the secret star stories

2003-05-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

Background: Bane by Skychurch

Fast ramble on Metallica before anything else: I just adored that MTV icon presentation last night, and well, though I cringe at Avril Lavigne's self-proclaimed rock chick status, her cover of Fuel was pretty good. Korn was fabulous as usual, but Snoop Dog doing Sad but True? Awkwardly terrible, but Lars gave the guy a standing ovation so hmm, maybe he wasn't that awful. New bassist Rob Trujillo, who reminded me of Chief Powhatan, was obviously passionate with the music, what with his semi-sitting, semi-jumping stints, but I missed Jason Newsted! Demigod James Hetfield kept me from cooking rice because I just didn't want to miss his legendary growls in the latter part of the show. Ma scolded me for that, my father defended me, Ma won so I ended up in the kitchen after all. Bummer. But then this night my papa, uncle and I watched the S&M concert for the umpteenth time, and I had to clap upon hearing Hero of the Day, Enter Sandman, and No Leaf Clover all over again. I've never outgrown my love for those songs. All out salute for Metallica!

Uhm, that's enough. Hehe.

So far, so almost good. I've been reviving my wheezing recreational activities, which were somehow on a standstill because of internship, among other things. This afternoon, for one, I went out with my brothers and watched Matrix Reloaded, and considering I have not watched the previous Matrix movie, I loved it. So I actually cried before the movie started ( god I'm such a sickly sap), but Keannu in his black attire wiped my tears. Haha. Anyway, I forgot all about my Film 100 along with the appropriate film jargons, so to simply put, the movie was wholly grabbing. Nona of the absolute Matrix fanbase, I want to watch it again with you!

I would have been really in lovelier spirits now had Mark's camera, which we used in the Garfield-Sam moment back in Robinson's Galleria, functioned like any normal cameras do. Turned out that the flash was busted so there wasn't any tangible memento of the sensational Sam posing alongside the not-quite-Garfield-lookalike Garfield mascot. My frustration was unimaginable. It was the only time I had a bigger Garfield beside me, and fate messed up with that. Only four shots were developed successfully, and two of them were shots of our stoic sari-sari store. Armie consoled me by promising that she would take a picture of me and that Garfield statue in Characters Unlimited, Ali Mall branch. Hay. Okay, that would have to do. Unless, of course, someone flies me to Indiana this June 19 for my more authentic Garfield ;)

I don't know how to end this random of an entry, really, so I'll just plug away! Trisha(who is baaaack!), Anna, Ate Jannie, Vinz, Ederic, Bets, Mish, Gel, Glenn. There. Goodnight :)

2003-05-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

Background: Redefine by Incubus

When I got my first baby haircut, my mama placed the hairstrands in the "S" section of the thesaurus. I don't know, but I've always believed that that just magically kicked off my affinity, my passion, my dream with words.

Thank you for that, ma. I didn't know where you got that nifty idea but it sure gave me something to fall on. Thank you for the times you woke up around 2am to remind me to get my ass off the computer seat and get some sleep. Thank you for going to UP Faculty Center when I asked you to submit my final paper, even though you didn't have any idea where that was and had to depend on my lame paper instruction. Thank you for typing my papers when I had to do something else. Thank you for offering to accompany me on my first day of internship because I was scared to commute to Roxas Boulevard all alone. Thank you for being proud of me. It used to embarrass me how you would pronounce my little achievements to our relatives and friends, but lately I realized if there's one thing I would want to accomplish in my life, it would be that of making you feel prouder.

For pulling all-nighters for my sake, for preparing my lunch meals since I was five, for giving me ten Garfield action figures last Christmas, for pulling together an amazing family, for giving up your own luxuries for us (you don't know I know that, do you?) , for practically being present in my life, for being the most amazing woman I know, you deserve to be starred in your own TV special.

Funny how I get older, I need you far more than ever. Please don't get sick. I love you ma, you don't have any idea.

2003-05-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

Background: Talaga Naman by The Dawn

Let's see what distorted imagination, array of jumbled words and the sea can do. Horrid, but heck.

take me to the beach and cover me with sand
and build a sandcastle on top of me
let it stand as a masterpiece; i will not take it down
i will kiss the shore i will fly with the fish;
then run after me or run beside me and we will run and crash
against that rock;

my hands are clammy and i am happy
and we will walk along the beach
holding hands like movie lovers do,
like tv lovers do, like real lovers do
and we will make the birds cry out of frustration
because we have hands and they have wings
but i realize your hands are winged
and they take me somewhere far
where cotton candies hang from the ceilings
where ceilings are actually floors
that jump from one end of the room to the other -
kaleidoscopically wonderful.

the sun is an ancestral repetition
and i look at the sun and i hope that it will fall off the sky
and sink in the sea, won't that be nice,
and we will swim in the sea
- no, you will swim in the sea and i will cling unto your back -
and feel how sun mixes with water
maybe we will just burn,
maybe we will just get drenched,
or get drenched and burn,
then we will sink as well and you can touch one of the sun's tongues,
and you will interject: 'ow!'
and i will kiss your finger and tell you the sun won't hurt you anymore
the sun can go back to the sky and stay there for all we care;

my hair is dry,
dammit i keep on forgetting to coat the strands with conditioner,
and they look livid against the backdrop
but i pray that you still play with my hair
and pretend it's rapunzel's locks and then just go on pretending i am pretty,
i am the little mermaid, that i am the goddess of the water
and you will pull seacorals from below

you know, i really really really hope we can do all these and more like:
chasing our shadows from the bonfire
throwing out in the water an empty bottle with a note of e.e.cummings verse:
"for whatever we lose like a you or me, it's always ourselves we find in the sea"
culling little crabs from seashells and letting them fight like beetles
playing the guitar and singing loudly with the waves
gathering stones and spelling them altogether as h-e-l-p and
getting a kick out of pretending to be a stranded couple
- i don't mind to be stranded with you, actually,
or simply feeling the water swooshing in our submerged feet

these i want badly, and you know we can make all of these come true but
before we rev up the engine for the long trip to the beach, let's start with step one:
let's go shop for sunscreen.

2003-05-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

Background: Black by Pearl Jam

Writing and healing, they mean the same to me. There's that familiar flair of the pen gliding across a two-year-old Garfield notebook-turned-diary or another intimate writing encounter with Notepad to do the catharsis. Chock full of irregularities, the words do the trick in stabilizing some wired feelings and keeping the emotional equilibrium from falling off. Bloggers, writers know that by heart. We always attempt to word out the exact feeling, and once the most concrete description of pain or the joy prior to the pain is written down, recovery picks up and I - we - start to feel a tad better.

But. Do I feel better? I don't know. I often convince myself that I am, and given how I have bled sentences and phrases and verses, and how I have gulped down other else's comforting words, I ought to be now. It is just strikingly frustrating to see myself failing, falling and slipping away from that one thing that writing supposed to have anchored. I am happily busy, crazily happy, but because of the insufficiency of words to heal me this time, I realize I'm still stuck somewhere down that sad road. It is as if my normal, rapid rollercoaster life of a soon-to-be-graduating BroadComm major is interspersed with another dimension that I have never totally, willingly left behind. I intern twice a week, work thrice a week, travel to the southern part of the metropolis daily, and from the time lapses in between, out reappears the dimension where I find myself trapped once again, hurting and remembering, forgetting but not really.

***

Anyone who knows me knows that I love Garfield madly, fiercely, genuinely. It goes right up in my three passions, the other two being music and writing. So anyone who knows me knows that I would really go to Robinson's Galleria if the newspaper advertised something like 'meet Garfield this may 3.'

Dragging Armie, Mark and Paulo with me, we went to Gale, fully equipped with a camera, because it was Garfield in the flesh, for crying out loud. Mascot-flesh, in that case. I couldn't afford a trip to Indiana for the real Garfield mascot material, so I had to go for the next best thing. And it was the next best thing - I knew that I just had to see this enlarged, mobile Garfield and take a picture of us two. I felt like I was meeting the real Garfield, and that's yeah, odd and stupid, but heck, I was thrilled beyond anything and even X-men 2 did not totally relieve me of the Garfield giddiness. After that pow of a movie, the search for Garfield inside the mall began.

There was not any program whatsoever to indicate that Garfield was there. Started to sniff disappointment as I had called beforehand and the customer service people did not know anything of a Garfield program. But I was uber glad my friends were relentless. They provided the hope that Garfield was there. (Okay, so it is at this point that I realize I sound dorky and daft, but understand that this is a passion, an obsession, the same way that girls would do anything to see uh, John Mayer or whoever, upclose and alive.)

We rushed to the department store - time was running - and yes, the customer service attendant said that Garfield just left and was somewhere in the third floor. So, Garfield was there afterall! I squeaked in delight, dodged the motley of stands and stalls, pepped my friends to go faster, and practically ran upwards the escalator.

Me, to the first saleslady seen: "Ah, miss, nakita mo ba si Garfield?"
Her: "Ah ayun, dumaan dito kanina. Diretso ka, tapos kaliwa."

Me, to the next saleslady on the next stop: "Miss, nasaan si Garfield?"
Her: "si Garfield?"
Me: "Yung pusa. Mascot na malaki. Dumaan daw po siya dito eh"
Her: "Ahh! Oo! Diretso ka lang."

So those were the interrogations on a mascot's whereabouts and man, were they carried on with riotous laughter on both parties. Four nineteen year olds running frantically in the third floor, weirding and cracking up the people around because what were they up to, looking for a tangerine tabby?

"Andoon na si Garfield! Yun o, yung orange!" Armie exclaimed. Hallelujah!

So I saw Garfield, and yeah, it was not much of an authentic Garfield mascot, but I love Garfield so much so that did not matter. He was in the farthest corner of the baby clothes section, a few kids surrounded him and well, yours truly joined the frenzy and motioned him for a picture. What was a bit embarrassing - as if stalking a mascot wasn't embarrassing enough eh? hehe - was the salesladies kept on teasing him/her, because well, the guy/girl behind must be a colleague. But screw them, screw self-consciousness, screw embarrassment, I met Garfield and that was that ;)

***

Horrible how I update this thing only every other week or so. I miss the Internet. It's because of the internship, the summer jobs and the in-betweens. I have been trying to be the super summer girl here, and the irony is though it's exhausting, it somehow works for me.

Random rundown before I go:

A highschool buddy, Ralph attempted to give me swimming lessons, and as I freaked out when he let go of my hand, I accidentally stepped on his face underwater. His twenty-thousand-peso-braced teeth bled and his nose almost broke. Lesson: do not even think of carrying Sam to the five feet portion of the pool, the girl is afraid to learn how to swim.

Grades are surprisingly good. PolSci 150, the subject where I was in danger of failing or getting a three, got me a 2.25. I don't know how I managed that, so I call that a miracle. Miracle could also be my ComLit 100 grade, which is 1.25. Up to now, I don't know why I deserve a 1.25. Could it be because of that apologetic essay I turned in which told of how I was the dumbest in the class? Man. God absolutely loves me :) Other grades are okay; Sir Joey Reyes even gave me a 1, so for that please watch 'Angel Sa Lupa' starring Cogie Domingo and his upcoming Aga-Sharon movie ;)

Long before Basti Artadi, I was crushing gargantuan-time on Vince Hizon. While classmates lusted over Backstreet Boys, my posters, magazines and pictures were all about him in a Ginebra jersey. I wrote him a fan letter. I was fourteen then and I calculated our age difference in hope that maybe we could end up together. I applied to VH fans club. My ultimate dream then was to see him personally. I wasn't able to, until the celebrity infatuation just dissipated and I grew up. But guess golly who I saw last May 1 in McDonalds ? ;)

This month marks the first year of my HTML-tinkering. I wasn't a blogger then, but I had a crappy online folio up from envy.nu, that I was mightily proud of. My hero-mentor then was the Microsoft Front Page Express. Yeba.

My tutee can now read four letter words, slower than usual, but prolly, that's an achievement. That boy is super kulit, but I think he likes me as his tutor ;)

I learned how to play pusoy dos. Afternoon guitar practices. Videoke to the max. BinibiniMay ish is up. I am trying to lessen my coffee and coke intake and am now taking vitamin C in the name of a strong immune system. No more SARS, please God. Ciao.

2003-04-20T15:35:00.000-07:00

Background: Lady Jane by Rolling Stones

The mechanics of letting go just delude me. I scarf down on love stories from literature to IRL, subjectively dissect lyrics, venerate Neruda poetry - call me a serious case of the romantically hopeless - but ironically, I still have the hardest time understanding, let alone executing, that supposedly significant portion of the falling in love process, that thing they insist on calling 'letting go and moving on'. This is a superbly sickening topic, I know, I know, but yeah, no need to assume a false front that I am sturdy enough to get away by not saying anything. I am not your Ingrid Magnussen, fierce and biting, whose aggressive concepts of letting go are poisoning the lover with oleander and heralding her own idea of postmodernist existence, i.e., not gorging on tender emotions that are only as worthy as her precious toenails. I am that awkward and gullible character usually seen in young adult literature whose pronounced sentimentality has accounted for long-entried diaries, countless 'don't think too much, don't feel too much' from friends, seemingly mandatory self-torture, crying-in-the-bathroom intermissions...talk about exemplifying a loser to the nth degree huh.

Letting go ushers in like a jeering exclamation point,ready to startle the stationary. The stationary referred is not exactly what was beautifully before, but the way I faithfully cling unto the belief that things will get better, the way I secretly ache for the same fellowship, the way the memory comes forth as refulgent, all goodness and butterfly times remembered. He might have left me, come back then left again but the faith on his goodness never wavers and lives on. That's what makes unleashing oneself from the past harder. But how far can faith bring me, that is the crux. I stash my pride somewhere in my closet and reach out but it still ends in a crushing parade, can my faith save that? Memories eat me, they all the more make me want to have everything back, but can they? I don't know where I stand, I don't know what exactly happened, nothing is settled, even the friendship has depressingly poofed away, so what am I to do with the initial promise I have been carrying with stupefying ardor?

Ah hell. Don't mind me, I'm just this stubborn and stupid girl up for romancing the past. Must knock that out, move on and get a life.

I'm sorry, there are times I just can't forget.

***

Forgive me oh God of Rock and Roll because yesterday was the first time I listened to Rolling Stones. I was a fool all this time, an imbecile fronting a communion with your music, when in fact I did not have that basic inkling that Brown Sugar is just not something you put in bananaque but a Mick Jagger symphony!

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, a day for rock and roll, my father said so we had Led Zep, Kiss and Metallica all throughout then. Enter Rolling Stones from my uncle's collection. Dang it, it was love at first...hearing? Hehe. Of course I knew Rolling Stones did I Can't Get No Satisfaction, and that they're one of the greatest bands, and that they indeed lived the sex and drugs lifestyle (rehab stuff and groupie galore, that jazz), and that they're supposed to do some major concerts in Asia. But I thought they were all a bunch of names and balls, equipped with just the right riffing ingredient, and man, I didn't know they rock capitally! Favorites: As Tears Go By, Jumping Jack Flash, Sympathy for the Devil, Beast of Burden. I'll try to scrounge more Rolling Stones stuff and get on with the experience. I am now a fan from now on, asteeeg!

Easter. This year's the best so far. Aside from the Rolling Stones discovery (haha), we had an easter egghunt in our home for the kid cousins, my brother's fifteenth birthday celebration, a movie marathon, major cookout,Hillary (our rabbit) hour, the shining moment of our mothers laughing very loudly in the kitchen, throwing pink and blue Hanes panties to each other as Easter gifts, and manically hunting the eggs for their kids,another all-cousins game of get-your-egg-from-the-bowl-and-win-a-prize and I scored a pair of pants -whoop-, and then watching the entire thing in videotape after. It was glorious fun!

I had my hair cut too. According to the beautician, what with the feng shui in Easter time, my 'do ought to give me good luck. Let's see about that.

***

Honestly, I do not know how to go through all these summer work: radio internship (100 hours and I don't have any station to work for yet so zero hour for me), tutorial and lecturing job in Mandaluyong and Las Pinas (!), summer class (might conflict with the job), and UP Kustura semplanning, and recruitment. My weekdays see me darting to and fro Boni and Quezon Ave, back to UP, scurrying off to Mandaluyong on Pasig or Las Pinas, depends on where will I have my internship and job. It's exhausting, and I'm getting broke by the minute. All those MRT, bus, FX fare plus money for food in between!

Never mind. I'm looking forward to three outings, EK, and meeting Garfield in Robinson's Galleria this May 3. Hee. Because I can't go here, I'll just stalk the local mascot

***

My sweets who signed the guestbook, I will get back to you when this camper has one precious hour to kill alright? Just logged in for today just so you know I'm not on hiatus ;) After this, I'll flit away for work and pretend that I have the full gear to tackle the subject, Logical Reasoning.(I initially declined when they asked me to substitute today, I'm not logical woot) The first time I taught last week, well, the reviewees sized me up and gave me the is-this-my-teacher look. Mmm, I don't blame them questioning my authority, I mean, having a teacher who stands 4'11, is only two years older than them, and is an obvious beginner in the field, what do I expect.

So there. This is footlong,cluttered post. Hehe. Happy Easter Monday :)

2003-04-10T23:17:00.000-07:00

Background: What Grows in your Garden by Wolfgang

What is crazy is lunatic is insane is you. And the people around you. And the asylum-inspired world you're trying to manipulate with your own outrageous rules. Do not mind traditional rigidity. Being rigid is not always right.

Stretch your arms animatedly. Jump over haystraws in the rice fields as if they're trampolines. Shout 'Moshpit!Moshpit' while doing so. Address each other as 'Ka Amparo' or 'Ka Melissa' and pretend to be farmers. Dance to 'Magtanim ay di Biro' the boyband way. Sleep in the hammock. Shriek when some crazy girl swings it until you almost reach the heavens. Eat tuyo. Tuyo tastes better minus the spoon and fork. Tuyo is best eaten while sitting in the grass, plate being a banana leaf. And smile when someone tapes your tuyo-eating session but do not look in the camera. Remember the fundamentals of candid shot. Shout 'From the power of grayskull I am *your name*' while opening your pink umbrella. You have to miss Shera and Heman and the Carebears and Shaider and Maskman. You have to remember you once were Yellow5, because June was pretty and you loved yellow. Sing with the diva passion inside a cramped passenger jeepney. Duets rock, especially if the songs are "Til My Heartache Ends","Now that I have you" and "If the Feeling is Gone." Love OPM. You love rock OPM, but forget not the classic love stuff. Minsan lang kita iibigin, minsan lang kita mamahalin..So what if the passengers give both of you a quizzical look? Sing some more. For all you know, they love your voices. Make animal voices. The angry cat's. Imitate it and do it with the claw. Laugh when people in Mcdonalds arch their brows. Can they do the cat voice? No. Teach your friends how to do that. Tell them it requires hard throat work. Holler "I love you" to the editor who charges your group less than the original fee. Then there goes the call with your friend who talks to carabaos. Carabaos, goodness gracious, but he insists that the carabao nods its head when he's talking to it. Miss call and drop-call with that person. On landline, take note. Laugh recklessly. Miss call and drop call with that person once more. Drop the phone after a while for laughing with that guy can be so exhausting. Go to your room. The room with the nearly-dying fluorescent light so it flickers on and off, like some lights from a club. Or disco. Call it disco lights, and dance to 'Mr. Disco' with your brothers in sync with the light. Let your brothers carry you. They love you. They hug you for that. Hug them back. Sleepy? Sleep. Wherever. Jeepney, couch of someone else's house, FX. Do not sleep in the bed. Place a mat in the floor instead and sleep while mumbling "Disco, Mr. Disco Man. Lagi ka bang makapiling sa aking pagsasaya..shabadap!" You can't shrug the song off.

When someone says you're crazy, take it as a compliment. It is a compliment.

***

For the record, I just want to announce that Wolfgang's debut album is definitely my OST. Darkness fell, Cast of Clowns, Natutulog kong Mundo, this song, As Oceans, the songs practically pronounce what I've been through, what I've generally felt, what was there, what wasn't there, who i am, who i am not. And let's not even go to this earthstopping fact. In the acknowledgment section of the album, last part goes: "And to the most beautiful woman in the universe...SAM".

Basti's ex is Sam. I love Basti. And ehem, my name is Sam.

I've known this Basti's ex being Sam for a long time now but it still appeals to me as one of the most marvelous touches of fate. I still feel girly-giddy. Like, of all Basti fans out there, why do I get to be the namesake of his ex? One word my friends: destiny. =P

***

Binibini is up. Much thanks again to Macy and Yash :)

2003-04-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

Background: Until It Sleeps by Metallica

A solitary steeple of wax and wonder
Riddled with too many tears that
flowed and dried,
Skidded and skated across the wooden floor,
The torch stood and fell,
lived and died.

Scrawled that behind my PolSci 150 readings, while watching throngs of feet on their way to the main library entrance. I was a meek observer, sitting on the floor with my back on the pillar, yawning, eating barquillos, drinking Sprite, thinking of my plot for the drama script, sputtering poetry attempts, wording out my existence, trying to feel better.

I failed my PolSci 150 finals.

As early as one o' clock of that day, I was all set to study in my nifty study table. Study lamp, check. Coffee, check. Readings, check. I decided to bury my head in my arms just for a quick shuteye, and lo and behold, I lifted my head to find out it's already 5am. And the exam would start at 7am.

