Malaysia 1 - Philippines 20freakinmillion

I've only ever been to three other countries - Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. And each time I visited, I checked out their bookstores. It's like therapy - being in a safe place in an unknown country. In fact, if I ever murdered someone in a foreign land, I'd probably seek refuge in a bookstore. The Philippine Embassy would be a smarter choice, but I digress . . .

Anyhow, the Thai bookstores were mostly in Thai. The Singaporean bookstores were amazing, but also amazingly expensive. The Malaysian bookstores were good - close to ours, in fact. They have their own version of National Bookstore. They call it Popular Bookstore. And they have Borders.

Thing is, walking with my sister through the aisles and looking at the prices for paperbacks (easily a pricey average of 450 pesos), we realized that buying books here in Manila was still better. For one thing, there's just a bit more variety to choose from. And as my sister, la abogada, pointed out: Our books are cheaper because they aren't taxed. Or if they are, they're taxed quite lightly.

"And that," she says, "is why it's still great to live in our country."

I believe her.

I know it's silly to pick an overpopulated third world archipelago over a nearly-immaculate neighboring country poised to equal first-world countries in the near future, but it's what sealed the deal for me. It's the one fact that stopped my running commentary on Philippines vs. Malaysia and solidified my bias for Las Islas Filipinas. And I think, in the end, if you're determined, there's always one thing you'll find (irrational though it may be) about something you love that'll seal the deal for you too.

So terima kasih Malaysia, for a wonderful time. And for prising my eyelids open by the lashes.

But in the meantime, magna-National Bookstore muna 'ko!

Trust In Fickle Times

2009-04-21T16:56:00.009+08:00

It's raining in the middle of April. If any more proof of the current environmental crisis is needed, simply extend your hands, palms-up beneath the Manila sky. Under normal circumstances, any appendage would shrivel and sizzle within minutes of exposure to the summer heat, thus making nudity, or even simple flashing, quite ill-advised. Nowadays, however, a hand would gather enough moisture to fling at an unsuspecting classmate with satisfaction.

Watching the droplets of rain cling on to the plastic window-covering of a jeepney I boarded, I wondered: With all the chaos of modern living and with something as fundamental as the weather being as flighty as Adam Lambert's ~~caterwauling~~ singing from week to week, is there still room for trust in the world?

"Bayad po?"

I handed over 9 pesos to the barker who was collecting jeepney fares.

"Sa'n 'to?"

"Sa may Mercury Drug lang po."

In Manila, at least, even when the weather cannot be counted on, trust is still sown into the tapestry of daily existence. Each relationship is different, with its own boundaries and nuances. The jeepney driver trusts the barker to collect the fares. But he only trusts himself with paying the barker from the sum the barker gives him. The barker, in turn, trusts that the driver will pay him justly, and he trusts that the passengers are telling the truth about their stops (and consequently, the fair fare they must pay). The passengers trust that the jeepney driver is not drunk and that the jeep will drop them off at the stops they have mentioned.

It seems like a system riddled with rooms for error, but this is, simply, how we roll.

And besides, never have I not been dropped off at my stop over the countless times I rode similar jeepneys. And because of this repeated success I have gained confidence in the powers-that-be of the public transportation world, freeing me from worry, and allowing me to focus on other things - the awesomeness of Manila and of jeepneys and of Filipinos, for example.

But before I could finish romanticizing (this would have been a very different entry), I sensed something very very wrong. That blur of red and white couldn't have been Mercury Drug could it? Why didn't the driver stop? They always stop at Mercury Drug for more passengers. Oh fuck.

"Para ho."

"Para ho."

"Para ho. Para ho. Para ho!!!"

Finally the driver heard me and pulled over, in the middle of Commonwealth Avenue, a good distance away from Mercury Drug. I shimmied out of the packed vehicle and landed on both feet in the middle of one of the most dangerous highways in the world, breathing the world's fourth most polluted air. Ah Manila.

There was a giant pool in the middle of the road. And on either side, speeding buses, ready to run you over a second time should they hit a square inch of you (a burial costs less than medical treatment). I had to walk back to Mercury Drug, and there was no other path but through the ocean of rainwater.

I waded the ankle-deep sludge, shuddering to think how many magazines of salivary bullets and how many bladderfulls of rat urine were stirred into the gray metropolitan soup. My umbrella was ineffectual. What moisture I avoided from the rain, the buses and trucks made up for as they sped by with impunity, splashing my legs and my thankfully black shorts.

I made it to Mercury Drug all in one piece, my feet only minimally damp thanks to my Adidas rubber shoes and a thick pair of woolen socks. But as I boarded the jeepney that would take me to our village, I couldn't help but posit: Jeepney drivers need to be replaced with machines. Cold hard calculating robots that stop when you press a button and go when you release it. We need to cut the crap. Eradicate all this ambiguity and uncertainty of whether the guy knows what he's doing, if he's gonna get with the program and do what all the other jeepney drivers do. Trust be damned.

And as the jeepney neared our village, I half screamed for it to stop. More than enough to be heard, but not loud enough to identify myself as an advocate of sound pollution (ehem, Tyra Banks and Randy Jackson). Never again will I be deposited in the middle of a death road. I will watch the road like a hawk every single second I'm travelling it if I have to.

Which is, admittedly, what I should have been doing anyway, instead of being just a bit too trusting.

Come As We Go

2009-04-07T01:25:00.004+08:00

My auntie, a nurse in California, sent over some money for my grandma a couple of days ago. She left instructions that I was to be given a hundred dollars from the sum as a late graduation present.

The money, while elating me, failed to surprise me. One of the marks of being a child is the relatively heavy inflow of unearned cash from elders to the child's wallet. And at a solid eighteen years of age, here in the Philippines, I am still a child: a happy, currently-rich one.

Thus, being juvenile, I requested my grandmother to tell my mom nothing of my current economic wealth. I was not keen on it being subtracted from the amount of pocket money I am entitled to on our upcoming trip to Kuala Lumpur. With a boyishly charming smile fit for a Bear Brand ad, and a "pleeeease" prolonged so beyond the amount of cutesy allowed a single syllable, I made my grandmother promise.

I may as well have told Gretchen Wieners I had a crush on Aaron Samuels.

"You still have the money your Tita sent you, right?"

That was my mom, diabolically early this morning, inquiring as to whether I could pay for my summer classes in the meantime as she had not yet made withdrawals from her bank. And even while my mind was busy briefing itself on reality and on what to call the talking pile of saggy fabric and hair in front of me (mom), even before I could process her question to formulate a bleary "yes" or "no," I registered one thing that slapped my greedy little heart into red alert better than coffee ever could: I was having an "Et tu Brute" moment.

My grandmother: trusted confidante, loving protectress, a threat only to wayward streetcats and household help unwilling to submit to absolute slavery actually sold me out.

I wanted to assume that perhaps it was merely a fluke in her generally benevolent character (slavery and feline murders aside). But this hope was crushed with memory. Just last week, she also took a secret of mine, relayed to her in confidence, and sauntered off with impunity to the very person whose ears it was not meant to meet. She sang like a Beyonce-canary to our parish priest about what I thought of his nudism at the gym, sparing none of my allusions to optic surgery. She was like a shifty vendor of secrets, and social awkwardness was her preferred mode of payment.

So if it wasn't a fluke, maybe she was going senile. A preposterous hypothesis, but the more I think about it, perhaps closer to the truth.

I don't think my grandmother is succumbing to mental illness. But I do think she is succumbing to age, and all the freedom in its baggage. Maybe this was her seeking attention and not caring about the repercussions. After all, who would exhort the immorality of a little old lady's day-to-day indiscretions?

And even now, while I debate this point, I feel my hypothesis cement. I'm the child in this relationship, and yet I'm the one rationalizing her attention-seeking. It should be the other way around, but it isn't.

She's becoming a child too, I think. And I'm just starting to grow out of it. When I start earning my salary, she'll be completely dependent on pension and her children for economic means. When I reach physical maturity, she'll start to lose control of her body. When I start to suggest things for our family, she'll have to listen. And as my world expands, hers shrinks. Church, home, conversations with her grandson.

It's one of the saddest evidences of burgeoning maturity: To watch those who held your life and molded it with precious care advance in age and revert to infancy. But there's nothing left to do but start assuming the roles. Time is incorrigible.

So I guess I have to come up with more secrets for my grandma to peddle. I can't stand being an accomplice to a cat holocaust and I like the household help too much.

Sanity Silently

2009-04-01T23:47:00.011+08:00

Around my friends, silence unsettles me. Someone lives in my head, you see, and he likes taking advantage of these lulls to crawl out of my ear, pinch his eyebrows together, look up at me and ask why it's so quiet.

I probably wouldn't mind him as much if he didn't ask me in such a conspiratorial manner. But as it is, he sidles up beside my ear, covers his mouth (as if anyone could see his lips move, he's smaller than testicles in and ice bath) and whispers in a decidedly accusatory tone. He implies that whatever pervasive silence abounds is someone's fault.

With or without my full attention, he goes on a witch-hunt. He puts on a little puritanical hat of evil and looks around my friends. It's an act. He usually gives up, sits down on my shoulder and brings out his divination kit. He says he's a dab hand at the "art" and that he owes it to a few of his own modifications to the methodology. He reads the lines on faces, instead of palms and looks through eyeballs instead of crystal balls. True or false, though, his revelations are rarely cheery, even when offered with a Colgate smile.

It was probably your joke. It was kind of a buzz-kill. Next time try it with an accent. Or a butt jiggle.

They probably don't want to hang out right now but you're forcing them. You do insist. Like a mother brandishing a chastity belt.

They just don't like you. You're a poopy-face.

I used to believe him. But then, after having seen episode upon episode of Ally McBeal, I figured, how healthy is it to listen to voices in your head? Especially tiny ones that like whispering to draw attention. And besides, he's a three-trick pony, usually just expressing permutations of the mantras above.

But every now and then, he scribbles something in his ~~Moleskine~~ pretentious little Book of Revelations that jolts me. Toaster in a bathtub.

You've grown apart.

A pause to stick my eyes back into their sockets.

It's never pleasant. Barring masochists and reality show fans, only a blessed few adore shocks. The rest of us welcome them with all the enthusiasm of septuagenarians at a Grim Reaper exhibit.

And so at times like these, I quite abhor him, this gawky, adolescent acne-fodder who lives in my head.

Tolerance

2009-03-14T22:50:00.005+08:00

I take her top off and she sighs.

She stands still, sweating from head to toe. I ghost my hands over her gentle curves until my fingers are wet with her. She's cold as ice.

I clothe the back of her bare neck with my hand and bring her close for a kiss. It's not the same as before, as our first time. It's but the portrait of a shadow of a sculpture of ecstasy. I take another kiss, and another, each longer than the first. Still not the same.

It's not a long pure draught of her that goes right through me, from my lips spreading like fire through each vein, each nerve to the very tips of my fingers.

So I take one last kiss, letting my lips linger on her pout before it ends, savoring the taste.

Before I set her down on the table, grab another bottle of San Mig Light and try to edge closer to that first-time warmth.

Meeting Lucifer

2009-03-01T21:55:00.009+08:00

Pop culture lore has it that the spawn of Satan will be born of a pure woman.

I have several problems with this theory.

Firstly, I don't think The Prideful One would trust anyone but himself with his favorite hobby of soul-collecting. Hence, the idea of him sending not himself but the fruit of his loins to pilfer the world for our souls, is illogical. No matter how creepy said fruit is when sitting on a creaky swing.

Secondly, I fail to see the need for a demon child to gestate in a kind lady's womb or to suckle on her teat. Except for the gasp-factor in this theory, it makes very little sense. Why a pure lady, of all things? Are there not better adjectives in the world? Why not a sporty lady? Or a scary one? Baby? Ginger? Posh? Truth be told, I'd expect Satan's baby to be borne of a Miss Universe contestant or a Playmate because a) I think Satan would sooner hurl an ugly girl to heaven than engage in coitus with her and b) I think Satan's spawn should be hot if he wants to gain his pop-pop's approval by tempting hordes of pillow-humping human beings.

Thirdly, I've met Satan. And trust me, bitch don't need no spawn to cajole us into hell.

He doesn't pad about as a little boy riding a plastic tricycle with a penchant for hitting people precariously standing on precipices. No, he comes in a form infinitely more nefarious and malignant, a lethal combination of subtle and enticing.

He makes himself known in a hiss of vapor, in the crackle of a bite, and in the pleasure after.

My dear readers, it is my unfortunate duty to inform you that Satan has been prancing under our noses, undetected and all-powerful as a 2 pc. McChicken meal.

He is the grease and the mass of salty skin and the pittance of flesh bound in sacrificial bone. He is the crunch and the succulence and the mmmm to the bite. But most importantly, he is the "I want some more" after the meal. In the face of stabbing protests from your chest.

He is, in this form, at his most devastating, misleading the billions and billions served into hell's third ring. By the droves.

Once you meet him in this form, he never truly departs, either. He insinuates himself into your thoughts, so that every now and then, you find yourself grabbing the phone, thumb ghosting over that 8.

The Fountain

2009-02-23T19:14:00.004+08:00

While the world was watching the Academy Awards, I was resting my head on my palm in a bruisingly cold UP Audio-Visual Room. I know I shouldn't be complaining about the cold, when the rest of Manila is overheating, but I digress.

I was attending a make-up period for my Lit class, and we were watching Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain" starring Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman (yes, he who was at the time of our viewing, apparently prancing on the Kodak Theatre stage).

I remember having seen the trailer before, and being quite intrigued by it. But since nobody was really interested in watching it (our prof informed us it was only shown in Manila for around three days), I never saw it.

And what a shame that was.

The film was poetry, one giant puzzle. It was Life and Death and Love spun in symbols: golden light, trees, rings and hair. It was a love story, and a quest story woven in three different times: 1500 with the Spanish queen and her conquistadore. 2000 with Tommy and Izzi Creo (Spanish for "I believe"). 2500 with the space monk and his tree.

In the one milennium that elapses among the three timelines, the different plots overlap to create one narrative, with the two main characters changing very little in their conviction, but also, in the end, change just enough to finally redeem their failures.

P.S.
Incidentally, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett were supposed to star in this film, but I'm glad they didn't. I like them more in Benjamin Button, which was not as nourishing to the mind as The Fountain, but was still a good movie, all around.

