星期六, 7月 31, 2004

Pre-emptive of me

The anniversary dinner was great. We were late and my Dad was a bit pissed off, but it was great nonetheless.

Our college barkada reunion was better. I wasn't late and everyone was in such a terrific mood, spending 5 hours with people j'adore was not enough. We met at Café Provençal instead of Via Maré where my friends were already cozily seated amidst the faux terracotta walls and pseudo-French country ambience. We didn't order yet because the celebrant, Le Madame Transience was not there yet. We exchanged movies during the wait. I gave my Trainspotting dvd and borrowed Comrades, a foreign film I haven't heard of. I returned Dogville and lent One Take Only, a Pang Brothers movie (creator of Thailand's THE EYE). My future lawyer friend lent me her Pi dvd, for which I am extremely grateful.

When the Albuyah arrived, we had already ordered a lot of stuff, ate with pure delight, took countless pictures of each other, exchanged stories, and then waited some more for the other people to come. Unfortunately, two weren't able to make it, and the guest of honor, Ms. Jolens RN, joined us at Dôme café. We walked around the mall to check out Nine West and Naturalizer shoes just to pass the time. In the coffee shop, we met with the future lawyer's s.p. and the celebrant's kwee (his Alfa Romeo too). Our copy editor friend and her lovey-dovey soon-to-be hubby left after maybe an hour of dessert and drinks. We shared stories and boredom till around 8pm and decided to go home.

Countless ideas flooded my head on the trip home. Ideas for my baby short film-to-be were coming in and edited in my brain as if I was sitting in front of an editing machine cutting and pasting stuff already. It was exhilarating. I felt alive once more. I just hope this thing pulls through and I'd be able to tell my non-existent grandchildren that once upon a quarterlife, I was able to make a short film for the sake of making one. And they would say...

.....that'll do grampa, that'll do.


星期五, 7月 30, 2004

A Grand Reunion of Sorts

My family's going out tonight because it's my parents' 26th anniversary.  My Dad's come all the way to Manila from Baguio and my Mom doesn't know about it.  She thinks me and my sister are just treating her out but the truth is, we're meeting my Dad at President's Restaurant in Ongpin.  Yes, chinese food again, but who am I to complain?  I'll be ordering all the tofu they can serve in prepared dishes!  The only thing I fear now is that my Dad will be grating me about my recent decision to quit the possibility of a lucrative career in *ss-wiping.  He won't be mad that I quit it, he'll be mad because I think to him it seems like I'll be leeching out again instead of earning my own pay and establishing a future for myself.  I really hate explaining,  I really do, especially when I'm not in the mood to be eloquent about myself.  I'd rather we talk about maintaining a marriage for 26 years, or about making ends meet in a foolishly sluggish economy, or about establishing contacts with the rich and famous and make them come to you instead of you going to them, and maybe all other sheight (my new favorite expression!) related to world chagrin or the politics of Imelda preferring to have been struck by a bolo with a yellow ribbon tied on it.  Everything else to be the topic of conversation, besides me and my seeming lack of interest.

Actually, my Dad's somewhere in Ongpin right now waiting for me while my sister and Mom left an hour ago to fetch my younger sister from school, where they'll be going straight to the church and celebrate parental anniversary through the Holy Eucharist.  Don't worry, I'm a quick groom and I'll get to the restaurant just in time.  I love writing like this, "under pressure."

Tomorrow, I'll be meeting up with my wonderful college friends to celebrate the 287th birthday of my close girl friend (and "ex"  hehehehehe *wink*), La Madame Transience in Via Mare, Shangri-La Plaza by popular vote.  Everyone's going! Yipee!  I'll bring my camera because that'll be a celestial event... all my tragically intellectual friends together eating lavish seafood (for free!)

I told you yesterday about my meeting up with my soon-to-be-employed friend and my good director friend in Greenbelt.  Maybe on Sunday I'll be meeting up with my techy/tekkie/tech-ky  friend to celebrate his birthday too. Another one of those people who I admire and am proud to be friends with because he's so atuned with himself.  Regardless of what other people think of him, I think he's great and he's always been there for me.  Happy birthday Julian!