Part IV of exam, Essay Question #1: Explain the foreign models of development...
Answer: "Sorry, I don't know the answer =("

Essay Question #2: Evaluate the problems and issues of Local Government Code of 1991...
Answer: A three-paged, winding, incoherent answer because I only knew three things about The Code, and I was hoping against hope that I could fumble with prose to feign a correct answer. Did my professor buy that? No, but I was defying any impossibilities.

Impossibilities, my pretty little foot.

The other day was the submission of our ComLit paper, the one which took tears and prayers to finish. At the last part of the paper, we're asked to write a course evaluation. Here's hoping to fish for sympathy from my professor:

I felt I was the flimsiest among the class, majority of which were English majors themselves. Chalk it up on insecurity for the more my classmates delved to a hefty prattle on literary history, postmodernism and other whatnot, the more discouraged I became. I was lagging behind the intellectual flow and I could not immediately follow suit. I knew I could have done better but my personal issues were stopping me. The subject, although not the ComLit all-books-all-essays type I originally presumed it to be, was of major importance as it absolutely launched a series of good discussions and interactions. While I admitted that it was quite a task to keep up with the lessons, I learned a lot.

Appraising the course itself, I could not think of any major flaw that hampered the flow of literary knowledge. Everything was well taken care of by the teacher and was tremendously supported by the class. The rudiments of comparative literature were strictly grilled on all of the students. The discussions on literature's relationship with other disciplines were widely and elaborately covered. It's me. The problem was in me.

That was horribly dramatic but I knew I had to apologize and make it known that I did try to do my best only that there were, uh, my self-imposed issues. It might seem like it's a silly excuse, but yeah, this nineteen year old hath issues. Not that smart, not good in analyzing, terrible brush with technical terms . Those issues. Insecurity issues. The PolSci 150 wasn't insecurity-prompted, though, that I could very well say. You don't call procrastinating and sleeping in between a mental work insecurity. It's sloth.

Rolan aced the PolSci 150 exam and I did not. He did a nice deal of comforting but he was busier calculating his midterms plus this finals which equated to a good grade. I did the same: 5 for finals and 2.75 for the midterms.

Got too depressed with my estimate average, so Rolan and I went to Jollibee. My treat. His celebration, my consolation.

***

How do you teach a child to read? I have to teach a seven year old to read. My part-time job also includes lecturing for UPCAT reviewees and home service tutoring. I already started with the latter and I told Wayne we'd read "Dondee The Dreamer" together, as I was presuming we could read it together, after all it was supposed to be tutoring on "Advanced Reading Comprehension." But he couldn't even read "A" or "The", so his mom is expecting me to bring major improvements after the 20 sessions. Later after the 6am shooting in a farm (We'd be doing an MTV of Magtanim ay Di Biro. Yeehaw.) and the 9am editing, I'd MRT my way to their condo unit for the second session. Let's pray I can eventually find a way for Wayne to make out words from books. And that I won't be elevator-sick this time. I hate elevators, and riding the elevator until the 31st floor? My god.

2003-03-30T19:42:00.000-08:00

The highschool bunch was present in the graduation dinner of sweetie Jac's brother. Two of Jac's college friends came along and huddled with us in the front yard. The night was perfect. Stars abound the sky, the food was excellent and the wind wrapped us all together.

Each one was asked to spill the latest in his love life. As if everyone of us has a love life, hehe. But everyone was sympathetic to the heartbroken, and ecstatic to those triumphantly in love, like Marvin whose relationship with a highschool student is turning to be beautiful, contrary to what was previously thought, and Donnie and Remmel who are on their eleventh month. There were the usual predictions on who ends up with who, and pieces of advice from the experts came our way. While no one's telling a story, the boys turned to me for joke intermission. Sweet lord, I am turning to be an authority in that department, huh?

It was indeed fun, how Reuben and I sabotaged each other's cheeks and hair, how Peewee looked so much like a rocker now, how Jac fed us with lots of sapin-sapin, how Remmel accused me of grabbing his plate of sapin-sapin - I did not, he forgot he gave it to me, how Mark was grilled on who is he crushing now, how Donnie systematically planned our annual mountainclimbing which would fall on a Holy Monday, how Hanzel shared his NPA stories, and how Jac's dormmates laughed over the comic spectacle, that is Reuben.

But then eleven pm struck, and the fun magic for me was broken as I had to go home. Sad as I was to go, I felt uh, flattered, because Remmel said I'm growing taller. So I went home, giddily feeling taller. Hee.

The next day, Sunday, was my brother's highschool graduation. Loaded with lots of highschool sentiments from the night before, it was no wonder I was the one who turned teary-eyed when the entire batch sang the alma mater song.

***

Monday is here, I have a paper to submit today, and I haven't done a thing. I don't even want to think about that paper because it's plain difficult and I don't know how to go with that. That's why I'm online because I am obviously prolonging this agony. For others, writing the paper is a massive cinch but for me? Na-ah. That's what I get from missing out on the first half of the class discussions as I'm always, save for three meetings, forty-five minutes late. That's what I get from not catching up on readings. Comparative Literature 100 bores me. Comparative Literature 100 makes me feel I'm such an idiot, because the suffixed 100 indicates that this is a basic course, a precursor for all the hard things to come. For someone who loves reading and dreams of writing all her life, this is a shame.

But I'm not going to rant some more about this as it's enough that my conscience is limping with guilt. I believe in the power of jumping over the brighter side of things and because I have a fantastic news to speak of, allow me to fire away:

I got myself a job last Saturday! My first ever formal job. Signed my first ever employment contract. All those technical terms and job jargons jumping from the contract and making me feel darn grown-up and happy. It's not a fancy job but this I like: a lecturer on English conversation for caregivers. I love teaching, I love English, and I love getting paid. A sweet deal? Oh yeees.

2003-03-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

The words don't fit anymore. Where are my words? The fingers which used to prance in mischievous delight over the keyboard are rendered in stationary frigidity and lest I exhaust all my remaining energy to create the slighest hint of a promising sentence, there are no words. Just a bunch of alphabets that go together as one lump heralding monotony and pretentiousness. Mentally crocheting essays and stories doesn't work either. The painstakingly crocheted works squirm uncomfortably overhead until they gradually disentangle and fall from the fringes, ideas flying away. Absence of inspiration, maybe? But what is my inspiration anyway? Inspiration used to be memories. But memories kill. They grip you with momentary happiness, yes, but they kill just the same.

Harsh pessimism,yes, and downright disillusionment. I am disillusioned with who am I right now. I am not cranky but who is this girl snapping at his brother's darling cuddly affection? I do not swim right through self-pity but my parents say that I do. I love literature but I lag behind the intellectual turbulence in my Comparative Lit class - oh behold the poor literati poser. I am through with hopscotching in the past but why can't I quell it like before? Let's say academic wise, I am one inch close to delinquency, but I am not, to a friend, "walang kwenta." I insisted on that but he says he's looking at me in a different, walang-kwenta way now. He is supposed to be a friend committed to encouragement but why is he like that? I am not extremely sensitive, just fair enough, but why am I extremely sensitive now?

ComLit finals on Monday. Two major papers and presentation of the papers on Wednesday. A supposedly "intelligent" video documentary and Polsci 150 finals on Thursday. Thesis proposal later and the next Friday. Forty page drama script the next Monday. No need to do the calculation. These are the reasons I'm sensitizing matters a little too much.

And wanna know one last heartbreaking thing? My father has to leave for Hawaii the day before my brother's highschool graduation.

2003-03-25T04:36:00.000-08:00

Received this text message from Lyndon Gregorio of Beerkada today: "Check out beerkada strip today. Who's that girl in the first panel background?"

Whee!! Yessiree, that's me in all my cartoon splendor. I am a happy Beerkada extra character! Just imagine me rushing towards the UP Shopping Center to grab the Philstar, squealing over seeing my animated face there, and excitedly pointing that li'l character squeezed in between to friends and family and saying "Ako yan! Ako yan!" But before the pointing part, my fingers hitting the paper point-blank, I'd launch into a short spiel on how I met him, how he drew me while I interviewed him, and that I was drinking a hot chocolate that time, hence the cup in the picture. Haha, you can just tell that I parallel this to my own little stardom, my shiny little moment. Expectedly, I cut the strip and posted it to the corkboard of pictures up in my room. I'd keep it like one spunky jewel and show this to my daughter someday. "Lookie, sweetie, that's your mommy!"

Shoot me, that was corny. Pardon the cheesiness and the clutter of words. I am just definitely gushing over with the entirety of it. This just rocks and makes up for not sleeping last night and terribly wimping over papers and final productions. For the record, I have officially made an academic delinquent out of myself, and I am trying to make up for it. Trying, because instead of doing my paper on The Fuse and another critique paper, I am writing about my brush with newspaper fame with feverish passion.

I made it sound as if getting inside that box makes me a bit famous eh? Hehe. Of course majority of the Philstar-reading populace doesn't give a hoot on who's that girl, much more notice any difference with her presence. So that's basically the reason I'm telling it here and to a couple more, so you'd know that that's me, and then maybe when you have a copy of the paper itself, you could do a little PR for Sam thing. Hehe, I am just kidding.

All right, that's enough. More important things to tweak on. I'll try to keep awake for the entire night up to dawnbreak so I can finish my papers. Take note that I need to transcribe a 60-minute long cassette tape before I get on with writing. I'm screwed, I really am, and god, I want to hate myself for being such a slack. The other night I was awake until 4am and it's not because of school work, but because I was writing a personal essay about crickets. Unbelievable.

This is getting nowhere so I am going now. But before that, one last statement:

Support Beerkada, everyone! :)

Edit edit: in case it's all a blur, I am the one squeezed between the two pudgy characters :) The one with the cute smile and all =p

2003-03-23T10:19:00.000-08:00

I am so much relieved. I did that "check" entry because when I went to this site minutes ago, what came up was this anti-war message, with some "from mu.mmy", with an ending salutation of "From Malaysia with Love." What was up with that. I am anti-war but what the freak was that? Some virus, perhaps? Ha. How would I know, I'm endowed with unbelievably low techie skills. Anyway, glad that splash page (you'd think it's a hiatus page, really, had I not gotten it out) is all gone. Things are normal. I am normal. This entry, I pray, will be published as normal. My PC (newly fixed! fresh from Compex repair center!) and I have gone through so much- we are such a tandem- and the last thing we need is another web glitch.

Now, back to the coffee and school work. See yah!

2003-03-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

check.

2003-03-21T10:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was supposed to be the first day of the rest of my life, so Joyce Jillson's horoscope said.

Was it an omen, a foreboding statement of the days to come, a hopeful statement that was actually countering itself? Oh God, I pray not. Yesterday and the days before were unbelievably harsh. I feel a bit better now, but was at my lowest since uhm, Tuesday? So that's four sad Sam days. I think it all started when I felt a friend's starting to drift away, you know what I mean. I'm that paranoid with people. You don't talk to me, you ignore me, and I'd be pelting my head with possible reasons on why the sudden change and then I'd proceed to crying my eyes out because I couldn't figure out the reasons which could only lead me to concluding that I'd lose you. Scary, this me being jumpy and always on guard, and I know it's not that healthy anymore when you become too dependent on people, but dammit, I am dependent and er, can you call it I care too much? Maybe I do. Shrug, shrug. Anyway, so I felt like that, me being left alone by this long time friend. So that nagging feeling started to linger and it got all the more intensified with other things that had gone my way.

Next is, the job interview. Yeah, I'm broke and I need the moolah so I went along with my sis to apply for a position of being an english instructor for Koreans in this English institute. Part-time is welcome, so hurrah. We took the tests, passed and we're asked to come back the other day for the interview. My dear sis couldn't come because she had class so I had to go all by myself. In my most immaculate attire, I went to the place, and waited for almost three hours for the interview. All the time while waiting I just watched Koreans passing me by, and just have to insert this for a sec - they look so cute with their eagerness to learn the language. It was also good I was seated next to another applicant who looked so pretty in her blue and black getup. Plus she already had experience in teaching Koreans back in her UP days so well, I felt a bit scared because of me not having any teaching experiences save for my one year stint as a volunteer catechist for kids. So we talked, and I was really getting nervous because the interviewer's assuming that air old-maid school principals usually sport. Then my turn. I was led to this cubicle, the tiniest cubicle I've ever been into, and she asked me to sit down. SOPs of job interview: any experiences, Ms. Echavez? any encounters with Koreans? I felt I was already doing fine at the rate I was talking when she cut me mid-sentence. She was checking out my resume and told me that they don't accept undergraduate applicants. Just imagine how I felt. I won't elaborate on how I feel because it was all not good. She told me to come back after I graduate, haha. And you know what's worse? I was still all smiling and perky, like getting ditched in the application was one sunny thing. I could be such an actress with the way I conceal heartbreaking things like that. I went out of the office and the heavy downpour just did the finishing touch for highlighting my wrung emotions.

Then there was the episode where I ran out of money as I lost them somewhere (or I staved off cash like a mammoth who knows), and I had no one around to ask money from. It took me a while to contact my mother to pick me up, which took her about an hour. An hour was spent standing by the drugstore, teary-eyed and clutching my file organizer like it was just the most tangible thing I could hold on to. Guys around me, and girls too, were snickering and it was even funny at some point that I considered lying down in the streets because I was just so exhausted I wouldn't care about who sees me doing what. Of course it wasn't funny that time. It was stark and serious.

And so yesterday. There was this big make-or-break paper that I did, that would tell if I qualify for the MassComm organ or not. I worked insanely hard for that one, that I decided to skip my class and submit in late a paper I was supposed to pass for that class. It was a weird deal, that giving up the subject for the school paper thing, but hey, I work that way. I finished the paper by 4pm and reached UP by 5:15. I was just a few minutes away from the college building when the school paper hotshot texted me that it's either I leave the paper on the tambayan granted someone is still around or I email the paper. I didn't want to email the paper. I had it all in hard copy because I wanted to hand it to him, fresh from my newly-fixed computer. I went as far as giving up one subject for that paper, and there's no way I'd email it, because it just ruined the entire point of me slaving away to beat the deadline. Apparently, I had to email the paper anyway because no one's around. This sounds petty but it's a bfd for me. He could've told me I could send it via email beforehand, right? He could've told me that. Or maybe he didn't have to, maybe it was my fault in the first place, maybe I am staging a grand scapegoat scheme, but screw it, I just felt horrible about the whole thing.

There were more in-between little not-good events. Insensitive remarks, insecurity at its fiercest, tiffs with parents, etcetera. Me being weepy, me being whiney, me being loud and gregarious one minute then being pensive and quiet the next. Sad Sam days indeed.

But then as mentioned earlier, everything's fine now. How I got out of that melancholic hole I dug for myself? Friends, food, music, writing, prayers did the trick. Also the application of my own philosophy that if I feel bad, I must not make myself feel worse. That's pragmatic. A while ago when I found out my whole day of writing a paper was close to futility, I looked for a payphone right away and told a kabarkada I'd be coming over because I was depressed. He told me to buy him a french fries on my way, hehe. He heard me out all right, from the inadvertently awful turnout of the interview to the paper issue. After the baring-my-soul scene, he went back to his Xmen Revolution and Justice League shows. That guy's a whack but I love him.

Okay, so pretty much that's how my week went, chock full of recurring sad episodes. Oh wait. Two good things happened over the week: I got to interview Lyndon Gregorio who does Beerkada and Manix Abrera for Kiko Machine. It was awesome! Lyndon drew me while we talked, and we had so much fun talking. I love the drawing and I had it posted in what my friends call the "hall of fame" - a corkboard filled with lotsa photos. As for Manix, he's the bomb. He asked me if I could give him a NU107 like the one in my file organizer, and I swear I'd do just that, never mind if I have to go to the station itself and annoy the guard with my sticker-whoring presence. Hehe, I am happy now.

The first day of the rest of my life, it is.

***

PS: I started off in a somber tone then wrapped the entry on a chipper note. That's good, but well, I suddenly remember the war. It occurred to me that I was talking as if nothing horrendous was happening in this planet. How insensitive I am. Tskkk. I am depressed about a paper curtailed for submission and an interview gone haywire? Sheesh, Sam. What can be more depressing than the war? And what can be more depressing than me being depressed over things that pale in comparison to the depressing i-may-get-bombed musings civilians in the Middle East have? What can be more depressing than the text message of my cousin working in Dubai that goes: "hi am-am. (that's me) kumusta na ba kau dyan? no war? kami scared kc 2 hours away lang ang iraq. baka alis kami dito for five days para magtago.please pray for us :( I MISS YOU ALL"

This post is horribly long and fickle. We need world peace. Nothing will happen to my cousin and the rest of them guys. I hate you, Bush. You make mankind muddle with your bestial transgressions.

***

Last one: people still reading this, thank you, thank you, thank you. I always remind myself that I am writing this for myself, should I feel no one's clicking his way to this anymore, but when I still find out I have around ten readers, that's frosted icing for me. Yeey :) And my beloved guestbook signers, *grouphug* I will scoot over to your nooks later, aight? For now, I have so many things to do, like say, sleep :)

2003-03-15T20:07:00.000-08:00

Okay, so Zach and Joey will no longer go on air starting Monday and I found that late enough to not have caught the last episode. Lately I never had the time to listen to the radio every morning and Friday was no exception, and Friday afternoon Jet told me about the sad news. I could not so believe it. I was even asking Jet if she's playing a joke on me, because she knows I'm a rabid fan, and she said she wasn't. That evening I met up with Erwin. The first thing he said upon meeting me was there's no more Zach and Joey In the Morning. Shit. So it's true, indeed, and I just felt utter remorse over not having listened to that supposed last episode. Damn this melodrama, I even shed a tear. I am a big fan, I really am, it's just that the past weeks kept me from bothering with the radio. I used to religiously listen to the show no matter how farkin early it was, and I would even call up from time to time for their phone-in listener participation. I was hoping to work in that show after graduation. I'd be like Nine Inch Neil doing the traffic report, and my 'rockstar' screen name would be "Pearl Sam."

Don't you know that I looked up so much to Joey? I had my share of Joey-crazy days. I wanted to be so much like her. She's a cool, single, broadcaster, jack-of-all-trades mom right? Hence this dream that I wanted to become a dj for NU107, and a single mom to twins. I'd be super cool, and my kids would be super proud of me and would brag about having a rocker mom who drives every morning to NU107 to do a morning show. My friends thought me dreaming to become a single mother, and patterning it after the life of another single mom was crazy. It was crazy but I wanted that, although the hype subsided after a while and have hoped to have a happy, not husband-less family since then.

One time when my friends and I were having breakfast in McDonalds Philcoa, we saw Zach there, and after a few nudges and encouragement, I approached him for an autograph. He wrote something about being glad to have bumped into me in Mcdo with a postscript that said if I could buy an Imago album. What happened the next day? I bought an Imago album. I'm obedient like that.

Zach and Joey rock. Those of you who have listened to them know they really do. Chico and Delamar? Give me a break. Hehe, I'm not bashing them or anything but I firmly believe that glory of morning show hosting goes to the NU107 duo. I'm sad they're going away. I thought they'd do the morning show til they're forty. That was feasible. Anyway, who knows maybe this is all part of a big joke. You know, some trick played on us, an early April Fools treat for the listeners, given how trippy Zach and Joey are. But then again, maybe not.

***

I'm in this phase of calling my parents "Inang Reyna" and "Amang Hari". Hehehe. Tuwa naman sila :P

2003-03-13T17:59:00.000-08:00

Repair people reformatted the computer, so all my files have dipped down to zilch. No need to say I'm distraught. My files are parcel of the elemental manifestations of myself (icky but true), from the mp3 collection to my works, though screwed-up and sorely written as they were, screamed my name nonetheless. And there were the emails and letters I stored, those precious words from precious people, plus my offline journal, quotes, lyrics and jokes - yes, all the jokes I've been broadcasting like wildfire constituted one folder. Let's not even go to files pertinent to school.

Think that's all? Printer setup has gone awry. And somehow the internal modem has conked out so no Internet for me.

Waaaaaah. It's all bad, bad, bad. Can I blame those two guys who tinkered with my poor pc? Hay, nary a strength to do that. It's all tiring dealing with the technical stuff, and talking with technical people about technical stuff. Ah, whatever. I am gonna deal about this when the sem's over. So far, things are a bit bearable; the baby at home is still reeling with MS Office and Notepad so I can still write and do school papers. Non-sequitur: I love Notepad. My words appear to be more decent there, hee.

Oh well. I am just here in the cafe, typing my woes away. And speaking of, yesterday I saw Ramon Bautista, that one cool chap from Strangebrew, inside another cafe here in UP Shopping Center. We were both standing by the counter, and since I'm the girl to go easily, gushily starstruck, I was obviously stealing glances and smiling impishly. He caught my eye and he just gave me a blank look. Too bad. I was half expecting he'd do that major trip monologue from one of the episodes, "my life is like a box of crayons. When I'm angry, I'm red. When I'm happy, I'm yellow." Hilarious.

***

Another for the stars: Vincent Van Gogh.

