My Favorite Bukowski

and of course, this, which made me laugh and fall out my chair (almost):

The Dream of a Ridiculous Girl

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Petrov (1997)

I know it's a bad idea to read Dostoyevsky when you're depressed because he doesn't exactly tell happy stories. The magic of Dostoyevsky's books however has always been in their honest and childlike depiction of reality. I use childlike not in the sense that it's good for children or that it's simplistic but childlike because he always seems to imbue a certain innocence of mind in his language.

There are only a select number of books that I can read when my mind is reeling with unhappy thoughts and my chest bombarded by unwholesome feelings. One of those is Dostoyevsky. His stories are always a forceful slap in the face that eventually become a gentle caress. "Look this way, at reality, for all its sufferings and joys. Face it with honesty and humility," he seems to be saying.

"The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" is about a nameless man who has been trying to shoot himself every night for the past couple of weeks. He has irrevocably decided to do it tonight, but not before meeting a little girl (see painting) who desperately asks for his help, which he refuses. He goes home that night thinking about her and feeling ashamed of himself (although he justifies his refusal to help). He falls asleep on his armchair and this is where the dream begins (if you want to know what it is, read it yourself; it's only five chapters long).

A dream! Was it really a dream? Could the human mind formulate a dream so elaborate, so chronologically solid? Whatever it was, it changed the ridiculous man when he woke up and made him even more ridiculous. He saw an earth that was uncorrupted by sin and fell in love with it but at the same time witnessed it turn into the same world that he had wished to leave using his revolver. The strange thing was that he found a new appreciation for this corrupted world, a kind of love that is consubstantial with suffering. A sad kind of love, if you may.

Dostoyevsky has once again cleared my vision polluted by the unsatisfaction and selfishness endemic to sentimentalism. This story reminded me of how much I loved the world and the people in it—the silent splendor of nature, the fluid existence of humans and the mysterious looks in their eyes when they think. They are all beautiful. Reality is beautiful.

I woke up today feeling grateful. I looked at the children who rode in the jeepney with me and was amazed at the wide-eyed wonder with which they looked at everything. At that moment, I wished I could be like them, that I could see the world again and be enchanted by its wonders. I realized that it's really all you need to be happy: to see reality with the eyes of a child.

And what does it matter if I get sad and lonely sometimes? Isn't that only testament to my humanity? What does it matter that I suffer if it allows me to love deeply and truthfully? So thank you. Thank you, Dostoyevsky, for waking me up and making me realize that dreams, no matter how ridiculous, are sometimes necessary to face and appreciate reality.

Self-Crushing

The mind of a writer, or those who think they are, is frightening. There always seems to be a cloud of depression and self-doubt looming above you, imprisoning you in the mindset that you're not good enough—or ever will be. You read books and get the courage to rise above whatever emotional stupor you're battling only to sink bank into the void.

Sometimes I wish I was one of those who can enjoy swimming at the surface, who never think what the deeper waters hold and who do not desire to go there. They always seem to be happier.

What destroys me is the pain brought by words. Especially if they are cruel, especially if they have been said by someone I love. It is easy for me to forget a punch that it is for me to forget a verbal insult. A stranger once called me fat and ugly when I was in fifth grade, and I carried those words with me until I was well into college. Even now they still haunt me although I have heard them refuted a hundred times. With a word, I easily fall apart.

My mind sometimes scares me. And sometimes I wish there was a way to shut it all out, to go to sleep and never wake up again. Sometimes I wish I never wake up.

I read the stories of other people who write and have begun to wonder if this self-crushing inadequacy, if this chronic depression is endemic, maybe even necessary, to those whose lives lie in the vertical axis where words reside. The world is joyful—why can't I see it sometimes? Why am I always trapped inside a catastrophic train of thought that makes me so sad?

Someday, I told myself when I first decided I wanted to write, you will be good enough. Not perfect, just good enough. Good enough to face reality. Good enough to love and be loved back. Good enough to write. What I'm realizing is I'm never good enough, and perhaps I will never be.

To my eleven-year-old self, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I didn't grow up to be the person you dreamed about. I'm sorry that I'm such a disappointment.

Be Free

I don’t know what freedom looks like, but I’m guessing it looks a lot like a bird. Or dandelions. Or anything at all that sails on the wind. It would probably smell like the earth on mornings, especially after it’s been raining and the sun has just come out—moist and soft and warm. If it could sing, it would probably sound like the calm breaths of an ocean at dawn, a majestic kind of silence that only manifests itself in very special moments.

No, I cannot be sure about any of this. I am not sure how my senses can perceive freedom. But I am sure of one thing: I am free.