Making Faces

2009-02-20T18:32:00.010+08:00

When I was a child, I never hated traffic jams.

It was cool inside the car, and I knew things could be a lot worse. I could have been outside in the ihawan that is Metro Manila. Instead, I was curled up in the back seat, staring out the window, while contemplating why we never installed air-conditioning at home.

We weren't a techie family. So I was never interested in gameboys or walkmans (walkmen?). For entertainment during these hours-long trips (contemplating air-conditioning could only take so much time), I was left to do something more primal.

I studied the faces cars made. Apparently, it's instinctive for babies and children to make facial patterns out of anything - it helps with their survival. But I elevated this to an art form. The slanted but rounded headlights of Hondas were wholesome eyes, paired with their smiling bumpers. They were always cast as heroes of the story in my head. Toyotas had the same wholesome look, but were boxier and less sleek (this was the 90's). They were the sidekicks. Hyundai, or whichever cars had slit-like headlights were always the enemy. The entire story was a chase, or a race among the different cars (I wasn't very creative) and sometimes the Honda would win, sometimes the Toyota had to avenge him, and sometimes the Hyundai would overpower them. For that instance.

The stories and the faces always helped me while the time away, until we reached our destination, usually home.

And it's only this past week that I started appreciating faces again to while my time away.

The past six months have been a pleasant plateau for me. And call me naive, but sometimes, it's at these times when everything is fine, but nothing is wonderful, where we find rock bottom. It's at these times that we dream of bigger things - adventure and love - and get frustrated when neither occur.

So instead of looking to dreams to break the monotony of things, I once again stumbled upon appreciating faces. Not of cars (I am eighteen), but of people.

The classmate clad in baro't saya whom I shared a joke with. The friend of a friend of a friend who reminisced with me about high school. The girl who was shocked I spoke Filipino well. The guy whose name I didn't know but who let me ride in his car because his friends were my friends too. All these faces would pass me by in a day. They wouldn't necessarily become my friends. They might well just be fellow travellers whose paths will cross mine just once and disappear forever. But I'm giving them attention nonetheless. No more keeping inconsequential people in my periphery.

This introduction of new and changing characters in my currently flat time, gives me a lot of plotpoints, at least telling me that I'm learning new things, and moving forward in time: something hard to realize in a plateau. They help me realize I haven't stagnated and that I'm still trekking towards an end goal.

And just between you, me, and the bedpost, they make excellent blog-fodder :)

Hell Week

2009-02-06T22:27:00.019+08:00

The past week hasn't been particularly hellish. In fact it went by perfectly peachy, perhaps my tragic attempt at a free verse poem for Creative Writing class the only thing condemned to eternal damnation. That and my ungodly Chem test, but that doesn't count. Chemistry's a given evil. Like the bottles of Minola stashed between the patties of the uber healthy Double Quarter Pounder.

It's interesting, however, that in a week with few conflicts, (I felt like Switzerland) and relative peace, the insights I gained all pertained to Lucifer's "head" office.

Realization 1: An Idle Mind Is the Devil's Playground

It all started with Chemistry class. The first few months were epic in the scale of failure on my part. Think Trojans welcoming their death horse. Think Sarah Palin trying to spell "integration." Think that Kelly and Justin movie. Think fountain of beauty Boy Abunda releasing his own fragrance. No. Think Randy Jackson in an eloquence contest.

It took an absolute slavery to books and notes and to begging for books and notes from anyone just to reach a level at par with our classmates (most of whom hail from Philippine *IMBA* Science High School). But after that initial struggle, the course has become more forgiving. The tricky thing is that every now and then it throws a curveball of a challenge, catching us off guard like cats leisurely licking their balls on the road before realizing a truck has come to -splat.

The consequence is that my friends and I are constantly uncertain of what to do. We're in total flux. We could use the break to study for a test that might or might not come. But on the other hand food and chairs (and realization number 2) are too tempting for our nerves. We drift between stressed and unstressed, and usually settle on idling. And it's in these moments when we exhaust all topics of conversation. And, reduced to looking at each other and giggling, we slowly excavate deep-seated emotions that tell us school has been boring these past few weeks (funny how we complain in the face of pseudo-triumph over Chem) and bemoan that we hope school's over.

Realization 2: The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Friends

"Go to heaven for the climate, hell for the company."
- Mark Twain

Between my two friends, Ana and Miguel, I think I've pretty much secured an eternity of wiping Satan's ass. While dryhumping a giant cheese grater.

Conversations usually begin with "You know that girl Minnie/Ara/ that guy Jhong?"

And end with "Yeah. So fucking annoying."

In between is a whole spate of these charming gems:

"Oh my god if i have to hear her giggle another time, I will sandpaper my ears."

"Yeah. She's so plain too. It's like she's almost pretty but juuuust missed it."

"It's like she comes near and scares everyone's boners away."

"I cannot stand Jhong. I wish plainface just slits his throat already."

"Yeah. She'll slit it plainly."

"Oh in fairness plainface has a brain. She's wearing orange to not get ignored."

"By men."

"And trucks."

"Oh. Dumb bitch changed her shirt to black."

And the sad thing is. We can't stop!!!

Bitching needs to be banned as an illegal drug.

Realization 3: Dreaming Is All We Know of Heaven and All We Need of Hell

I just finished reading "Preludes and Nocturnes," the first installment of Sandman comic books. I enjoyed most of the storylines, and they definitely left me itching to burn a hole in my pocket named "Installment Two: The Doll House."

But storylines aside, I found this little nugget of wisdom that has been haunting me:

Okay so it's totally not clear, but the page is the conclusion of Dream's journey to hell (looking for a demon who stole his mighty headdress). He wins back the headdress (which btw, looks like a mosquito's head) but is, expectedly, tricked by Lucifer Morningstar (no, I don't think anyone has informed him his name sounds drag-queen-like a la Bebe Gandanghari aka Rustom Padilla). Lucy tells Dream how foolish it is to expect to depart from hell, having no powers in their realm.

But Dream answers, facing all the demons:

"You say dreams have no power here?

Ask yourselves, all of you.

What power would hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to dream of heaven?"

The demons part, and Dream exits unscathed.

Realization 4: Hell Does Not Smell Like Sulfur, But Rather, Zinc

It all started with Chem and it all ends with Chem.

Friday was our Unknown Analysis Test. Basically we're each given a different solution, on which we'd perform tests to figure out which ions are present.

My solution was clear, with a swirling mass of white precipitate at the bottom.

The annoying thing? Most of the test for ions required deciphering whether or not the addition of reagents formed white precipitates. I wish I'd just snorted all the white precipitate from the solution. I would've been left with a clear confusion-less supernate. Better to use with the reagents. And I would've been through the moon, to boot.

I didn't get a perfect score. I thought the tests for Zinc proved positive.

Fucking white precipitate. Fucking Zinc.

Oatmeal Vs. Fishballs

2009-01-18T01:19:00.006+08:00

I wake up at mornings. Take a bath. Dress up. Eat my breakfast. Brush my teeth. Get to school. Study hard. Lather, rinse, repeat.

If I'm feeling reckless, I allow myself more time to preen before class. For whom or what, I don't quite now. But I waste just enough time to arrive at class fourteen minutes late (fifteen is counted as an absence).

The rest of the day is a rigid schedule with no room for foolishness. Any daring is confined to food selection: boring oatmeal or deep fried fish balls from the sidewalk possibly riddled with hepatitis and the bubonic plague?

But right before sleeping, when all the freshly highlighted books have been neatly stowed in a bag for the next day, when all the papers have been printed and filed, when it's okay to lull myself to sleep with thoughts of what could be and what could never be, I wonder.

I wonder why I can't take my hepa-riddled stick of fishballs and run with it. Without paying. All the way to some mall where I'd spend my afternoon when I'm supposed to be holed up in a Chem lab solving for the enthalpy of some shitty reaction straight from Germain Hess' ass.

Even at the twilight of sleep, it isn't difficult to figure out why.

"Counting on me" is a phrase to be reckoned with. Especially when preceded by "my family is" and "other people are." A second's thought of a cause bigger than myself is enough to swat away the excitement leant to me by dreams. The thought may not make the tireless routine of everyday more appetizing, but it at least makes it more nutrtitious. Like the mercilessly tasteless oatmeal that's good for you and keeps you running.

And I know I have no choice but to take my oatmeal. Living a life steeped in "we're counting on you" is just as daunting as one without it.

But oatmeals is oatmeal. And hepa-fishballs are hepa-fishballs. One is just plain yummier.

Trying Quite Hard

2009-01-07T19:44:00.007+08:00

Okay so I'm taking creative writing classes and literature classes this semester, and I've been neck-deep in poem readings. I never really found poems profound before (I was too lazy to actually make the effort of understanding them word per word, line per line). But now that I'm sorta kinda getting better at reading poems (many thanks to my online sources, aka Sisyphussy), I'm starting to appreciate them more.

It's so beautiful how a poem is so short and yet it tells a complete story. It has characters, a setting, conlfict(s), and a plot. And its brevity doesn't just serve as an excuse for poets to be esoteric, obscure and oblique, it serves as an enticement for the reader to fill in the blanks between what is stated and what is meant in order to get at the poem's story.

And it was these brilliant single-sentence poems that helped me figure that out:

Suicide's Note
Langston Hughes

The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.

The Flea
Charles Simic

He took a flea
From her armpit
To keep

And cherish
In a matchbox,
Even pricking his finger

From time to time
To feed it
Drops of blood.

The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

And because I've been so ~~bored~~ inspired, I made my own. You might think it takes a lot of hubris to put it in the same post that mentions the above poems. You are only partly right. It isn't my intention to compare, because I wouldn't want you to, because I am a million percent sure my poem sucks but it does take some arrogance to put work out there for the world to see.

Anyways, the poem's kinda stupid and purely kalokohan but I just wanted to play around with leaving blanks for a reader to fill in, which is so difficult in prose - my preferred medium.

So here it is:

Tale As Cold As Time
Notsovictor

Shards of your eyes
Lay at my feet
As they melted
To a groan.

Ah I am a poet. Haha.

Still a bit zoned out.

Lapdance Learnings

2009-01-02T01:38:00.014+08:00

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be ringing in 2009 with a lapdance from a drag queen.

But I did, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it.

She was hired by my Lola's cousin's kids to entertain all the guests at their dad's birthday/new year's eve celebration. What a 75 year old ex-Marcos crony would want with 200 pounds of glitter and ducktaped manbits is beyond me.

She came out (pardon the pun) amidst a glare of lights, made exponentially more oppressive by all the sequins dripping from her tall and muscular figure. She looked like a bedazzled Dennis Rodman. Or a Michael Jordan who bathed in Elmer's Glue and rolled around in the world's supply of gawdy gold crap.

Her shtick was a lip-synced performance of the very butch "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going." But when after the second round of AND I AAAAAAAAAAAAAM TEELLINGGG YOUUUs barely anyone was paying attention to her (an achievement in and of itself because a 7-foot gold drag queen gyrating is hard to ignore), she probably decided "fuck this!" and went on to shove everything she had down the audience's throats. (This is figurative). She advanced to an uncle of mine, thrusted her pelvis to the beat of the song, and proceeded to give him a lapdance.

People cheered, but her utterly subtle desire for attention was not sated.

I thought I was safe, smartly choosing to sit at the backmost table when I heard the whispers of "drag queen presentation" earlier. But it is a fatal mistake to underestimate the cojones of a drag queen wronged. Hell hath no fury indeed. She made her way to me, paused, towering like an angry Christmas tree, repeated the pelvis-thrusts, and performed a thankfully-short lapdance.

For all ten seconds of it, I wanted to tuck my penis between my legs, place both hands over it and run away to a corner where I could cradle it protectively.

I still don't understand why I felt that way, why I feared for my manbits. It was more of instinct and reflex, rather than a deliberate attempt to show displeasure over sequined men.

I thought 2008 had been a breakthrough year for me as regards my liberalism and open-mindedness. I thought I was less a bigot than the homophobic generation of our parents. But apparently, I'm still that little boy who went with his mom and dad to the parlor and was told by the giant gay man "Kukunin ko na ang daddy mo!" I'm still just a little scared of large flaming homosexuals.

But thankfully, we rang in a fresh-faced 2009. As good a chance as any to remedy certain problems overlooked in 2008

P.S.

I just have to share this:

Minutes later, after her act, the drag queen was going around the tables, singing for tip. In between, she said "Para po sa foundation namin. Nagpapaaral po kami ng mga bata."

To which my uncle said, "That's a good one. Didn't know there were NGO's for baby drag queens."

2008 Was

2008-12-31T18:06:00.006+08:00

Tedious. Hectic. Eye-opening. Simple. Needy. Greedy. Painful. Depressing. Sleepy. A brief acquaintance. A one night stand. Affable. Intelligent. Unintelligible. Insipid. Anxious. Desperate. Change. A tour de force of improvement. And misunderstanding. Nondescript. Farewell-riddled. Welcome back-riddled. Acne-free (for the most part). Shallow. Pretentious. A routine. Exaggerated. An acceptance. Confident. Progressive. Insane. Apathetic. Sweet. Starving. Uncomplicated. Subtle. Sneaky. Underhanded. Commemorative. A relapse. Boring. Exciting. Trashy. Camp. Open. Loose. Wild. Experimental. Detrimental. Divided.

Not that good, on the whole.

Thank you for everything, but Adios 2008. And take the slew of odious television shows you spawned with you.

Getting Butchered

2008-12-21T07:03:00.012+08:00

You were a good butcher. You did everything right.

You made sure. The first cut was the deepest.

That was the point of no return. When you got your hooks into me. And didn't let go.

You kept going and going. Shredding me as you pleased. Into manageable portions. I should have stopped you. But I didn't. I couldn't. You were too sure. Too confident. Too precise with your blades.

You made me trust you. Even while you hacked at me.

I saw all the bits of me. Falling away. At the urging of your sharp implements. I did not feel anything. At least. You gave me that one bit of mercy.

Before you dealt your final blow. And killed me.

You turned me to face the mirror. You showed me your handiwork:

You butchered my hair!!!

Here's to looking like Sharon Stone in all the Christmas photos. Haha.