So..... I'll pretty much be meeting up with all the important people in my life (and got to talk on the phone with my practicum employers moments ago to catch up) and I'm feeling quite content.  All I need now is to feel secure with how I'm gonna move on with my life and maybe I'll be all set.  The struggles will surely be there, but at least I know all these people I've come to love are here to support me and to tell me exactly what I need to hear....

 

".....Here lies love...."

   

 

Sunburnt During the Rainy Season

Today had been one of those "better" days (which is a good thing).  I woke up to perky text messages and emails from my fabulous group of friends, who, in some strange way, were also perky like me.  We attributed it to protein.  I ate a plateful of pork tausi with beancurd last night, tofu being one of my favorite "extenders" in prepared dishes.    

[Yield!  Before we go any further I'd just like to say I'm quite sleepy now and that you'll have to excuse my grammar and spelling for the remainder of the entry.  If you must know, I kept revising the 1st paragraph about 4-5 times.  What a dork...]

I had brunch and proceeded to meet my soon-to-be-employed friend and his close friend from UST.  I was already in a bus in front of HSBC-Enterprise Tower when they texted me to meet them in Seattle's Best.  I first went toward Landmark to withdraw money in case we'd eat dinner some place.  Looking at the receipt, I felt I needed to get a job soon.  Not that I've used up all my savings, but just the fear that I might need a large amount of cash and won't know where to get it.  I went up the stairs toward Powerbooks.  For some reason, I went inside the store.  At first it was curiosity over what new books have been released or what the bestsellers are.  But I realized it was a different kind of force that's drawn me into the shop.  It was a strange coincidence I met a good director friend of mine inside the Powerbooks coffeeshop.  We talked about his professorship and day jobs and he encouraged me to join this short film contest sponsored by CCP.  In a way it was pretty interesting because I've been re-evaluating my priorities (for the Nth time...) and more or less focusing on easier targets than those long-term goals and other such gobbledy-gook.  At this point in my young life at 16 years of age, I want to focus on what my life would be now that I'm not migrating any time soon (ouch! ouch!).  Like I emailed my designer friend, I used to think taking up Psychology would make me happy.  Maybe it would, but somehow I've been getting second thoughts now that the opportunity to take up masters this coming sem had become open.  Would this make me happy or fulfilled?  My friend tells me even if you pursue the career of your dreams, setbacks and failure are inevitable but you'd find more motivation to work.

I told Malik yesterday that it would probably have benefited us a lot more if we weren't so smart or thought the way we have.  Instead of thinking about self-fulfillment, we would be satisfied with just earning a living and getting the things money can buy, being happy with a high-paying job even if it meant not attaining our standard for self-respect (with regard to career).  Certainly other people have made their compromises, other people have completely given up on their childhood dreams and have settled for something more tangible, more practical.  Why weren't we born like those people?  Maybe we'd be happier, or at least, not mentally tortured. 

Going back to the story, that meeting with my director friend must have been fate speaking to me, trying to open a new window from which I could peer out of and see the bigger (motion) picture. 

My soon-to-be-employed friend was very supportive of this endeavor.  The only thing I offered him in the conversation were my apprehensions.  I don't have my own videocam, I don't know the basics about filmmaking or lighting.  What I do have is attention to detail, perseverance, and the ability to comment intelligently on existing works.  But the one thing I'm weakest at is STARTING FROM SCRATCH.  I have the recent events as good enough evidence of this weakness.  For instance, it's simpler and easier to write a poem from a waft of fragrant air than to come up with a whole movie as a result of that waft of inspiration, writing down the screenplay, and coordinating everything under the constraints of budget and time.  For poetry, I'd just sit down and type away my misconceptions and arrange them to sound "believable" hehehehe

Just tonight, I've already been having these fantastic ideas!  Like Aba Ginoong Maria and Nanay Ko.  I'm trying to limit the plot with my existing resources.  I wouldn't want to spend so much for a debut film.  I also didn't want to appear too dramatic and constipated about my debut work, if ever that day comes and I'd be defending my ideas in front of a firing squad panel of film experts.  I wouldn't want to be apologetic of my work.