And you. You don't need a certificate or a government or a religious sect to tell you that you're not free. You were made free. In your heart you must know that, that in every situation you have a choice. You can't ever say "I don't have a choice." Just the fact that you can say that you don't have a choice already says that you do! So make good choices. Make choices that will not hurt you or the people around you. Educate your freedom with truth and exercise it with love. Don't just be free. Be good.

How To Be Alone

If you are at first lonely, be patient.

If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.

We can start with the acceptable places: the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there, where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You’re not supposed to talk much anyway so it’s safe there.

There is also the gym. If you’re shy, you can hang out with yourself and mirrors; you can put headphones in.

Then there’s public transportation because we all gotta go places.

And there’s prayer and mediation. No one will think less if you're hanging with your breath-seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid-being-alone principles: the lunch counter where you will be surrounded by chow-downers, employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town, and they, like you, will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cellphone.

When you are comfortable, eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner to a restaurant with linen and silverware. You’re no less an intriguing a person when you are eating solo dessert and cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies where it’s dark and soothing, alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.

And then take yourself out dancing, to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor until the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. 

Dance like no one’s watching because they’re probably not. And if they are, assume it is with best human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats, is after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating and beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things, down your back, like a book of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you. 

Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets. There are always statues to talk to, and benches made for sitting gives strangers a shared existence if only for a minute. And these moments can be so uplifting and the conversation you get in by sitting alone on benches might have never happened had you not been there by yourself.

Society is afraid of alone though, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if after a while nobody is dating them.

But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it.

You can stand swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther in the endless quest for company.

But no one is in your head. And by the time you translate your thoughts, an essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept. Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those “sappy slogans” from pre-school over to high school groaning, were tokens for holding the lonely at bay.

Cause if you’re happy in your head, then solitude is blessed, and alone is okay.

It’s okay if no one believes like you. All experience is unique. No one has the same synapses, can’t think like you. For this, be relieved--- keeps things interesting, life’s magic things in reach. And it doesn’t mean you aren’t connected and that community is not present. Just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it.

Take silence and respect it.

If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it. If your family doesn’t get you or a religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.

You could be in an instant surrounded if you need it.

If your heart is bleeding, make the best of it.

There is heat in freezing, be a testament.

—Tanya Davis

Good Morning

I haven't been sleeping properly these days. And when I manage, I wake up mercilessly early as if I still needed to get ready for a 7 AM shift.  I miss working. It gives me a sense of being necessary to something.

When have I become this petty? When did my days count on messages that have now started to come in trickles, although I know I really have no right to expect them? No matter how much I tell myself to stop waiting, that I don't have the privilege to be angry when it doesn't come, my eyes refuse to take themselves away from my phone, and I wait like an idiot anyway.

You took this upon yourself. How the fuck do my friends say these things so scathingly and still manage to make me laugh after?

I am not the cool customer who can't cry at the hospital after all. I can't act cold and indifferent. I can only fall apart.

Vodka tastes better diluted, also when you drown your shared disappointments in it about how well you imagined your life would be at this age and what is actually happening now. Maybe we aren't meant to be in relationships. Maybe we'll end up like the three rich old ladies who sat across from our dinner table- unmarried but still friends. And I thought that isn't so bad (but it would be really nice to have children).

Don't worry about tomorrow. God has a way of making things come into place at the right time. Rest in the Mystery. Don't lose sight of reality and its giftedness. You have Christ and the witness of people you love, so why trifle with those minute technological atrocities, about things to come that you're not so sure of? Let it be a mystery. Let it be.

So get up and don't waste the beauty of the morning.

Parking Lots

Today is a Wednesday. The weather outside is fair except for the occasional gushes of wind. The lady who cooks lunch across the street made the bean soup differently; the taste was more pronounced than I would've usually liked.

I sat across a different group of medical students. Whereas yesterday's topic was heart muscles and metacarpals, today they talked about cars and parking lots.

Red faces everywhere. They've been drinking since 1 AM last night until lunchtime today. I found I'm starting to hate the smell of beer.

When emptiness stares at you in the face, you find that you can either fight it with words or silence. I try to make it go away with words, but writing demands solitude so I find myself retreating into silence. In either circumstance I am helpless before the void. I have decided to stop fighting it. Emptiness doesn't have to be antithetical to presence. On the contrary, it invites it. The emptier I feel, the more I desire to be filled. The more I desire Him. This desire sometimes makes me cry when I pray.

I want to go home. I don't want to be here on Valentines. I would rather be with my parents because they are the happiest people in the world, and their love makes me hope that I will have my share of that someday. And I miss my dog.