More Than A Dream

2008-12-20T02:34:00.006+08:00

We read "Three Septembers and A January" by Neil Gaiman for our Creative Writing class a few weeks back. It's basically an exposition of the power of dreams.

The story revolves around one man who has lost everything, about to succumb to Despair when Dream saves him and gives him something to live for.

It's an interesting peek at how unique man is. When an animal, for example, is cornered and loses all options, it attacks and summons all the Destruction it is capable of. Man, however, can choose to dream and feed off of that ephemeral song within him.

These past few days have been trying. Being at home more has meant relegating myself to the domestic roles which I avoid whenever I can. This mantle of "son" is an incarceration, slowly trapping me in a perfect box, the air holes plugged up one by one with sinister surgical precision.

And, as people do when trapped, I've been resulting to dreaming - of the future and of the possibility of love, success and greatness. But there is a pesky antithesis to all dreams: rationality. It's that painful clarity, the only-sometimes-wanted light that whispers in your ear the "improbability" and "reality" of your desires.

And with that last air-hole plugged up, I'm just about ready to run amok under the pressure and seek destruction. So I give this as an ultimatum to Destiny: Either my dreams become real, or I ruin everything that is.

Maturity be damned.

Christmas Breaths

2008-12-14T00:07:00.011+08:00

For better or for worse, the cheese factory that is Jose Mari Chan will always be a part of my Christmas. It never feels like a complete holiday experience without a couple of servings of his saccharine obra maestra "Christmas In Our Hearts" which I've never been able to purge from my memory ever since it insinuated itself there when I was three.

Sing along with me now.

Whenever I see boys and girls selling lanterns on the street
I remember the child, in the manger as he sleeps

And yet for all the Hallmark cards the song evokes, it strikes a sinister truth, particularly in the first few lines. It describes the duality of Christmas and poverty.

Today I witnessed this dichotomy on my way to dinner with some friends at Trinoma. The traffic was horrible. Perfect setting for the throngs of street children to flock around the cars suspended in discomfort. Some of them brandished their usual wares - pranela, cigarettes, opened hands. Some decided to capitalize on the holidays and traded their pranela for cans of powdered milk which were thumped in accompaniment to renditions of "Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit." Yet others simply knocked on windows and asked if they could please have pamasko.

As these children started to weave themselves in amongst the cars, I hurriedly grabbed my cellphone and began texting furiously. The prospect of having no answer to a dirty expectant face inches from mine scared the shit out of me.

I watched from the corner of my eyes, as a child lingered dangrously close to our car. Finally he turned and walked up to my window. My stomach dropped and I felt my face heat up. The monotonous voice asking "ser, pamasko po, sige na po kahit piso lang po" was exponentially harsher in my head. "Tingnan mo 'to. Mayaman naman. Mukha namang nakakalamon ng maayos. Maganda naman suot. Pero piso lang, ayaw pa." I never took my eyes away from my cellphone.

I didn't pass him a coin, either. I was scared of looking through my wallet and seeing how much cash I had there in comparison to how much cash I was willing to give him. I was about to have dinner with friends, after all. There was no room for self-loathing.

After an eternity of seconds, the boy walked away. My mom tutted and observed that children should not have to work on streets. I wanted to taunt her with a hearty "Well duuuuh." But I knew that I was really just upset with myself for not having the balls to pass over some change to the child. I settled for looking away from her and into the now-childless mirror.

I noticed that the child's breath had left a moist spot on the mirror. It was all that would be left of him, and the affliction of his poverty. And even this would evaporate into thin air.

Before it did, however, a little girl tapped at my mom's mirror. She too, simply looked ahead, pretending not to see anything. Especially the cash in her wallet. But the little girl was persistent and something about her bulging eyes or her toothpick wrists moved my mom to at last fish out some coins and hand them to to the girl. She walked away with a smile on her face.

I think we both felt better after that. With just a couple of coins, we bought innocence in the face of oppressive consciences.

But this calm did not last long. The other children saw what my mom had done and one by one, they came up to our windows. For a while, they were happily obliged. Giving was making us feel good. Especially now during the Christmas season. But when we'd depleted our store of change, there was already an entire band of discordant singers serenading us. We reverted to looking straight ahead of us with stony discipline. Once again not thinking of the hundred-peso and thousand-peso bills in our fat wallets.

They took the hint and walked away. It wasn't the children or their poverty that dissipated after all, but good will. And how quickly too. I turned to look at the empty mirror once more. All pretense of innocence gone.

There were more moist spots there left by more breaths. And they all grew smaller and smaller as we reached the mall.

Twice On Beauty

2008-12-08T22:56:00.005+08:00

FIRST ON BEAUTY:

I did something very very bad on the jeep today.

I headed for one of the shotgun seats, and there was this lady, trying to get the other. I asked her politely if I could sit closer to the seat's frame/exit/door as my stop was nearer. She shook her head vigorously, frowned and kept mumbling "hinde, hinde, hinde" as if I'd just asked her for a donation to my schooling, or propositioned her, or asked to orient her on the proper use of contraceptives.

Okay then, menopausal Mary, I'll take the seat nearer the driver. No biggie.

But her awesome display of lack of manners did not stop there. When we were sitting down, she kept shoving me to one side with her gigantic ass. And they weren't timid shoves. They were dig-deep-from-the-diaphragm thrusts.

Fine. I'll move. You need to spread your legs farther apart. You have balls between them. I wouldn't put it past you. I understand.

But for the love of god! When it was my stop and I said "excuse me" to her so I could exit the jeep and she had the gall to roll her eyes at me, I have to admit, I snapped a little. When I got out of the jeep, and she was back in it, I called back to her with something that just came out: "Miss, ang pangit pangit mo."

I'm not sure if she heard. I hope she didn't. I don't think I've ever done anything as brash as this to a stranger. (I'm scared I might malign someone who'll turn out to be Jesus and I'll lose points in heaven). But it's funny how, when left unguarded and looking to cause pain, I go for the looks - the soft underbelly of anyone who isn't Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie.

Because I totally have a right to judge people's looks. (Note sarcasm). Haha.

SECOND ON BEAUTY:

It has come to my attention, that a friend of mine, (for all intents and purposes of this blog, referred to hereafter as "JP") who is called "the hottest being alive" by men, women, dogs in heat, the blind, conifers and the dead, has been reading my blog.

To JP, I extend my warmest greetings, along with a hug for coming back home, finally :)

*feels pressured now that you're reading*

Loading

2008-11-08T23:00:00.012+08:00

Tita: I wanna go to Kuala Lumpur before the year ends.

Sister: Why don't you go right after Christmas.

Notsovictor: Yeah, it'd be fun to spend New Year there.

Tita: NO NO!!! They don't have New Year there!!! They're Muslim!!!

Notsovictor: Huh?

Tita: They don't celebrate New Year there. They don't believe in it.

Notsovictor: *facepalm*

Sister: Uuum, 2008 reaches an end no matter what God you believe in.

Tita: Fine, don't believe me.

She obviously had Christmas confused with New Year. But we weren't gonna tell her. Too much fun this way. We'll wait for her brain to finish loading.

Teaching SECKS

2008-11-04T19:31:00.008+08:00

At age five, I began to revel at how my various titas would balloon after marriage and, after nine months, would expel their spawn from within enlarged bellies.

I of course asked the inevitable question: Where the do all these babies come from?

In a spectacular display of ~~parenting skills~~ reverse psychology and their knack for evading awkward situations, my parents turned the question on me, with a very clever “What do you think?”

Eyebrows furrowed, I explained my hypothesis with reluctance: “After people get married . . . when they kiss a lot . . . the woman’s stomach gets bigger and then babies come out of the belly button?”

My parents neither confirmed nor corrected my theory. For thirteen years. They now merely assume that, as a high school graduate, I paid proper attention to my Biology classes and now know the ins and outs of fornication. For all they know, however, to this very day, I might still believe that babies are the products of liberally-applied flavored lipstick and overactive tongues.

But truth be told, it was not my Biology teacher who taught me about sex. Being a boy, I naturally knew about sex long before reaching 2nd year high school. In fact, I had been piecing together the general idea of sex through surreptitiously whispered conversations between myself and my classmates who had heard things from cousins or from the friend of a friend of a brother.

It was on a recess period in first grade that my friends and I watched our classmate Arvin (horny teenager trapped in a seven-year-old body) point at his “birdy,” make vigorous gestures with a closed fist, and then roll over in a giggle fit.

We learned about the mysterious act he christened as “jakol”.

In third grade, the guidance counselor showed us the anatomical differences between baby boys and baby girls in a crudely drawn visual aid. Arvin showed me his left thumb and forefinger forming a circle with his right forefinger going in and out of it while he bounced on his chair and mouthed “dogstyle.”

Apparently this bouncing “dogstyle” dance of sorts was what those anatomically different parts were for.

In fifth grade, I invited my friend JR over to complete a project. Once through with work, he cajoled me into “googling” with him. And faster than I could say “parental supervision,” he was happily typing away “Beyonce naked” and clicking “search pictures.”

Of course the pictures we found of Beyonce laughing victoriously whilst clutching her engorged pink nipples were fake. But the magic of the bosom was not lost on me. And more importantly, neither was this newfound use of the internet.

I spent hours upon hours feverishly fortifying my growing knowledge of everything sexual. But it was not until I found a tiny packet left by my uncle that I had any notion of contraception.

It didn’t matter that my mother snatched it from me quickly before muttering in horror “Pang matanda ‘yan. Pang matanda ‘yan.” The damage had been done. My eyes were quicker than her parental radar and had seen the magic words to google written on the packet: CONDOM.

The first time I saw a used condom however, was years later, in seventh grade, and was accompanied by a crash course in sexually transmitted diseases. Miko, a fat and greasy classmate of mine who was, by any means not the brightest crayon in the box, brought one to school. The teacher caught him instantly (Miko was ill-advisedly brandishing the condom as some sort of trophy) and gave us all an earful about how such things were unsanitary and disease-riddled.

Had it not been for Miko’s in-retrospect beneficial shenanigans, I probably would never have learned about the importance of guarding against STD’s until 2nd year high school. Not that I had numerous sexual conquests in between 7th grade and 2nd year high school, mind you, but had I been a very different boy (sinewy and oozing with sex or loaded and impatient) there’s a chance that I would have looked “down there” one day and wondered why my hoo-hoo was falling off.

Something has definitely gone awry in society when children cannot count on their parents for certain facts of life and, worse, when a boy thinks it is beneficial that his classmate brought a used condom to school.

It would be quite easy to tell the parents of our nation that they need to start educating their children about sex before less reliable sources do so. It would be quite easy to tell them that the time for silence and prudence is long past, that the internet and imprudent little boys have come to replace them as sources of information, and, more dauntingly, as sources of influence.

But the parents of our nation are too fixated with tradition and with the fear that they might inadvertently turn their children into promiscuous sluts. They would much rather incarcerate the passions of their hormonal teenagers with strict curfews and a prayer.

They forget how flimsy the protection of a curfew is when faced with the formidable power of hormones and their kids are suffering for it – taking what they can from their friends, google and xtube (both good and bad) and running off with them into the world of immature sexual contact.

And thus, logically, if the nation's parents, like mine, are not prepared and cannot be trusted to educate and protect, then, for the sake of our youth, the government and the schools must. The only trouble is that the government leans too heavily in favor of the Church's wishes - an act which I find highly questionable because of the constitution's stress on the separation of Church and State.

This provision in the constitution means that should Christians choose to abandon the safety practices instructed by the government because of their faith, then it is perfectly within their rights to do so. However, these same people should not be allowed to sway the government from doing what it believes is right within the confines of its power simply because they, as Christians, have other beliefs.

No matter what our religious beliefs are, however, there are realities that must be faced, and soon. While our country's mindset is in no way prepared for sex education in schools, in the end, the issue is not one of readiness, but of necessity. We need to teach sex education to properly inform, to battle disease, to curb overpopulation and to steer our youth away from lives they are incapable of comprehending, much less leading.

And if these arguments still fail to sway, then it’s time to reiterate one simple fact. Our kids will learn about sex at an early age anyway. We cannot control that. What we can control is what they learn and from whom.

So in the end, we must ask ourselves one simple question. Who do we want filling in the role of parents and teaching our kids about sex? A trained professional or a giggling first grader pointing at his “birdy” and vigorously shaking a closed fist?

This is my entry to the Blog Challenge 08: Teach me eroticism in school, Please
http://www.theblogawardchallenge.com/2008/09/tbac-08-teach-me-eroticism-in-school.html

Getting Fucked

2008-11-03T16:55:00.013+08:00

Everyone says the first time isn't supposed to be pleasurable. It is a jerky approximation of what ideally is a smooth and sensual dance. Filled with uncertain queries regarding the proper places to stick things in, the proper things to mouth and the proper places to push and prod, the first time transcends the realms of awkwardness and rests in the precarious embrace of tediousness and exhaustion.

So it was on my first time to enroll as a "regular" student at the University of the Philippines. I woke up early and armed myself with the necessary tools to make my first time as painless as possible - all forms (past and present) not in the "to-bring" memo, pens, identification card, wits. I ate a heavy meal, fortifying myself for the herculean task that would deplete my body's resources (enrollment at UP is notorious for being taxing).

I arrived early, ready to jump into the gyrating orgy that is our registration procedure. But enrollment is a coy coy mistress. She made me wait two hours before I was allowed to approach her bench of registration materials. And when I did, the rest of her suitors had crowded me, allowing her to slip silkily away from me. Furthermore, she barred me from her company with one word written under my name: Under-assessed.

Comforting. I asked the overwhelmed student volunteers what it meant. They tried to explain it to me, in between answering the summonses of other groping, groaning bacchanalian enrollees.

It basically meant I had to pay 52 pesos at the University Cashier because of some computational error made by the University as regards my fate, before I could claim my registration materials and finally surrender to the pains of first time enrollment.

Eager to claim my prize and be one with my flighty mistress, enrollment, I ran to the far-off University Cashier. But there, again, my mistress proved to be elusive. In an irony of ironies, the University Cashier, the Cashier of the University, was unequipped to furnish me change for my 500 peso bill payment.

Exasperated, and feeling my energies slowly dissipating, I stomped back and forth from the Cashier to the Bench of Registration Materials, heckling at the vendors who all inconveniently had no change for my weary soul.