We stayed at Malik's computer shop till around 11pm when we both got sleepy. 

 It's 3:01am and I'm still awake, but I'd prefer being awake and with some sort of a positive light bulb illuminating my dingy head, than the light at the end of a tunnel that seems to be getting more and more reachable the more my dreams are stalled.  I'm going to bask under this light of inspiration I've found for myself.  Get sunburned if I must.

星期三, 7月 28, 2004

La Tragédie Du Alésé

(You can use GOOGLE language tools to translate this entry.  We apologize for any inconvenience. Ü)
 
Je m'ennuie très.  J'ai voulu écrire ceci en anglais mais j'ai pensé à le traduire dans le Français de sorte que mon ennui semble romantique
  
Je suis allé à Quiapo cet après-midi parce que j'ai voulu faire un tour du côté "plus sauvage" des choses.  J'ai acheté un certain DVDs pendant mon voyage passionnant.  La décision principale que j'ai dû faire face a considéré le choix pour marcher toute la manière à la maison pour un exercice lourd, ou pour monter la jeep allant à la maison puisqu'il y avait spaceous attendant déjà devant moi.  J'ai choisi le tour.  C'aurait été une promenade éloignée de Quiapo et je suis un étranger à la marche de nos jours. 
 
Je suis allé à la boutique informatique de Malik pour une certaine conversation intéressante et suis resté là jusqu'au minuit 12.  Nous avons ri au sujet du film IMELDA (que je suggère pour vous tout d'observer) et essais médicaux dans un camp de formation de police.  Nous ne pourrions pas trouver notre professeur anglais de highschool dans Friendster.  Trop mauvais.  Malik a déjà approuvé mon dernier testimonial pour lui.  Quelle explosion!  Ü
 
Ainsi, comment trouvez-vous ma grammaire sous la forme traduite?  LOL Ü


星期一, 7月 26, 2004

dear god

Today was too slow for me.  It was like being stuck in school again and wanting to jump off the wretched building on a rainy day for the sake of a macabre folly.  I decided to go with my Mom to the mall to buy stuff for the house.  We didn't have airconditioning in the crummy car so where I was standing on the sidewalk, I would have imploded and no one wouldn't have been able to distinguish the rain from broken up spleen or kidneys.  
 
In the mall I would read amusing email thru GPRS and interject quasi-hilarity into my anemic existence.  It helps to have funny friends on days like this you'd love to drag the dullest part of a spoon on your skin and hope to spell the word "D-R-Y" like in the Vaseline commercial circa 80's.  At least there would have been an obvious physical manifestation of le état de folie.  
 
The only highlight of the day was when I bought a 2CD compilation of UNDERWORLD's greatest hits for P375.  As usual, the quality of the merchandise was abhorrent.  You would've been better off buying the pirated version in the streets (if there were any).  There were other compilations to die for too.  "BRAZILUTION" contains modern Brazilian lounge-bossanova artists like Zuco, sold at P1550 for 2CDs.  I was looking for the original vcd of Waking Life, an animated feature my friend convinced me to look for in Astrovision or Video City.  Sadly, I found none.
 
Back home I felt ill again after dinner and took a healthy and informed resolution to get off the skag (aka FOOD & carbonated BEVERAGE) and eat moderately when the mind and body are in their "normal" states.  god help ...   
 
 
excerpt from Sarah McLachlan's "Dear God"
 
"I won't believe in heaven and hell.No saints, no sinners, no devil as well.No pearly gates, no thorny crown.You're always letting us humans down.The wars you bring, the babes you drown.Those lost at sea and never found,And it's the same the whole world 'round.The hurt I see helps to compoundThat Father, Son and Holy GhostIs just somebody's unholy hoaxAnd if you're up there you'd perceiveThat my heart's here upon my sleeve.If there's one thing I don't believe in.....It's you.....Dear God."