Ilang Nanay

I've never been the person who gets to travel a lot. Although I would have loved to go places, the best I’ve been to was Baguio City, and I wasn’t even there to have fun riding horses and eating strawberries; I was there for a semi-mandatory convention. I have gone to Bohol as well, but I can’t say I enjoyed it so much because my mom just tagged us along on her seminar and my stepdad wasn’t really the enjoyable type of companion for sightseeing trips. I have been to several beaches and resorts too, but I’m not really much of a beach bum and I don’t like what seawater does to my hair. What I’m really saying is that my list of Memorable Places I’ve Been To is not much of a list yet and frankly, it doesn't really bother me. My best memories have been at home, and no matter how sparkly travel brochures get, there is really only one place I can call my favorite: my great grandmother’s (Nanay’s) house.

It stands at the center of our town, a two-storey home built sometime during the 1930s. It is made of brick and has a brownish color that almost looks red in the sunlight. The first floor is where my great grandmother’s store is located. She used to sell clothes and crayons and guitars, but when my cousins and I were still little kids, the store had been our playground and the items our playthings. Needless to say, most of what she could have sold were either missing some vital parts or completely broken. They eventually stopped selling things that we could break and brought in the nails, the paint, the hinges, and strangely enough, the toilet bowls.

There is a screen door that separates the store from the living room, which is spacious enough for more than twenty people to laugh with each other during family dinners, or for the same number of people to shout at each other during family fights. I remember a time when there was a drought and the whole town lost its supply of water. Everybody was shouting, all twenty of my uncles and aunts, including my grandparents and great grandparents, probably because somebody used up all of the water in the house. There were fingers pointing, voices rising, doors slamming—I had never seen anything so chaotic in my life. But then, when they were not shouting, they usually laughed, talked about business and politics, and teased us children about our crushes. When nobody fought or laughed, everybody cried. That living room had seen four caskets and heard numerous prayers; its walls had echoed the sound of our tears. That living room is where we are a family.

Straight ahead is the kitchen, which has a high ceiling and always smells of paksiw and rice. There is a big and long table at the middle where the adults talk while drinking. Sometimes it is where we children sit, helping ourselves with a hearty meal and a hearty conversation with one another. We even cook there sometimes, although we don’t always come up with something edible. Then there is also that old broken piano inconspicuously sitting at the corner. None of us ever had the luxury of playing it because none of us ever learned how. Nanay and Tatay just bought it because their neighbor had a piano and they just had to have one for themselves.

The stairs that lead to the second floor has a shiny brown banister. As children, we always had fun sliding down on it when the steps looked too many to take.  We would hurt our groins but we would just laugh it away. The second floor has a big window at the center of the first corner wall. It is always open, and its view overlooks the whole town plaza. We used to just squeeze ourselves together against its frames, look below, and make fun of the people who passed by. During New Year's Eve, it is where we watch fireworks. Most nights we would just play cards or Marco Polo until we tire each other out. When it got late and none of us wanted to leave, our parents let us stay, although only after some considerable whining. My grandparents would then take out all the banig, and my cousins and I would huddle together under the covers talking until every one of us fell asleep. In the morning, we would go down and have corned beef and hotdogs for breakfast. On rare occasions, there would be pancakes. It didn’t really matter though what our grandmother made us eat; we enjoyed it all just the same.

Of course, there is the good old backyard where we used to play hide and seek. Our grandfather would scare us from playing by telling us stories of the agta and the duwende. It scared us to bits that until now, none of us dare to stay there for more than five minutes. But then I remember pretty decent memories in that backyard, like when I used to help my grandfather fix his car or feed my uncle’s fighting cocks. Sometimes I got to brush their feathers.

Outside, the house looks exactly like my old great grandmother Nanay Toning who passed away in 2007: worn-out, wrinkly, and tired. Inside, also just like her, Nanay’s house is bursting with energetic laughter and memories. I don’t think I need to be in Paris or Tokyo or any other place to be able to write something wonderful and spectacular. I have a lot of wonderful memories and spectacular moments in that house. I know I will never tire of its familiarity and closeness. In fact, those are what make it so special to me. “Mangadto ta ilang Nanay” will forever be a phrase I will always delight in hearing.

Ocean

It takes an ocean not to break.
But where is it going?
Is it going to end?
Not soon.
Eventually.

Why I Write

I write because I can.

I remember thinking about what I really wanted to do during my teenager-trying-to-find-who-I-am phase. I also remember thinking about the things I was good at, things that people praised me for, things that made me feel good. It wasn't long before I found that small yellowish notebook barely alive with pages. I recognized the scribbles and the doodles; the fat, violent scratches of pencil against fragile paper. I remember that dirty, size-confused penmanship that sometimes stretched to the right, to the left, this time up, then down the next. It was my notebook in kindergarten.

As I flipped through the frail pages of that notebook, I found Cinderella, re-told by my then five-year-old self. I remember not being able to suppress a smile. The grammar was horrible and the spelling was even worse, but it sort of sounded right when I read it. I had been a good writer back then. I'd like to think that I'm still a good writer now. I'd like to think that people aren't just saying I'm good just for the heck of it. I'd like to think that I can write.