It was a friend of mine who rescued me. She loaned me 52 pesos to pay the cashier and at last, my debt paid, I was finally united with my registration materials.

But this episode was simply foreplay - enrollment was merely toying with me to get me sweating and out of breath. And now, enrollment was drawing up to her full formidable height, ready to fuck with me in earnest.

It was my first time. All the directions as to how to go about things were conflicting. I didn't know what I was doing, and so I asked anyone who knew enrollment better than I. Where do I go? How do I do it? Where do I enter? Confident but unhelpful whispers guided me. Down there. Like this. Through here.

Even with their help I was lost. I would enter a place and it would be incorrect. And each time, enrollment would engulf me with her limbs and I would be shoved into the proper entrance, the proper station.

Validation. Assessment. Clearance. All these processes followed this fidget and frenzy of trial and error.

I was dragged in and out and in and out and in and out of different places multiple times until finally, just when everything became excruciatingly confusing, and I was losing my grip, overcome by all the frustration and desire and heat, just when I could not take anymore, all of enrollment's needs were sated. She slackened her grip on me and let me go. I was done. Just like that.

Sweating and aching from the completion of my first time, I sighed pure relief. It was over. That godawful experience of getting fucked was over.

I walked away a changed man.

Now that I think about it, I know it wasn't supposed to be that way. I know I wasn't supposed to get fucked. But we were simply approximating a smooth and sensual dance. And it'll take a lot of practice before we finally get the proper rhythm.

Losing Patience

2008-10-09T20:49:00.010+08:00

Strangely enough, the uphill drive to our house hinted that things would start going downhill very soon. The first sign was a small procession of old women (my grandmother included) holding aloft candles and in the middle of the road, walking as slowly as humanly possible.

As the women were blocking the road with holy impunity, our car had to follow them at snail's pace, hanging onto the steep incline one second, moving an inch the next. I was beginning to wonder if our glacial pace was flirting with the edges of my mother's short patience. She was driving, after all, and God be damned, but she would have run over all those frail old women had she not been dancing her menopausal stresses away at the gym mere minutes earlier.

The warming thought of my mother mass-murdering septuagenarians and octogenarians by car quickly dissipated. She asked me what I thought was occurring and I sensed the smile in her voice. She was actually intrigued and amused by the spectacle.

"Old women praying," was my less-than-enthused reply.

"For what?" she asked, her voice still tinged with a smile.

"Health. The dead. Lovers. Who knows what's hidden in the heart of hearts of aged mothers?"

A sense of foreboding was washing over me and was causing my tart replies as the troop of old ladies creaked their way into our house - a sense that was vindicated an hour later as my mother badgered me about praying to the Marian statue the old women apparently brought into our home.

I made it abundantly clear via body language (slumping shoulders, dragging feet, head-scratching) that I was not pleased with being forced to pray in order that we may gain the approval of a stone statue with a crooked smile. But I did anyway, out of respect for my mother and grandmother and out of solidarity with the help who were also summoned from their quarters to help in gaining mystical favors for our home.

However, when my mother glared at me at every "and the fruit your womb, Jesus" to ensure that I responded with the proper vigor to the "Hail Maries," I knew that by my theatrics I had not just flirted with her patience, but had propped it on my leg and snapped it clean in half. I knew I would receive a tongue-lashing anyways so I decided to, what the heck, worsen matters with a preemptive attack. I stopped replying altogether, looked ahead stonily and relished her torture - the struggle between keeping calm in front of an esteemed guest and the desire to strangle me with her rosary.

I couldn't for the life of me understand why someone would impose her idea of prayer on me. I know she thinks I'm a degenerating youth when it comes to my faith, but I myself can strongly attest to the otherwise. I pray every night before I sleep, for everyone I love who's passed away, for everyone I love who's still with me, and for everyone I know who's made my day better. I even pass by chapels to give thanks to my God in my own way.

But such actions modified by words like "my own way" are rarely understood. All any son can hope for really is that they would at least be met with patience. If my mother could forgive the slow women wasting her time and energy, she should at least be able to patiently acknowledge a son's point of view.

Saving Time

2008-09-24T19:23:00.007+08:00

"Why do you lecture me?"

"Because I love you."

"Yes but what do you wish me to achieve?"

"I want to spare you the pain, to save you the time."

To save me time. If that's all there is to love, I therefore conclude that love is nothing but technology. A mere device of convenience. Youtube. Blackberry. iPod.

But ironically enough, technology has the habit of rapidly expending our time. It's technology that has brought us into such a fast-paced world that fast-forwards us from cradle to grave.

That is the fatal flaw of technology. It loses the treasure it vows to protect like a man desperate to clutch at the sands of time, only to realize that each grain is slipping through his fingers and into the infinity of the beach. He must realize the foolishness of his ways and wash his hands on the ever-changing shore before it's too late.

Only then can he truly love.

Pointing Fingers

2008-09-13T22:46:00.007+08:00

Some things simply go well together. Peanut butter and jelly. Palin and controversy. Porn and widescreen.

I wish I could say the same for automobiles and myself.

Under the control of any other human being, a car is simply an efficient means of transportation. However, it has been my great misfortune that I am innately and massively ~~untalented~~ crap at driving. I can only assume that somewhere in my DNA is a traitor gene (probably beside the teenage acne gene) which dutifully withholds from me the finesse and alertness required in driving. Thus, under my hands, a car becomes a speeding, swerving, bullet of death.

It was two Fridays ago that I cut lanes at Philcoa. I was amazed at how quickly I got served by karma. A massive speeding truck rightfully blasted off our left side mirror and came within a hair's breadth away from completely demolishing our vehicle and snuffing my life out.

Slowing down and halting at the roadside to check damages (the offending truck merely drove away), my mind raced faster than the truck which hit us. I tried to work out where blame should be placed.

Desperate Notsovictor: So let's blame the truck?
Level-headed Notsovictor: No, no, no. YOU fucking swerved and fucking cut him.
Desperate Notsovictor: Yeah, but only to avoid that expensive looking car cutting me from the right.
Level-headed Notsovictor: So blame that car, if anyone asks.
Desperate Notsovictor: God bless your soul.
Level-headed Notsovictor: Um, we don't believe in that.

And so it was settled in my mind. The expensive looking car which did cut my lane was to be blamed. So firm was my belief in that rationalization that I would have sworn under oath that I was merely a confused novice trying to avoid a lawsuit from a richer, more experienced and wily driver.

Some minutes after the incident, panic was quickly overcome by exhilaration. The fact that i was hit by another vehicle was finally sinking in and I felt oddly at one with the energies that be flowing through the universe. I knew that it was a most minor of accidents but the few moments of dread at the point of "collision" made me imagine it as something more. Like a moron warrior who proudly displays a broken nail, I felt dangerous, like I had just lived life on the edge, tempted fate and still had come back, teeth bared, ready to hazard roads another day.

Later on, I was at it in earnest, displaying my broken nail to anyone I could trick into listening. And to people who thought that I was being brash and stupid, I happily agreed. I liked the new sensations of being seen not as Safe-n-Dependable Notsovictor but as Rash-n-Dangerous Notsovictor. I hammed it up, playing up my idiocy by stating "Yeah, I was so stupid, I should've just slowed down. But I was just going so fast . . ."

And just as quickly as it had come, all exhilaration had fled. The previously inconceivable conjecture that blame could fall safely upon my shoulders suddenly screamed for attention.

Free from the combined power of fear and elation, realization finally dawned.

And all fingers pointed at me.

While the basic moral of this story is "Do not drive if you are a raving idiot," much can be said as regards blame. He who works extra hard to emerge blameless from a sticky situation usually forgets to survey himself in the heat of the moment. On the other hand, someone who thinks extra hard about a sticky situation usually ponders the possibility of having tangoed into trouble.

And anyone who works extra hard at pointing fingers needs a finger pointed back: the middle one.

No Rain by Blind Melon

2008-08-28T16:14:00.004+08:00

If it weren't completely tacky to have a song's lyrics on my tombstone, I'd expressly command my kin to inscribe this song's lyrics on mine.

I swear, if I were Oprah, I'd make you like this song.

And the video's hott. I'm really just a chubby bespectacled tapdancing bumblebee on the inside.

And now the lyrics:

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain
I like watchin' the puddles gather rain
And all I can do is just pour some tea for two
and speak my point of view
But it's not sane, It's not sane
I just want some one to say to me
I'll always be there when you wake
Ya know I'd like to keep my cheeks dry today
So stay with me and I'll have it made
And I don't understand why I sleep all day
And I start to complain that there's no rain
And all I can do is read a book to stay awake
And it rips my life away, but it's a great escape
escape......escape......escape......
All I can say is that my life is pretty plain
ya don't like my point of view
ya think I'm insane
Its not sane......it's not sane

The Real Pinocchio

2008-08-24T02:16:00.013+08:00

"This account shall set the facts straight," says the liar.

I was not whittled, by a kindly old gentleman, out of random planks of wood. I was born as all boys are: amidst a crescendo of screams (sheeeet! punyeta! putanngginaaaa!!!) and post-natal gore.

Wiped clean of amniotic fluid and swathed in pristine hospital linen, I debuted to the people whose blood ran through my veins. But it wasn't the counting of fingers and toes my vainly mestizo relatives busied themselves with. They all noticed the button-nose - considered a cruel trick of random genetics. "Ay, pango," announced with disappointment, were perhaps the first two words I was associated with.

The miracle of my birth all added up to the glorious sum of "ay, pango."

Fortunately for me, I had more salient traits. Within several years, "pango" was quickly overtaken by "matalino," "fino," and even "maamo" in the list of top ten things stated regarding me.

Here I learned my first lie. A lie for self-pleasure. A masturbatory lie. At an early age, it was "matalino" and "maamo" which I proudly displayed whenever relatives were around, fully knowing that I could just as easily be "maldito," "madaldal," and "atribido" when no one watched. And I did it all for the satisfaction of having "pango" overlooked. Suddenly, the button nose didn't seem so small anymore. And if my word could be trusted, I daresay it grew a little too.

The efficiency of this newly-discovered truth-bending technique struck me. I stowed it away in memory - its basic premise, its feel, its desired effects. I kept it shrewdly, knowing that it might one day come in handy.

But the next time I found myself lying was not for pleasure. It was for utter survival. Upon breaking some ornament around the house, it became my habit to steady myself, breathe calmly, and tread lightly but quickly away from the scene of the crime. After all, it would not do for "matalino" and "maamo" to be blemished and encumbered with "pasaway" and "sutil."

If confronted later on by an impassioned mother looking for a culprit to upbraid, all she would meet in my face were hollowed eyes, a blank expression, and a thoughtful "I don't know" played to a tee with heavily-practiced precision.

Mission accomplished. My name would be cleared leaving the suspects next-in-line: the wind and the cats that prowled about who would bear the brunt of punishments laid by a finger that must be pointed. Thus, the windows would be shut tightly against the "amihan," and the felines, would be treated coldly and shunned by the household thanks to their heathen propensity for felony.

My next lie was the most dangerous. It would bring me face to face with my Geppetto, who would cast me in wood, and make me a slave to the proddings of strings forever. This was the white lie: told in reflex, and a spawn of instinct.

The white lie was the glue that held together my pristine reputation built upon the foundation of the first two lies. It kept me from jarring people to my realities. When pressed in a corner, asked for my opinion, the white lie would seize me and would pilot my being.

"Do you like your new lunchbox?"

"~~One, it's Aladdin. Two, it fucking turns pink under the sunlight. What kind of a sick, tacky freak are you?~~ Yes."

"Do you like what I got you for Christmas?"

"~~Look around, all my drugged up cousins got better stuff than me. . . and I'm clean!~~ Yes."

"I forgot to pick you up from school. Do you forgive me?"

"~~No.~~ Yes."

And soon, I was a slave to my own lies, to the cover-ups of the inadequacies I was forced to see in myself. Very soon, whenever confronted by my Geppetto, not a grain of truth would escape my lips. In front of her, I've lived a false life, enslaved by my reflexes. I may as well have become wood and turned into a puppet for real.

"What are you doing in the mall?"

"~~Trying to avoid spending time with you.~~ Meeting up with friends."

"What did you have?"

"~~Beer.~~ Pizza."

"How are you getting home later?"

"~~Dunno.~~ I'm riding with a friend.'

"How did you manage to get home at 2 a.m.?"

"~~I walked around the dingy shady areas looking for a tricycle who'd let me ride.~~ I rode with a friend."

People think that a web of lies is never good - it will simply trap the weaver. But their assumption is incorrect. Each gossamer on the web is made to support. Each string binds to its maker, keeping him from falling, ensuring that there is a plan to be set in motion come hell or high water. This is the simple joy of living as a puppet - there are no surprises, there are simply lies to be portrayed.

However sometimes the lies become too complex, the strings too long, the motions too confusing. At this point the puppet trips over himself, breaking here, bending there. And it thanks its lucky stars that it is made of wood and cannot feel anything from his false head to his false toe for he has lived a false life.

I Am Now Blind. Again.

2008-08-14T12:08:00.005+08:00

Because of my desire to preserve my sanity and some semblance of sight, i will look like this soon, through the miracle of modern medicine:

At least I won't have to see everything that walks into me.

I Am Now Blind

2008-08-06T18:08:00.007+08:00

No, that shanty melody you hear isn't heralding the rise of the singing career of some reality-star-turned-singer-songwriter-
model-actor-thespian-philanthropist-ruler-of-cosmos. It's heralding the end of my pursuit of a medical degree, and the beginning of my life as a busker.

I, you see, have gone blind.

It all started at the gym.

I was walking with as much confidence as I could muster, being a mere shrimp among all the possibly steroidal iron-pumping sharks. I headed to the locker room and pushed the door open.

Nothing in those last moments of my innocence could prepare me for the gore my eyes would lay upon.

There it was. Right smack in my field of vision. Staring up at me from between the legs of an aging, ~~redfromsteroids~~ white biker dude.

Being in Manila, this was the first time I'd had to process such a situation but I was quite proud of myself. I didn't flinch. I walked calmly, as though witnessing an epicfail penis bob about was as natural as seeing someone eat siomai. I headed to the showers. Once inside, I breathed calming breaths.