星期五, 7月 23, 2004

If you had one wish

Unlike most employed and seemingly successful people of my age, 16, I woke up at 7pm, just in time for a festive dinner. No, there wasn't the usual roster of relatives, although what my Mom had prepared was fit for such an occasion. We had roasted chicken marinated in brown sugar and soy sauce, and some pasta, the tubular kind, along with this rich sweet tomato sauce with mushrooms and a small bottle of Bravo pesto sauce my sister brought home from work. However, instead of feeling good about everything delicious I ate, I felt sick. I think I may have become a bit hypertensive again, compounded by my slight hyperropia and acute astigmatism; my head started to pound and my neck became stiff. Indeed, my lifestyle is that of an emperor, an under-achieving one, trapped in a kingdom of a house. To make matters worse, the phone rang and I answered it (something I don't normally do because nobody calls me before 9pm) and to my luck(!), it was my aunt from the US. She asked me all these questions and sorta lectured me on what I should/could be doing since I'm supposed to have "the time of my life" being at my age, 16, and that I should have an incentive to go to the gym or to be busy being happy turning down a lucarative career in *ss-wiping. She asked me who my friends are and what they do and why I heed their advice and allow myself to be influenced, etc. etc. etc. I just kept saying "yes" and nodding my head even if she wouldn't have been able to see me in my striped gray shorts and tattered white Hawaii shirt. She may sound pretty controlling but you wouldn't notice it because she comes on with a tone of redolence, full of suggestions and that feeling of guilt all in one package. I'm not mad or anything and most of what she had said is/are/was/were/has/have/had been true, it's just that it's the trouble of finding that "incentive" that's the hardest thing for me right now. There's nothing to live for and I'm going stale with my so-called talent.

I thought I wanted to take up Masters and try my luck going abroad with another course I'm not too keen on, but now, I'm having doubts I'll get through it. My friend with the computer shop (let's name him Malik) was right all along. For every thing I do that's the exact opposite of what I'd really want to do, he would make a corresponding bet that I'd quit the first few weeks alone. It may sound evil but he didn't word it that way. I'm not mad at him or anything because it is/are/was/were/has/have/had been all true. It goes against human nature to tread the path of greatest resistance. I can't fool anyone, I really don't like children. Some are cute, and that's it. I can't imagine myself teaching mentally-challenged children at the intermediate level, when they're all grown up and able to start talking sh*t....

Moving on, I decided to go to Malik's shop to vent out and maybe have a few minutes walk/exercise along the way. The shop was packed so we spent most of the time outside. Among the many things we had talked about, there was one thing he said that struck me the most. He said, "If I had the chance to have my wish granted, I wouldn't wish to be rich. I'd wish for my parents to be rich." He explained to me how if your parents are rich, you will be spared of a lot of responsibility and if ever things don't work out, you'll always have people to go back to. I was a bit appalled because Malik had never been close with his father even before his mother passed away years ago, and now he would wish for his father to be rich so that he could take care of him? Anyway, other than that, what he said was pretty logical if you think about it. If you were living on your own you would have more needs and wants, and along with these come bills and taxes. When you're making ends meet or getting through with flying colors, your family would become your responsibility -- sharing bills at home, offering to pay for your other siblings' tuition and expenses, taking charge of insurance and investment plans, paying for your car and gas, debts and installments, and everything else that comes with being a grown up in a nuclear family. It's not all that bad if you're the "family type" who would love to give back what graces the Lord had showered upon you. Everyone has to go through this grown up sh*t eventually. But if you're not the type and plan to be single without dependents, it's a whole lot of responsibility you're not prepared to deal with, especially since you'd have so much hang-ups to solve first before being able to take on the new challenges. Independence is a difficult thing to pursue (no wonder I don't know anyone my age, 16, who's successfully moved out.) It seems practically impossible in these sad economic times. That's why if there's one advice I can give to anyone out there who's wanting to move out, as soon as you've saved up and can live for 6 months without a job, go be independent. If you don't force yourself (like young Americans do), it would be too difficult to separate yourselves from the convenience of living with your family and being able to depend on helpers. If you don't sacrifice these conveniences now, you might never be able to give those up (unless of course you get married and move out .... where? To your spouse's family?)