I write because I want to.

Very few people are lucky to know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that one thing they’d love to do for the rest of their lives. Even fewer people are lucky to be allowed to do it. I want to be conceited and say that I am one of those people, lucky enough to know that I want to write and luckier still to be able to.

When I read books, I always want to be able to write like the people who write them. I always think about what adjectives (and how many of them) to put here or which is the right kind of verb. Sometimes I get frustrated about where the period should be, or if it should even be a period at all. Sometimes I think that I can’t write. Worse, sometimes I think that I don’t want to write.

But then I always find myself missing the magical birth of words in paper or in a Microsoft Word page. I miss how they sporadically come out and turn the emptiness of that paper, the blankness of that Word page into something full, something beautiful. I miss the happiness that comes from knowing that those words are mine.

I write because I have to.

Writing makes me aware that I occupy a space in the world. And it is with writing that I hope to make that space significant. I’ve heard one too many people calling me out for such an impractical passion, been asked one too many questions about where and how a currency sign might pop out, seen numerous eyebrows raised, countless foreheads creased, and a haunting number of mouths twisted into a contortion of ridicule and disdain.

I’d thought about it and at one point decided these people made some sense. If I really wanted to save lives, why didn’t I just become a doctor as everybody expected me to be instead of just sitting idly writing about it? But being a doctor isn't the only way to save lives. I’m saving a life when I listen to a friend or when I pray. I know that books and music and poetry save people because they save me every day. I know I save myself when I write. Writing keeps me sane and whole and from forgetting that no matter how bad things get, flowers still grow and there is still so much love to be had.

This is why I write.

I write because I can and I want to and I have to. I write because I know no other way to change the things I want to change. I write because my fingers are restless and because words are too precious to be left alone in an axis where they don’t mean anything and can’t touch lives. I write because I am in love, because I am sad, because I am angry, because I am happy. I write because people think I’m good at it and because I sometimes lead myself to believe I’m good at it. I write because I suck at everything else. I write because I am conceited and get jealous of other writers who are better than me. I write because it makes me feel good. I write because I want to tell the truth that I believe. I write because I’m a coward. I write because it gives me courage. I write because the world needs to wake up. I write because people need me to tell their stories and because I need people to hear my stories. I write because I have dreams. I write because I hope. I write because I’m alive. I write because I want to be alive.

Merry Christmas!

I’m dreaming of home.

Perhaps my desire to be with my family today is a far cry from soldiers who repeated this wish to themselves over and over again while they battle with the cold and each other in muddy, desolate trenches almost a hundred years ago. I have never spent Christmas away from my family, and my hand still trembles from loneliness when the silence stretches itself too wide around the room. Now that it’s Christmas and I am all alone in the office, I found that it actually isn't too bad. I don’t feel lonely at all. Christ is with me—in the person of my parents and family whose voices lift my spirits so high, of my friends whose messages never fail to warm my heart, and of him for whom I have so much affection it sets my soul on fire.

It is a Merry Christmas.

Speaking of Merry Christmas (and the reason I made a war reference), yesterday I watched a French film titled Joyeux Noel. It is a true story of a truce between French, German, and Scottish troops on the eve of Christmas, at the height of the First World War. I should admit that I am not very fond of war movies; I would rather sit through an hour and a half of stark verbal battles between characters (or no words at all [e.g., Amour]) than have them brandishing guns, swords, even wands trying to kill each other. The wonderful thing about Joyeux Noel is that it exposes the pointlessness of war and ethnocentrism by making a simple statement about peace and friendship—we are all the same; we are brothers. And not just a statement, the film sings a song as well, quite beautifully at that, about music and its mysterious power to touch and heal the soul.

The film starts off with three boys (French, German, and English) reciting a poem praising their countries and denouncing their enemies. This is a striking and a most ingenious opening scene as it not only represents the film’s tri-racial focus, it also tells us, and more importantly, that hatred for another race is not intrinsic. If education does not propagate this they-are-different-from-us-so-they-must-be-evil mentality, boys will grow up into men who will shake hands and laugh with other men who speak a different language instead of putting bullets through their head.

The scene that follows is that of William and Jonathan, Scottish brothers who are called to fight with their priest Fr. Palmer. William is very excited because “at last, something is happening in our lives!” Jonathan doesn’t look too happy, but you can tell that he will follow his brother anywhere. Fr. Palmer looks deeply troubled and murmurs a prayer as the candles symbolically die out. I want to call this scene out because it says something about young men like William who willingly join the war because it somehow makes “something happen” in their lives. In other words, they welcome it as a deviation from the normalcy of everyday, rustic living—a source of rush, of excitement, of meaning. War provides you with the rush all right, but the presence of meaning in violence is something I highly doubt.