Lately I have been immersed in the painting "Starry,Starry Night", Don McLean's Vincent, and all others related like Anne Sexton, Rachel Dilworth, and even Josh Groban. Much thanks to that wonderful lecture we had on ComLit. I am in awe of Van Gogh. He loved the stars so much, and I love the stars so much, and this one line from him stops me up to now: "That does not keep me from having a terrible need of-shall I say the word-religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars."

I wish I can paint the stars. I wish it was I and not Anne, who came up with this: "Even the moon bulges in its orange irons/ to push the children, like a god, from its eye./Oh starry night! This is how I want to die:" I wish I can write something stellar like that. Every time I open the housegate at night when I go home, I look at the stars above and never do they fail to whack my lowly imagination with so much vividness. And Vincent's painting says so much: eleven stars, a bluish sky, a steeple, and his lonely life, an aftermath of which is his artistic immortality.

"But I could have told you, Vincent. This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you."

***

UP Kustura, a socio-cultural organization of college students from UP Diliman living in Marikina City, will stage an exhibit, "Wow Marikina sa UP", from March 17-21 at the Galeria 2, Bulwagang Rizal, UP Diliman. So I’ll see you? :)

2003-03-12T00:36:00.000-08:00

Background: an April Boy song in this internet cafe. Hehe..

What was I supposed to post last night:

I wept like a faucet. PC crashed, programs are gone and the only things working are the internet and the notepad. MS Office no longer exists, so do ICQ, Winamp, Wordpad, my boredom booster Solitaire and all others except, well, the aforementioned. Tangina. And this has to happen when I have five papers to submit by Friday. And no, computer centers are no means of consolation because I do my paper midnight onwards, and I do it straight in the PC, no prior handwritten drafts to copy from (more convenient, less time wasted, ideal for crammers). And no, installing the programs all over again is out of the question for now because foremost, cdrom is busted, and I am stupid for not having the cdrom fixed in the first place. Downloading isn't working either.

Why does everything have to fall under major badtiming?

My mother who pitied her baby in tears woke up my brothers and grilled them if they have something to do about the computer sabotage (for lack of an appropriate term, I apologize). Negative, annoyed responses conjured. Ma felt sorrier for me so this computer flew its way for repair awhile ago. I heard that the repair people are thinking of reformatting the whole thing. That's not a good sign. Have no other choice but be stuck in this cafe til I get everything typed for tomorrow. I could've zoomed straight to my friends' house for PC use but that would be such a hassle. Everyone in my circle is writing papers like a madman.

Just when I thought I have something good to write about after a long time - newly cleaned room, my ongoing job hunt, writing assignment for Tinig ng Plaridel, one of the greatest weekends with friends - out came this. Fate is a bit heartless.

2003-03-12T00:24:00.000-08:00

Dear Blogger,

Sweet heavens, you actually worked! Don't screw up again, alright?

Love you much,
Sam

2003-03-11T08:26:00.000-08:00

Dear Blogger,

If I hit the publish button one more time and this entry won't come up, I swear I'm going to, uhm, cry.

Love, Sam

2003-03-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

Background: Make Me Bad by Korn

I am the lost cause. The girl with the broken blue umbrella swirling under the acerbic sun. The dancer of dreams who trips over disappointment and falls flat on the grass-freckled ground. Sweet, gullible and distorted, eternally perching on refrangible and stubborn emotions. The fragile package of chocolate skin, rowdy hair, crinkling eyes and smile that smiles too much, plus tears that taunt poignant existence, gradeschool giggles and boxes of moving-on lamentations. The spirit that throbs rhythmically against the walls of post-puberty angst. The whirlwind of words that swishes on self-preservation and instant salvation.

I am not the creamy angel slicing down the sky, swooping on all things madly beautiful. Not the turquoise-eyed ballerina, not the flickering fairy, not the girl with the glorious gait. I am not the concept that cascades with the intellectual turbulence. Not the veneer that conceals plainness. Not the handsomely chiseled model of sophistication. Not the fountain of Julia Alvarez poetry. Not the lovely one. Not the strong one. Definitely not.

I am the mile-long list of personal issues. The litany of who am I.

***

Here goes the first batch of pre-Final nuggets of cerebral torture:

*TV drama on Tuesday(After doing the Whitney Houston stint, glamour downsizes as I'll play the part of a Psychology student who acts childishly, but is mature emotionally...coincidental parallelism in real life, hmm?)
*Breaking down the script of a Maalaala Mo Kaya episode. This is what we get when Sir Joey shoots a film with Aga and Sharon.
*Final paper on Comm141, topic being programs/channels in Bloomberg format portrayed as a Supermedia.
*Critique on SMS and its media effects
*A paper on theoretical frameworks applicable to "Strangebrew".
*Report on Literature and Film for ComLit
*Report on approaches to regionalization for PolSci150.
* Documentary script on OFWs for TV scriptwriting.

More nuggets sure to snowball next week. Ugh.

2003-02-28T02:02:00.000-08:00

Background: It's Over Now by Neve

And I wait here another time
Like a thousand times before
I'm dropping out and faded
But I keep on wanting more
- It's Over Now, Neve

Weepy lines. Says much. Anyway, I segue.

Ha. Never thought doing an MTV could be so much fun and mortifying at the same time. Imagine walking along Antipolo streets in blue, flowing gown, with everyone gaping at you and your partner's out-of-place getup. And lip synching "When You Believe" with the fiercest passion, while standing (still in the long blue gown) before the water falls, with the people having the grandest time whispering and mumbling about the instant showbiz spectacle. And posing right beside the trees in Quezon Memorial Circle. And belting exactly like Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, complete with the exaggerated hand gestures, and heads bobbing and snapping sidewards to accentuate the reality effect. The glitz, the glamour, baby. Ladies and gentlemen, Samantha Echavez and Jacquiline Brabante at their flashiest. Wehe.

We rock, the two of us. I mean, we braved crossing the Elliptical Road just so we could shoot at the Wildlife park. And Elliptical Road is, I believe, the ultimate test of every true-blue run-for-your-life pedestrian.

But we never had the chance to shoot at the Wildlife. When we got there, it was closed, and when we were about to go back the next day, we decided not to. Wildlife is all-trees, all-animals landscape but we ain't doing an environmental music video, and heavens, we already shot almost all of the tv-worthy trees in QC Circle. Off to Hinulugang Taktak then. Which was beautiful, if you just look at the falls and not the river (or pond? or stream?) that punctuates it. There were soap bubbles everywhere. And the water was jet black.

Video editing on Monday. After this, life would be less exhausting. By then I could finally start with the scripts, papers, readings, blah. I can almost sniff the pungent summer.

***

I was voted as next academic year's chairperson of UP Kustura, org of Marikina-based/with Marikeno lineage students. I'm shitty scared. I already have a negative brush against academics and time management, and here comes an enormous responsibility. I'm no good at this, really. Me, a very unprofessional person(so my HS school organ adviser said), a leader? I'm quite complacent and not that assertive. I'm a wreck. I'm a disheveled creature. But. I love my org, so whatever it takes, I will do my darned best. Will I.

Election talk. If you go to UP Diliman, Diana Joy Romero for USC councilor. Head of Gabriela Youth, fighter of women's rights, goddamn brilliant, one of the best persons in my life. If someone's reading from MassComm (unlikely but I take the chance), Archie Padalhin for Chairperson, and Jet Aguirre for Secretary. Rock blockmates rock!

Atom Araullo of 5andUp fame is running too. Hehe, wala lang. Let's go STAND-UP, what do you say? :)

***

Ah, God is so funny, great and fickle ;)

On our way to college from Phil. Information Agency, it was lunatically hot. Why did we ever think of going in the afternoon, when the sun was operating like a stubborn saliva. So Rudy and I walked, sans an umbrella which would prove very helpful. I looked up at the sky, and went: "Lord, ang ineeeeeeeeet!"

After a millisecond. "Sam, narinig ni Lord yung prayer mo!" Rudy exclaimed. True enough, everything wasn't friggin' sunny anymore!

"Thank you Looooord!"

Then sun licked on us again.

"Ayan, Sam, uminit na naman."
"Loooord, please palilimin nyo po muna!"

The sun hid, Rudy and I yelped in glee. Both of us were staring at the sky the whole time, take note. Then after another second, sun came out again.

"Lord talaga, mapagbiro! Yung mga tricks mo, Lord, ha," Rudy called out.
"Oo nga po! Lord please! Paabutin nyo lang po kami sa MassComm ng hindi mainit. Palilimin nyo po hanggang dumating kami ng MassComm. Please Lord!"

What do you know, we reached MassComm, UV-rays free, unabashed by the light, sunglasses taken off. Amazing.

Hehe. I suck at narrating, but hope you got the picture.

2003-02-23T04:38:00.000-08:00

Background: Mutter by Rammstein

This song defines a certain moment. Dramatic, gripping, climactic and German, hence completely incomprehensible, it's all about haywire schedules, blasted colds, loads of work - which pretty much sums up my life now. It's all about school, shootings, and unfinished twenty page documentary scripts. It's all about sleepy eyes, the perfect pretext for cups of sweetened coffee, and stolen shuteyes in between daybreak work. It's all about frustration and the attempt to hurdle over that frustration.

Nevertheless, like the concretization in its music video, it peeks into the light beyond fenced underground cages, a peephole to the less detrimental. It underscores the hypnotic chanting, just as much as the growling, so somehow it evolves as a lullabye that tugs inside. It becomes the song about conversations that make me cry, because they're too beautiful, they heal me and they're shared with the people who care most. It's all about afternoon siestas, spaghetti and chocolates, and Mcdo-Mercado inside jokes. It's all about the confident declaration that school isn't the be-all and end-all of my existence, so somehow, after all of these, I will survive.

A tacky analogy there, as expected, but then I am still bannering my point. A song will always have to echo something. And that emotions are like musical compositions: nonlinear, full, rising, receding, loaded.

And that, yeah, Rammstein rocks.

***

I woke up to this beautiful email from Armi: luv u so much! thanks for everything..kanina sa psych sabi ni prof chito (kamukha nya si chito ng parokya ni edgar) na ang tamang term ay social support at hindi moral support, tas pinalist sa amin yung mga taong nagbibigay sa amin ng social support..at alam mo ba yung name na unang una sa listahan ko? Samantha.

Awwwww. That definitely flounced me to the brighter side. Armi always says the sweetest things. Last January 18 was the first year anniversary of our friendship and we'll be celebrating it tomorrow over Manong's fishballs and Manang's turon. I cannot wait. :)

***

My biggest thank you and HUGS to the following people: Ruth, Twisha, Macy, Frances, Gel, Nona, Ate Jannie, Vanya, AA, Daniel,Anj, and Katia.With guys like you, who would want to leave again? :)

2003-02-20T01:48:00.000-08:00

Ehem. Hi there.

PLDT has finally wormed its way back home, and with Internet being connected again, what have you got?

Me. Back. Here.

It's been a while, and I awfully missed this. And I awfully missed you guys. To those who took the time to visit this almost stagnating site, and sign the guestbook while I was away, my hugs go your way. I hope everything's been great to you all. Ah, me? I'm okay. I haven't been exactly in a mellifluous celebratory ride, complete with joyride stories to boot, all that confetti-worthy continuum of events that made up my phone-free time. In a span of a month and so, though, I have scuttled quite a mile of the unexpected: a death, heartache, miracle, discovery, survival and so on. Learned a handful, went through a lot, and a friend said she's proud of me for being, er, strong. Which I doubt. I hate to sound like a distressed thirteen year old newly trajected to the hormonal jazz, but yeah, I had several of those bawling times, with shattering emphasis from melancholic music, cups of instant coffee and bad, bad poetry.

Eyes fall on my feet,
Sweet, the fringes of the moon hanging on our lips
As we castrate the sun, to the end we go
words sputtering, lines flaming,
dead conversation.

Horrid. Heh.

But tama na ang kadramahan. I am happy, delirious, smiling and looking forward to a motley of novel things, like summer class (excited because I haven't taken summer classes before), radio internship, volunteering with friends, driving lessons, youth mobilizations, etcetera. More beautiful days ahead, that I hope. I'd stick with the same people who've always kept me foolishly happy; my counterattack against another bout of soul-flagellants headed my way.

First entry of 2003, first entry after the hiatus and already I have penned in mawkishness. Arrrgh. Prior to doing this layout (Wolfgang deserves a better, more embellished dedication than this one. My limited HTML know-hows, I blame.), I skimmed through my past blog entries and my utter sickening writing tendencies hurled themselves back to me. Haaay. Next time.

So there. Welcome back, me. =D

2002-12-12T19:08:00.000-08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUTH!

Thank you for everything, sis. Love you!

2002-12-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

Background: Stuart Little on video (Mama keeps on saying, "Little Stuart." Hee.)

Ten reasons why this day rocks, despite the frequent ebbing of my ole' physical vigor due to sheer sleeplessness:

1. K. is a lovely human alarm clock! Thank you!! :)
2. I sounded authoritative on my news report.
3. Being called "anak" and "little girl" by Jose Javier Reyes, who brought us to ABS-CBN this afternoon by the way.(Paolo Contis is an exquisitely palatable revelation. Hehe.)
4. Highly cerebral class discussions initiated by Direk Joey at the station grounds. Interexchange of revolutionary ideas was overwhelming.
5. Jet and her "kaldero theory" and how it applies to my damned love life.
6. Mel and her "communication theory" and how it should have saved my damned love life.
7. My stomach seriously ached from too much laughing over our "two years? ang tagal nun ah..kailangan eh" commercial spoofing at Jollibee
8. From a survey Armi sent this evening: "Descibe the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you: Yung inemail ako ni sam ng simple 'hi' kasi dun nagsimula ang lahat, kung ala yung email na yun, wala akong friend na sobrang nangeencourage at naglilift up ng spirit ko.." Awww. That's absolutely, seriously, truthfully one of the best things I've ever found out.
9. Staying at the greeting card section of National Bookstore, reading and absorbing "Between You and Me" card entries.
10. My family!

***

Ate Jannie and Rumples are Ruth's newest halfwishing beauties!

I am waaaay proud of her for winning in the Golden Web Awards! Ang lupet! That's my Trisha!!

Thank you so much to those who've been signing the guestbook. Will get back to you later :)

2002-12-08T02:45:00.000-08:00

Background: Voodoo by Godsmack

The great thing about Christmas is its unwritten prererogative that you must, at the very least, make a wish. Christmas, being more than a period for giving, is also the time to fiddle with fantasies. As the season kicks off in its usual repertoire, the endless lists of Christmas wishes, from the material to the more profound, come a-flooding and they go on and on, notwithstanding the truth that in the real brutal world, good old Santa Clause, in all his adorable pudginess, doesn't exist.

So lately I've been thinking about the ideal Christmas, my perfect setting topped with glittery lanterns and the flamboyant wreath hanging by the door. I am not really inclined these days to wish for what I want for Christmas, but rather what I want Christmas to be like.

And here's my own idea of the utopian elaboration of the Christmas spirit:

In the kitchen, Guia and I are whipping up our leche flan as a move to resurrect our Christmas business which we had exactly a year ago. We are still adhering to pattern our honest-to-goodness delectable forte with the recipe last year, although this time we know better to raise the price ten bucks higher . We are laughing as we maim eggyolks and stuff them to the coagulated evap and condensed milk, and we build bigger entrepreneurial dreams as we place the mixture to the rice cooker, our dependable subsitute to steamer. And we keep on working and working, both of us smiling because we know that there's no better business partner than a best friend.

My uncle is dressed up as Santa Claus, just like what he did four years ago, cracking everybody up with his infallible attempt to do the "hohoho". He bundles up the kids in his arms, as he winks to us, the 'elders' who are amused to no end. Everyone in the clan is complete. Our relatives in Canada, US, Cebu and Surigao have gone home to spend Christmas with us in the simplest but loveliest fashion. They are all here, with the family Santa, making up for all the Christmas reunions they had forgone.

Then in a gazebo in Balara, co-volunteer catechists and I are holding a Christmas party for the children. We still have Little Caesars as the generous sponsor, and all kids are thoroughly absorbed with the games and special intermissions. The high school girls are doing a tableau of the Nativity for the kids to guess, while we do our best to keep the kids from getting distracted and going out of the area. It is going to be as sweaty as the last year's and still as fun.

I am doing my Christmas shopping with my good friend Vlad in Tutuban as both of us are cheapskate wonders. We don't hurt each other anymore, hence we can just go anywhere and bond, without having to worry that one will back out because of a nasty word hurled by the other. Afterwards, my barkada and I are off to somewhere far where we can do our own magi-inspired expeditions.

Surprisingly, during this supposed season of forgiveness, my ex calls up to say sorry and Merry Christmas. But never to win me back.

And finally, I no longer receive Christmas cards via email from my father because in my ideally wonderful Christmas world, he is right here with us, leading the prayer before we go right on attacking the Noche Buena.

2002-12-03T21:32:00.000-08:00

Background: Betterman by Pearl Jam (live)

Upon watching my newscasting on our TV studio, teacher and friends commented that I am: 1) too soft, 2) too smiling and 3) too cute (hahaha). I don't have any air of authority, mighty conviction, whatsoever. My delivery of the US-Iraq issue was tantamount to spilling the impossible news that all the terrorists in the country have been blown to kingdom come, because I was darn so cheery. Next week, I'm assigned to do the police report, and they are scared for my performance that some offered to trade topics with me, health and science for example, because at least in that, it's okay to smile a lot.

I am so sorry, but I hope I can coerce my lips not to stretch themselves too much. But dang it, who am I against those fifteen muscles that lift themselves unconsciously? Really, I do not mean to be so cutesy. I do not mean to flaunt whatever there is to
flaunt, not that there is something to flaunt. Sometimes I think I'm so sweet it's sickening, albeit the "You're so sweet!" exclaimed by a good friend when I hugged her yesterday was an instant uplifter.

And then there's the "little girl" issue.

Sir Joey Reyes doesn't call me Samantha nor Sam, because there's another Samantha in the room. Instead I am "little girl" to him. "Okay, let's hear it from the little girl..."

It's cute but it's somewhat alarming. I raised this sentiment to my mom, including that of why I am the only one being called such when there's someone else in the class who has the same whopping height as mine? I thought she would stand up for her daughter but she all the more rubbed that truth by saying that the other girl wears makeup and I do not, and that she looks more dalaga than the poor me who has her hair simply clamped to a bun.

Ah hell. My idea of facial prettifying is a cherry Chapstick and a Johnson's baby powder in contrast to my blockmates' amazing array of shimmery, sparkly products. My friends do place a bit of pink lipstick here and a bit of blush there - I cannot do it myself - only when I have to go on-cam. Generally, I am a makeup wuss, who shrieks every time someone applies that painful eyeliner to her eyelids. (How can you not keep your mouth shut when something pointy slides itself on the pink membrane part of the eye?).

And while we're at it, let's not forget what Ma'am Malou advised in the name of my fashion reinforcement: I need to define my eyebrows.

Oh God.

***

Yesterday I grossed my two friends when they forced me to puke, because the urge was so great it got me sick up to today. I must have eaten something horrible that my stomach has been doing an impressive flipflops. That, or maybe I have the premature signs for ulcer.

I feel so weak. I think my knees are weak enough to bring me to UP, but I have a stupid research to do. So despite the squeamishness, a physiological and not an 'it's all in the mind' case, that I guarantee, I will move heaven and earth to keep myself from throwing up in the glorious halls of the UP Main Library.

I'm tired of school. My best friend thinks we both have second-sem syndrome because ever since freshman at this time of the academic year, we regress to apathy towards books, research and classes. I don't think so. Notwithstanding what sem it is, I still have to stuff myself with more optimism than usual to make me believe that I love studying.

Oh dear Christmas break, save us.

***

What do you know. I got published. Hehe :)

2002-12-01T19:57:00.000-08:00

Background: usual hubbub in an internet cafe

One soul from the many who circle your existence makes an exit, and already you have never felt so alone, as if nobody's around anymore.

2002-11-30T20:12:00.000-08:00

Background: Not my Kinda Scene by Powderfinger

Of lovely conversation, lovely poetry, lovely friend.

One word: magic.

On the first December morning, snow flakes fall from the sky as each word wiggles into the heart.

Thank you.

2002-11-28T20:14:00.000-08:00

Background: Cochise by Audioslave

Someday I'm going to learn how to cook, because the older I get, the fact that my cooking prowess is limited only within the lame context of frying becomes less amusing. I dread what my mom tells me on my future mother-in-law relentlessly badmouthing on my horrendous culinary skills. Not that I intend to get hitched soon. Heck, there's nary a guy to toy the idea of marriage with, anyway. But it's scary, me freaking out on hissing oil, licking flames under the pan and chopping meat, and my poor husband running out of the house, off to his mom for a more decent meal.

Someday I'll find that courage to confront the people who have left me. Three friends who had been around for years, then weaseled out of my life in an instant. I live a happy life, but when I remember how sickly sad it is to lose those who swore would stick with me in the long haul, I cave in to bouts of melancholia. But then again, maybe someday I'll find a room for acceptance, that not everyone stays but thank God, I still have a handful who do.

Someday I'm going to take the precious time to polish my nails. And learn the power chords. And go back to teaching kids in Balara. And memorize all Emily Dickinson poems. And organize a reunion of my grade six class. And run to the beach and make love with the sea and sky.

