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.