We are then introduced to Sprink and Anna, opera singers and lovers, who are in the middle of a performance when a German officer interrupts them with an announcement about a reserve call up. Meanwhile, French lieutenant Audebert stares longingly at a picture of his pregnant wife. This is the sacrifice that war forcefully demands from its victims: distance from something or someone that you love—art, family, friends, home—without offering any certainty of a reunion.

We are taken to the battlefield where the three groups rain bullets and explosives on each other. Several men die during this attack, including William whom Jonathan had to abandon in no man’s land. William’s death affects Jonathan so much it almost drives him mad. He continues to write letters to their mother telling her how coveted her cake was in their infantry and how he and William miss her so much. He doesn't mention that his brother is dead. This is the first time the film made me cry. It was ironic how William who faced war with the eyes of an adventurer instead met his death while those who cower and tremble behind their rifles remained alive.

Christmas Eve. Father Palmer plays his bagpipe, and the Scots sing a festive song about home. The Germans listen with their small makeshift Christmas trees, and the French wonder suspiciously. Sprink shows up with Anna after being sent away to perform for the prince of Prussia and starts singing “Silent Night.” Fr. Palmer in the Scot trenches hears him and accompanies him with his bagpipe. This move shocks the German soldiers, but encourages Sprink to sing even louder. He dares comes out of the trenches in full visibility and vulnerability, singing with soulful gusto. A French soldier prepares to shoot him but is stopped by his lieutenant. The Scots emerge from their trench in full view and gleefully applauds Sprink as he finishes the song. Fr. Palmer then plays the first few notes of “Adeste Fideles” as an invitation for Sprink to sing the song, which he enthusiastically does. Sprink walks toward the Scottish trench singing and holding one small Christmas tree, arms wide open, a festive smile on his face, an expression of trust, an invitation of peace. It just went on from there until the three lieutenants met and agreed on a Christmas ceasefire.

“Merry Christmas.”

"Frohe Weihnachten."

 "Joyeux Noel"

This scene I believe is the turning point of the whole film, where everything came together and made sense, not just for these soldiers but for the audience. It didn't matter which language the greeting was said, what mattered was that its essence was experienced in its deepest, truest sense. Here were three different groups of people discovering for the first time that they weren't at all very different. They drank the same champagne, smoked the same cigarettes, missed the same children, loved the same wives. The only difference was the number of cartridges they fired in a day.

And allow me to mention the farmyard cat the French named Nestor and the Germans call Felix who effectively provides an element of comedy to the film (though in the end he was arrested for high treason). Also let me express my amazement at the ironic fact that the German lieutenant was in fact a Jew. 

The truce continues Christmas Day as the three lieutenants “bury their dead on the day Christ was born.” Although it makes you wish that it ends happily for everyone, it doesn't. The reality of the war catches up with the soldiers, and they were each made to face the repercussions of fraternizing with the enemy. Christmas or not, they were in the middle of a war. They were supposed to be killing each other, not playing football. But the friendship that they encountered between themselves, ignited by the miracle that is music, was so great and surprising that they just couldn't go back to what they once were before this encounter. They have become brothers, and no amount of dressing down from superiors can ever take away the song they have found together on that fateful Christmas Eve.

Music plays a pivotal part in this film, being the catalyst for peace. And indeed, this is what music does. It reveals to us our soul’s thirst for meaning and beauty. It crushes our hearts and brings tears to our eyes because this need is so great and overwhelming that we can’t even explain it and we realize that we don’t really have to because it’s a mystery! Music makes us face that mystery and encourages us to embrace it.

Music and friendship and peace. These were the words that fluttered warmly in my heart after I repeated the ending credits of the movie several times. Wonderfully enough, I realized that these words represent how Christmas should be celebrated: with song and laughter, with familiar faces, with the peace and light that Christ’s birth gives to the world.

Let me end my year-end blog post with a Bible passage that Pope Francis quoted in his homily for the Christmas:

Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness; he walks in the darkness and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has blinded his eyes —1 John 2:11

Jesus is the light who dispels the darkness. Whether or not they believed, the soldiers evidently encountered Christ's light (on the day of His birth no less!) and experienced peace and friendship through that encounter.

Merry Christmas! 

Never Forget

Spoiler alert. 

Can I just please say that I am truly, deeply, in all sense of the word, depressed over "Rains of Castamere"? I swear that episode damaged me. I already knew Robb was going to die, thanks to friends who spoiled me, but I had no idea it was going to be that brutal, that painful. When Ned Stark died, I don't remember being in pain because his death was quick---and because Joffrey is involved---expected. But this. Everything is so wrong. I don't understand (damn you, George R. R. Martin!) what warranted all those deaths. And what's worse is that Talisa just had to be pregnant with baby Ned and they just had to be so very happy before the wedding band mercilessly ambushed them with arrows and daggers.