And I proceeded to scratch my eyes out on the shower knobs.

I swear if I ever become MMDA secretary (see two posts ago) I will ban nudity where people with perfect eyesight might stray.

Pandora's Box

2008-08-01T16:26:00.008+08:00

Nowadays, time moves at such a voracious pace that the minute we pause and lift our noses from our work, we realize that woah, it's weekend once more. We move through our paces quickly, spending the eternity between cradle and grave in mere seconds.

But the speed at which we march through life takes its toll on us. We fatigue, get strokes, suffer depressions, nervous breakdowns, etc. Fortunately, we've also developed modern cures - bypass surgeries, paid leaves, psychiatry.

But for the young people of today who can zoom through life without needing a double-bypass, the collateral damage is not seen physically or mentally but emotionally. Battling frenemies, running after grades, and grasping onto a constantly-slipping self esteem have now been made more difficult because of the speed at which they come after one another. More often than not, we have no escape from any of our ordeals in life, and must thus rely on ourselves, and the power of our minds.

So while we've developed the likes of yoga for bodily fatigue, we've also developed the compartmentalization of our emotional woes for stresses of the heart.

Compartmentalizing is simply a sesquipedalian way for saying "putting your emotions in a tiny box," and as denizens of this generation, we've become quite good at it. We've had to. Because right after failing or conquering one challenge, we have another one posing in front of us. We barely have time to stop and sort out or feelings, for fear of getting left behind by the rest of the world's frenetic pace.

This new skill of compartmentalizing has its negative effects. One is that we hastily pass judgment upon those who aren't as adept at it. It's ironic that in an age where showing emotion is acceptable thanks to developments in psychology, inwardly, we roll our eyes at someone wearing his heart on his sleeve, responding to them as though they had abnormal affects.

When, for example, your seatmate tells you how he feels left out of his new group of friends, and you respond by nodding blankly, but then thinking "Shut the fuck up. I wasn't allowed to celebrate my 18th birthday. You don't see me bitching about it two days after," you know you compartmentalize well. Or when your friend explains why he's been snapping all week, and you politely ask him to save it and change the topic, that's a sign that your room's full of tidy little boxes of pain.

Those of us who've become too fastidious with our compartmentalizing have other problems aside from not knowing how to fake empathy. Problems also arise when we'd rather not open the boxes we make, for fear of all the demons and plagues of the human spirit that might spring at us. We thus forget how it is to feel, and whine, and snap from time to time.

We've become zombies going through the paces, forgetting the importance of shedding tears and screaming at the cards we are dealt.

In a world ruled by how we move, instead of how we feel, we have become so afraid of opening that little box we keep for next times and laters. Yes, we've learned our lessons too well. No time soon will we be opening Pandora's box.

If I Were Omnipotent . . .

2008-07-18T18:48:00.009+08:00

I was with my friend Lao the other day, when I was reminded of how much I'm rooting for him to become president of the country someday. With every bit of confidence, I can honestly say that he is probably the best leader this generation has at the moment (but of course I don't tell him that lest it gets to his head too much). He has that rare concrete moral foundation and sincere desire to make life better for people that, when coupled with his systematic mind, spells wonders for what the future might be for us.

But enough about Lao for now. He won't be eligible to run for office until 2030, so I'll pledge my undying allegiance to his campaign then.

The ~~real~~ other (more selfish) reason why I want him to become president is so he can appoint me MMDA secretary and I can begin tidying up the way I've always wanted to.

Note: The following does, not in any way, reflect my true, hopefully more mature, values and political views, and if you need further proof, see that this post is categorized purely as "humor" and not "Mein Kampf."

So anyhow, I told Lao, that when he appoints me MMDA secretary, I would, like Lee Kuan Yew did with Singapore, immediately import pigeons and doves to make the country more scenic. Here are, in verbatim, the rest of my plans, as I later texted to Lao:

(I was working under the assumption that once Lao appoints me, he will have made us rich and stable, and with very few priorities taking precedence over the ones below)

1. Mandatory na dapat every window in existence, may orchids at bougainvillea.
2. Bawal na magsuot ng sando. Ever.
3. May deodorant allowance ang lahat.
4. Bawal na gumamit ng plastic bags.
5. May mandatory F-P-B-V pronunciation classes para sa lahat ng taong hindi mute.
6. Lahat ng bridges lalagyan ng vines parang European castles.
7. Lahat ng wires underground na.
8. Ipapadala ang mga askal sa kuta ng mga drug dealers.
9. Bawat bahay dapat may birdhouse and feeder para sa pigeons .
10. Bawal na ang Havaianas. Havanas lang.
11. Bawal ang PDA pag pangit ka.
12. Dapat naka-festive costume ang lahat ng sidewalk vendors.
13. Bawal ang jeep at trike at bus at FX na hindi makulay.
14. Half lang ang servings sa restaurants if you exceed a certain BMI.
15. Dapat may translated literary pieces sa mga tabloid.
16. Isa na lang ang uniforms for all schools, tapos dapat designed ni Rajo.
17. Dapat galangin ang mga metro aid.
18. Ang mangongotong, ipapakain sa mga askal, matapos nitong kainin ang mga drug dealer.
19. Ipuput up fro adoption ang lahat ng mga puskal matapos nilang supilin ang mga daga.
20. Bawal ang taglish. Ang gumamit nito, aapakan ng Asumpsyonistang naka high heels.

My plans are so viable, aren't they?

Suckling on Different Teats, Part III

2008-07-12T15:06:00.005+08:00

Some of my true blue sensibilities are being torn apart with embarrassing ease by a maelstrom of information from U.P.

And I'm turning maroon.

Quite literally too.

I was working out in the gym earlier, and while in front of the mirror (I'm not narcissistic, that's just how the place is structured) I noticed that my arms and legs are getting tinged a reddish brown - a pale maroon if you will, by virtue of walking about in the U.P. campus, under the oppressive sun, while everything within the tan lines is still a pale, pasty white, .

I thought I looked like a freakish hybrid of sorts - like Scott Speedman in "Underworld." And, as I do with most things, I related my circumstance to lessons I've learned from, what in my opinion is the most useful book in existence, "The Celestine Prophecy."

According to James Redfield's masterpiece of new age philopsychospirituality, most often, our inner struggles are manifested in physical terms. Pimples, for example, were my personal rings of hell in high school, all because of the stomach-turning way by which I thought of myself. Being bi-tonal, then must be a result of my conflicting UP and Ateneo values. Or something like that.

Often, for people with bi-tonal disorder, picking a side is a must. Either they strip naked, a la Oblation, sunbathe at the Sunken Garden and embrace their UP colors, or cover up in a blue-and-white Adidas windbreaker, and stay under the shade of a chapel to preserve their blue blood.

But I intend to do neither. I want to walk under the sun, while humming "we stand on a hill . . ." I intend to continue on as a freaky hybrid - born from the simmering melting pot of two worlds, nurtured by two mothers and suckling on the teats of two wisdoms. And the dichotomy need not result in war and produce an epic fail like in the case of graples (grape apples), on the other hand, I hope it produces a harmony, a completion of two unwhole truths, that makes me insanely powerful like Elphaba (she of Human and Munchkin descent) from "Wicked."

And with that issue resolved in three parts, I will now use my knowledge to remind myself to cheer just as hard for UP as I do for Ateneo in UAAP games. Oh the scopes of my realizations. .

Suckling on Different Teats, Part II

2008-07-12T14:42:00.004+08:00

I guess I still identify myself as Atenean (twelve years at the ADMU will do that to anyone). And if asked who I am as a student, my honest answer would be "I'm an Atenista who happens to be currently studying in U.P." It's as simple as that.

Or so I thought.

I blame the destruction of my faith in that statement on one thing: my current professors.

My last class yesterday was Sociology 10 - An Introduction to Filipino Society. And it's just my dumb luck that my professor, is, quite possibly, one of the best handlers of the matter. He's passionate and crazy, spewing random statements like "I will replace religion with masturbation. Or, since religion's a social affair, orgies!" But at the times when he's lucid and trying to make a point, you just feel cheap afterwards, because he manages to brainwash you with a glorified pep talk.

And that's exactly what I felt yesterday. Cheap cheap cheap! Cheap because after he explained how we can only be nationalistic if we continue to wage Bonifacio's war, take to the streets and cultivate socialism, I was swayed. One, two, three, my Ateneo sensibilites of being peaceful and searching for alternatives to rallying were knocked out cold. I could literally hear my mindset churning, shifting like glaciers , inching towards what people would call "a very very U.P. point of view."

Of course, I won't be rushing off to Mendiola anytime soon, burning GMA effigies. But now I understand why people do it. And now, I know I have the potential for it, if only I'm egged on some more (which I'm sure my professor will be doing within the next four months). And now, some of my true blue sensibilities are being torn apart with embarrassing ease by a vicious maelstrom of information.

And I'm turning maroon.

Suckling on Different Teats, Part I

2008-07-12T14:15:00.005+08:00

Yesterday, I, together with my high school classmates, returned to the Ateneo High School to visit our moderator on her birthday. It was the first time in a while this blue-eagle-at-heart returned to nest at the hill, and it was nothing but pure nostalgia.

I know I graduated just a few months ago and probably have little right to feel so wistful, but walking the corridors I had walked, and seeing people I barely know now traversing them, made me feel like I had been gone for a lifetime, and had come back to find everything still familiar, but also equally distant and unknowable. I yearned for the days when I was a big man on campus (or whatever the nerdy equivalent of that is) - surrounded by the families I had cultivated there. Laughing and being dramatic teenagers. I missed the easiness of just being an Atenean, wearing the uniform, going to Mass (which, I only ever enjoyed at the Ateneo) and singing "A Hymn for Mary."

But all too soon, I had to get down from the hill and make my way to the tumultuous world that is U.P. I rode to U.P. with 8 of my friends (all still Ateneans) in a teeny-tiny sedan built for five, in what I felt was a fantastic imitation of that clowns-in-a-car stunt. And as we exited the car, minds still abuzz from the heady mixture of being ridiculous young people and of breathing not enough oxygen, my friends began in earnest to make jokes about U.P.

The funny thing was, even as one of my friends joked that the hole we saw on the ground was what we U.P. people deigned a toilet, I still laughed along, realizing only halfway through my giggle that whoops! I'm supposed to be fucking insulted! I'm from U.P. for crying out loud.

But I wasn't insulted and I continued the second half of my giggle.

I guess I still identify myself as Atenean (twelve years at the ADMU will do that to anyone). And if asked who I am as a student, my honest answer would be "I'm an Atenista who happens to be currently studying in U.P." It's as simple as that.

Rub It In

2008-06-26T19:13:00.017+08:00

When you're counting down the seconds till dinner because you weren't able to eat all day at school, this is not what you want flashed before you on your TV screen:

LET'S HOLD UP SANDWICHES IN FRONT OF STARVING CHILDREN!

The Highway to Hell

2008-06-22T20:47:00.010+08:00

A few weeks ago, my mother sealed her fate for an eternity baking in the thousand fires of hell.

Ironically enough, the peddler of her contract to hell came in the shape of one overly-eager seminarian. Let's name him Bro. Beaver.

My mother met ~~her undoing~~ Bro. Beaver through her widows' prayer circle where members who do not support charity cases are frowned upon, and slowly and delicately are ostracized and are made to feel unwelcome.

Intending t0 secure her spot in the widows' prayer circle's pecking order, she invited Bro. Beaver home one day for lunch in order to discuss ways in which she would be helping him out (i.e. financially). It was during that fateful noontime that she dragged me out of my room, while I was contemplating whether or not to view pornography and presented me to Bro. Beaver.

Suffice it to say that I was uncomfortable under a soon-to-be priest's scrutiny. I kept imagining doing something that would offend him (like saying "blowjob" randomly) which would cause him, during his nighttime mediations, to ask God to cast me into eternal torment. My fears and awkwardness at that moment were not at all helped, by the fact that I was wearing nothing but boxer shorts and a shirt with a lewd joke about God himself.

But as I sat down to have lunch with him, (I, still clad in boxers and lewd shirt) I started to feel more at ease. He wasn't so much the I-will-deny-you-salvation-for-saying-fuck kind of seminarian. He was something, subtly scarier. He was over-eager and over-earnest - talking with much gusto about things I knew, my mother couldn't care less about, like the goings-on in the kitchens of the head priest's brother's husband's niece's best friend. Or something.

It was refreshing and adorable though, to listen to him during that lunchtime. Listening to him daily, ah, that was another matter. Unfortunately for my mother, she had made a commitment to this seminarian. She promised to support him financially. And with such a commitment, especially to someone religious, came a myriad more.

Soon, Bro. Beaver was calling twice a day, always when my mother was busy, simply to talk about which shampoo is best to use in the oh-so-fickle weather in those days. Sometimes he'd call right when my mom had just gotten home from a day of work, asking her if she'd like to join a charity Mah Jong contest or something.

But last week, he did the unthinkable.

In gratitude of my mother's support, he had arranged a special Mass and feast for her and I, and called to give us but two hours' warning. Forget that a special Mass and feast for two people was highly embarrassing. He was telling us two hours before the festivities!!! I watched, horrorstruck, at the emotions slowly building themselves into a rage right on my mother's face. I braced myself for the splitting of the earth beneath her feet once she finally unleashes a lashing diatribe against the priest of God.

But to her credit, she didn't. I saw her command all her might and will herself to decline politely and graciously.

After that, I thought Bro. Beaver could throw nothing at my mother that would get her to attack a man of the cloth anymore. But, alas, there is something simply worse than outright offense: avoidance.

Yesterday, Bro. Beaver called, telling me he had to talk to my mom about the weather (or something to that effect). I went to give her the phone and when she asked me who it was and I said "Bro. Beaver," she immediately began miming a command: Tell him I am taking a bath and can't talk right now.

I understood perfectly. But since she and I had fought the previous day, I just stared at her as dumbly as I could, until she relented and took the phone, with an irritated huff. And at that moment I knew she was regretting having intended that good deed of helping a seminarian. And I could see her points-in-heaven being reduced and her points-in-hell adding up. And I felt bad for her and all the victims of well-wishing gone awry.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Then it must mean that it's better not to mean well at all, if you don't have the balls to back it up and follow it through.