I feel so trapped. I am not the one who efficiently rubs elbow with time, hence the gnawing feeling that I don't do much. A hundred tasks I'd like to accomplish remain unaccomplished, because I chase seconds and minutes so lousily. Not to mention my tendency to be eaten up with too many goals, too many plans and thus losing sight of motivation even right before I do what I have to do.

Someday I'm going to lace my fingers with time's, and never let go. Someday I will
have more than twenty four hours to myself to go right down to my 'someday' wishlists. Someday I will skip the mentality of waiting until tomorrow to have something done. Someday I will haul myself out from my terrible orientation with time. Someday I will make all these come true.

I must start somewhere. Let me begin by replying to my friend's and cousin's snail mails they sent to me six months ago. Eep, am I horrible.

2002-11-26T08:19:00.000-08:00

Background: Paris by Chicosci (Macy, I'm still so starstruck. For real. ;P)

Boy, I'm more hyper than usual tonight it terrified my brother because he thought I am drunk. Hee. Since morning, I couldn't seem to stop from laughing over the most trivial things. Lots of slip-ups, too. I cracked the entire crew in the director's booth up when I instructed "Roll Talent" which was supposed to be "Roll Mastertape" or "Cue Talent." And I kept on repeating the same wrong lines over and over when the floor director asked me to do the extro spiel for newscast. Then the mean dimwit that I was, I hid from the entire MassComm contingent for the Mendiola rally because I knew if my friends caught me, they would've insisted that I come. And I promised I would come. But I only told that, because, uhm, I have a big crush on the leader and I figured out what could be a better way to spark up a conversation between us than an enthusiastic response to support the rally.:) I'm bad. But really, I'm in for the fight for a greater subsidy. Even wore the No to UP Budget Cut pin all day. (Defensive, eh?)

Afternoon, Mel and I caught up with the latest in our lives. Love lives, specifically. Hers in full bloom, mine in a not surprisingly deteriorating state which is bullet-fast approaching to nil. Still hyper. We were teasingly lusting over each other's bodies. Hehe. Our parting words? "Bye! I'll miss your body!"

Then tonight, I asked my sixteen year old brother, Mikey, to dance to make up for what he did last night. What did the guy do? Oh, he just jammed his fingers in my underarms and as that was a fatally ticklish stint, I toppled over and my head banged, whambam, smack to the doorknob. The doorknob is made of metal, right, so you get the picture how painful it was. Still is. The nasty lump goes right in the back of my head.

So Mikey danced for me. Hehe. It's his famous dance he choreographed himself, which resembles a flamenco. He's hilarious! The more serious his expression is in the execution of the dance, the funnier he gets. I swear there's nothing like the "graceful" swing of his arms, and the shaking fingers effect - they're whack! I think my jaws almost scrunched from too much laughing.

An hour before my brother's monumental showdown, I asked my good friend Vlad to do a mimicry of an old man's voice. Haha, funny! Even asked him to imitate a coughing old man and a wheezing old man afterwards. By the end of the conversation, we addressed each other as grandfather and granddaughter. I swear we two are insane. Imagine two nineteen year olds (oh, he just turned 19 this 12am!) making puffing, blowing, hissing, clacking and yikes, farting sounds plus animal voices over the phone. Mababaw, so to speak. Hehe.

Then my mom bought me two lovely blue blouses. I had hawaiian pizza for dinner (hail Pizza Hut!), though Diego the Dog ate half of my slice. And I totally squealed over this one - someone's going to give me copies of Wolfgang bootlegs. Weee!

Heh, I'm raving squeakily. It's just a wonderful, chipper day, and when you have days like these when everyone seems to be in a laughing mood, not caring whether A gets dumped or B is broke, you can't help but chase the details and contain them somewhere, in a journal maybe, and remind you not to stiffen too much next time.

***

On to the mawkish, worth-a-cringin' part.

I've been singing "Pasko na Sinta Ko" for three days and counting. My friend and I even had a duet while waiting for a Katipunan ride. People beside us had no other choice but to listen, and be sorry for us? Hehe.

My award-winning dramatic line, to a friend: "Ako na nga ang nasaktan, ako pa ang lumalabas na masama."

"Hindi na kami magkikita," my reply when asked when would we meet again.

My mom is planning to set me up with the son of her friend.

I wish myself luck.

***

Plugging! Lucid poetry. Newest halfwisher. Magandang maldita. Pancit canton slash dunkin donuts. Fragmented blog here. A total masterpiece. Pretty damsels.

2002-11-23T03:50:00.000-08:00

Background: Guilty of Being White by Slayer

I had the time of my life swimming under the bedcovers, dreaming a weird dream of me telling my crush to be sweeter to his girlfriend (which in actuality, is the very thing I do in real life), when I woke up to realize that I must go to UP and bask in the glory of library research. Waaah. So I went, accomplished the task, and then for the sake of making the most out of my stay, I mean, I might as well do more to compensate leaving the house on a lovely, lazy Saturday morning, I borrowed four literary jewels: The Writers Way, Literature and How It Works, The Bridges of Madison Country and Obsession: A Collection of Gay Erotic Memoirs. The last aforementioned book proves to be really interesting. Its introduction blew me off:

"And the words routinely used to commend literature - moving, stirring, rousing - are just that: words, metaphors disemboweled of any gutsy reality. When readers are in fact moved by a piece of writing - most especially if what stirs or is roused is the organ between their legs - the work in question is quickly deemed a lesser form of art, unworthy of serious attention. Not for me...What a tremendous feat! A writer in some distant place and time has committed his thoughts to paper, and somehow those tiny marks on pressed sheets of wood pulp inspire a swell of muscles and blood. There is something so quintessentially human about this interaction, something primal and sacred."

Artistic ingenuity rooted in the flesh. The book has a highly laudable point.

I left the library, feeling like a Lit major. And it's a good feeling, really. I remember back in senior highschool, over lunch, I told my friends I was eyeing the Comparative Literature course in UP but they gave me the "look" and a talk on practicality. So I chickened out. I applied for journalism, but I was accepted for Broadcast Communication. First sem of my first year in college, I dreamt of shifting to Creative Writing, but well, I still stuck to being a chicken, and up to now remains a Broad major. No regrets, if you ask me. So far, my course is fun, but there are those lalala-daydreaming days I burrow under the desire to learn Shakespeare and sonnets instead of CNN and tv scripts.

***

Are you a Filipina and unattached? Then be a damsel! :)

2002-11-21T03:07:00.000-08:00

Background: Cats in the Cradle by Ugly Kid Joe

Happiness doesn't really arrive at our doorsteps in a massive avalanche, but there are days when everything that transpires seem to be borne out of that fluffy feeling. True, happiness is manifested in varying degress, its pole extends from the extreme to the subtle, that sometimes you think you can't just be happy enough. You feel that despite lugging that glorious emotion, there will always be a void reserved for a precautionary attitude towards anticipated sadness. But if in every turn you take, every move you make (hehe, pardon me for the icky usage of the song) springs minutes of merriment, why bother asking yourself how happy you are? It suffices that you are happy!

Because happiness is sitting pretty on my doorstep, uninterrupted, for two days straight now. And so far nothing is spoiling the fun :)

***

Random Rundown:

My brother unexpectedly won first place in a press conference for photojournalism, and I'm way ecstatic. He was a contestant for editorial cartooning, his school didn't have a participant for photojournalism so he was requested to join despite not knowing anything about photography know-hows. He just clicked and clicked, did some layout, forgot all about it right after because who was he to compete with all the master photojournalists in the division? Two days after he was beyond incredulous when he heard his name mentioned for first place winner. I'm so proud of him, really. Now he's prepping up for the Regionals in Quezon, and saving up for his promise to take me out to lunch.

Then Chicosci's Paris won NU107 Song of the Year. Wow. Astig. I love the song so much, and had it not won I would've really felt awful. Paris is one song the judges couldn't afford to ignore. Too bad Chicosci wasn't Band of the Year when they really deserved it. I was even banking on Miggy for the best vocalist. Haaay. I'm starting to really like Miggy a lot.

I saw my French prof, whom I endearingly call as Greggy, this morning on my way home. (My last class for Thursday is only up to ten am. Niiiice.) He still is so hot, despite being forty seven and the receding hair. I remember on the Student Evaluation, when asked on my comments for him, I wrote down: "He has a nice smile." Hehe.

Then this afternoon, I saw my childhood sweetheart! Oh, the flutter. This was the guy who, seven years ago, promised marriage for the two of us. Come to think of it, back then I was already sure he was the one. But we haven't talked for years now, that a while ago we just ended up shyly staring at each other. Anyway, memories are sweet, and I'm glad there was something magical that happened between us. We were still kids then, but hey, who can dare question the sweet sincerity of childhood love?

I majorly sobbed after watching Pay It Forward. It tremendously moved me.

One highschool friend texted me an advance happy birthday greeting, thinking my birthday falls this November 23. Hee. Another thought it's on September 23. My birthday is on October 23.

I hope somehow I'm nearer to you so I can be of tangible comfort because God knows it pains me to know someone so superbly amazing go through a colossal hurt which she doesn't deserve at all. But nevertheless I stand by you and I'm not going elsewhere. My prayers fly your way, and I love you, okay?

2002-11-19T17:21:00.000-08:00

Background: Stay Free by Lotus Eaters

While my first school week turns out to be surprisingly good, I dread this semester. I see myself not sleeping again, eating less, saving up a lot for production expenses, and even - gasp - telling my friends, those not from MassComm for we all go through the same plight: "Sorry I cannot go this time. I have to go to the library." Or that hell-raising statement which never fails to stump the people because of its false artistic presumption: "Sorry ah, may shooting ako."

My PolSci 150, Philippine National and Local Administration, teacher asked me quite bluntly: "Are you sure it's a wise choice you chose this course as an elective?" Urm, ma'am, I lost slots for Psych101, CW100, Malikhaing Pagsulat, even that legendary Sex and Culture course and other electives I could think of, but I was quite desperate for an elective so I had no other choice but to settle for this one. So believe me, ma'am, I don't want to be here either.

On the first day of my Comparative Literature 100 class, I came forty minutes late - screw punctuality, 7am is no joke - and my teacher reprimanded me in front of the class. Before I gorged on humiliation, she lightly touched me in the arm and said she's just kidding. Haha. It so happened that I arrived exactly as she was explaining attendance. Anyway, she's cool, she has this famous Fortune Cookie finals, but she has hundreds of readings piled up for all of us.

I seriously loathe BC 185, Broadcast Media Studies. I sense a nasty chemistry with my teacher, and I've always had a bad history with communication theory-related courses. And the mere fact that it's my only class on Fridays, with a 4pm-7pm schedule at that, makes it damn more detestable.

TV Scriptwriting class is fair enough. I like the teacher. Last sem, I had him for Radio Scriptwriting and he gave me quite a grade despite being horribly late every meeting. Think 1 hour late. I'm that terrible with time.

My TV performance class sounds promising. Malou de Guzman is really nice, she looks prettier in person. Hehe. I'm disheartened though because I thought all we have to do in the class is act and be a good talent but she said we're also going to produce. Mounting a TV production has always been my waterloo; I remember my BC 121 teacher last sem told me I lose myself every time I'm in the director's booth. Well. At least, I'm looking forward to the MTV production part of the course - Roney and I are already thinking of doing "Hero." I'm going to be Jennifer Love Hewitt. Heh.

Jose Javier Reyes is a revelation. He introduced himself in the class as the "national pornographer of the Arroyo administration" (Live Show, remember?) and his greatest achievements, he said proudly, are sexist shows Palibhasa Lalake and Whattamen. He's great, he is an intelligent rambler, he stimulates the class to rev up an impressive discussion on Philippine television. Was honored when he said I raised a very good point, hehe. I just got so starstruck because hey, I'm a big fan of Whattamen. ;)

First meeting for Comm141 Mass Media and Society is later at 1pm. But I have to leave the house by 11 so I can do some gruelling library work.

Hoo boy, I'm a scholar fluke.

2002-11-16T17:41:00.000-08:00

Background: Stupify by Disturbed

Dear PC,

You are half-dead. My lilliputian talent for clairvoyance, much thanks to my impressive Scorpio ways, tells me that one of these days you are going to die on me. Your CPU wheezes like an old man, as if every effort exerted, every memory consumed, every MHz breathed by your panoply of circuits spells agony. The almighty CDRom doesn't work anymore, as well as the keyboard. I cannot type down the letter "j" anymore, so yes, the j's here are all magically transported through that tried-and-tested cut-and-paste method. And let's not even go to your I-shut-down-for-one-second melodrama. Your screen blacks out for one second then you surface quickly as if nothing happens. Freaky freaky freaky. As I have learned my lesson from the past - oh, what a lesson it was - I began backing up all the important files, which I stored in my email address, because even dear old drive A is busted. (Please don't blame me with the floppy disk's shutter being stuck in there. I didn't mean to stuff that down recklessly. I was all haggard and harassed I forgot to go to the basics of tlc.)

But dear. Despite the manifestation of depreciation, I still love you to pieces. You know that right? You've seen me defending you from my brothers who lambasted you by mockingly declaring that you are the best computer in the world. Har har. They didn't know what they're saying. For three years, you absorbed my angst, took in all my literary foolishness, and became a superb distraction, from my Starcraft-crazy days to my current penchant for Solitaire. (Y'know I am so into it that I make wishes after a successful Solitaire deal. Tsk.) Being the interface portal that you are, you shoved me to the realm out there. You had all these wonderful people popping in my screen. You introduced the birth of another passion. All these I could have experienced from other better, less-wheezing, less annoying computers, but you're mine, you're my sweet sixteen gift, you're my baby.

So don't die on me! I am sorry everyone's lazy to haul you out of the house for your medical check-up. I am sorry my Papa insists to just let you be in your current condition as he is going to buy another one anyway when he comes home in December. I am sorry I don't have money to bring you for repair myself. I am sorry but please fight for dear life. Struggle as you must with the remaining strength your motherboard has. Please don't die yet. Wait until my father comes home. In the name of all the intimacy we shared - my companion on my sleepless days, my redeemer when the pen and paper fail me, my mp3 serenader - hang in there. For good times' sake, my beloved PC, please hang in there.

Hugs and Kisses,
Sam

2002-11-12T19:41:00.000-08:00

Background: Let Her Cry by Hootie and the Blowfish

Archie, Diana and I walked along this pathway concealed by a shade of trees across Villadolid Hall. The entire time we traversed the path, we felt like we were walking in an enchanted forest. The trees seemed to have bowed down to our presence, and even the concrete that lined up the way were bursting of clumps of green. Farther to our left was the majestic landscape that skirted the University Avenue. Then as we reached the end of the pathway, we were opened up to this bellowing sky of orange and white, clouds were layered one on top of another, and they were just there, enveloping the earth just in time for the sunset.

Then we kept on walking. The entire day we were already walking, from MassComm to AS and back, but still we skipped the Philcoa jeep ride and went on with the legwork. Everything just zoomed us by - the cars, the people, the light gusts of wind. Archie raved it was a beautiful day, Diana mentally redecorated her room, I craved for an ice cream. Soon after we finally reached McDonalds where I satisfied my sundae urges. Archie and I tripped over the 80s songs playing on our background, and never minded that we were singing a bit too loud. Diana, as usual, munched her fries very slowly, while I absorbed myself in sipping Coke. Then I nudged them to go notebook shopping with me after a while.

Notebook shopping took place in a mini bookstore just behind McDonalds and an array of tiangge stalls. After thirty minutes of much deliberation and discussion with my friends, I settled for three small notebooks and already thought of the pages from Rolling Stones I could use for the cover. When Diana and I stepped out of the bookstore, we couldn't find Archie, but then he immediately appeared at the corner, waving his cigarette. Ahh, another of his cigarette breaks. Earlier that day he said he'd quit smoking after graduation, of which I was doubtful. So we placed a bet.

Then I went home, greeting everyone a Merry Christmas as I saw from the outside our Christmas tree standing tall and proud. Pasko na sinta kooooo, I sang to myself and chuckled. I gleefully told my mother I'm already enrolled, that I have Wednesday class, that I thankfully got out of the enlistment period unscathed. Ten minutes before eleven the phone rang, and it was Vlad, telling me about his awful day, how he was reprimanded by his manager for answering back. I was in the middle of recounting my day to him when I had someone on call wait. It was the friend of the ex, and I could hear the ex shouting he still loves me. The ex soon grabbed the phone, and told me he hates me. I went back to the other line, sang a song to Vlad as requested and fought the urge to cry.

After tolerating each other's singing voices, Vlad and I hung up at 1am. I curled up on the bed, maximized the remaining space left for I was too dazed to shove the books, songhits, cellphone, telephone, stuffed Garfields, notebooks off. Squirming under my covers in hope to shrug off the "I hate you so much" hurled at me by the ex, I sent a prayer then slept.

I woke up, realizing today is the last hurrah of my semestral break.

***

I love these girls so. He rocks! She is so sweet! I miss him, I miss her. Soon these two will be back, yeey! Happy (belated) birthday, lovely ladies! Hope to catch you two again online! Dear, believe me it was hard debating on what song should I put down here...so many choices! And thank you so much for the DZUP info! Too bad I have to wait for summer for my internship, Sir Tiongson didn't allow me!

Recently joined BITS. :) May bagong isyu angTinig.

Haydee, I don't know if you read this thing, but just in case, you do...gawd, I miss you.

2002-11-11T03:59:00.000-08:00

Background: Say It Ain't So by Deftones (Weezer cover)

Two days before second sem officially kicks in and I am not yet enrolled. Apparently, students outside colleges of Engineering, Science and CSSP are not to be entertained until tomorrow, but save for the Comparative Literature 171 and Creative Writing 120, electives I'm eyeing to take, I already got my MassComm subjects. I have Broadcast Media Studies, Television Scriptwriting, Mass Media and Society, Advanced Television Production, and TV Speech and Performance, the latter to be handled by film director Jose Javier Reyes and Malou de Guzman (yes, the Lukring of the Ober da Bakod fame. Hehe) respectively. I was really wishing I could get in Angelo Palmones' class - the guy just recently won a Golden Dove - but the elusive god of CRS, as expected, crashed my hopes. Also, I was about to go for a radio internship, but my adviser, finding out I have never taken a summer class ever, decided otherwise. Dang.

Hay. I am foreseeing a bumpy semester ahead. Barely made it last semester yet now I'm subjected back to the ordeal. Er, correction. I believe I really made it last semester. I was yammering nonstop on how it was ultimately possible to get a 3 or a 5, because failing grades came a-flooding, but it turned out that my teachers were generous enough to grant me heavenly 2.25s. So my average for last sem is 1.8, quite a feat for someone who was disheartened half the time for pursuing the more mundane, less intellectual matters . I am no longer a College Scholar, but then, who's complaining? :)

***

I am a new girl, I think, and it's not because I am already nineteen, so and so. I just think I've finally grown up, like all of a sudden I have all these experiences to speak of, which somehow transcend the usual Sam I've always known - muted, stunted and emotionally immobile.

At eighteen, I felt I wasn't eighteen. There was so much to learn, so much to discern, so much to grapple, yet I was too passive to glue myself in a stationary position. I was shitty-scared, or maybe if I was brave enough, chance wouldn't just let me be. I observed other girls my age, and they were just...wow..learned. Like they all knew about love and other serious stuff, they acted so grown-up, they said the right things at the right time, and they were so womanly, while I was still groping for who I was supposed to be at that exact period of time. It was all disconcerting. Sure I was gaily to be feeling so young and naive, but I was positive I was missing out on a lot of things.

Then I suddenly skidded to new experiences, new firsts, and there, I got ahold of what I had always wished for. At last I hurdled over incessant daydreaming and fantasizing, and was trajected to the real thing. For others, these would mean a little, but to me, who always thought of being a wallpaper all her life incapable of going through the typical events girls normally experience, these spell a titanic difference.

Just a random thought prodded by watching Finding Forrester and Air Force One Special in NGC, listening to myself pray for deeper friendship instead of you-know-what, expecting nothing from a person i initially expected a lot from, skipping the entire i'm-in-a-bad-mood-so-comfort-me melodrama, and witnessing myself surpass the post-breakup blues quite admiringly.

2002-11-08T21:58:00.000-08:00

Background: The Perfect Drug by Nine Inch Nails

Thursday, my close friend, Diana got a phone call from her boy. What she heard from him threw her off and blew her to shrapnels: he told her upfront that he's been seeing another girl since summer, thus the necessary breakup. Diana and the guy, whom we thought as the ultimate pairup, were supposed to celebrate their third year anniversary on the 24th.

Tuesday, another close friend who calls me Super Sardines Sam, as I call her Super Sardines Kate, because she played the part of the sardines on the radio commercial I produced ("Sa Super Sardinas, masarap ang sardinas. Masarap maging sardinas." Nyaks.), finally broke up with her boyfriend of three years, after a seemingly endless series of away-bati sessions.

Same night, Tuesday, 10:10 to 10:25 pm, I finally summoned enough courage to break up with him. There were lots of tears, apologies and thank yous from both parties, and more than anything, I am relieved that I'm no longer stuck in an infinite ellipsis, because I already penned a period mark to end it all.

I am worried about Diana and Kate though. They're shattered, for while I only have three months to look back to, they have three years. While I could not possibly imagine the dreaded forever with him, both of them already looked forward for marriage peeking on the horizon. Sigh. I just hope they'll be okay by the by.