Whatever. I was only a bit appalled but I don't really have any opinion about wishing for your parents to be rich and feasting on the gains. Everything's off tangent.






星期二, 7月 20, 2004

Computer Shops

I got so bored to death at home I decided to go to my friend's computer shop near the tennis court.  God I miss playing tennis... 
 
Anyway, I'm at the counter being the "big boss" who knows nothing about the shop except maybe using the internet for free hehehe.  I'm soooooooo bored....
 
I'm playing naughty songs on winamp right now trying to piss my friend off who's crush is sitting beside him at this moment.  I talked to him in Mandarin, joking around like an idiot, like a "big boss" who knows absolutely nothing.
 
Sheeesh... I keep repeating my sentences.  They say repetition is the sign of a mentally unstable person.  If such is true, my Prothiaden's probably not working.  Just kidding... it's all a natural "high" hehehe
 
I was hoping to get some cds ripped and burned as mp3, but my friend tells me the network has a virus, a nasty one.  He would copy files unto a diskette (upon request of customers) and once the file would be copied, he'd immediately take out the diskette so that the virus won't penetrate through the magnetic ribbon.  Talk about coitus interruptus... hehehe
 
I'm soooooo bored....
 
I'll be goin' home in a bit.  Maybe watch a movie or something.  Last night I watched interMISSION, a scottish film starring Colin Farrell, Kelly MacDonald (the young girl from Trainspotting), and this girl who played Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets, among a great cast of actors.  In a way, it's like Trainspotting where the 1st scene features a chase between Colin and the cops.  The scene before that was pretty surprising though.  I wouldn't tell you because it'll spoil the suspense.  There were parts that were hilarious and some parts had a bit of drama to them.  All in all, I would recommend it for people who like crude British humor, whose morals verge on .... oh freak morals!  It's for people who don't have morals! hehehehe
 
If you're reading this, you're wasting your internet time.  Go back to work corporate slaves!
 
 
.... computer shops .... sanctuary of the bored .....
 
 
PS - My friend's closing shop.  The crush left a moment ago.  He's asking, "What's the point of staying open diba?!"

Escape to Quiapo

There was one time my nurse friend and I met up in Dunkin' Donuts beside the crowded church of Quiapo.  She had this huge bag to her side while she was eating a croissan'wich (tuna flavor I think).  She told me she stormed out of the house because of all the higgledy-piggledy going on with its inhabitants.  My painter friend joined us an hour later. 

Rather than feel sorry for her, I got very curious and asked her what she had in her bag.  I mean, what does a person bring with him/her when he/she storms out of the house and thinks of running away?  I took a slightly tattered piece of Dunkin' Donuts tissue and borrowed her pen to jot down, item per item, the things to bring when leaving home.

(But before that, we first admired the wonderful craftsmanship and sturdy feel of her imported Nine West bag.)
 Going back, here's what we discovered:
 

Thirteen Things One Can't Leave Home Without
 
1.  Acne Drying Plus Solution (strike 1)
2.  Anti-bacterial RS Solution (strike 2)
3.  Céleteque "special" facial wash (strike 3 yer out!!!)
4.  Cellphone with ethnic-inspired knitted pouch (to call friends with; for solace and possible financial support)
5.  Old salmon pink polka-dot shirt with hole near the nipples (her security blanket)
6.  Boxer shorts with tiger paw prints ("hold that tiger! hold that tiger!")
7.  Semi-formal long sleeve shirt for potential job interviews (one can never be unemployed when moving out)
8.  Dental floss (who needs a toothbrush anyway?)
9.  "Kikay Bag" (Vanity/Make-up kit)
10. Big Wallet with ID  (why do women put their wallets in their bags, never in their pockets?)
11. 3 pieces of clean underwear, 1 bra (including the one she was wearing) = 5 articles of undergarment
    Note:  1 brassiere must last for 1 week before washing, using only bath soap not laundry bars or detergents.  Also, my friend suggests to apply some loose powder on the chest area to minimize perspiration, thus extending the brassiere's wearability.
12. Burkedoria - n.  an airborne communicable disease she caught working in the charity ward

13. Rick Warren's book, The Purpose-Driven Life (for the poor directionless runaway)
 

..... How about you?  What would YOU have brought? .....