I say that's bullshit. And it's only true depending on what kind of God one subscribes to. The God I know would sooner throw someone to hell for contemplating viewing porn over contemplating helping a priest in need.

But in general, my God doesn't like casting people into hell, unless they're Boy Abunda.

Please Die

2008-06-13T19:24:00.008+08:00

I would've included this in the previous post because it's also something about my first few days in UP but then my post would have had no unity, coherence or cohesion.

So without further ado, my first rant.

I arrived in class when most of the seats had been taken already so I sat near the back of the classroom where there was this pair of very chatty students who were apparently, based on the ease and volume of their conversation, already good friends.

I didn't mind. The professor wasn't there yet and they could talk as much and as loudly as they damn well pleased.

But fuck of all fuckitty fucks! When the professor was already discussing, I expected them to shut the hell up! I mean, I'm the loudest frickin' asshole when I'm talking to my friends before class, but I hush up once the professor arrives.

I mean, this is UP. We're actually here to learn. And if you can't respect that, then at least respect the fact that this professor let you into his class, which you apparently aren't interested in and only got into because the professor was kind enough to let you in even if you were late in enrolling. Pardon me, but I couldn't help hearing their very loud conversation.

Thirty minutes into the class, I was ready to become violent. I wanted to scream this:

"Bitch and fucktard, stop effing talking! You're both ugly. It's never gonna work out between you two. And if you feel the start of infatuation, please nip it at the bud! Otherwise, you will make ugly loud babies who talk loudly near people who want to learn!"

But I didn't. I was making the most of the class.

But by the time class was ending all I was dreaming about was shoving bamboo up one of their noses. I know bamboo hurts the most under the fingernails, but I don't think either of them would have given me delicate access to their fingers.

But the bell rang, ending the class and my misery beside them. And all I ended up doing was praying they'd effing drop the class already.

Aming Mahal at Minumura

2008-06-13T17:43:00.005+08:00

In a school where you are baked in classrooms with electric fans so special they refuse to function, where, at the end of the day, after run you will have produced enough sweat to fill four 335 mL bottles of C2, it pays to remain emotionally and mentally chill.

In UP, it isn't really the oppressive heat that mortally wounds freshies like me on the first few days. It's the never-ending deluge of surprise life-and-death processes which only the lucky hear from secret whisperings here and there that seem to emanate from the very walls of Palma Hall.

Like today for example, our professor surprised us with the news that our class' schedule should, technically, not exist, and that we had to "Change Mat" or change matriculation in order to get into his afternoon class. He said all we had to do was get a form, fill it up and have him sign. Pretty straightforward, I thought, until I heard, later today, while I was walking around in Palma Hall, that completing the "Change Mat" ended less than an hour from that time.

The form I procured was pretty straightforward regarding whose signatures I needed - mine, my professor's, my adviser's, my dean's. Crap. Apart from myself and my professor, I had no idea where to find everyone else.

Tornadoing back and forth between Palma Hall and Palma Hall Annex, looking for people, I had to get directions from anyone I could politely bother with hysterical tones and what I hoped was a charming enough smile. I bothered guards, janitresses and students in line behind me. I asked complete strangers where to find people and what to do next. The funny thing is, everyone seemed to know. And lucky for me, everyone was really nice.

My question then was: Why the hell does no one write these processes on the walls where everyone can read them? We have a lot of walls! And I'm not just being stupid. I actually read the walls of the College Secretariat while I was having my form validated (missing the deadline by mere minutes). The directions weren't there. Swear.

At the moment, I feel everyone in UP who isn't a freshman is a society of people huddled closely together, sharing things which I, outside the group, need to know. And the only way to get information from them is to shove my face into their huddle and hurriedly whisper a prayer that they won't slap me out. Politely waiting around and willing yourself to look like you want someone to ask you what you need will never work, unless someone near you has the unlikely job of doing just that.

It can be frustrating, having to run about campus, juggle classes, listen to awkward orientation speeches and feel ill-at-ease when people rally in the cafeteria while you're eating. But fortunately, I'm naturally a patient and chill person, and I'm rarely in a bad mood when I'm at school (at home is a different matter altogether).

And guess what. In UP, it totally pays to not let all the insanity carve away at your disposition. Because the classes are worth it. They're worth conserving all your energy for. I've had a week of first-day pep talks and discouragement talks (pep talks masquerading as scary) from my professors. And because I'm cheap and had the disposition, I completely bought everything they said.

And tomorrow, I will rule the universe.

Bow.

6-1, 6-3, 6-Huh?

2008-06-09T03:18:00.008+08:00

When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, sparks fly.

Well, usually.

Sadly, there were no sparks in the French Open championship between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. There was simply Nadal's beautiful, elevated gameplay on one end of the court and Federer's silent resignation on the other.

Alright, perhaps, it's a bit too scathing to call Roger Federer resigned to losing another French Open. He is, after all, a champion athlete, and has proven time and time again a will to never back down. But en route to being bagelled in the third set, he showed nothing - no signs of frustration, no over-enthusiastic fist-pumping on the few stray points he managed to squeeze out of his racket here and there, no losing his temper like he usually does when playing Nadal.

Which begs the question: Does he really want a French Open crown?

After all, he doesn't need one. He comfortably sits on his throne, ranked number one, a thousand points away from Nadal. He has 12 grand slam trophies, and is already being hailed as the greatest tennis player of all time. Winning a French Open crown wouldn't really prove anything. Having appeared in its finals three straight times, and winning other clay-court titles already sends the message that he is one heck of a clay-courter, among other things.

But whether he wants a French crown or not, he better watch his back. His lack of spark takes nothing away from the immaculate quality of tennis Rafael Nadal is playing at the moment.

Nadal is suddenly elevating his game, not dropping a single set on the way to winning his fourth straight final on the terre battue. He's adding different dimensions to his play (*cough* amazing lobs *cough*) and is becoming a better tennis player all in all, so much so that he could give Roger Federer a more suspenseful run for his money this year at Wimbledon. He already pushed Federer to five sets in last year's final and with his new, invincible, eerily-low-on-errors form, a Wimbledon crown is well within his grasp.

And from Wimbledon, who knows? A US Open crown? Another at Melbourne Park? A fifth Roland Garros win? And then perhaps maybe the number one ranking?

Ah well, it's good to indulge in wishful thinking, but something tells me Roger Federer isn't that sparkless yet and won't be relinquishing records any time soon.

Top 3: Unconventional Ways to Make An Impression on Teachers

2008-06-05T11:08:00.011+08:00

It gets tiring to keep on writing essays and reflectiony entries. However, writing and posting thoughts is an itch I just desperately need to scratch. So, taking a cue from Chico and Del's Morning Rush Daily 10, I'm posting my own Top 3 lists every so often . . . when I'm feeling itchy but lazy.

So here's how it goes:

I'll be posting a topic in the title. For today's entry, for example, I'm doing the Top 3 Unconventional Ways to Make An Impression on Teachers in celebration of school starting soon. I will then post my list of 3 which will try to be funny more often then not. You may then post your own top 3 in the comments space. And then we can have a group hug :)

So without further ado . . .

My Top 3 Unconventional Ways to Make an Impression on Teachers:

1. MOAN. When the teacher assigns a particularly difficult workload, set yourself apart from all your other classmates who are groaning by moaning with bordering-sexual-bliss tones. Not only will the teacher notice, but he or she will want to seek out who, amidst the sea of unhappy cries, is orgasming the class away. However, if you're really desperate for the teacher to remember you, add orgasmic facial expressions. Roll up your eyes and open your mouth wide. You will be in your teacher's memory for a very long time.

2. SPEAK IN A BRITISH ACCENT. Someone a batch lower than me actually did this in my high school. Even if you were born and have lived in the Philippines all your life, proclaim with a superior air everything in an English accent. Say "uhgaynst," not "ahgenst" and "futhamoh" instead of "furthermore." Just don't expect not to be called "British Homo" behind your back.

3. WITHHOLD THINGS. When the teacher announces "pop quiz," deny paper from your classmate who has just run out and is panicking and is asking you for a sheet. Wait for him to go to the teacher to confess his problem, and then wait for the teacher to ask who in the class can lend him a sheet of paper. At this point, rise from your seat triumphantly, and proclaim to the class that you will heroically sacrifice a sheet of paper for your friend. Speak in a sympathetic whisper, saying "ako na lang po." Do this while looking around smugly at people.

Yay! Itch scratched!

Part of Your World, Asshole

2008-06-04T15:02:00.012+08:00

This is for all my friends who are leaving.

If life were a movie, then I wouldn't have sat there yesterday beside one of my close friends like a deflated balloon. I would've risen from my seat and roared a hearty "NOOOOOOO!" upon hearing his likewise deflated announcement that he will be going to Canada.

But life isn't a movie and I just sat there, feeling not sad, but a bit defeated. Even if I joked that he should run away and I would work in a call-center or tutor Koreans to pay for his UP tuition (yay cheap tuition), I knew there was nothing anyone could do to get him to stay. There was no climbing from his bedroom window using a chain of clothes. There was no giving his parents a dilemma that they would, in the end, justify as a series of fortunate events that let them see how beautiful it is in the Philippines. Nope, there was just a script and we all have to play its parts.

The part I'm playing is the supportive friend who's trying to make the transition easy for everyone. I will joke about the situation to make things feel lighter, and will meekly try to persuade my friend to stay. I find this role easy to play. After all, I've already accepted the events to come.

But before all the dramatics and hysterics pounce at me for being so blase' about this, let me first blame technology for making me so compliant and so go-where-the-wind-blows. I mean so some of my close friends are leaving? We'll still get to talk in YM every night like we usually do. Nothing should change right?

But as I'm writing this, I can't help but feel fearful of the things to come. And I don't know why.

Why should I be so scared? I mean, I knew we would see less of each other in college. I knew we would have to rely more on continuing friendships via Yahoo Messenger. And now it's still kind of the same, right?

Yes, kind of. But slowly there will be changes. And I'm afraid of my friends changing and becoming different people. At least when we were all just going to different colleges here in Manila, I had an idea of what kind of cultures they'd be subjected to. I could premeditate the various permutations their personalities could take on. But now that my friends are going to the States and Canada, I don't know what to expect. They'll lead lives that I don't know how to be a part of.

And that's scary.

If they were to stay, I could safely assume that ten years down the road, I could go to parties with them and greet them with "Hey bitch, get your ugly face outta my sight." and they would take it warmly and retort with something worse.

But now they're going someplace mysterious to me. Ten years down the road, would they still take "Hey, last night, I saw your dick. Damn it's small. Go back to China." as a brotherly pat on the back? (Yes, this is how nerdboys bond)

To think that they wouldn't isn't an option. These are guys whom I would jokingly fall madly in love with, get pregnant and then divorce all before Math class ended. These are the people to whom I would unabashedly say anything nuts to. These are the people who know me (the insane, treading-the-lines-of-taboo me) so well they could live my life and do a better job at it.

I owe a lot to these people. More than they can imagine. In fact, I owe them me. And inasmuch as they are me, I hope that in some ways, I am them as well. But if I'm not, I'm holding on just a bit longer and cracking just a few more lewd jokes and sexual innuendos so they won't forget me easily.

And ten years down the road, hopefully, maybe they'll invite me to their homes and greet me with a tender loving "You asshole! Ten years and no child support?!?!"

Swiss Miss Missed

2008-05-29T13:05:00.008+08:00

The fortnight of the French Open is upon us once more and every year I watch it, I spend a few minutes musing over the fact that it is the only Grand Slam that hasn't been won by Martina Hingis (she lost in the finals twice - once to Graff and once to nonentity Iva Majoli). I keep seriously wishing that she had won it. Just to make her even more of a legend. Oh yeah, and did I mention I'm a Hingis fan?

So here's a little tribute to the Swiss Miss on the fortnight of the French Open - most elusive to those who need it to complete all four Grand Slams (*cough* Federer *cough*).

And I realize the video is about her Australian Open campaign two years ago, but it's so well-written and I think it tells everyone the most about her. So, if you're not yet a fan, watch it and you will be :D

-o-0-o-

While it's easy to root for Nadal on the men's game because he's the anti-Federer (he leads Federer 10-6) which means he's the anti-coldperfectionbore god, it isn't as easy to root for anyone in the women's circuit. Everyone has the same grunt-as-you-pound power game, the same Eastern European accents, the same i-am-silent-diplomatic-woman-who-is-fashionista-on-the-side attitude, and not to mention, the same "ova" or "ic" ending names. We need a Martina Hingis back whom we can root for because of the following:

Useful Reasons
1. We will see more variety in tennis - yes to lobs (which no one else but Hingis can pull off with ease), yes to drop shots, yes to actual viable volleys. I mean, come on, everyone secretly hates how tennis has become a monotonous battle of brawn, groundstroke after groundstroke, with little to no variations in play.

2. She will bring back a game dominated by the brain, and not by the biceps and the vocal chords. Once again, someone will be flitting about the court like a true tactician, psychically sensing where the opponent will place the ball, and then crushing the opponent under psychological stress.

3. If she returns, it will have been her second (or third if you count that one Thailand match in 2005) comeback, and this time, she would have had to surmount drug accusations, and when she does, we can all have a role model :))

4. As the video says, "Though her game lacks the wattage of her peers, her mind still illuminates the difference between power and purpose." Best. Line. Ever.

Not So Useful Reasons
1. Everything seen on TV needs a resident crazy bitch who, just because she can, says things like "What rivalry? I win all the matches." and ""She's old and slow." about her peers and doubles teammates, respectively.

2. It would be fun to see someone don the shirt with one sleeve longer than the other attire - her signature.

3. She can pull a Jennifer Capriati on whoever is ranked number one and dethrone them via a nailbiter tree-setter Australian Open final under the sweltering heat. After all, it's happened to her before :)

Fruits And Shoes

2008-05-29T08:12:00.019+08:00

Yet another reason to hate summer: the frenzied fruit-bearing of the trees in the empty parking lots near our house.

To people who aren't mentally injured, this is a good thing. The fruit-bearing is a symbol of fertility, and an assurance that for the next few hours at least, nobody will be dying of hunger as everyone will be too busy feasting on the mangoes and bananas and santol (which according to Wikipedia is called "Wild Mangosteen") falling from the sky and onto their waiting mouths.