(Finally ditched that sweet layout, a quite appropriate move to jumpstart a beautiful day of no why-didnt-he-call-for-two-months-now worries.)

2002-11-04T04:15:00.000-08:00

Background: Polly by Nirvana

So much for scuttling towards jittery in the name of forced singing. My potential singing career (hehe) came to a halt right before it began. I went to the band practice and well, for hours I remained a passive observer, simply mouthing the songs, and not grabbing the mic, which was hogged by the band's rhythm guitarist bigtime. He was singing as mightily as he could, and he didn't let go of the mic even though the lead guitarist asked for it. We couldn't barge in his private lyrical world, and we couldn't just snap him out of his emotional performance, which was accentuated with his closing eyes effect. Oh well. At least I didn't have to go through the entire dynamics of stage fright, although there's that teeny part of me screaming for the chance to be a frontwoman for a day.

In the end though, the band members started addressing me as "manager", and manager, I became. I was hoping my sweet talk to the concert organizer for the Peace Camp this December in UP would snag the band a slot. The band members are great, well, save for that fourteen year old pudgy rhythm guitarist slash pseudo-vocalist. Not being bitter here, but really, he could use a little vocal lessons. He wasn't able to jibe with the band's speechless-rendering, unbelievably astounding cover of Nothing Else Matters.

Ah hell. Shoot me. Maybe I'm really just being bitter. Hehe.

***

The close encounter with the band reminded me, of well, the past who left me hanging in mid-air, with nary a tangible sign of him for me to cling unto. He's a hundred times better than any amateur guitarist, you know? I've always believed that if he be given the right opportunity, he would rocket his way to rock stardom, and he would become the newest marvel to the music industry. Music sustains his soul, it devours him, so much in fact that in a flick of a finger, it easily substituted his poor inamorata. Music became my toughest rival, and I wasn't anything like music. I couldn't stir a magical fluttering to his being the same way his electric guitar could. I lost the battle against the amplifiers and his Blink 182 fantasies, and I lost him.

I just let him go. Lashed with so much pain at first then moved on with a hefty amount of numbness, I eventually gave up on him. I could not hold on to one guy who promised a long-standing relationship but ended up turning his back against me, without any goodbye. Despite that though, I tried to breeze my way through life, skipping and smiling, my head always tilted to the side to project one hearty laughter. For two months, I almost forgot about him. Sure fate would always taunt me by hitting a replay button on my memory bank so snippets of our moments before would come rushing in, but one shrug could dismiss the nostalgia. He's not coming back and I knew it.

But then, last weekend, something I thought would never happen did happen. The past called. At least, his friend did, but he was right beside his friend, so it made not much of a difference. The friend said that the past was too shy to talk to me, but that he wanted to talk to me nonetheless. But I was startled like no other, and for a moment, what used to be my tranquil state of existence was shattered with such a shock of his sudden comeback. Torn between wanting to talk to him to finally formalize the breakup and not wanting to talk to him to save myself from further shame and foolishness, I leaned towards the latter. I declared nonchalantly that I was doing something that time, hence I could not spare a moment for the phone call. The friend hung up, and the past slipped away.

Then I realized I made one gigantic mistake. I should've talked to him. One of my wishes on my nineteenth birthday was a phone call from him to settle everything once and for all. Last weekend saw the supposed fulfillment of the wish, and dimwit that I was, I countered the phone call.

Loose-ends hurt. I doubt if he'll ever call again, so I doubt if we can ever formally terminate the relationship. A relationship doomed to a breakup is painful - the series of goodbyes, resolutions to move on and caving in to acceptance often have the hardest time to sink in. But nothing is more heartwrenching than a relationship moving on languidly then dying unknowingly,helplessly in the middle of nowhere. Like one dead star, the relationship punctuated with a doubtful conclusion is never to shine, never to implode, and will remain a worthless entity, forever floating in universe's most severe vacuum.

2002-10-30T04:15:00.000-08:00

Background: Your Disease by Saliva (acoustic)

Let me begin by saying that I'm not a singer. I can carry a tune, maybe, but to belt a la Nina Gordon? Not a chance. My singing prowess is limited within the earshot of my friends who don't mind a nongifted singer in their midst, enthusiastically carrying out a rendition of "On my Own" and my family who is bound to mediocre singing as well. I am okay with videoke, and singing in a group, because my voice drowns and gets lost in the chorus of sounds, anyway.

Then here goes my close friend who wants me to sing in his band. Holy cow. I remember him throwing the hint last Saturday but immediately I shrugged him off, because, god, he must be kidding. Then he called up last night, and upfront, he said I'd be singing tomorrow. He didn't ask me, he just said it bluntly. I'd sing. I'd be their vocalist. His bandmates want me, and tomorrow, they would figure out if I would do. Great. So tomorrow I'd be singing in front of really talented musicians and if they fancy I'm good, then I'm in. If I'm not, then sorry Sam, you just be our manager. I'm not good, so I foresee myself ludicrously holding a microphone, my voice croaking in the most horrible manner, my ego shrinking to a size of a peanut, and my hand mentally bopping Rian's head for forced performance. Much as I want to save myself some dignity - goodness, the guy just did the unthinkable - I cannot back out because recently, I just pulled his leg and asked for one of the hugest favors ever. Talk about payback time.

Mark told me to practice. Nice one. No one can magically transform his voice overnight, no matter how many vocal exercises he executes and how much salabat he intakes. Rian assured me I can do it. He deems that my voice is good enough for the type of music his band is playing. And his band is playing Guns and Roses, Korn, and Wolfgang. Oh my good God.

I have always longed to be in a rock band. Being a frontwoman is out of the question and that's precisely the reason why I taught myself how to play a guitar. But tomorrow I will stun the amateur band world with my tenacity to comply with a request to do the vocals despite the lack of talent. Hoo boy. I am just crossing my fingers the guys tomorrow won't be so mean as to let out a chuckle while I sing their songs.

Tomorrow is Halloween. If jamming with the band is my way of partaking in the scare season, haha, then boo, it is.

***

I swear Trisha is one of the sweetest jewels in this online hub. She's such a sweetie she made me the most beautiful button! If I have the talent dear, I would also make a gigantic gorgeous button with your sweet smile on it, but just our luck, I still have to figure out how to do one. ^_~ Love you, Twisha! ^________^

2002-10-27T12:24:00.000-08:00

Background: Home Radio FM Station

This I Promise You swooshing from the speakers. The song has a way of startling and shaking my bloodstream. Someone sang that to me once. Hehe.

It's 4:16am and I am still awake. I just finished typing the questions for the quiz bee we are to hold this afternoon. I am not yet done though because there is still the score sheet I have to do. Damn. I should've assigned that to someone else.

Sembreak and sleepless. That doesn't sound right. It denotes justice infringement.

I thought I lost someone. Then the someone called at 3am, and then I found out it's just another of those paranoia attacks I've been having eternally. Though I ended up more irked to him than ever after the call, I felt relieved I hadn't lost him. Three years of friendship could not go poofing away just like that, so I realized.

The song just changed to 98 degrees. Ack. 98 degrees. Those guys swinging their arms to their front and to their back, gyrating to their own songs.

Skipping the heavy riffs in the meantime. It's nice to be reminded of love in all its sappiness while doing the dirty work.

2002-10-26T06:31:00.000-07:00

Background: Schism by Tool

Hi! I feel like a perky princess cartwheeling towards a sugar-coated castle, or a little sunny girl in pigtails bouncing along a sunflower-lined path of cobblestones. Sunbeam is darting through my window, across my room and right smack to me. Oh, the saccharine days. First three days of my nineteenth year are turning out to be feathery - soft to the touch, lightly caressed by the wind, flowing freely, smoothly. I have come across things that proved to be detrimental to the emotions - you know, the usual lashes to the soul - but well, instead of breaking down and doing an aboutface or a counterattack, I just went with the flow. It helped. It helped that I shunned stubbornness and instead, rode on with the currents. Everything just fell into its proper place so now I'm bubbling forth with a generous dose of hyperactivity and enthusiasm. Happiness.

I was supposed to dive down to downheartedness. I was supposed to really whine and grumble and even bump my head into a wall for being plain stupid. How could I be so foolish to expect too much from a person who had nothing to offer in the first place? It was hard keeping up with a cheery conversation when the two of you were talking about the very thing that could drive you to clandestine hysteria. It's hard to keep your distance with a person whom you have always wanted to be close with, and now that he's inching closer and closer, how were you supposed to shoo him away? Then, acting like a nineteen-year old grown-up, I realized that there's no need to drive him away nor deliberately create a gap, because well, if friendship is the only thing he can manage to provide, then so be it. Cliche as it is, there is such a thing as "meant to be", and if what we have right now is just that, then no earthly power can be summoned to go against it. It's a simple, straightforward fact. Kung di kayo, di kayo. Haay. My innate capacity to console myself. It's fun this way, anyway. Lately we found new ways to call each other. He's "Tugak", and I'm "Pugo." Or he's "Tubol" and I'm "Igit". If you know what the latter means, hehe, I'm sorry it's disgusting. We're just so cosmically comic connected. Go platonic relationships go!

Everyone has been fantastic. My parents, my brothers, my barkada, my best friends, highschool friends, gradeschool barkada, orgmates, everyone. I feel so loved. I have been aerially lifted since my birthday, because of videoke, Garfield glass, wishes, windchime, surprise phone calls, text messages, sweet emails, granted favors, fortunetelling sessions, winning the org raffle draw (P1,500!), photographs, major bondings, Chips Ahoy, sloppy kisses and lotsa catching up. Thank you so much Ruth, Trisha, Anj, Raych, Nona,Sunshine, Jill, Kid, Frances Ellen, Gel, Vanya and Carlo. I'm so happy I know you guys. I'm new to this online web thing but it delights me that such a short stay has led me to meet all of you great people. Here's an HTML hug! :)

I am so happy. People are so wonderful. I can hug them for eternity, squeezing them, squishing them with so much warmth until the fact that I love them to death has sunk in down to their bone marrows. If there's one thing that can ever assure us of rainbows always arching on our skies overhead, it's the people around us. It's a universal fact, a truth embraced by humanity since primitive people realized the importance of symbiosis, but it never fails to grip me with utter amazement. I will always remain in awe of the human interconnection and the love that always goes with it.

***

Wolfgang is not nominated in this year's NU107 Rock Awards. Why, oh, why? Black Mantra wasn't nominated last year, so it's a given that the album is in this year. But apparently NU107 left the album out. Now I love the radio station so much but I love Wolfgang more so, well, I just think it's unfair. Majority of the people from the Wolfgang egroups think the same way. There was even this member in the list who kept on posting "pressure NU! pressure NU!". All in the name for the love of Wolfgang.

Awards or no awards, Wolfgang is still the best anyway. The band won "Artist of the Year" twice already, and Basti Artadi's record of having won "Best Vocalist" four times remains undefeated. Then the four of them have already been awarded as the best in their field. So there. Wolfgang rocks.

2002-10-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

Background:I Saw You Coming In by The Dawn

The past year has been monumental. Being eighteen subjected me to a motley of changes that somehow extracted a better side of myself. Lots had occurred, more often than not they overwhelmed me and moved my world in ways I have never thought was feasible for me.

Last year, I had a good start when my friends gave me a surprise, heartmelting 18-roses/18-candles program. I had an independent getaway trip to Cebu with my college bestfriend. I launched a leche flan business with my best friend. I watched Wolfgang for the first time. Basti Artadi touched my elbow, waved at me, smiled at me, and addressed "take care" to me five times. I taught myself how to play guitar. I learned how to iceskate. I almost became a band manager. I got to attend lots of concerts, which was a first, because by seventeen, going to one was taboo. I welcomed the blow of unrequited love and wept for it. I fumbled with HTML for the first time and came up with a crappy site, but learned eventually and was soon hosted. I had to quit volunteer teaching because of school work. I attended a seminar which changed my life. Then came the first boyfriend and the first breakup. These and more tears, laughter, heartjoys, heartaches, frustrations, dreams, hopes, faith, care and love, constituted my coming-of-age year.

Before the clock struck to twelve and officially announced my nineteen years of existence, I looked back to the last year with much reminiscing emotion, and sent a silent prayer, wishing this year would just be as magical. Complicated, twisted, challenging but magical.

As I snuff out the last tinge of nostalgic air, I now go on with life, chartering a fresh ground which promises my growth as an individual. Enchanted with the great things in life, equipped with lessons derived from the past year's experiences and surrounded by the greatest people in the world, I no longer have to groan over the addition of another year in my biological calendar. Life is beautiful, and a birthday is always a gargantuan blessing never to be despised. At this point, I can honestly say: Hey, I'm glad to be nineteen.

***
You have been exquisitely wonderful. Thank you so much for the greetings, you sweet online friends you. I'm going to hit you back and lovingly holler who you are specifically later ok? :)

At exactly twelve am, birthday text messages started flooding in. By 1am, I already have more than ten greeters. It pleases me infinitely how these guys waited for my birthday to exactly commence. That included you, Carlo Such a great guy, he really is! :)

Now I remember by 11:45pm last night, my college sis, Mel called and gleefully belted out a happy birthday song. She said she really set the alarm to 12 to greet me, of which I answered, "It's not yet 12 here!"

"Twelve am na dito sa Laguna!"
"So nineteen na ako diyan, eighteen pa rin ako dito."
"Ganun nga."

Hehe.

2002-10-21T01:31:00.000-07:00

Background: The Dolphin's Cry by Live (acoustic)

I think I'm having these I'm-getting-older blues. I'm turning nineteen after tomorrow and, I feel, quoting Ruth, "old and nothing." Har har. I know nineteen is not much of a big deal, it pales in comparison to having the first digit of your age change to two, but well, seems like I still have the provocative urge to bury myself under the bedcovers on my day and moon over the blahness of everything. I know I'm just fabricating a large, useless quilt of senseless musings, for what the hell is wrong with turning one year older, right? But no, quoting Ruth once more, that girl lugs nuggets of wisdom I tell you, "early midlife crisis" is about to barge in unexpectedly like a naughty trespassing Big Bad Wolf. Hanzel, my beloved highschool friend, who turns 19 today, shares my sentiments. Last week's conversation rolled like this:

"Sam, ilang taon ka na sa Wednesday?"
"Eighteen. Ikaw ilang taon ka na sa Monday?"
"Eighteen din."
"Wow ang bata natin"
"Oo nga, tayo pinakabata sa batch..ano plano mo sa birthday mo?"
"Magdedebut ako. May cotillion. Kasama ka pala sa eighteen dance."
"Magtutuxedo ba ako? O magbabarong?"
"Tuxedo na lang..."

Heehee. The corny Libran and Scorpion are both in denial. We are unbelievably hopeless.

If I come to think of it, absorb the entirety and digest the fundamental gist of this universal process called ageing, then maybe it won't be so hard for me.

Let's see. Turning a year older doesn't kick off life-altering changes overnight, right? Not because I'm eighteen today I'll be a different person altogether on the twenty-third. So it's just safe to assume that me turning nineteen doesn't dramatically modify who I am as an eighteener today. If I dwell on the fact that I can make it seem as if I'm not yet nineteen on my birthday, and just let the reality hit home when my reluctant biological clock is ready enough, then I can kiss these pathetic ang tanda ko na rantings ta-tah. In the end, the birthday will just be a sudden whoosh; it will just go by as a gust of wind, almost unnoticed and still faintly felt.

Sweet heavens, I don't make sense.

Anyway, you know what I think is weird about birthdays? You become one year older in just one day. A single day is equated to a whole year of an older you. I don't know about you, but for me, that is just bizarre.

2002-10-21T00:23:00.000-07:00

Background: Wherever I May Roam by Metallica

Lovely, sunny, super morning. The clouds were phenomenal as usual, the sun although beckoning with so much thermal power, was just as peachy. I was with my friends - my orgmates from the UP Kustura, an organization of UP Diliman students living in Marikina City - and our project being a quiz bee among high school students in our city on the 28th, we darted towards the city hall and irked the officials with our presence. Hehe. It was well worth it, because we left the city hall three thousand five hundred pesos wealthier.

Then Golda and I went ga-ga over haggling and bargaining at the tiangge. Long live bargain goodies! Man, if there were two girls who could make do with a fifty pesos tank top, then that would be us. Cheapskates, we proudly are! We're so into it, we're already making mental notes on our tiangge-hopping schedules for the rest of the year. Fuuun. Anyway, other than driving the salespeople crazy with our chattering on which was which to buy or which looked prettier on us, we seriously decided to pursue part-time work at the city's local FM station sometime soon. She's a SpeechComm major and I'm from BroadComm, so what do you get? Two girls who are more than giddy to host their own program, never mind if the station is stuck in an obscure frequency. We have our orgmates, families, neighbors and other friends, so we need not worry about audience share. We will coerce them to listen. We will threaten them in the name of that ole' Guinness hotshot giant pair of shoes Marikina brags about, if we have to. (We saw the shoes a while ago, and they're enormous. They're so enormous it's ridiculous :P).

Lots of laughter, smiles, whimsical nothings, inside jokes today - such things never cease to amaze me. My friends never cease to amaze me. Oh yeah, they have this scheme to set me up with their friend who shares my passion with rock and moshpit. While at Red Ribbons, they showed me his picture and dovetailed it with stories on how he always go "Astiiig!", how he was a mighty help on their Banahaw hiking and how his face lights up when he talks about concerts which they deem as the mighty denominator for the both of us. Friends do the silliest yet sweetest things just to rev you up, eh?

So yeah, it was a superb morning :)

2002-10-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

Background: Deep by Nine Inch Nails

"Any luck does not have to do with passing this kind of exam, but good luck to you anyway."

So went the written instruction for my bloody finals in Comm 120, Law on Mass Media.

Last night, my meek mental machine, known to you as the brain, seemed to be caught in a huge vise and was squeezed until it forced the remaining stored information out of it. I was so disdainfully unprepared for the exam I just ended up doodling flowers in the bluebook. Once again, my complacency to such academic matters was mocked by the possibility of a jaw-dropping grade of 5.

The overnight group study session the night before did not work out. "Aral na tayo!" "Teka, tulog muna tayo fifteen minutes tapos review na." Guess what, that fifteen minutes extended itself to seven precious hours. Even my wandering to the College of Law library was nothing but a scholastic disguise; the place actually induced me to two hours of slumber. I know libraries are supposed to be immaculately quiet, but I swear, that lib has the most deadening, ear-splitting silence.

And then there were these minutes in between when I would drift to somewhere else and collide head-on to the past. I would alarm my cellphone after five minutes, saying to myself, "Until that time I would think about him then move on with the review afterwards." Sigh. What could be more absurd than that? I still am a romanticist who can't help morphing to a pathetic dimwit.

Anyway, the exam is over and life is short so I will not wallow over my flimsy chance of passing the test. It's my semestral break, and I am comfortably plopped in a cotton candy couch, with a Coke in one hand, the remote control in the other, with five college semesters officially under her belt and a month of pure, sleep-full, readings-less bliss.

***

I want to shut up and not talk about love. Not mention about the past and its insurmountable beauty, nor the present and its ferocious aftermath. It would have been less aggravating if I just watch everything unfold before me, and not say a word because the more I try to make sense of what happened, the more I realize that the love has finally succumbed to nil. And the more the realization sinks in, the more painful it becomes, the harder it is to accept that I have been left behind.

But dang it. I am an emotional and jaded motormouth so I am not the one who will keep mum about such.

I was happily devouring a hot fudge sundae, then less than a second, I was staring outside the Mcdonalds window. They asked me what's with the sudden somberness? Thus I rolled another endless rambling.

I accompanied Mark to a video editing place, and while he was busily instructing the editor, I asked him for a paper and a pen. There went the creation of another love letter.

I was riding a cab with some friends, and asked the driver to turn up the radio volume for the reminiscing background. Sympathetic murmurs and sighs from them ensued.

Then this blog. It's not supposed to contain my heart, but I will it to.

I want to shut up, but I can't. I'm bound to pour out the frustration verbally, and when will I stop, that I have yet to figure out. Maybe when too much writing and talking and pestering people for pieces of advice wear me out. Maybe when I run out of words to explicitly describe everything. But for now, I'm stuck to taking it all in and letting it all out.

2002-10-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

Background: None

This is something I just can't get over with.The sky. The grandiose architecture of white in the most darling blue backdrop. Personally, it's my stirrer of sentiments. One look upwards and I'm more likely to leave everything at hand and launch myself in a self-reflective mode.
The sky is just so beautiful, it makes you think and dream and talk about beautiful things, it obliges you to see your life as a beautiful enterprise comprised of equally beautiful elements.

A bright sky chockfull of clouds or a velvety starlit one in the evening can tag my tearduct, and there.

Haaay. My melodramatic tendencies coinciding with itching anxieties and a potential headache.

2002-10-12T00:14:00.000-07:00

Background:Voodoo by Godsmack

Remember your first heartache? Everywhere you go reminds you that in the long haul, it's just you and yourself, and that the one person who promises you saccharine sweet salvation is nothing but a facet of life's never-ending series of sly artifices. And that the backdrop you work around with is always shadowed by some foreboding forces, ominous memories that push you to a melancholic reverie. It gets so lonesome, so tiring, so stark, it leaves you partially deadpanned, partially devastated, wholly stunted. The hurt hits point-blank, so try as you may to dodge from the pain, it still gets to you. So you surrender by conforming with the universal rule of crying. Tears punctuate everything with an ellipsis, and never a period, because the irrevocable cycle goes on and on...