And Robb Stark's face when Talisa told him she named the baby after his father. This is what broke my heart the most.

George Heartless R. R. Martin! Why couldn't you just let Robb die with a little dignity? Why did you have to let him see his wife and child get slaughtered? Why couldn't you just have let him say good-bye to his mother? Why?! WHY GEORGE RR MARTIN WHYYYYYYY

I remember being dumbfounded for ten whole minutes after the silent end credits. My heart was in pieces on my throat and I don't remember ever crying so violently over a TV show. Even now. Just remembering Catelyn screaming for Rob to get out, remembering Robb reaching out to Talisa and just holding her belly, it turns me into a complete wreck. Maybe I should've read the books, maybe I wouldn't be so affected. Because it's ridiculous to be this affected. No matter how many times I tell myself They're not real people, it's just TV fiction I still can't manage to get over the emotional stupor.

But the North remembers. And so will we, Robb, Catelyn, Greywind, Talisa, Baby Ned.

You have taken a piece of me with you. Again, fuck you, George R. R. Martin.

Rise

Ever since I was a child, Batman had been my favorite superhero. And even now that I'm old enough to think better of the world and how truly unfair it is and that heroes in capes don't exist, he remains to hold the dearest part of my heart. And I have loved him because there is a tangible gravity to his being. For me, Batman is the most human of all superheroes.

My Pre-Graduation Speech Circa 2010

I was reading this speech delivered by a La Sallian engineer in UP and remembered this. When I was disqualified from the honor roll in high school, I promised my parents I'd stand on a stage in college and make a valedictory speech. This speech is the fulfillment of that promise; I delivered this during one of the recognition ceremonies in USC. I don't remember being very poised when I carried this out (I laughed in between the sentences I forgot), but this was the proudest moment of my life and I deserve to share this.

Yes, this medal is mine.

When I was still a kid, people always told me I was going to be a doctor like my mother someday. There are countless of good reasons why I should have been one: the practicality, the power attached to the name, the pride that comes with people calling you doc, and most importantly, the ability to save other people’s lives. A lot of people show disappointed faces when I tell them I didn’t study medicine and took up English instead. To tell you the truth, I’ve never really been affected with what people say. The only people I don’t want to disappoint are my parents, and them being here means they aren’t. 

So the true reason that I’m not on my way to med school right now is because I know my path leads to somewhere else. I fell in love with the arts, and I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that right here is where I belong. And at this point, I just don’t see myself anywhere else.

This brings me to think about passion, that powerful desire to put yourself out there and do the things you know you do best. I know for a fact that passion doesn’t really appeal anymore to parents and children alike these days. Most kids today go to college to get a good job when they graduate—not necessarily a job that they’re passionate about. Sure they get their work done, but I always wonder if they’re happy at the end of the day. I wonder if they can honestly tell themselves that “this is what I love to do. This is what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life.”

I believe that being in the university shouldn’t just be about studying to get hired and get rich as soon as possible. Although this is not bad thing, what with the economic state of things here in the Philippines, I think there should also be an element of passion and dream in everything that we teach and learn. Students shouldn’t listen to teachers and teachers shouldn’t teach students just “to get things over with.” Students should be able to say “I want to learn this” at the beginning of the lesson and say “I want to learn more” at the end of it. The learning experience, if there is at the very least an interest involved and the willingness to learn, becomes a more significant and concrete part of being a student.

To all the beloved parents, the fact that you are here today means that you have done an amazing job, and for that, you deserve a round of applause. Everything we do is to make you guys proud and assure you that all the times you slumped from working too hard, all the back pains and migraines you got from thinking and taking care of some of the crazy things we get ourselves into, all the dinners and breaks you’ve been wanting to take but missed—we want to assure you that those are not in vain. So thank you to all the parents for putting up with us for so long, especially my mom and dad who have been very supportive and who have always believed in my capacity to make choices for myself.

To all my fellow students and friends, congratulations! I want to tell you about what this crazy but brilliant essayist named Robert Benchley said about college. He said that college isn’t all about books and conferences and papers. It’s about making mistakes and constantly discovering ways how to correct them. I’m not saying you should go out there and make as many mistakes as possible. I assure you that there is such a thing as a smart mistake. These are the mistakes that we make because we want to take risks but still end up shortchanged anyway. These are the mistakes from which we learn the most valuable lessons. These are the mistakes that are so much fun and educational to correct. These are the mistakes that when made, make us a true college student. So, my friends—take risks, make mistakes, correct them, study hard, laugh in between, and whatever you do, make sure it’s something that the people who care about you will be proud of.

Where am I

Today one of my friends asked me the very two questions I don't know the answer to:

1. How are you?

2. What is your plan?

Right now, honestly, I am not okay. I feel exhausted. Waking up in the morning isn't anymore joyous and takes effort when it shouldn't. I read and find myself only half-tied to the words. They mean something I'm sure of it, and yet I can't convince myself anymore that they do. The fact that I have to convince myself in the first place is already telling in itself.