星期日, 7月 18, 2004

Alters when it alteration finds

Voila!  A new look for my old blog!
The previous design was too boring.  I tried sprucing this one up but I couldn't get the correct commands to change certain fonts and colors.  A pity really. 

Sometime last night, the brownout 23 minutes ago, and the phone line that's been cut a moment ago (I've typed this via notepad, saved, reprocessed, and posted for your reading pleasure), I've given up on coming up with a blog design I deem satisfactory.  For now I'd have to settle for the regular template, Rounders 3.

Note:  I hate the profile picture to the right of this blog.  I uploaded that picture on my yahoo site and tried to link it to my profile in blogspot but it just wouldn't load correctly for some reason.  For Windows users, try right-clicking within the lilac border and choose "Show Picture."  It's a pathetic attempt at reloading the image.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  The picture's called "The Singing Butler."  I forget who painted it, if it's Rene Magritt or Jack Vettriano as it says on the picture.  It was sent to me by a close painter friend of mine.  At the moment it kinda represents my state of mind.  Being caught in the rain isn't so bad when you have personal assistants, but while you're stuck, you might as well dance (according to my supposedly bitchy future lawyer friend). 
 

Where two go tangoing and the swingers go boogieing, I go marching in.

星期二, 7月 13, 2004

Uncertainty Avoidance

On the subject of emotions, I'm at a leveled plane right now. I hope it lasts because rationality has always been one of my strengths and at the moment, I feel it's by my side again. I've quit most of the drama, unintentionally, when I wrote my Mom a letter about everything. Unwittingly, I've written certain stuff too that I've buried in the depths of my unconscious. Now revealed, I feel emancipated.

I haven't given her the letter because there were certain things I don't think she has to know anymore. The important thing is we've moved on and I do feel that she's genuinely supportive of my next endeavor yet. It may not be as certain as my previous track, in terms of travel, but there's a feeling of stability, of peace, in my new decision. Hope it works...

On the topic of avoidance, I've been avoiding a certain someone, trying to cut down on negative emotions as possible because I am extremely volatile by myself, I can't possibly fit someone else's rants and raves into my unsettled emotional satiety. I want to be a best friend, but I fear I won't be able to resume those duties when I'm not at my sanest. Anyway, that person doesn't know yet.

Executing changes is absolutely a pain in the arse.

I went to the hospital yesterday to drop all of my subjects on account of my being a changed man. I got to talk to my dear classmate Lin-Lin. (It's such a pleasure talking with her. I'll miss her the most.) She told me the registrar will not favor me a refund because it's already been a month since classes. I told her it's unfair because we started classes June 21 and I stopped going to class on the 2nd day of the 2nd week, that there must be some way to convince them that it's terribly unfair for people who pay the full amount of tuition on the day of enrollment compared to those who choose Plan B or Plan C. My Mom personally went to the hospital today to talk to the Dean and persuade her on the account of my going to the States because my aunt wishes to finance my studies there and that I would need to leave asap.

F*CK. If only THAT were true. CUNT. Excuse my language but I can't help but feel frustrated.

To make the long story short, the Dean told my Mom to tell my aunt to let me study here in Manila since many "balikbayans" from abroad study here because the tuition fee is less expensive. Ugh... the politics of protecting one's interests. I mean, it's OUR MONEY dammit!

Oh well, as they say, life goes on. You win some, you lose some.

I'm losing my head.

星期日, 7月 11, 2004

Freaked Out

Just this morning I had the most disturbing dream yet. I actually had a series of dreams but I only remember the last one coz I woke up immediately after.

I dreamt that a late 20's early 30's African woman was tied to a tree. She was naked and her abdomen was swollen, she was probably pregnant. She was all sweaty and she was being raped by an African man. The most terrifying image was that of her face. It was full of fear and pain. The next thing I saw, her face was on close up and hundreds of black worms were coming out of her mouth like blood rushing out from a severed aorta. It was unsettling.