Love serves us with a platter of tempting, palatable delicacies but alongside with those are sidedishes that teach us that what we intake can somewhat be vomit-inducing.

Sigh.

Midnight phonecalls that last until the wee hours of the morning tell you that maybe he cares enough to not sleep just so you have company. But then again, maybe he does the same thing to his girlfriend. So what is the point.

Asking you on what do you look for in a guy can rattle your world, supposing that maybe he is fishing for an information to find out if he fits in the criteria. But then again, such query can be nonchalantly stimulated from the natural concerns of friendship, and nothing more.

His promise to teach you Wolfgang chords propels you to go reading between the lines. But baby, there are no lines to read, to begin with. First things first, you have a boy and he has a girl. Get over it.

Sigh. Who has the time to entertain these hanging foorafaws amidst finals week, script deadlines and other last-minute semestral havoc? Just when you are about to scrub your brains with all the information that can probably save you from failing Law on Mass Media and Communication Research, you digress towards the litany of why love does not work for you.

2002-10-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

Background: Glycerine by Bush

Currently wishing a writer will fall for me. I am in the middle of brewing a forty page drama script for my Radio Scriptwriting class when the idea whooshes out of me. I will cry big, euphoric tears when someone will drop down to his knees and hand me a sonnet that begins with "your eyes speak of the stars..." He will whip up his own beautiful lines and address them to me in the most splendid fashion.

I want to be fathomed through writing. I want to be measured in words.

How will I appear in front of a writer? What words will justify my being? Of course, granted that that writer loves me, then I must be worth hundreds and hundreds of beauteous adjectives for him. He will believe every synonym of lovely refers to me. Needless to say, I will be the be-all and end-all of his writing, the same way great writers clung to women as their inspiration to brilliant wordplay. Look at the lucky inamoratas of e.e.cummings, Pablo Neruda, Christopher Marlowe and Robert Frost. They purported the materialization of the most lyrical verses ever waxed in the literary domain.

I am heartbroken, what can I say? Cramped between a boyfriend who doesn't care, who doesn't give a damned second to visit this blasted site - the layout was supposedly a gift for him, an expression of love woot woot - and a special friend who is devoid of any human sensitivity, I am careening towards the power of imagination to will a savior masking himself as a writer to appear before me, and write words that will carry me to the dizzying pendulum of madness.

***

Random Rundown:

Eight hours from now and I'm going to look like a ridiculous harlequin once more. Will be dancing to the tune of Annie Batungbakal for a television production, I wonder how did I manage to accede to do such performance?

Finally downloaded some Audioslave songs. Couldn't majorly detect the original syncopated RATM beats from this band; it sounds more like Soundgarden resurrecting.

Tuesday, we watched "The Ring 1" in Film class. It was supposed to be a thrill, because me and my college barkada were able to check out the two other Ring flicks in Cinemanila. But the two girls behind me were reacting to every shot shown, their mundane thoughts vocalized out loud. In the most annoying voices, they went: "Sir, rewind! I didn't see that part!" "I didn't get it! Who was that?" "I'm gonna die!" Oooh god. Although Ring 1 doesn't deviate from the classic horror impact of its two sib flicks, right at that moment, moviewatching had never been so painful.

The first thing my highschool friend remembered when she finally got herself a boyfriend the other day was me. I used to rally the concept of love popping up the minute one gives up on it to death, that it magically happened to her. Hurray for unexpected, blissful romance :)

Webtalk: My YM is busted. I'm eyeing an AIM. I'm almost about to get the drift of archiving. Ruthie moved to a better server. There are treasures in this techie hub; ever thanks to those who have visited this site and signed the guestbook. Your words engulfed me with so much delight. Thank you, thank you, thank you ^_^ (Please hover over the links to your right and visit these super fantastic people, ok?)

I love my room. Hehe. I just want to say that.

2002-10-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

Background: Plush by STP

When you listen to a 21-year old ponytail vendor openly narrate how often her family only has two meals a day, how she was accidentally and brutally impregnated by a bastard, how she hopes a good life for her two year old girl, and how she weaves her dreams around her selling turf in UP CASAA, you wonder if the 40 pesos and pancit canton you've given to her as a token of gratitude for allowing the interview are enough. For the vendor, they are enough, the sincere smile is a giveaway, but you know there's gotta be a better way to help her and her family. You have no extra money to shell out yourself, so you hope that the radio documentary script you write will do justice in mirroring their lives, and eventually strike a heartstring from people who are financially capable of carrying out the magnanimous virtue of charity.

When you watch television rarely, you appreciate its temporal existence, that when you are given the entire Saturday to ball up in the couch and dive into visual mesmerization, you end up fixated in whatever it has to offer. You've never known the most delicious man in the planet is actually Marcus Schenkenberg until you saw him almost naked in Lifestyle Network. You grimaced for the first time upon witnessing a piranha easily gorge a heron in NGC. You've ooohed and aaahed on 400 helium balloons carrying two men up in the sky in Ripley's. You even held your breath for the Ateneo-La Salle championship, never mind if you go to neither one of them. The point is, when you watch TV rarely, you realize you're actually deprived of certain things that have always been freely consumed by the public.

When you skip doing your paper for a midnight call with one special friend, you don't feel guilty at all, because his phone calls have always been a pleasant respite from everything that has been jolting you to a headspinning brouhaha. You laugh a heartfelt laugh with the way the two of you play a language game on the phone in which the loser has to sing as a punishment. You know the two of you are silly, you know the two of you know each other very well, but you have to stop yourself from stepping off the ravine and plunging head-on to that murky waters of beyond-platonic relationships. You're in the verge of forgetting your boy, your very own, who for three weeks has been completely rendered mute for any means of communication, and you're about to entertain the idea of the other guy - the guy in the other end of the phone line - but then he goes telling about his girlfriend. His girlfriend. It surprises you the way he nonchalantly yaks about his girl, whom you never thought existed, but you just feign happiness and support. So now you believe you just have to forget him as a redeemer and as a lambent of hope because there is just no way the two of you can fall for one another. You start to say love sucks, but then again, you know deep inside it doesn't, because love despite its harsh blows and agonizing whips, offers the greatest lessons one can never learn unless experiencing heartache firsthand. You just end up locked in your room, sobbing, wishing for the pain to go away, more sobbing and praying that your boyfriend will come back, save you from transient insanity and curtail any urge to trespass to the other guy's paradise.

When you write down your thoughts online, suddenly you realize the surreality of being read by other people. At one point, it pleases you that people actually spend at least a minute to browse through your entries, but looking from another angle, you expose how foolishly you sound, how cheesy your lines can become, how superficial you look at things. You have never told about the site to people whom you know personally, save for your bestfriends, because you know somehow they would parallel your blog entries to your offline, personal life, until they have successfully dissected a part of you which you'd rather keep in private. You are always afraid of sounding absurd, so instead of applying the firstperson point of view in grammar syntax, you subject all the pronouns to second-person, which doesn't change a thing anyway. It's just that when you are neglected, forgotten, confused, melodramatic, fearful and surprisingly happy at the same time, words just come out carelessly, not knowing if they coherently go together to make a point. You don't make sense. Like this entry. Exactly like this entry.

2002-10-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

Background: Innocent by Our Lady Peace

By request, I did my brother's book report on The Diary of Anne Frank. Andrei is my brother who's always interested on what I have to say so I had no prob about writing his paper. Managing to squeeze the task amid my hellish schedule, I actually enjoyed doing the report. I mean, I love the book with such a passion and Anne Frank has always been an inspiration, so I'd like to think I was able to come up with a pretty nifty paper for my brutha.

But like a thunderbolt striking unexpectedly at a sunshiney day, the PC acted up and threw another tantrum until the file containing the report was...gone. Gone in the hubbub of circuits inside the memory disk, without any inkling that two siblings have almost strangled each other's necks for the loss. The sister tsk-tsked for the effort, the brother panicked for the deadline. The sister hesitated to do the paper one more time - oh no, she's got her own school up in her throat - but the brother begged. The sister eventually acceded, the brother yelled a floor-shaking yehey. The sister sighed, but then saw a 22 watt lightbulb flashing over her head and went eureka!

No time to write, no time to think, no time to organize all my Anne Frank thoughts, I snooped in on some of those book review websites, complete with the summary, characters, etcetera, and rehashed them for Andrei. Weeee. I hope I won't get my brother into trouble. Who knows maybe one of his classmates had the same brilliant idea to go to the site I went to, and copied exactly those which I did? I hope I won't get into trouble. Come on. What I did was an act of plagiarism justified by an act of love. Hehe.

***

I swear. My life, along with the rest of my groupmates', has been injected with too much hiphop information. The research has become the cynosure of our semester, almost overlooking other subjects which need equal attention as well. But we threw ourselves completely to that report for Communication Research. Not sleeping, not eating, losing weight, stalking hiphoppers, bugging interviewees. The 5s and 3s we initially scored prodded the academic metamorphosis, so there. That explained the sheer diligence.

So the presentation of the research took place yesterday afternoon. We were dressed in hiphop getups. Two of our groupmates breakdanced. I rapped (oooh, the shudder) and another shouted "Stuped!". We looked like fools, yes, but in the end we were applauded for the grand presentation. Which set up the paradox, because after that was the critique which dampened our spirits to an all-time low. This very bright classmate of ours pointed out the flaws in our paper, which were a lot as she enumerated them all, and jeez, the criticism stung. It definitely stung. I don't know. Maybe our paper indeed spoke of a lot of inconsistencies, but it was just agonizing to realize that all the hardwork has been summed up as haywire. Two months of researching amounted to one afternoon of constructive - yet still painful - criticism.

Friends in the class were supportive though. As soon as we were through defending our side rather weakly, for at that point we were too discouraged to speak up, I got a note. "Sam and Riz -- okay lang yan ha? kahit sobrang nagpagod kayo para dyan. okay naman talaga yung gawa nyo eh..smile!"

Smile, I did. After a while, we felt so much better. The walk along the Acad Oval, the reunion with Philo classmate turned close friend Tonia, the pigout at Mcdo and the senseless inside jokes with the barkada sprinkled miracles.

I know I'd never be the extremely dedicated college student, I'd never shake off the inevitable tendency to surf the net or play the guitar or blab over the phone before studying for an exam, but you know, this hiphop baby thesis we have here shoved me to well, work hard. Somehow reflecting on this afternoon's event, I've realized that it matters a little how your work turns out, even though at stake is a whopping elusive grade of 1. As long as you worked really hard for it with the rest of the group (I'm friends now with the one who accused me of not doing anything for this paper ;p), then not a single harsh remark can mar the beautiful essence of everything that transpired.

Haha. I am sensitizing this matter too much. Anyway, noticed how the sky looked so incredibly creamy and fiery-feisty at the same time this late noon? Too much beauty ^_^

***

I am in the middle of a trilemma. To call or not to call, or to call the other one.

2002-10-01T09:27:00.000-07:00

Background: Here She Comes Now by Nirvana and Pearl Jam (live)

Three bloody sleepless nights and I'm spaced-out and sick. Bangag, sabog, ngarag.

I have been sneezing like a madwoman since the weekend. Currently sporting awful colds and sniffles, watery eyes and mild cough, I can only sigh for the major badtiming. I can never imagine a worse set-up than sickness coinciding with schoolwork. Anyway, the wonders of feeling ill come in handy. My brother took care of me, buying medicine voluntarily, making a calamansi juice, feeling my forehead every now and then for a sign of fever, and masking a concern face all throughout. It was incredulously, incredibly, overwhelmingly, superbly sweet.

Another sweet thing is Mark promising to treat me to that Oasis concert, which will fall on my birthday. Ha ha. Someone's getting older. So yeah, an amazing concert (It's gotta be amazing. I don't care what will come out of that Gallagher experience, so long as it will conjure that ultimate concert thrill) will make a pretty good start for my nineteenth year.

I sniff a breakup coming.

***

Say hi to the newest halfwisher in the fam, Gauxie! :)

2002-09-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

Background: Guerilla Radio by RATM

I swear I'm gonna drown from too much schoolwork this weekend. If I can successfully butterfly-stroke my way through it, I'm going to treat myself to a nice hair salon treatment. Vanity always works as a compensation for tedious intellectual suffering.

***

First time I wore a halter top, er - I don't know exactly if it's a halter top, my fashion I.Q is unbelievably inferior - and my brother commended me for wearing that despite the diminutive chest size. After which he let out a nice, naughty chuckle. What can I say, my brother is so adorable.

But really, do you have to have breasts (big,plump ones, that is) to wear the thing? If that top requires a standard cupsize, then I'm all set to bury it in my closet until I see a Wonderbra coming my way.

I'm so zonked out I'm talking about breasts. Must be the menstrual cramp I've been having the whole day.

I'm grossing you out so I'll shut up.

2002-09-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

Background: Desperately Wanting by Better than Ezra

I laughed too much, too loudly, too raucously over the phone, and as soon as I placed the receiver, tears began forming. Life's teeny ironies. I felt I was in total connection with this person, when I suddenly segued to asking myself paranoia-thrusted questions such as "what if he's getting sick of me? what if I'm annoying him? what if he's just feigning the laughter?" I don't know. I just feel like I'm too hyper a person to deal with, that a phony attitude towards me can not be farfetched. God, I'd want not to think so, but it's a probability. Despite the fun prattles, crazy convo antics and laughtrips, I can't discount the painful possibility that maybe he's just taking in my personality as a mere gesture of courtesy, and not what have I always believed as a genuine emblem of friendship.

I don't know why I'm thinking of such. This afternoon, I was so up you'd never think I am the same girl whose current academic standing can hurdle her supposed ontime college graduation and whose boyfriend hardly calls her. Before I boarded the jeep, I made one giant holler of "I love you Rudy", which didn't garner any "huh?" looks at all as it didn't amount to anything romantic anyway, but the aftermath was me wondering if the guys ever took that statement literally and seriously. Again, another paranoia check.

Add to that is I'm swimming in a sickening swamp of "di na ako aasa pa", "ang hirap ng di mo alam kung mahal ka ba talaga ng isang tao", "ayoko na, sawa na ako" exclamations. This morning I even found myself copying love quotes from the happy-hued, adolescent-hyped Candymag.com and pasting them in my Notepad. As if those weren't enough, I even read each quote, dwelt on it, and pondered if it's applicable in my life. A hopeless romantic? Nah. Romantically hopeless, maybe.

Maybe I'm just really emotionally jagged, to the point that the minutest detail freaks me out, especially that I'm dealing with a lot of "I don't knows" right now. I don't know how to do this, I don't know how to deal with that. I don't know if what I have is what I want. I don't know if what I want is viable to begin with. I don't even know for sure what the real question is: "what I want" or "who I want."

***

A groupmate yesterday accused me of not doing anything for our hiphop research. H-e-l-l-o. I had exchanged opinions with Francis M., was analyzed and advised by Andrew E., moderated a discussion with a hiphop gangster, killed hours by doodling, inventing, experimenting with research frameworks, and he had the gall to accuse me? I was so angered I ended up crying. So this friend of mine, Dino, has been asking me if should he begin lambasting the guy, taking revenge on his hands. He couldn't take it that someone could incense me, when I'm a person who doesn't know how to get mad.

I deem it incredible how one who's not really a close close friend believes in my goodness (which is questionable. Hehe) and is willing to confront the person who hurt me. It's one of those things that just make you melt.

Just an add-on: According to him and Rudy, "nakakainlove daw ang masahe ko" after I did some massaging on their arms and backs. They said I can do personal services. They were just kidding of course, but hey, Samantha Masahista doesn't sound so bad. :)

***

I discovered a new friend. She's always happy to see me, getting huggy, touchy and all, and same with me. It was just this afternoon that we got to sit down and talk though, for before we were just limited to hi's and hello's, speedy hugs and smacks. Amid the quickie talk, I began imagining another good two years of college life with her, but she surprised me because she said she's going to graduate this October. Honestly, I wanted to cry. She's another jewel plucked unexpectedly, and she's going away soon. Tsk. Now I am itching to nudge Life with my elbow for his knack of subjecting relationships to badtiming.

2002-09-22T20:25:00.000-07:00

Background: Parusa by Cheese

Friends is this year's Emmy award winner for the best comedy series and I'm way beyond ecstatic :)

2002-09-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

Background: Silence.

Primary dominant thought whirling around my iffy brain on monday, 2:45 am:

I hope I can reclaim the people who have abruptly aboutfaced from me, snatch them wherever they are, bring them back to my circle, and make them stay. That's all I ask from them: stay. They won't have to do extremely amazing acts of affection, nor will they have to speak of butterfly promises. They won't have to care that much. They even won't have to love me anymore. Their comeback and visible presence will precisely suffice.

I hope I know why they left, why have I lost them, what have I done. Goodbye is the saddest thing in the world, but I wish they had the heart to do just that, just so I would be informed that they'd drift away from my life. Just so I would come prepared. Just so I would have the chance to beg them not to go.

Loose-ends tear me horribly apart. They devour me until nary a mitochondrion is alive to convince me that I am worth the hassle of being returned to, patching up, making amends and starting all over again.

Secondary thought buzzing around the cerebrum: "Ur text rili matters up here" - from Dino, my friend, one of those who mightily conquered the Tanay mountain. Thank you, dude. It would've mattered more if I were there. Stars an armstretch away, wind in a hyper gyration, the resilient trees below looking like tiny specks of green, it is heaven up there.

2002-09-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

Background: Far Behind by Candlebox

Sam is a little girl, who forty five minutes from now must bolt out of the house door to do some video editing, which is not exactly the academic stuff she giddily wants to do. This little girl is supposed to be basking under the Tanay sun right now with her friends, mountain-hiking, laughing, tripping, bouncing, floating, yakking incessantly, and not caring about hiphop research, radio scripts, TV productions, news columns, and nonlinear editings. But because life is currently dangling dangerous grades of 5s and 3s under her nose, she is as meek as a mouse, submissive, pliant, and obedient. In an attempt to console herself, she adds that at least she was able to download that Far Behind song, which she reckons as one of the most beautiful musical pieces sprinkled to her world.

Anyway, this girl has to take a bath right at this very minute, and spiffily flounce through her life. But before she ends this nonsense gab, something which she is not immune from, she realizes that she loves her university very much, and she thinks that is not a melodramatic statement spurred from an emotion-laden system, but a simple, straightforward fact she shares with the rest of her schoolmates. And with that she wraps up this note with this cute icon:

Icons amuse her to no end.

2002-09-21T04:54:00.000-07:00

Background: One Headlight by The Wallflowers

So UP Pep Squad dipped down to third place after lugging the UAAP Cheerdance championship title for three consecutive years. "Go for Four" mantra had to dissipate to nothingness. Oh well. It saddens me, not to mention the entire Peyups community, but we all know winning streak is often subject to transience. Congratulations to UST squad, by the way. They're great.

But I know my school, and first place or no first place, it still is the formidable, spirited University of the Philippines.

Just showing my spunky school spirit there.

2002-09-20T11:21:00.000-07:00

Background: A.d.i.d.a.s by Korn

Listening to Korn or Nine Inch Nails, and other hardcore bands out there does not make one a bad, violent-loving person.

Last Thursday, I was silently infuriated when rapper Francis M. mentioned that the gunners of the Columbine High tragedy listen to Korn and Nine Inch Nails. "So what?" I was dying to blurt out but of course he was the man, we needed him badly for our research, and he was kind enough to allow a 30-minute talk despite the fact that we just went straight to Eat Bulaga without his knowing. I was videotaping the entire interview, and I resisted the urge to stop recording the minute he subtly articulated that hiphop music was not as radical and gripping as rock music, violence-wise.

Please. So the gunners were awful people, messing up those highschoolers' lives. But they did that not because A.D.I.D.A.S stands for "All Day I Dream About Sex", nor Trent Reznor growls about the starfuckers. The tragedy was a free-willed horrible act brought about by a psychopathic mind system and inner evil tendencies. Let's not go to the hackneyed "rockers are drug addicts" generalizations. Hard pounding drum rhythms, mean guitar riffs and menacing snarls do not exactly equate with gun-trotting, maryjane-sniffing people.

Heh. Pardon me for the defensive rambling. I am easily carried away by issues like this, much like how I am sorely affected every time my mom threatens to take out my Deftones, Wolfgang, and NU107 posters from my bedroom wall, because according to her, they don't complement my personality. Now my ma is the greatest, but I know she will never get to understand my musical preference.

So much of music is integrated to my life. Cheesy line, yes I know, but that's the truth. I am a big rock fan - metal, hardcore, punk rock - and I can't imagine myself not adhering to the genre. It was a release to be actually expressing my sentiments about my passion on rock during a radio interview last Thursday morning. It was just within a radio studio setting in the college, and hosted by my beloved college sister Mel. She even had me playing the guitar on-air afterwards.

Now, I am not a great guitar player. Not even good. I don't even know the Bs and B flats yet. I didn't have formal lessons as I only taught myself to experiment with the instrument last January, fearing that I would just end up frustrating my music guru. But damn, my 3 minutes of fame, playing Albert's guitar (mine is still off-key, string#1 broke) and having someone sing along was intoxicating. I felt like a rockstar.