For our less-than-completely-sane household, however, summer is the time for my grandmother to harbor ill-feelings against our neighbors' boys who are annoyingly skilled at climbing up trees and snatching the fruits from right under her nose and before they're even ripe.

Luckily, our Manang sparked a brilliant idea this year: she asked one of the neighborhood boys to climb up the trees beside our house and she would let him keep half of whatever is gathered without the fear of getting caught by my grandma. I saw the fruits (pun intended) of her ploy: one huge-ass bough of bananas big enough and heavy enough to mortally bludgeon someone with.

On the same day however, she sparked a not-so-bright idea: she asked my grandmother to share the booty just as she was giving some of it to a guy who was hired to clean our garden that day. Long story short, my grandma stopped her from giving away any bananas to "just some worker boy" because "bananas are expensive."

After hearing the story, I was appalled. After seeing the one fat vat of Minatamis na Saging rotting in our refrigerator, I was livid. "Bananas are expensive?" Seriously? Just how much did she invest in this venture anyhow? I took it upon myself to make my grandmother see the error of her ways.

A few hours ago I made my move. I waited for her to come home from Church, just so I could drive home my point with a "this from someone who goes to church?" tactic. As it turned out, I didn't have to plan hard at all. As she sat down for breakfast, she immediately started heaping praises upon her friend who is apparently so generous that she sends poor people to school and donates to church, etc. I suddenly had more than enough ammunition to riddle through the greed blinding her thoughts.

I waited for her to finish glorifying her friend. And when she was through, I began the guilt-trip in earnest. I asked her if she had seen the bananas from the other day. She did. I asked her what happened to them. She said that they had been turned into the vat of sugar-stewed bananas in the refrigerator which she tried to get me to eat.

"Oh that was it?"

"Yes that was it."

"There was a lot. Did we give any away?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Don't worry. Nothing rotted."

Bingo. The evasion of the question and the rise of her voice one octave higher meant one thing: Guilty! I had done my duty as a grandson without being rude. I walked to my room satisfied, ready to triumphantly blog my heart out.

But before I could boot my laptop, Manang knocked on my door and told me that the bacon I asked for breakfast was ready. She also had on a winning smile and added "Notsovictor, may hihingin sana ako sayo." (Notsovictor, I'd like to ask you for something).

I asked her to go ahead and ask because truth be told, I would give anything to anyone less fortunate than me if they ask nicely. Manang as it turned out, wanted to ask for a pair of shoes I wasn't using anymore. I told her to go ahead and fish them out of my cabinet. Smiling, she unearthed (to my utter and helpless horror) the one pair of unused shoes I couldn't give her - the last pair my dad bought which he really truly loved, his last favorite material possession.

And as she gushed about how it was the perfect fit for her son going to second year high school, I was in limbo debating in my mind whether it would be right to cling on to something completely sentimental to me, but was of much more use to someone else - someone who had worked and cared for our family so dearly, and who has been asking for so little in return. I asked myself, as I stared at her smile, at her simple request, where I draw the line between sentimentality and generosity.

As it turned out, I draw the line on my father's beloved shoes. I explained to Manang why I couldn't give her the shoes and it mangled my heart into little barely-breathing bits and pieces when she squealed "ay!" and then laughed and put them back, apologizing for asking for something so precious.

I tried to comfort her (and myself, mostly) by telling her I would give her another pair in a short while along with a backpack or two. But I still felt sick.

Sitting down to eat my bacon, I felt like ten frozen bags of it had already been shoved down my greedy fucking throat. I felt even sicker when I realized that the fruit really doesn't fall far from the tree, as I had just demonstrated what is apparently, a genetic disposition in our family to withhold things of value from others. I felt the worst, however, when I realized I had no moral ascendancy whatsoever to have guilt-tripped my grandmother for denying someone bananas, when for all I knew, bananas held a special significance in her heart.

I wanted to just give the shoes to Manang to make both her and myself feel better. But I knew she'd never take them now that she knows their significance. Feeling like a soft, deflating pile of poop, I did the next best thing to appease my conscience (which is still in hysterics, by the way). I ate my breakfast in peace and did the dishes, trying to spare Manang just a little bit of trouble.

Getting Lost

2008-05-20T11:17:00.003+08:00

The death of Charlie Pace is exactly what I've been waiting for. Not that I hate Charlie or anything, but I think the mystique of "LOST" is nourished by the fertilizer that is its cast's deaths.

For the past two seasons, those of us who've stuck by the show have been fed purely with braintwisters and puzzles. And even for nerds like me, it can be a bit overwhelming. There needs to be a more shallow, more forthrightly intriguing selling point for the show, and being made to wonder "who's next?" provides just that.

I think a lot of people were drawn to "LOST" in its first season (and in the earlier part of the second season) because it intrigued audiences with its own brand of mythology. But it also kept their eyes glued to the screen whenever a major character was unexpectedly killed off - from Boone to Shannon to Ana Lucia to Libby. And now Charlie. (P.S. Nicky and whatshisface don't count)

Shallow bloodlust aside, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a purely adrenaline-packed fourth season. And I think, because the makers of the show have been given just two more seasons (fourth included) to wrap up the storyline, we'll be seeing more answers, more action, more deaths condensed within the upcoming episodes like we've never seen them. And judging by the episodes I've seen, "LOST" isn't going to disappoint. It's easy to get lost in the story again.

So who's next? Claire? Sun? Sayid? Oooh, make it Locke.

Smells Like Teen Spirit (and Tiger Balm)

2008-05-18T01:39:00.014+08:00

One of my favorite quotes is from "The Count of Monte Cristo" and it goes "There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state to the other. Only a man who has felt ultimate sorrow is capable of feeling ultimate bliss."

And after around six years of believing this law of yins and yangs, I was suddenly and, rather, rudely jolted to the fact that Alexandre Dumas, may have had me duped.

It happened a few hours earlier as I was having dinner with my uncle. He talked to me about my planned medical career - about the merits of having my residency abroad and practicing there, the possibility of investing in a business even before I become a doctor, and, ultimately, the long road ahead of me.

I had always known that the road to becoming a big bad doctor is long, and that realistically, I would be in my forties or fifties when I start building a name for myself in the medical community. However, what both unnerved and unsettled me were how few and straightforward the steps are between now and my forties and fifties: Med school, internship, boards, residency, specialization, fellowships, boom!

Suddenly, I felt old. Like I could wake up tomorrow with a back-ache, grumbling about paying bills and reaching for my Tiger Balm. And then I had what could only be described as a gasp of the soul when I realized that I already like Tiger Balm, that I watch ANC and CNN willingly, that I try to understand things written on Time, that I roll my eyes at teenage girls who squeal too much and are too slutty.

I am, as I realized, a grumpy old man trapped in the body of someone who's just about to turn legal. Complete with the lingering scent of Tiger Balm.

And it mortified me how mortified I was. I mean, hello, I've always known I was an old soul. I wasn't supposed to be scared of it. Growing up, I didn't have thoughts like "I wonder what peanut better would feel like up my nose." My thoughts traipsed along the lines of "He threw my bag in a bush because he wants my attention. It's ok, I understand. It's because his dad's always in Uzbekistan."

I've spent a good deal of my life wishing for the time when my thoughts would match my life, and now that I'm turning 18, with a driver's license, an ATM account, with a thirst for CNN and a lingering Tiger Balm scent, now that the shoes finally fit, why am I so scared? How can I feel so scared of being old when I never truly felt like I was young?

Is it even possible to feel too old without having ever felt young?

But that question, I now see, is in itself faulty. You can't be scared of feeling old or mourn not feeling young. Youth isn't something you simply feel. It's a state of being. It's a tumultuous time of being ridiculous and hormonal and pimply and idealistic and irrational. And amidst all the tumult, in between popping zits, scrambling all over a crush and wrestling with your single-minded erection, you rarely pause and say "I feel young" do you? "Young" simply is. And we hardly notice it while we are. Logically because even if we "feel" old, we don't know what being "old" is even if our thoughts are, we feel, mature.

But here, at the twilight of 18 years of existence, I am old enough to simultaneously feel being young and being old and have a "comparison of one state to the other." Luckily, I realize this now, and as an irrational youth, made a full-blown blog post wherein I was forced to recheck the "The Count of Monte Cristo" where I fortunately paid more attention to how my favorite quote ends.

It ends: "It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live." Likewise, it was necessary to have wanted to be old all these years for me to suddenly fear getting too old and then know now how good it is to be young.

And that is the reason, if anyone asks, why I've written all over my walls with permanent marker, why I've been scrambling for Panic! tickets, why I've dramatically written an entire post devoted to a minute's worth of fear.

Call it "tumatanda nang paurong." Call it a pre-quarter-life crisis. And then go and reach for your Tiger Balm as you soothe your aching back.

An Ode to My Baby

2008-05-07T00:27:00.007+08:00

On some nights, I lay my weary head on the gentle angle of your shoulders and weep. I clutch you with fingers of need and hold you to me with all the hunger I can muster, willing you to fill the hole in the stomach of my heart.

On some nights, I lie beside you. And as we gaze up at the darkness that consumes us, I lay myself - my dreams and love on your softness. I murmur endlessly until we both drift and find ourselves still dreaming as we wake up with each other.

On some nights, I press you into our bed, tired, trapping you beneath the heavy weight of my life because I know you of all can take it. Because I know you can't run from me. Because each other's all we've got.

But on other nights, all I do is take you. I use you for all you're worth like the object you are. And when I'm through, I put you away, kicking you off my bed and onto my floor.

But when I wake, I search for you. And my heart is stung whenever the sunlight reveals you still as a stone, lying on the floor, alone and cold. And my heart breaks a little. And I hate myself a little. Because you are the world's best pillow.

:)

Radiohead - All I Need

2008-05-05T19:20:00.004+08:00

And since recently, my days have been tinged with enlightenment, I offer this video which broke my heart and touched it at the same time.

Them Young 'Uns

2008-05-05T18:12:00.010+08:00

Yesterday, my sister asked me to sell all the crap I don't use at her bimonthly garage sale held at her in-law's place. She told me that she always sells old crap (which never seems to run out) at the most ridiculously low prices. Think unused, good-condition, original Ralph shirts selling for twenty pesos. By sheer mass, however, she is able to sell plenty and ends up with a couple of thousand bucks. Just by selling garbage.

But the real reason behind her holding the garage sale is to sell the items to the underprivileged living near our village so they could have things to use and good clothes to put on their backs.

Before we even arrived at her in-laws' place, there were already around ten people outside waiting to purchase the proverbial treasures in our trash. For seven straight hours, the people just kept on streaming in and we were in business.

I made two thousand three hundred bucks that day. Not bad, considering I gave everything for twenty bucks or less because our customers were really really good hagglers. But the real prize for me for that day came during the times we were in direct contact with the people.

One of my best customers was a lesbionic woman who purchased all my original caps in one swipe. She wasn't about to let twenty-five peso original Nike caps pass her by. And since she bought a lot, my sister offered her a lamp she had been eyeing for ten pesos - a fourth of the original price. As she was handing my sister her payment, she told her daughter, "Ayan, may ilaw ka na pag nag-aaral." My Ate couldn't help her pusong mamon and gave her the lamp free. I would've done the exact same thing.

Another customer of ours was a lady who wanted to buy my mom's new jogging pants priced ninety pesos for twenty bucks. She explained that she needed it for when she goes back to work as a Metro-aid. I caved and gave her two pairs at twenty apiece.

Lastly, there was an old lady who bought a white blouse that belonged to my mom for thirty pesos. She said she would wear it to her son's graduation next year. At the same time, I felt sick of myself for being rich and extremely touched that I had somehow helped someone.

After these incidents and many more, I realize that if I could feel that way about the poor, then most kids probably can too. I realized that the youth today are wrongly labelled "apathetic." We aren't. We are sympathetic and find it painfully easy to be so. The only reason we do not do much most of the time is because we have no avenues to help.

Yes, we've been told over and over again by our school teachers to indirectly help the greater good by silently doing things in our own little ways. To pick up pieces of trash. To conserve resources, etc. They miss, however, the fact that we're kids. We want to be direct. We want to see results fast. We want to help here and now.

More than giving us teachers who will enlighten us and inform us so we veer away from apathy, I suggest we be given iconoclastic pioneers who can blaze new trails and show us how to help others directly. In as big a way as we can muster.

Yesterday, during the "slow times" of the garage sale, I finished reading the Time 100 - a spot-on measure of what kind of people the world needs. And I realized that today, a lot of the most influential people of the world have one thing in common: they make newer and better ways of improving lives.

Calling all trailblazers . . .

Saaaaay Death of Hope! (Or Cheese)

2008-05-04T00:28:00.016+08:00

Yesterday was one of the days I try to avoid on a regular basis. It was dental-cleaning day. And no offense to my dentist, she's adorable and everything, but she handles her equipment with all the finesse of a bulldozer.

Alright, so maybe she has to be a bit rougher because she does a good job and needs to get into all the nooks and crannies of my oral cavity, but still. I loathe going to the dentist.

Being passive-agressive, I tried very hard to sabotage my trip to the dentist's office. But my mother, being, well, agressive, did everything in her vastly more superior power to make me go. I tried to sleep well into the day. She woke me up shrilly at an ungodly hour - 9 a.m. I tried to sleep again at around 9:30. She bounded about in my room brandishing bread and screaming "Gising na! Bago ang tinapay! Gising na! Bago ang tinapay!" And before I could decipher what she actually meant, she had me. Merely by the power of her voice, I found myself obeying and getting ready for the dentist.

While I was getting ready, I smiled consolingly at myself, knowing in my heart of hearts, that since dentists always told me I had very good teeth, they would never be able to inflict the ultimate pain upon me. I would never need braces. I was safe from hell.

Fast forward to twenty minutes later when teh dentist nonchalantly says, "You need braces."

There I was lying on her reclining chair, watching Pokemon, suddenly horrorstruck. Apparently, my teeth were strong, but I had an overbite. My mouth was agape and the dentist's assistant (who, by the way, is so insipid she always looks like she's contemplating the pungent aroma of her pubic hair) took that as a cue to insert implements in my mouth. I was gripped by fear and suddenly the expensive debauchery of my oral cavity didn't feel as painful.