星期日, 7月 04, 2004

the sun shines yet again ... Ü

"Sun is shining, the weather is sweet.
Makes you wanna move, your dancing feet.
When the morning gathers the rainbow,
Want you to know, I'm a rainbow too."


- Sun is Shining by Bob Marley
(remixed by Funkstar Deluxe)




The past few days have been turbulent indeed. On the outside we have been visited by the tropical monsoon "Igme," and on the inside, I've been visited by familiar emotional hurricanes from the past year. Needless to say, I'm quite lucky to be alive and writing down my thoughts on virtual paper, revealing what is necessary from me as a means of affirming that I still exist.

A few days ago at the height of the heavy winds and rain, I was at the 12th floor of our building, bored to death and numb to the sprawling life (represented by the quasi-dynamism of my classmates and subjects). In several empty classrooms on that floor, I observed the buildings and people covering most of the metropolis, an ironic imagery with the "Concept of Man" collage presentation we were to have 30 minutes later. During the most dull moments in the sky, my hair blown by the wind in many different directions (as were my demons), the only lucid thought that eclipsed my mind was that of death.

Like the tragically talented Filipino-Chinese poet who lept from the FEU building, I too contemplated an easy, albeit massively deforming, jump to flight. Maningning Miclat had her boyfriend's picture clutched to her chest, I had my plastic nameplate, my virginal white uniform, and a tangled scapular in my breast pocket. All I needed was an immediate cause, a spark plug ignition, and I would have been on my way 6 feet under.

Luckily, the windows were too small for me to fit through and the floor with the open space from the hospital parking lots were in the other building, soaking in rain. Luckily my professor for the last subject at 5-7pm had discussed the topic of my weakness -- psychological development. Quite odd for a Health Care Lecture I have to say. Nevertheless, I felt alive for the succeeding 1 hour and 30 minutes that remained.

I did not go to school for the next 4 days, including yesterday, Saturday. I feared I might get the urge to fly again, and this time I would pick the spaceous platform from which to catapult myself into the next world.

My mother never noticed how I slept like a fetus those 4 days. She was too busy entertaining my cousin and his girlfriend from New York. I still love her though.

Once again I have become the eldest middle child. Once again I pissed my friends off with my whinnying. (Note: "whinnying" was used throughout Coehlo's O Alquimista national bestseller. I figured using it myself.) I love my friends, I really do, but it's difficult to give something to others when you have nothing of it yourself. It defies the Law of Conservation.

After a very long and disarming conversation with my good friend "Julian," I was able to puncture holes in the barrier of denial and realized so many things, foremost that I cannot go on existing without taking good care of my body. I have to admit I have been both excessive and frugal of my physiological attention, being dream-centered and wish-filled like a young boy in search of his Personal Legend. But I'm okay now and the emotional turmoil felt like an ablution of those barriers, those programmed responses accumulated through many years of school and work and television and movies and fatty foods. There is indeed sunshine after any rainfall, and the rainbow, in the midst of air pollution and smog, still exists even if we don't see it.


Carpathia may still be within my reach after all.



(Disclaimer: Though I have to say I appreciated reading THE ALCHEMIST at this most mordant adventure of my existence, I cannot help but DETEST the CHEEZINESS and often simplistic approach of its text. Paulo Coehlo is the Pied Piper of Brazil, able to play the flute to sway the sound of people's collective consciousness. In his book lies his very own Philosopher's Stone, able to turn a sliver of words into a golden rule, a global mantra of the races. In my opinion, he had it mixed up. The world's GREATEST TRUTHS should read: 1)... at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate; 2) ... in money there ws magic; whoever has money is never really alone. And the world's GREATEST LIE should read: ...when you really want something, the universe ALWAYS conspires in your favor.

SHepherd's dung. Just had to let you guys know before its too late and you end up endorsing this reading material to human beings with weakened emotional-intellectual constitutions.)



PS: Julian, Lance, Audiophile-Free Radical, Ms. Adducul, K_Transience, Bankero, Pokijul, Umberta, SubZero, Netskilanarch --- I appreciate everything! Ü