This kind of fatigue is ironic because I haven't really been doing anything for the past couple of weeks. Going home to my parents was nice, but I can't burden them with my life anymore. They're happy now; they deserve not to worry about me.

A plan. Yes, there had been a plan. The plan had been ambitious and wonderful. I was supposed to be on my way to graduate school by this time, with a loving boyfriend, with a job that doesn't pay much but pays enough. Instead my life is turning out the complete opposite.

Body

I hate my body.Not just because it's heavy or stout, but more particularly because it's weak.

Today, like most of my Saturdays now, I went for a run. My mind was burning with passion; I was dead set on covering as many laps as my body can take. Apparently, my body can't take very much. I was only on my third lap when my appendix started screaming for a reprieve. My brain was throbbing with a dull ache that I can't shake off with any kind of happy music. My sweat glands were blocked, my skin burning with a nagging heat rash. So I stopped running and became angry.

I was angry at the aerobics instructor because he was moving a beat off from the music. He was his usual hyperactive self but I didn't see any passion in his movements. I felt like he was doing it to get it over with. And his music wasn't particularly good either. I didn't even break a fucking sweat after thirty minutes of that halfhearted workout.

I was angry at my friends because they're so insensitive and shallow sometimes. And they never really ask me if I'm okay. Sometimes, all I want from them is the initiative to ask me that question. But they never do. They never do.

I was angry at the world for being so worldly. Because as I walked in the middle of the track I realized that everything is so superficial. The people, the music, everything. Nothing felt real, and once again I felt that emptiness that surreptitiously creeps behind you and swallows you whole when you're in a room full of people and you feel so horribly alone. 

My body is weak just like the rest of this physical world. It will die and rot and be forgotten. It is said that the mind controls the body and can push it beyond its limits. But what hasn't been often mentioned is that the weakness of the body is infectious to the mind. I tried to push myself beyond the pain. I tried to go through that door of physical limits with my will, but my body dragged me to a standstill. I couldn't move a muscle and suddenly I didn't even want to anymore. My motivation was gone and I got even more angry because I let myself be drained. So I cried---like I always do when I am disappointed, frustrated, and discouraged all at once. It's a heavy feeling to carry, but I find that not even my half excuse of words can lighten them.

Happy Anniversary!

No, I'm not talking about a boy. 

It's my first anniversary at work. It's probably not a big deal to most people, but to me---the me who can't quite come to terms with constancy and can't stand seeing the same things every day---it is a big deal, especially because it's office work. Office. The one place I swore I won't have to be when I graduated. But that was when I was conceited, when the world still seemed perfect even though there were things that made me want to cry in the news. 

Now things have changed. No matter how optimistic you try to be, how much faith you have in yourself, there is always something that pulls you down and makes you curse. When I resigned from my first job, I was at my lowest point, depressed and hateful. I was a bottle away from being suicidal, and I don't remember ever feeling so alone and inconsolable. I lost my trust in offices because it was exactly what I feared it would be---cutthroat and hopelessly routine. So when I got hired in my company now, I was indifferent. I didn't have expectations because I was so sure I would be disappointed, that after three months I would have thoughts of resigning, that I shouldn't get close to the people I would meet because I would leave them soon enough anyway.

But I was wrong, so wrong that everything just seems right. Though I still have to wake up feeling like I still need to sleep, I don't have to drag myself out of bed and look forward to the end of the day. In fact, I consider the nine hours I spend in the office precious. I know I get sidetracked by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube once in a while, okay, often, I want to work hard and keep my bosses happy. I want them to feel proud of me, to think that they did the right thing when they hired me, that I was and still am a good investment. Honestly, I have so much respect for my bosses because they make us all feel at ease. Seriously, I don't feel like I'm in an office. I feel like I'm in a room doing the people whom I look up to a favor with colleagues that I have so much respect for. I feel at home. I feel like I'm a part of a family. I'm happy. I'm contented.

There are but a few people who, when asked how they are with their jobs, can say that they're happy. The usual response to this question is an indifferent shrug, a disdainful grunt, or a flat-out "It's torture." One year ago today, I was a pessimistic pseudo-intellectual who is willing to take any job so she doesn't have to depend on her parents anymore.  Now I can proudly say that I'm not as pessimistic though  I still consider myself as a pseudo-intellectual. I am still at this job because I still don't want to depend on my parents, because what I have here gives me purpose, and because I love the person that I am when I'm with these people. 

So, happy anniversary!!!

"You look like Christmas morning"

Merry Christmas, everyone!