Some thirty minutes later, I was feeling better again. Not only were they finished with their pain-rituals, but they conveniently informed me that it was still my choice whether or not to go through with braces. I blankly shook my head no and stated, "I don't wanna be a model anyway" then left with my mother.

I feel unsure of this decision. I feel like in the future, I will have a blog post that says:

I consolingly gave myself a smile, knowing in my heart of hears that I chose not to have braces.

Fast forward ten years when my jaw is misshapen and I'm moaning "oh crap!" only no one can understand me because here in the "future" world, people now communicate solely through lip-reading.

I am so hoping that post never comes.

I Am Therefore I Blog

2008-04-26T22:37:00.008+08:00

“But blogging, aside from Perez Hilton and the other big time bloggers (you know who you are) is for me a slacker job or a medium and pastime for lonely people to connect. Unless you’re in bloody Siberia or in a Gulag prison, try stepping outside your comfort zone and turn off the laptop or pc, you just might find some real live people to talk to instead of typing away in cyber space.”

Likewise, I urge Ms. Fernandez to step down from her high horse, turn off her bigotry, and try to find some real live bloggers to talk to. Instead of judging away in her column.

Blogging Is for the Blogger

I realize that this request may be better-suited to come from a more established blogger. I, you see, have only recently begun blogging. However, I find Ms. Fernandez’s comments no less insulting and no less untruthful.

But in my case, I fear there is some truth.

I’ve always thought that blogging is quite beneficial to the blogger. Personally, one of the reasons why I blog is that I find it liberating and cathartic. In my blogsite and in the eyes of my readers (if any) I can be who I truly am. I can say what I truly want to say. The temptation to blog, for me, comes in the form of a freedom to react to my life the way I genuinely want to – something that cannot be always done in the outside world.

Looking at my reasons for blogging, I see how Ms. Fernandez might be confused as to the nature of bloggers. Why does someone like me have to result to a blog to express himself? Why can’t I do it while out and about in the world? Truthfully, it’s because I’m still trying to get there. Blogging is helping me realize more what I want to be in the outside world. By writing my own, uncensored thoughts, and reading those of others who are connected with the world and who do live it up and live it loud, I realize the world of possibilities for me.

Blogging is for Others

But not all bloggers are like me. As I’ve said, there are those among us who are happy and lively and hip and happening. Bloggers cannot be generalized as lonely slackers consumed in their cyberworld. In the same way, they cannot all be fit into the stereotype of adventurous thrill-seekers out to conquer the world. Bloggers come from all walks of life from all parts of the world with different interests, different attitudes, different paradigms. Some of us are nerds. Some of us are jocks. Some of us are jetsetters. Some of us are drag queens, starlets, OFWs, yuppies, groupies, grandparents. What unites us all, however, is the same human need to share and communicate ourselves.

This is what blogging basically is – a sharing and communication of people’s thoughts and insights. And when viewed from this boiled-down basic state, blogging is no different from other activities such as dancing or painting or singing or writing. I see no difference between what Ms. Fernandez and other writers do for their readers and what bloggers do for theirs. Both groups have thoughts. Both groups express them. And both groups hope to connect with and affect others through the said thoughts.

Compared to traditional writing and other forms of communication, blogging has its own strengths. One of its beauties is that blogging can be done by anyone. Anyone from the taxi driver whom you hailed this morning to the waiter whom you tipped this evening could be a blogger. He could be like you, publishing his thoughts away on the web.

With blogging, no longer is writing and expressing an opinion reserved for certified columnists like Ms. Fernandez. No longer is publication locked up in an ivory tower of literary giants and brilliant thinkers. It is now accessible to anyone with a point of view to share.

Much of blogging's accessibility has to do with its being both instant and large scale. Anyone can type away for some minutes and press the “publish” button and Bam! We open our thoughts to people on a global scale. We do not have to write for years and look for publishers and sell books just to reach people and show people who we are and what we think. Anyone can be heard and anyone can be reached.

Blogging Is

I’m no Malu Fernandez but if I have to judge, I’d say blogging is indeed a pastime for people to connect. With themselves and with others. Period. And I cannot, for the life of me, see what is wrong with that.

Nestle All Purpose Cream TV Commercial

2008-04-26T20:54:00.004+08:00

One of the more creative/funnier advertisements I've seen in a while. This is hilarious. Her face gets me all the time.

Over-Overdoing It

2008-04-26T00:50:00.008+08:00

Either the esteemed UP Diliman is an idiot, or I am.

Somehow I don't think a poll is needed to settle this debate. But allow me to make my case nonetheless.

The pre-enlistment site was supposed to be up and running last week. It wasn't. Then rumors circulated that it would be up on the 21st. It wasn't. It went up on the 22nd.

Knowing nothing about the teachers in U.P., I went to great lengths to decide which ones I would choose for my electives. I asked former schoolmates who went to U.P. I asked former high school teachers if they knew anyone. I even googled the names one by one to see if they had quotable quotes or if they had done any marvelous deeds. I analyzed their demand-slot ratios in relation to their teaching schedule and venue.

In short, I did everything in my power to pre-enlist properly. Once I was done, I simply logged out, not checking any of the other links.

Fast forward to an hour ago when all my classmates were telling me that the site was now notifying students of which among the subjects they had pre-enlisted in they would be taking.

I went to the site, and here is what happened:

I logged on and was directed to the "homepage." The "homepage" has a main area with announcements and a sidebar with the following links: "Announcements," "Freshmen Pre-enlistment," and "Student Profile." The announcements link only redirects the user to the "homepage" and the "homepage" basically tells the user to click on "Freshmen Pre-enlistment." All succeeding announcements are "NOT for UP Diliman incoming Freshmen."

So I clicked on "Student Pre-enlistment" and lo and behold! All my pre-enlisted subjects were erased. I went back to the "homepage" and saw a reminder that was not there when I pre-enlisted on the 22nd. It read: " After pre-enlisting, please click the Student Profile on the left pane of the browser to update your personal data before you log out."

I smelled something fishy. My Spidey senses went berserk and I clicked on "Student Profile" on the sidebar and wouldn't you know, it stated point-blank: " NOTICE: You need to fill and finish this form before you can pre-enlist."

So that's why I couldn't pre-enlist.

I just finished re-pre-enlisting, choosing the same classes, (because I really like the ones I chose) knowing full-well that I stand a bad chance of getting into them now that its late into pre-enlistment period.

I feel cheated and defeated about how the announcement on filling up the Student Profile was not made earlier or clearer. For the first time, I am seriously regretting turning down my Ateneo Merit Scholarship. If I'd gone to the Ateneo, these things would not have happened. And if they did, I would be able to mouth off at someone and have the system fixed. In U.P., complaints are usually met by middle-aged women behind glass windows with half-interested, half-lidded eyes and an are-you-done-yet look on their faces. They let you vent and then pass you a formulaic note that succintly says, "It's a privilege to study here, now leave. We do not need you."

But then again, that complete lack of over-involvement in students' lives is what drew me to U.P. It's the devil-may-care attitude which I crave. The whole predicament makes me feel like a teenage hamster stuck in a wheel of things I ador and abhor.

But even my frustration and regret, I can get over. The only thing that really gets me is that I knew this. Coming from a private school, where I've been pampered for twelve years, I knew I had to over-prepare and over-compensate for U.P. because it's over-prepared to throw me for a loop. So why didn't I?

I did, actually, over-compensate while pre-enlisting. But it did not occur to me to over-compensate AFTER. I, apparently, am not over-compensating enough. I now need to over-overdo things simply to survive.

This will be an interesting four years. I am truthfully foreseeing a lot of U.P-related blog entries.

Pick Fuck

2008-04-19T13:04:00.018+08:00

Two nights ago, I saw "Election" on HBO. It's always been one of my favorite movies. After all, it had Reese Witherspoon playing Tracy Flick, the rigid, over-ambitious, too-big-for-her-small-town presidentiable of Carver High School, Omaha, Nebraska. Comedy, it's got, for sure.

Running for class president, Tracy conscientiously follows each and every step in the traditional recipe for success. She hands out gum, puts up large, obnoxious posters, makes pins, makes charts, prepares her speeches, and most of all, bakes 480 customized cupcakes with "PICK FLICK" written in colorful frosting.

And no, your eyes did not deceive you. "PICK FLICK" looks very much like "PICK FUCK" (something intentional on the part of the movie-makers, my movie-buff friend, tells me). Incidentally, to PICK FUCK is exactly what more than a third of the students of Carver High School did when they abstained on election day. They threw their hands up in the air and said, "Fuck, I don't care."

The "Pick Fuck" movement, as I call it, was brought about by burn-out, surprise presidentiable Tammy Metzler, who, in their Miting de Avance, announced to everyone that she did not care about winning, and that she would abolish the student government if she is elected president. "Who cares about this stupid election?" she asks, amidst a gale of thunderous cheers.

I used to think I was a Tracy Flick, not an icky Tammy Metzler. I was at the top of my class, editor of the school paper, member of the student council. I even wanted to get into Georgetown, just like her. When, Georgetown, however, sent me their decision letter, telling me I didn't make it, I was crushed, just like Tracy was when she found out she lost the election.

Fortunately for Tracy, all ends well for her. She wins the election after all, and gets into Georgetown to boot. Things didn't go as well for me. I've been spending the past few weeks, silently analyzing and agonizing over why I didn't get into Georgetown and some of my friends did. Poisonous thoughts have been stirring in my mind about what I did wrong. I wanted to get an appeal, try other schools abroad, whatever.

But, I'm finally tired and burned out. It's time to be a Tammy Metzler and Pick Fuck. I gladly throw my hands up in the air, and say, fuck, I don't care anymore.

In the movie, things end well for Tammy, too. Yes, she gets kicked out of school, but finds true love instead. All I'm hoping for is that I'm as lucky with picking fuck as she was.

The (Dumb) Girls Next Door

2008-04-14T19:49:00.005+08:00

Alright, so the title's redundant, I admit. But, no amount of redundance can stress the utter stupidity of Hugh Heffner's playmates. They just know no limits.

I know they're just supposed to look pretty (which they don't). I'm not insane. But some of the things they said in today's episode could have been helped by anyone with the IQ of a dildo. And it just really got me how they were touring Europe. Smart, historic, beautiful Europe. It was completely wasted on them.

For example, they got to go to the Colosseum and one of them summed their experience up with "The Colosseum was beautiful but I'll never forget the Gladiator Guys."

The "Gladiator Guys" were men clad in armor (a.k.a. mascots), posing for pictures with tourists. When one of the girls was carried by the Gladiators and was indecently exposed, here was the reaction of another playmate:

"When I saw that the Gladiator Guys carried her and her underwear was showing to everyone, I was like no, I don't want a picture with them. They're kinda grabby."

Yes, it was a complete shame that people got a glimpse of a Playboy Bunny's underwear. After all, she was touring Rome after ten long years of working as a financial analyst. Not as someone who's been showing her boobies and VJ to everyone.

Oh, and yeah, blame the poor Gladiator Guys for your friend's inability to wear longer clothes.

After all my ranting, however, the Girls Next Door still win. No matter how much I gripe about their inanities, they will keep on prancing about simply because people like to look at them, as proven by this statement from one of the girls:

"Rome was amazing, and we were surrounded by all these beautiful buildings, but the people were more interested in us. [insert giddy face here] All the toursits were taking our picture."

Playboy Bunnies: 1; Rome: 0

Next week, the Bunnies take on Jerusalem. Watch out, Holy City, someone's out to steal your thunder. And your men.

Tease

2008-04-14T09:08:00.008+08:00

Half-awake, I zombie-walked my way to the refrigerator and grabbed the frozen hotdogs. I trudged to the kitchen, clutching the frozen packet and when I couldn't find Manang to cook the hotdogs, I went outside and looked for her.

Still bleary-eyed, I walked around the garden, hotdogs still clutched in my hands, weirdly enough. I patted off a few raindrops from my hair and continued to search - wait a minute! Raindrops? Halle-frickin-lujah!

I knew there was something special about this morning when I woke up not sweating bullets like a whore in church. It was 9 a.m. and it was not sunny! Nimbus clouds were a-swirling and not a solar flare was in sight!

But then, the most anticlimactic event in the history of my week occurred: 9:01 and the sun was shoving clouds to the sidelines like a fat lady shoving people in line at a buffet. Once more, it was shining its big pompous rays gloriously. That obnoxious bastard.

But as it is, I'm more furious with the rain than with the sun. I mean, come on! At least brew up a proper storm, you whimp! Don't be the opening act for the day's infernal heat! Don't get my hopes up with a few droplets of pathetic, you tease, you.

Sunday Soap Opera

2008-04-13T16:03:00.006+08:00

The lights were dimmed and the elderly lady was elegant - draped in pearls and crowned with a newly coiffeured hairdo. But at that moment, she was not the gracious hostess of her high society gal pals. She had set aside her poise and grace to scream bloody murder as fiercely as her elderly frame would allow her.

My grandmother was not someone to butt heads with so early on a glorious Sunday morning. Not when she had just gone to Mass. But, as teenagers do, I butted her head and she butted back with the ferocity of a decades-younger hussler-lady.

Her screamathon sermon did not end. The effort she summoned for her dramatic lines caused her veins to strain against her emaciated neck. She was writhing in anger and pointing the all-powerful you-will-obey finger at her dearly beloved grandson, me.

Not to be outdone, my mother joined the already vocal fray. Together, they admonished me as they would a thieving member of the help. Threats were made. Words like "dire consequences" and "shame" were thrown around. Violins played in a suspenseful crescendo (well at least in my head). This was widows' spite at its best.

But what were they so spiteful of, you ask?

Well I didn't hide from them my grandfather's last will and testament. I didn't get my long lost half-twin-sister-cousin drunk and pregnant. I wasn't running around popping pills and ruining the family's name. I just didn't want to hear Mass.

I'd been defending my case of disbelief in the Sacrament of the Eucharist with pure logic when they decided that fighting logic with logic would take too long. So instead, they fought logic with ferocious sermons. My "I don't see how eating bread makes us better people! We can be better people if so and so" comments were met with the oh-so-creative trump-card "NO!"

There's no winning against them. At least not for a while. And as I am living in their house under their rules, all I can resignedly say is ....

Tune in next Sunday for the new same episode of As the World Churns

Cue saxophones.