My rockstar dreams. I had always been jonesing to learn the guitar mechanics, and it was only this year that I finally made it. It's not big a feat, but learning to play the instrument by myself is a big deal for me. I remembered the first three months of self-instruction: I was desperately hopeless, not having a clue on how to switch finger movements on the frets rapidly while strumming at the same time, yet now, I can almost do that. It's my sweet little way of living up to the "practice makes perfect" tenet. Though in my case, it's practice makes better (whatever you are doing). Perfect is too idealistically nirvanaish.

And that incredible good feeling materialized as I played again this afternoon at the College of Mass Communication skywalk, with my good friend Rudy singing along. We quite make a tandem. But poor guy, because I was the one dictating him on what to sing.

"Gusto ko Sam eto," he would say, pointing to a certain song from the songhits.
"Ay wag yan, mahirap yan, eto na lang," I would reply. Hehe.

Now back to my intro sentence. Yes. Korn is good, so is NIN, Slayer, Sepultura, Kittie, etcetera. How such music is embraced, accepted and received solely depends on the listener. One must not blame the artists, their songs, the lyrical contents; it's not their fault some people are screwed-up.

***

Still about music: I am currently in love with Freestyle's "Bakit Ngayon Ka Lang". There is too much meaning in it.

It's been ages since it was first released but it's only recently that I began appreciating the song, which reminds me of the time that I dug "This I Promise You" the moment it regressed from airwave popularity. Tsk. I can never follow pop music updates.

Despite being comfortably confined within the world of mosh pits, electric guitars and long manes, there is still a little room left for NSync. ^_~

2002-09-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

Background: Starfuckers, Inc. by Nine Inch Nails

It was raining this afternoon. And I was out of the house, walking with my pink umbrella overhead. If I'd have it my way, I would've skipped using the umbrella. What's the point of using one, if the rain's too harsh you'd still end up getting wet anyway? Besides, I've always thought there's something so sweet if you commune with the rain. Welcoming it, skin to skin, instead of repelling the pitter-patter with a fancy metal-supported fabric.

I was walking because I was with Diego the dog. My ma and I couldn't leave the subdivision because he was tailing after us, and we're afraid that if we leave, he'd be lost as to how to go home. He's a dog, I know, and he's supposed to know the way, but I guess we just love him too much to be sure that he's protected. I love Diego. I've never had a real pet until him. The rabbits don't count, because they're too passive, too submissive, too... boring, in spite of their astounding beauty. I was close to tears when I saw Diego run after the tricyle, barking like never before, which I deem, was his own sweet way of saying "do not leave me." So I never left him and thus, walked him home.

This rainy afternoon as well, a barkada from grade school dropped by, and made my day. Because she had to leave right away, we successfully cramped a months-worth of stories in thirty minutes. She's never changed. Time has never changed us. I told to myself, "This was the same girl who thought I was so funny she loved being with me. This was the same girl who was one of the first to find out I already got my period, and now this girl is sitting beside me, rediscovering me, still caring for me." Guess this is what "friends forever" is really all about.

I hope it's going to rain tonight as I sleep. But can't sleep yet. In about forty-five minutes, I'll interview Andrew E. over the phone. I already talked to him, and he's so busy I feel guilty for snatching minutes of his work time. I'm even afraid he will have to cut the interview short later. Oh well. I'm not a hiphop fan, I know nothing about the genre, so there's no way I can pull his leg and convince him he deserves to talk to me. On the other hand, maybe I can fumble with sweet talk and go like, "Andrew! Noong bata ako, peyborit ko iyong Humanap Ka ng Panget." Hehe. Downright lame.

***

Recently I rediscovered this essay I wrote months ago, and it propelled me to chuckle. A proof that I wrote the weirdest things when I'm depressed:

Whoever named the comfort room "comfort room" must have shared my sentiment. There was no other place in the world that can absorb my problems, thoughts, and other emotional cobwebs than that universal cubicle. Hence one day when I felt I needed a soul-searching session, I tiptoed to the CR as quietly as possible and braced myself for another tete-a-tete encounter with an inanimate room that was just as good as any breathing shrinks out there.

"Hello dear," the toilet bowl seemed to say, welcoming me, knowing that I was in that hazy plight again. Without removing anything, I sat down the toilet bowl and the therapy began.

"Okay, shoot," I could almost hear the toilet bowl saying. Even the white tiles, and the ceiling, and the lizard elusively hiding somewhere were ready to hear me out.

So my thoughts rushed down in one sudden gush: I felt incapable, insecure, unsure of herself, miserable, heartbroken, paranoid, scared, frustrated, disappointed, and all other sorts of haywire emotions amalmagating to become one boulder of burden. I thought nothing was making sense in my life so far. I felt like thirteen again, battling with raging hormones and other trajectories of puberty, which was very annoying because for the past years, I was okay. I wasn't dealing with any major personal issues, for I had always assumed that I was this sunny girl, an eternal optimist. "Kapag depressed ka Sam, siguro nadepressed na ang buong mundo, " a college kabarkada commented. I was that happy. And I really thought I was until the reality fell upon me and I realized that I was not okay at all."
Maybe the last paragraph held true for a moment, but me claiming the CR was the place to be? Yeah, it's a perfect haven for shedding tears, but I don't exactly consider it as an alternate to a friend. Haha. I must have been really alone at that moment to overlook real, fleshy, breathing people as my confidantes.

2002-09-14T21:03:00.000-07:00

Background: Place your Hands by Reef

Allow me to rant and ramble.

Saturday was a motley of twisted events that left me a tired baby at the end of the night. Morning, I went to Ateneo to look for my uncle and get his videocam. Goodness. It took me forty five minutes to figure out where in the world was the covered college courts, only to find out that my uncle and his family had already left, because apparently I was very late. Ever thanks to that dudette who stole my cellphone and I was left hanging as to what was I going to do, and depend on those ubiquitous payphones, that do not work half the time, to connect with people. Those in Ateneo weren't an exception, so I had to cross the overpass in Katipunan to use a blasted payphone to call my mama. According to her, my uncle had to leave because he had to drop off my cousin at Northfield right away.

Ma advised me to go to Jollibee Philcoa and wait for my uncle there. Jollibee Philcoa, it was. Heavy traffic in Katipunan and University Avenue didn't help to comfort this already-sweaty and haggard young lady.

After a while, I was reunited with my uncle and his family. Relief to the nth degree. My three little angelic cousins were cracking jokes, which corny as they might seem, cracked me really up. "Knock knock," Eileen began. "Who's there?" "Honey." "Honey who?" "Honey bee". Then sputtering laughter ensued.

Before I rocketed to SM North with the videocam, the fam tagged me along on their picnic at Quezon Memorial Circle. I was glad that fam picnics at a park still exist. Then by 12 I left, and man, staying in UP for three years still didn't prep me up with hailing jeepneys in the Quezon Circle area. Three years of traversing to SM North from the university didn't familiarize me any way with the traffic system there. Quezon memorial circle was big, you all know that, and I was almost close to encircling the whole area, just to have an inkling on where to get a transportation.

And I was a lousy pedestrian who's already intimidated with vehicles passing by the narrow strip of road in front of the College of Mass Communication. Imagine the multiplication of fright while I was at the circle. A little soul who's afraid of crossing streets and lost to how to get to SM North, my only consolation was at least the walking did good to my health.

After much exercise to my limbs, I found a waiting area where commuters abound. "San po yung sakayan papuntang SM North?" "Dito."

Thank heavens.

While waiting for a cab/fx/jeep, I hovered over the newspapers for sale, and found out almost all of the banner headlines announced Jules Ledesma's kidnapped kids. Poor guy. One minute he was the jolliest solon in town for triumphantly wooing Assunta, and now he must be the most perturbed father in the world.

An FX with a screaming "SM North" card on its windshield left my right arm flailing like crazy. Finally!

Groupmates and I were supposed to meet up at Wendy's in SM North Annex. Again, three years of UP-SM North trips didn't teach me that the Carpark Plaza was different from the Annex. There was a Wendy's at the Carpark Plaza, and I thought that that was Wendy's-Annex branch. Feeling a bit out of place, I set my legs again in full motion until I found a security guard who told me that SM Annex was at the other side of the mall.

I told myself so.

I was already late for the meeting so I practically ran towards the other Wendy's. What do you know, a groupmate, who's a barkada as well, welcomed me with the bombshell. "The meeting was postponed!" Ahhhh. I was almost ready to turn on my expletives alert system, when she continued, "It would be at 4pm today instead." I would've sat in the corner and bawled like a baby if she didn't add that. After all I went through?

My groupmates and I were meeting up because we would be heading to Caloocan to interview a hiphop gangster. Yes, those groups which constitute dye-haired, accessories-laden guys, and which is almost often associated with the N word. Notoriety. And there was my friend telling me that we would hold the focus group discussion (fgd), of which I'd be moderating, at the gangster's tambayan. She added that she asked another groupmate if we could just hold the fgd at a neutral territory.

Three (lovely) girls and a guy from a university doesn't match up to a 20-membered (or more) hiphop group that goes "stu-ped!" Kidding on the lovely part.

It was still 1pm, so I accompanied Riz to Kenny Rogers for her lunch meal, while I just got myself an iced-tea. It was nice catching up with Riz' life so somehow the postponement of the meeting wasn't bad at all. Afterwards we went to the grocery to look for snacks to feed to the hiphoppers. Plus juice? or Zesto? Dunkin Donuts? Goldilocks Mamon?

We opted for mamon and the Plus orange. Cheaper. Hehe.

430 pm and everyone in the group was already present. Caloocan's notorious gangster, here we come.

"Nathan, mababait ba sila?"

Silence.

"Nathaaaan!"

"Basta marunong silang gumalang."

Thanks for that tiny consolation, dude.

So the pickup trekked the narrow, wet roads, while the four of us got ready. I was the most freaked-out because I was supposed to be the moderator, but in the end I successfully cajoled the other two gals to accompany me in that queer responsibility. After a while, a former member of the STG (the name of the gangster), joined us and oriented us.

Then despite the rain, we got to their tambayan. And man, the guys did look scary. Smoking, drinking booze along the streets. There were redheads, blondes, and also guys with hair in gray-black streaks. They eyed us, suspiciously? maliciously? We couldn't really figure it out.

It was raining, so we skipped the FGD at their tambayan, and proceeded to another shanty. One member of the gangster apologized because some of them were drunk, including himself. We started handing out personal information sheets until I saw one of them tucked a gun inside his shorts. The other held a samurai-type sword. I couldn't have thought any more interesting FGD than this.

Then the FGD proceeded. Videocam was on, and I started rambling. The two groupmates backed me up, and right at the very beginning, we knew we were wrong at being judgemental.

"Ganyan naman eh, pag naiisip na gangster, ang iisipin agad masama."

Then they started to tell their stories. In STG (Salbaturigi gang something), drugs are taboo. Even cutting class require disciplinary action. It just so happened that in their culture, they have to dress like that, act like that, talk like that. They just love to rap, to dance hiphop, to hang out, to listen to Death Threat, Andrew E., Nelly and Tupac. They resort to violence, only when they have to. But basically, they're a pretty bunch of normal kids who still know how to respect their parents and women. And they were incredibly courteous to us.

For one more hour, they got to talk about their lifestyle more. Hiphop is their life. That was the main point - everything in that culture is integrated to their living, and they don't give a damn that people think they're notorious, violence-loving individuals. They just stick together, like brothers.

It was a humbling, eyeopening experience, that I had to conclude. In the end of the FGD, all of us became friends. After stuffing them with mamon and juice, we went off, said goodbye, and expressed our gratitude. We meant it when we said "Salamat sobra."

Around 9, Riz dropped me off at SM North where I would meet Mark. I was shitty-scared my best friend would leave without me, but he comforted me right away by texting in Riz's cell, "Bsta anung mangyari, di kta iiwan." Aww.

But it turned out I was the one who waited for him for one hour. I went bookstore-hopping for a while, and found myself a wonderful paperback for only 25 bucks. Then he came at Burger King while I was beginning to acquaint myself with the protagonist. He was fuming with rage because the facial center people sabotaged his face. That's exactly the reason why I don't frequent facial salons anymore. You go there expecting they give you a wonderful skin, and you leave the place with bumpy, red, blotched face.

After the dinner at that joint (stupid we forgot to set our drinks to drink-all-you-can), we were off to our homes. We braved the rain, the dark sidewalks along EDSA, the puddles, and potential snatching instances. Under one umbrella, we made our way among other pedestrians eager to get out of those scary alleys. If someone would say we weren't missing the real Manila life, damn, he's right. In between tripping over my sandals, and getting drenched, and passing by street vendors elaborately selling porno VCDs, we finally hailed a bus. Both with poor eyevisions, we put our mighty forces together in squinting to be sure we were not getting aboard the wrong bus.

Finally we squeezed our bodies in an FX heading directly home. I felt tired, peaceful. I was ready to shut my eyes to wrap up the night, but my best friend was there, and I couldn't afford missing a long conversation with him. Most of our co-passengers were lulled to sleep with our droning, haggard voices.

Then I reached my home, was welcomed by Diego The Dog, gave my mom a brief synopsis of my Saturday, then went upstairs to sleep. Although before catching a much-awaited slumber, I realized I forgot to do one critical thing. Inform my highschool batchmates of the alumni motorcade for Sunday.

But heck. I had an exhausting Saturday, filled with much walking and talking and waiting and more walking, I deserved the sleep.

2002-09-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

Background: Anti Metallica Anthem by The Presidents of the United States of America

Song currently playing is one of the most hilarious I've ever listened to. It's a satirical imitation of "Enter Sandman" with lyrics heavily modified to pertain to the Metallica-Napster brouhaha.

Chorus goes like:"We're in debt From the internet Sue the fans We're off to Napster Napster land."

I wonder if Hetfield and the gang know about this.

Anyway. Yesterday my friend and I were gaily chatting when her ex-M.U. stopped by our table. I resisted the urge to whoop but I couldn't stop myself from smiling that I had to bite my lips and pretend to be busy with something else. I ended up staring at a bond paper (still with the sheepish smile on my face) the entire time they were talking.

When guy already fluttered away,my friend and I exchanged looks. Then I sang, "..hey there's a look in your eyes. Must be love at first sight." You should have seen her reaction.

I love it when everyone switches to mush mode. Me, included. Two months despite the distance and other lapses, and still holding on.

There is no way this Friday the thirteenth will be a bad one.

2002-09-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

Background: Enter Sandman by Metallica (Live from Woodstock '99)

I looked like a total dweeb this morning. I decided to skip class because well, I didn't feel like going, and besides I figured out we had the exam last week, surely there would be no major activities for today's meeting. So there. Skipped class, went online, music-tripped, played with the dog, did the homework, when suddenly I felt lost. Off. Spaced-out. As if in that moment everything just froze. Clock stopped, and the world beamed its spotlight right at me. I was at centerstage, and from afar I could make out the boulders of burden, disguising themselves as academics and other significant matters, which soon avalanched themselves as one giant snowball. That snowball got me, knocked me down and I fell flat on my face.

So I began pacing back and forth in the kitchen. Just because. Well, maybe because I knew that's what people do in the movies when they get impatient - frantic pacing - and I felt so movie-ish that moment. Then I sat down and buried my head with my arms, stayed in such position for a couple of minutes, and curtailed any thoughts doing centripetal movements around my brain. I did not want to think. I did not want to contemplate on things, because contemplation often leads to self-examination, and self-examination automatically branches out to blaming and guilt-tripping. And I was not up for blaming and guilt-tripping myself.

However. Minutes after, what was a fleeting worry over missing this morning's class aggrandized itself as a gigantic guilt, so I took a bath and headed off to school.

So much for anti-contemplation.

***

My September 11 2001 diary entry went like this:

"..Somehow it dawns upon me that I can't go to New York anymore. I can't go to a place that will remind me of the animosity of mankind. To live in NY is a dream, for to live there is to live an exciting life but what is exciting in a city that lost two of its souls?"

I stand corrected. How dare I wrote that selfish line. To live in a WTC-less NY remains a dream, because the city has become a better place as it has witnessed lives extending themselves to other lives, souls touching other souls, hearts healing other hearts. It has transpired a stellar interconnection among people all over the world.

God bless those who perished on that tragic day.

Footnote: Ironic that my dad bought me an "I love NY" shirt from Manhattan two days before September 11.

2002-09-08T04:52:00.000-07:00

Background: Mutter by Rammstein

It has been a rough week, and I'm looking forward to another which I suppose will be rougher. Ahh. The pains of college. I just came from McDonalds where my group reconstructed our research proposal that earned us a historical 5. We realized a while ago, that although ours wasn't a product of extensive preparation, it was not really deserving of a 5. I mean, we did our part; it wasn't as if we didn't pass anything. Sure it wasn't a work of a genius, but couldn't she at least give us a passing grade of 3 to acknowledge the effort, small as it might seem, behind the proposal?

But the damage being done, we just buried our noses over kajillions of readings while stuffing ourselves with the delish McDo's Arroz Caldo, squeezed our brains to churn out theoretical frameworks suitable for our topic, and killed our fingers with nonstop scribbling. I, heavily inspired by the university's famous aphorism "Do not let your academics get in the way with your education", hence the pronounced indolence, was actually working hard a while ago. As in real, cerebral, forcefully hard. I made sure I came earlier than the rest so I could really prep up the task assigned to me. It was an overwhelming, is-this-me experience it deserved an entry here :)

***

This week:

I cleaned my room! After being a hodgepodge of odds and ends for almost a month, finally it was back to its normal state!

My guitar went off-key on me. I tried to tune it myself, but the plight just got worse.

I ate 13 isaw (chicken intestines) in one sitting! Blame Jiet, my Chinese friend, who was adamant in feeding me the same amount of isaw he stuffed to his mouth. Hehe. The guy admitted to being such a Filipinized foreigner, you couldn't help admiring him.

I have been cracking green jokes. Somebody stop me! Hehe.

My mom celebrated her golden years. I love her infinitely.

I got a phone call from highschool buddy, Ferdie, who's based in Los Angeles. The surprise of my life came when he told me he's actually in the Philippines already!

I made a scene in Sta. Lucia Mall. My jester-brother shamelessly tickled me while we were walking, and so I squirmed and shrieked like a loony in front of everybody. Then right before I plot sweet revenge (sabotage his carefully thou-shalt-not-touch hair? crack an inside joke? pinch his arms?) he wrapped his arms around me. Sigh. My sweet little man.

My other brother has been calling me "Ate dear". I couldn't think of any sweeter name than that.

Came up with a philosophy that since I only have a year and a half before I graduate (very hopefully), I might as well enjoy every minute of studying. It was the most optimistic idea I've ever fabricated.

Friends and I passed up the chance of winning money and a diamond necklace. TV host came up to us and asked us to pose ala-Marilyn Monroe for a noontime show, an act which equates to five thousand bucks. Shaking our heads altogether and ignoring the camera, the five thousand peso dream floated away.

My brother told me I'm starting to look like Garfield. Up to now, I'm wondering if that's a compliment or what.

2002-09-04T03:11:00.000-07:00

Background: I... by Wolfgang

This afternoon, I went to school for a group meeting to discuss what would be our video news feature. The HIV idea was ditched, along with the class' plans to join the KBP awards. We figured out we couldn't do 15 minute video production, which was not only time consuming, but way expensive. It should have been really exciting competing with the professionals in the broadcasting industry, never mind if we're all set to lose anyway. After all, we're talking about KBP here, the same guys who grant those Golden Dove awards.

So I came thirty minutes late for the meeting and I couldn't blame them if they already decided on what to present on video.
They're eyeing a feature on Gayuma, a restaurant along Katipunan. I was okay with that, really, it seemed like an interesting place, but I just hoped they came up with something more socially relevant, something that is significant enough to initiate good change. That video would be slated for airing in Channel 4, which was more of a public service channel than anything else, and we're going to submit a video about a swanky, occult-inspired resto? Imagine this news program in NBN featuring the latest issues in the country, discussing the sentiments of the people, then ta-dah, out comes our earth-shattering video about a... restaurant. So anticlimactic.

The passive fool that I am, I just kept this insinuation to myself.

Add-on: Then I proceeded to the library and you just don't know how proud I was for actually researching and caring about our group's research proposal. The mere fact that I bothered to go inside the library was a feat in itself. Ha, look who's turning to a butterfly. And I even ponder on having an all-night study session, looking up for communication models to use for the research, reading all those lessons, engaging myself in the academic jazz. Hoo boy.

***

I stared myself at the mirror, and holy cow, I realized that I have the biggest eyebags in the world. It used to be of little issue to me, but now, I am perturbed. Like, how did those two sacs end up under my eyes? I do sleep, not as much as I wish, but I still get decent zzs from time to time. Then I remembered my father telling me before that his family is known for monopolizing the genetic material for eyebags, that no matter how much one sleeps, he still ends up with a generous amount of those. Thanks to my father's sleep-crazed ancestry and I resemble a funky raccoon.