This Christmas is perfect! I received so many things that I had to look inwardly and ask myself if I even deserve them. The people I've met, the friends I've made in them, the happiness that they help forge in me every day, the friends and family that have remained the most important people in my life---I just don't know what I did to deserve such blessings.

Thank you, Lord, for giving me the life I have now. Thank you for the struggles that you make me face every once in a while and the courage that I discover every time I conquer them. Thank you for the people who make me want to become a better person. Thank you for my parents who remind me that I have to do things  that will make the people around me, especially myself, proud. Thank you for my cousins, aunts, uncles, grrandparents, people I'm lucky to call family.

Thank you Lord for giving me reasons to smile even though I haven't done a lot of things to deserve them. Thank you for not having the world end this 21st because then I wouldn't have this morning, this moment to feel so thankful for being alive and for this urge to live even more, to cherish the people that make me happy.

Happy birthday, Jesus! Thank you for giving us the most beautiful day to celebrate every year. We remember today as the start of our wonderful journey with you as our Savior and God. We love you.

Anniversaire de mon Sœur

Last night had been one for the books.

It was my sister's 21st birthday, and we all went to this French restaurant that just opened in August. The food on their website and on review blogs look great, and the price wasn't very overreaching. When we got there, we got awed by the overall ambience of the place. It was once an old Spanish house converted into a small but very cosy, very quaint restaurant. 

The waiters weren't exactly friendly, but they were accommodating. (I was wondering if perhaps they were told to act exactly like the French.) They gave us free caviar for appetizers and handed us the menu (an iPad). There weren't a lot of food to choose from. Most of them, because they aren't really exposed to European cuisine a lot, ordered black pepper steak because it sounded familiar. I had quiche with salad and my sister had braised chicken with pasta. The food arrived after a while and then we dug in.

None of us really liked what we ordered. My sister's chicken was tasty, so was the fish, but everyone thought the siders left so much room for complaint. No one liked the rice and no one finished their meal completely. The desserts, however, were perfect.

So then my uncle who has a reputation for having a hard-to-please palate made a bet with us, quite jokingly, about having the bill waived. If he could get the manager to let us go without paying, we would have to do his laundry. We all thought he was joking, so we agreed, even though his laundry heap is about as heavy as a teenager. See, in America, restaurant personnel are afraid unsatisfied customers might sue them, so they bend easily to complaints. In the Philippines, however, you pay whether or not you had to forcefully choke down your food. But my uncle is a businessman and he doesn't believe that it's a cultural thing. So when it was time for us to pay the bill, my credit card ready for our waitress to take, he stands up and in a tone hovering between courteous and menacing, tells her how he thought of the food. The waitress turns pale and fidgets, obviously unfamiliar with this kind of situation. Before she could defend the food, my uncle drops the bomb on her and tells her that he wants our bill waived. I swear the waitress looked like she wanted to faint. She then calls the supervisor who tells my uncle that it wasn't possible to have the entire bill waived. The least they could do is give us another round of dessert for free or a discount.

I thought this would satisfy my uncle but he persists even more and demands that they call the manager or the owner. The supervisor and our waitress leave us to call the manager/owner and we had time to wallow in agonizing embarrassment. We all just sat there dumbfounded and just ashamed; hoping they wouldn't let Uncle have his way. Auntie Vawn kept hitting him with the napkin and telling him that what he was doing wasn't funny anymore.

Waitress and supervisor came back and told us they just got off the phone from the manager and that everything we ate was on the house! Come on! There were nine of us! We ordered a lot! I must say I've never felt so embarrassed and guilty in my entire life; it felt like we were robbing the restaurant. I look at my cousins' faces and I know they feel the same way. But perhaps, no one more than I do, because I was the one who picked that restaurant, it was my name in the reservation, I was the one who was supposed to pay everything. 

Everyone, except my uncle who looked very triumphant, walked out La Maison Rose wearing faces of criminals who know they should be sent to the gallows but for some strange reason are set free. We took Uncle's laundry with heavy hands and went home knowing we would never ever, ever forget that night.

The Life Pursuit

I am in love with this whole record by Belle and Sebastian. It reminds me of a long bus ride and all you see outside the window are beautiful trees and flowers and people who are happy.

Here is the track list. My favorite song from the album is . . . ugh I can't choose!

1. "Act of the Apostle" – 2:55
2. "Another Sunny Day" – 4:04
3. "White Collar Boy" – 3:20
4. "The Blues Are Still Blue" – 4:08
5. "Dress Up in You" – 4:23
6. "Sukie in the Graveyard" – 3:00
7. "We Are the Sleepyheads" – 3:33
8. "Song for Sunshine" – 4:06
9. "Funny Little Frog" – 3:08
10. "To Be Myself Completely" – 3:17
11. "Act of the Apostle II" – 4:20
12. "For the Price of a Cup of Tea" – 3:19
13. "Mornington Crescent" – 5:40

You can download the record here.