I have always been not particular about my appearance. I am known to be such a low-maintenance person, that when my guy friends in highschool see me powdering my face now, they go wild. "Dalaga na si Sam!" Look at that. They can't believe I am girl enough to care about the oil in my T-zone. So, when I think about getting a treatment for these stubborn luggage in my eyes, it's not a vanity case, yes? It's not my fault they materialize, so maybe I have the rationale to get rid of them? And that I owe myself a little reward for not giving much of a hoot on how I look like?

But before I reflect and convince myself to make a mad dash to the facial care center, and before I imagine an eyebags-less Sam gleefully declaring "Thank you Doc!", I know I'm obliged to ask my mom first, and she'll say no and launch into a "be satisfied with what you have" tirade, so yes, in the end, it's still me and my raccoon-inspired self.

2002-09-03T03:24:00.000-07:00

Background: Secret Garden by Bruce Springsteen

Crazy life. I impersonated President GMA again for radio and I just had to cover my face with the script because I couldn't bear them seeing me assume a rabbit face from doing so. It's fun making people laugh through mimicking people, but somewhat it's tiring. There is a blatant attempt to be someone you're not, and you almost have to move heaven and earth to assume a person that is not you. My friend said I'd make a great stand-up comedienne. Oh great.

My prof found me sleeping on his class, and announced to the entire class that if I insist on such slumber state he would have my seatmate hug me (Which is not a bad thing actually. Heh). Our class was supposed to be from 4-8pm, but he extended for forty-five more minutes for an exam, which whoopdeedoo, got me a zero. The consolation was at least two of my blockmates scored 2 and 5, and that the exam was a right minus wrong type.

Paranoia worsens by the minute. But I am usually an optimistic person, so I'll try to worm my way through it.

Then I feel like I'm living a Romeo and Juliet love story. That's a hyperbole, of course, but the forbidden visits, the attempt to sneak out of the house, the mother- in-between issue constitute a situation somewhat similar to that of the "ye starcrossed lovers". And for the life of me, I don't know but I find this exciting.

Bic Runga's Sway is playing right now. Perfect song to end this entry.

***
Ruth, yes, I did email you, dear. Seems like I couldn't also post comments in your site. Hoping to catch you later! ^_^

2002-08-31T13:27:00.000-07:00

Background: Aerials by System of a Down

Before I hand over my copy of Og Mandino's The Greatest Miracle in the World to one sweet angel who turns 18 today, I read once more Chapter 9: The God Memorandum.

God says - and this line never fails to astound me - "You are my greatest miracle. You are the greatest miracle in the world."

Wow. How can someone so inadequate, so inane be a miracle of the Highest Being? But still, I am that. I am God's greatest miracle.

So are you. We all share that superb superlative. Though technically it was Og who wrote that life-altering revelation, we cannot just question the veritability of that sentence. Because we know God isthat good to consider his faith-swiveling, fame-seeking, often faltering human beings as his greatest miracle.

Repeat. We are the greatest miracle in the world.

It's a fact we cannot afford to ignore.

***

Saturday Synopsis:

UP Kustura's Rummage sale was a bang. It didn't really meet outstanding statistics finance-wise but the entire experience of selling, sales-talking, persuading, interacting and counterhaggling (hehe) was exhilarating. A magnificent meal at Mang Jimmy's with orgmates ensued. Bottomless rice, icecold water, sizzling sisig, porkchop, tuna and tapa mix, coupled with bouts of laughter, great gabs, and other random loud musings made up a perfect afternoon. Then blasted off to UP to catch up with the scriptwriting session, wasn't able to do so but just decided to bring the script home. Archie Double's Digest, UP winning against Adamson, a heeded toilet call, MRT ride and Mel's company cheered my exhausted body up, which soon teleported itself to Ali Mall for dearest Armi's gift. Roamed the entire SM and Ali Mall for a cake trinket, because that angelic debutante and I had a cake theory going, in which we juxtaposed an icing-topped cake with life. Found one, and bought another purple candle to go with that. Thirty minutes I debated over what paper bag to use. FX hunting was a tough task, and I found a sweet highschool friend to join me in my commuter agonies. Inside the FX co-passengers got to eavesdrop (and secretly guffaw, who knows)over the latest in our love lives. Then I got home, washed the dishes, quickly cleaned the kitchen, danced with our dog, did some mushy reminiscing from hearing Fuel's Shimmer, typed a Saudi Arabia article, placed quickie phone calls to Guia and Mark, and was about to start finishing the script I was fussing about when I realized I actually forgot to bring that. I mentally kicked myself afterwards.

My Saturday is as incoherent as it gets.

2002-08-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

Background: Sleeping Beauty by A Perfect Circle

Yesterday morning, inside the passenger jeepney, I was seated beside a mother whose baby was on her lap. The baby was about 9 months-1 year old, an adorable cherubim in a green dress. While my eyes were tracing the expanse of the scenery outside the jeep's window, my ring finger deliberately touched the baby's pinkie. And just what I had expected (and what I had wanted to happen), she hooked her finger with mine. Instantly transported to a sphere where strangers are no more different than your best friend next door, the baby and I had that micro version of holding hands going on for the rest of the ride.

It was the sweetest thing.

2002-08-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

Background: Mata ng Diyos by Wolfgang

Life has been such an exhausting ride from one event to another I only have a minute to figure out if everything is still making sense. I never thought I would be this busy, knowing my natural tendencies to shun away from responsibility. But seems like good ole' responsibility has successfully chased me and pinned me to the ground, so right now, under its mighty tutelage I am bound to comply to whatever it has to dictate.

Dictate, it does. Go to this place, talk to this person, prepare this stuff, and all other imperatives to that effect I am obliged to do. A hapless being, I can't say no. Because darn, it's responsibility, remember? Something you can dodge, something you can evade yourself from, but something you can't deny once it finds itself knocking you down (Unless you are this no-rules, screw-responsibility girl, which I am really not. I still have the decency to be a bit reliable, you know.)

As responsibility is having the time of its life torturing me with its incessant orders and complaints, I feel so detached from the usual goings-on in my life. I must really be bad at this responsibility thing, because I can't manage to keep other things intact. I haven't hung around with my blockmates lately, and I am missing them badly. My bedroom is a total mess (think shoes and books piled one on top of another in the floor, readings sprawled liberally across the bed). I don't know what to prioritize in my academics, because most of my subjects seem to be extracting the worst in me. Batchmates are grinding me with that mocking question: "Kamusta na ang yearbook?" (Yeah. I must be the laziest, sleaziest e-i-c the yearbook world has ever seen.)

See. All these I cannot comprehensibly control because my devotion to one big responsibility keeps me from doing so. I know that doesn't procure a fair justification, but hey, this is me, the girl who even forgets using her organizer to organize things for her.

Weekend will find me heading a rummage sale, kicking off preparations for our HIV video, brainstorming/writing a comedy script, watching the four aforementioned "fleshy" films, typing a twenty-page paper due on Sunday, studying for midterms in Film100, and cleaning my room. The latter the most important task because my mom warns that if I don't get to clean the room this weekend, she is going to clean it herself, something taboo in my context because mama has this knack for transforming everything according to her penchant (including removing my Wolfgang and other rock band posters! Nooooo!).

If I can accomplish all of those in a span of two days, despite my being too-responsible-to-notice-anything-else state, damn, then I must be the luckiest girl alive.

***
For this semester's ACLE (Alternative Classroom Learning Experience), my org, UP Kustura had a film showing of "Radyo". It was a fun film, and what made it a total knockout was its alternative cinema style. You just have to dig those innovative, out-of-this-world flicks striving to make a change in the ho-hum Philippine cinema.

My silly blooper, while introducing the movie:

"Ayan, manonood na tayo ng "Radyo" starring Rufa Mae Gutierrez..."
The audience erupted to laughter.
It was not Gutierrez, dang it. Hehe.

While we're at it, I remember this scene from the FX taxi. I was about to go down then, when instead of saying "Mama, para po" I called out to the driver: "Mama, babay po."

My, I can be such an absentminded kid, huh? ^_^

2002-08-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

Background: In-a-gadda-da-vida by Slayer

Whoa. Slayer, man. Slayer.

I have always been more of a maggot (Slipknot follower), but just recently I branched out to include Slayer songs in my playlist. Damn, they're good.

Anyway. Like a Slayer song, I'm in an earshattering, heartstopping, mouth-gaping, headbanging ruckus. Recently I have been see-sawing with the extremes. Either I'm super happy or I'm downright sad. There are in-betweens but emotions usually define themselves in specific spectrums. Fortunately, I have only been dilly-dallying with sadness, because half the time it's my friends who absorb most of my pain. I am blessed to be surrounded with the best people in the world, who reiterate over and over again, "mahal na mahal ka namin at ayaw ka naming masasaktan". They know I am frightened to fight, and so they fight for me. They know I am weak, so they arm me with their strength. They bop my head and shake my senses just so I can realize that I have to put the hurt to a halt. They think I deserve to be happy.

I am loved. Inspite of.

***

Small blessings, that don't seem to be small at all, on a manic Monday (which is yesterday):

My interview script snagged a 1. And to think I thought I had it all wrong.

Was not scolded when I was almost two hours late for my morn class. Prof just actually laughed over my shameless idea of punctuality.

As I borrowed an untangler from my bestfriend, I casually mentioned about mine being lost. In a span of 3 seconds, she got another untangler from her bag and handed it to me. "Sa yo na lang." Whambam, snipsnap, I have a new comb.

Highschool buddy Reuben fulfilled his Jollibee promise. He still called me Thata, and I guess that's so sweet. And yeah, he laughed so hard over, what Guia calls as "Samantha jokes."

My fourteen-year old brother, Andrei, listened to me ramble on and on about my day, and he seemed to be really excited and interested with what I had to say.

More Jollibee goodies when I got home.

Heart-to-heart ten minute conversation with coursemate Rolan.

A sincere (felt it was) "It's nice to see you" from Chinese classmate, Jiet.

Mama's happy. That alone is a happy thought.

Sunken Garden bonding with Mel. Tears fell, and she wiped them all.

Had fun doing Powerpoint. It was only now that I touched the thing. Aliw!

Strangebrew and Tado featured in Philippine Collegian. Snippet: "Ano ang unforgettable experience mo habang nagshu-shoot ng Strangebrew? Papunta kami ng Pampanga. Tumae ako sa Megadike. Talagang na-tae na talaga ako. Tapos 'yung binigay na tisyu ni Erning, 'yung malambot! P---ina, ang baho talaga sa loob ng van. Diring-diri sila sa akin. Nung interview na namin sa Megadike, alam kong naamoy nila. Pero ok lag, tangna, wala ng atrasan to. Walang may alcogel, walang may ganito. Nakipag-apir pa ako. Tawa talaga ako ng tawa."

Hehehehe.

***

As we have obscenity for our next lesson in Law on Mass Media, prof requires us to watch all of these films: Gamitan, Laman, Biglang Liko (?) and Bakat.

Oooh. Save my eyes.

2002-08-25T01:35:00.000-07:00

Background: TV

Heh. Previous entry sounds mushily preposterous, eh?

Someone just made my day.

Poetry section is up. There's nothing new there though, save for a poem I baptized with the title "Masochist".

Happy Sunday.

2002-08-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

Background: Smells Like Teen Spirit by RATM (Nirvana cover)

I want to situate myself along a beach right now. Nothing to surround me but tons of sand, infinite ocean and the turquoise sky. The beach is nature's therapy to mangled souls as it miraculously absorbs the depression and washes it away with the waves. It cradles human beings the same way angels cradle little babies on mothers' wombs. A paradise stretching itself to the universe, it is heaven's mirror to what is indeed beautiful.

The beach has the tremendous power to vanquish the pains of lost love, broken promises and fragmented dreams. It whispers more than hope - it whispers love.

The beach doesn't coerce one to dwell into unpleasant memories. It only gives justice to lovely recollection like his handsome face, soft hands, tender kisses, and warm embraces. It welcomes a wonderful past to heal the painful present, in anticipation for a hopeful future.

The beach is my balm. Along with the cloud-splashed sky, it spurs the best, healed version of myself. It's just too bad I'm somewhere else instead.

***

"Love has pained me too much to actually believe it is better to have not loved at all".

I wrote that line four months ago. Lots have happened since then, and now I realize that half of love involves pain, ergo you can't love without getting hurt. So you might as well love.

2002-08-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

Background: Whiskey in the Jar by Metallica

My brother woke me up with three scary stories to freak me out. I could have thrown him out of the room, but then I realized it was a Saturday morning and Saturday mornings always put me in a darling mood. Especially if I know I'm going to be stuck at home, instead of having to go to school for the never ending series of meetings.

So I am home. And I'm a happy cat.

The school week had been such a kaleidoscope of irony. The exam I was yammering about in the previous entry was easier than I expected, and I was happy to hand a passable blue book (notebooks used for the exams) when the teacher handed me the bombshell in the form of my think paper. It had a crimson 3 on it, and 3 in UP's standards is the passing grade. Minutes later, my groupmate in that same subject showed me our research proposal which earned this time a 5, which is, heaven help me, a failing grade.

The only thing I could do was yank Mel to go to McDonalds with me and buy a new chordlist.

I enjoy school because I don't study a lot. I do, from time to time, when the lurking intellectual nerves kick in, and when the subject has something to do with my life. Like how I worked my ass off to ace Humanities 1 because it was all about literature, and I adore lit. Or how I endured all the muscle pains in my Judo class because God knows my tiny body needs those athletic jolts. But basically, I'm a lazyboned fool who would be satisfied in absorbing the lessons sans the intensive memorization and other noble study habits. My parents would kill me if they find out I'm this, but I've done a pretty good job in concealing this nasty attribute by assuming an oh-my-god-my-head-aches-from-too-much-studying position in the study table.

And now the gravity of such misdeed sinks in. I got a 3 and a 5. In one subject. I'm in that critical cliff where one more false move and I'll plummet down into that repeat-the-subject valley.

Now that's scary.

There is no one to blame but my ole' self. That's a given. As much as I want to hurl a bit of the accusations to the teacher, I can't. She is a great professor. I think I'm not excelling in other subjects as well, but darn, I can't also lay the blame on the respective teachers. They're good, but boy, do they have their weird sides. Cases in point:

Law on Mass Media: Prof slash attorney explains law as if he's just nonchalantly talking about the weather, the language well-fitted for nonlaw studes. Problem is, he transforms our classroom to a casino. Part of the grading system is through betting. Each student is given 1000points (which he lovingly calls as 1000pesos) as the capital for the class bets. He asks a question, and you place a bet and when you win, hurrah for you. When you lose 'til you maxxed out your thousand bucks, you have to go to this loaning system. A complicated process, yes, which just compels us to take only the minimum bet, which is 200, guess the right answer, and hope for the best. And oh, he doesn't allow girls to wear sleeveless and sandals, too.

Intro to Film: Prof is a smalltime director who used to live in Manhattan so I'm endeared with his Manhattan manners. An exception to the weird teachers, this man is lovable. I always have the knack for staring at him all throughout the class, complete with that puppy look in my eyes. He recently placed a "Good" mark in my review for "Ma Vie En Rose" and I treasure that so much.

Intro to Journ: Prof is good too. Radically good. He used to grace the banner of Inquirer for criticizing too much. Now he says he has recently received two death threats. He is rather off, that conclusion I can come up after I smiled at him and he just gave me that stony,blank,freaky look. Ahhh. He doesn't know me, maybe. I've been absent in this class for a couple of times already.

Communication Research: This the subject where I earned that record-breaking 3 and 5 in one day. No bitterness, no sourgraping. The teacher is okay, but she just has to be more generous in giving grades next time. And she has to skip teaching this subject, which I honestly deem as the most lethargic in the world.

Television Production: Prof is a cute Bohemian gypsy. She has perfected the craft of being a sinister in actual productions, and being an angel a minute after the prods. She has mastered the art of rhetorics as she has successfully cajoled us students to come up with an HIV video feature within three weeks, so we can air them on Channel 9, and ZoeTV (anybody watch that channel?!) before we enter them to the KBP (Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas) awards. She expects us to snag that 50grand, but come on, Ma'am.

Radio Speech and Performance: Prof is an advertising exec who rarely shows up in class so most of the time we deal with her boyfriend, whom we dig more. She is such an unpredictable lady. Yesterday, she caught me and Kate doing the bato-bato-pic (paper,stone,scissors) so she scolded us. Then she exclaimed: "Sam, ang blooming mo."

Radio Scriptwriting: I like him a lot, but he looks like Sec. Nani Perez. A minor turn-off.

Sometimes I just amuse myself with their quirks just so I can see the brighter side. Because right now, the brighter side remains in a bleak frontier. The brighter side has yet to come.

I have heard this so many times from myself. But maybe I will finally have the gumption to mean it this time: I'll do better in my studies.

Yeah right.

2002-08-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

Background: I don't wanna die anymore by New Radicals

I had it all planned that by 1pm yesterday, I would have commenced reviewing for Thursday's midterm exams. Now, thirteen hours later and I am not even close to reaching 1/4 of the supposed readings to be reviewed. I was preoccupied with conditioning myself to study, with prepping myself for the battle I have not triumphantly conquered in the past. I drank coffee and coke (I drink too much coke it's alarming), played the guitar, read my diary when I was fourteen, watched The Simpsons, sang along with the videoke channel, used the phone, deep-breathed, stretched and plopped down in the sofa -- all these actions formed the amalgam of the whole conditioning process. I conditioned myself all right, that I overlooked the biggest part which was to study.

While watching TV --

"Ate mag-aral ka na nga"
"Teka, kinocollect ko pa energy ko."

I am hopeless.

***

Chanced upon this line while languidly browsing the reading: "...By giving you a feel for the culture of research, we hope you will become excited about it."

Got to hand some credits to the scholar who wrote that line, for his effort to enthuse the students to get jiggy with research. But tough luck, sir. Sure I got that feel you were talking about, but I just couldn't feel even the slightest tinge of excitement.

Which was not the case when I came across these lines from my 1999 diary. I just had to smile when I read these: (pardon for the broken grammar) "Okay, I will give up the joy of falling in love, but the ache I will keep, for after all, it's worth it. ' It is better to love than never have loved at all,' Tennyson said. Yes, I will continue loving him, but if I can, I'll try getting over him. I'll really try. Time heals, so it won't hurt next time soon. Who knows? I might meet a man then to fill the gaping hole in my heart."

I know. I was an adorable, vulnerable, idealistic and lovesick fourteener, submerged in the universal adolescent fantasies in which puppy love is equated with the sizzling romantic passions of twenty year olds. I remember how I built my world around that guy, seriously contemplating effective strategies to win his heart. I was pining for him too much I thought I would never look at a man the same way I regarded him with so much tender and care.

If I could, I would timetravel to the past to visit the fourteen year old Sam at the exact moment she was furiously - and morosely - scribbling down the aforementioned paragraph. I would hug her, wipe her tears, pick up her dragged hopes and tell her the stories of the four wonderful,hope and love-filled years ahead of her. I would hush her and confirm what she had written. "Yes, time heals. Look at me now."

And then I would hold her at arms-length, look at her misty eyes and say: "There is someone to fill that hole in your heart." She would smile from that sweet fact, her hopes charged to a higher level. I would hug her one more time to feel how it was to be so young, naive, dreamy and fragile. How it was to be me.

After that, I would bid her goodbye, timetravel back to the present, and haul my lazy ass off the PC to resume the study session for the exam later.

2002-08-20T23:27:00.000-07:00

Background: Girl From Mars by Ash

Lovely song, this in my speaker right now. Just heard over NU this morn that the band had a car accident. Two were injured, but the concert tour went on. The bassist played despite a broken rib. Asteeg.

I love Ash.

While I'm in this band speak, might as well share some Wolfgang news. Basti is still in the States. Got married to his girlfriend Rizza last August 3. I cried when I heard that he's already engaged to his girlfriend late July, but I didn't see an immediate marriage coming, so yeah, I cried again. Incredibly stupid, but people around me know how much much much I love Basti Artadi, so they know that's not stupid at all. Dismissing a possibility of the two of us together - an idea that recurs only in the wildest out-of-this-universe fantasy, I think it's just different to be admiring someone who's already married. Back then he was the unmarried Basti who touched my elbow, told me "ingat", texted back "U 2 and thanks" when I greeted him "happy valentines" and who stood beside me on a picture taking, and whose ex-girlfriend was a Samantha too, to him "the most beautiful woman in the universe" (from the acknowledgement section of their debut album). Now he's the married, hitched, taken, unsingle Basti, a fact so shattering only another enormous-celebrity-crusher can
understand.

I still love him though. Of course. He remains as the most beautiful human being I have ever seen. He is still the greatest band vocalist. Not James Hetfield. Not Eddie Vedder. If you know Wolfgang, you know exactly what I mean.

But really, his bride doesn't deserve him.

Haha. Boy, I'm bitter.

***

Thank you, for the help! Thy hostee, indeed, has more to learn. =)

2002-08-20T04:25:00.000-07:00

Background: Evenflow by Pearl Jam

And the blog worked! Yeeey! =)

Now, I am officially here, part of Ruth's domain, halfwishing[dot]net.

*Huuuugs, sweetie Ruth*

As you can see, this site does not say much. An HTML-idiot that I am, I have yet to figure out scripts and more complicated tags to accomodate a more embellished layout. For now, I have to rely on the almost-obsolete but still formidable Front Page Express.

Will add more stuff to this baby, like archives and poetry later on.