Captain... Captain Jack Sparrow!

Johnny Depp named People's "sexiest man alive"
Reuters - Thursday, November 19

NEW YORK - "Pirates of the Caribbean" star Johnny Depp was named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" on Wednesday, reclaiming a title he first won in 2003.

Depp, whom People described as "the king of cool with the killer cheekbones," succeeded 2008 winner Hugh Jackman. Other stars who have received the honor twice include George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

"Whether it's onscreen in roles like Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise or at home with his family on their private Bahamian island, the 46-year-old father of two with 25 years in show business still reigns as Hollywood's most irresistible iconoclast," People said in a statement.

Past winners include Matt Damon in 2007, George Clooney in 2006, Matthew McConaughey in 2005, Jude Law in 2004, Ben Affleck in 2002, Pierce Brosnan in 2001 and Brad Pitt in 2000.

two birthdays and Gabriel Garcia Marquez

it's my mother's birthday tomorrow, but i will be out of town until saturday for some freakin' training i wish i had experienced before when i was still showing some vigor at work. it looms in me a feeling of guilt, especially now because it is only her and me in our house, and obviously there's no one left with her on that special day. and i am more saddened by the fact that i could not even dare to back out, and she sure as hell won't let me do so, save some considerations to our department that has a battalion of officers: the boss and the weary researcher.

birthdays, for me, are more than mere calendar marks calling forth fancy celebrations of some sort. i don't know if this is peculiar to me, but i feel a sense of sympathy and/or sorrow for someone on the day of his birthday. it's as if i tend to assume that that particular person is so sad, everybody needs to partake in a joyous diversion for the celebrator to have something to compensate for those youthful years disappearing right before his eyes. and that compels me to do even the smallest thing i could or give, be it serious or just to make that person laugh, or even smile upon knowing that there is someone who did not fail to remember (well, in some cases i do. you know me; i'm the personified Dory). that's why for those dates i will never forget, being unable to give or even do the simplest thing, and worse, being not there for them as they hit that milestone in their lives becomes a grave emotional distress. it depresses the hell out of me.

today is one of those special dates. it's someone's birthday, and i don't even know where that someone is... to you, wherever you are and whoever the devil you are with, i wish you a happy birthday.

***

anyway, to make amends for the "might have beens" haunting me every single minute, i'm treating myself with excessive indulgence of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's genius. he triggered in me an emotional impact of overwhelming admiration and respect for his poetic diction, that i could not seem to agree more on whatever there is that his thoughts inflict upon me. he is my Pablo Neruda when it comes to novels. my first intimate encounter with the pleasures of his words was when i read Memories of My Melancholy Whores. on that first romance, i learned to love Marquez as another author of my emotions. what more in my maddened soul can Love in the Time of Cholera enkindle? i am just on some thirty pages from the cover, and i couldn't help falling in his poetic spell, from the lucidity of his realities beyond human comprehension to his eloquence in human love...


"With her Florentino Ariza learned what he had already experienced many times without realizing it: that one can be in love with several people at the same time, feel the same sorrow with each, and not betray any of them. Alone in the midst of the crowd on the pier, he said to himself in a flash of anger: 'My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse.'"
— Love in the Time of Cholera


"Neither could have said if their mutual dependence was based on love or convenience, but they had never asked the question with their hands on their hearts because both had always preferred not to know the answer."
— Love in the Time of Cholera


"He was aware that he did not love her. He had married her because he liked her haughtiness, her seriousness, her strength, and also because of some vanity on his part, but as she kissed him for the first time he was sure there would be no obstacle to their inventing true love. They did not speak of it that first night, when they spoke of everything until dawn, not would they ever speak of it. But in the long run, neither of them had made a mistake.
— Love in the Time of Cholera"


"Sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love"
— Memories of My Melancholy Whores


"We men are the miserable slaves of prejudice, but when a woman decides to sleep with a man, there is no wall she will not scale, no fortress she will not destroy, no moral consideration she will not ignore at its very root: there is no God worth worrying about."
— Love in the Time of Cholera


"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close."
— One Hundred Years of Solitude


"To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell."
— Love in the Time of Cholera


"He is ugly and sad... but he is all love."
— Love in the Time of Cholera


"...and both of them remained floating in an empty universe where the only everyday & eternal reality was love..."
— One Hundred Years of Solitude


"It was a meditation on life, love, old age, death: ideas that had often fluttered around her head like nocturnal birds but dissolved into a trickle of feathers when she tried to catch hold of them."
— Love in the Time of Cholera


"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love."
— Love in the Time of Cholera


"Perhaps this is what the stories meant when they called somebody heartsick. Your heart and your stomach and your whole insides felt empty and hollow and aching."
— Collected Stories



...and so on, as every page gives me another quote to keep and live by.

now i know

The German educator Friedrich Wilhelm Froebel (1782-1852) is the father of the Kleinkinderbeschaftig-ungsanstalt (institution where small children are occupied). The name, too long even for the Germans, quickly shrank to Kindergarten (garden for children).

Froebel wanted his school to be a garden where children unfolded as naturally as flowers.


---------------------------------------------------------
Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia





so that's why.... hehe. ok, etymology. :p

one thing that made me happy amid all these

it was not my birthday yesterday, but i received a gift anyway. it was a box from heaven with a familiar handwriting on one side. i told myself, “that must be the books.” and i was definitely right! courtesy of my cousin, TJ, i now have new additions to my book collection, particularly, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, and Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams, plus another two, which i forgot. it was the first time a big heartfelt smile broke across my face since a mixture of everything bad shattered my faith in life.

typhoons are in no way uncommon in any land, save for those dry countries in which storms are loose grains of sharp sand, though what we are used to are not as rampaging as this last one. a month’s amount of rain in a day’s downpour. hours of wailing and pleading for help. hundreds of bodies buried in the mud, houses broken down, homes shattered. days of bleak darkness and mortal fear. weeks of search and recovery. months of misery and famine. years of mourning and haled recuperation… and a scar in the face of this country to last a lifetime.

if there is one good thing this calamity has brought up, that would be the universal feeling of outpouring concern, which compelled us all to move and lend our hands to people who we know are practically within our reach. but, would we care this much if it happened somewhere else far from our roots? as what my friend, Jaycee, and i were discussing the other night, everything becomes a matter of proximity. people don't really care unless it's happening right in their own backyard. i just hope this disaster would serve its purpose of reminding us, dear dwellers of the earth, to stop complaining about the world deteriorating right before our eyes and start doing something about it. is this exactly what we really dreamed of when we gripped on a frantic swirl of transforming this place into a bricked society, under the mantle of our desires to live conveniently? i don’t see any convenience in this. we might be able to move faster today, only to spend our spare time on things that matter less in our lives. and i’m guilty of drinking all night and slacking off in front of the television or this darn computer!

each of us has a typhoon of his own, be it financial instability, emotional turmoil, or even life crisis. what we often do not realize is that, just like the victims, anyone is a potential sufferer, and unless we initiate changes, tragedies will continue to hound us.

from a 'taxi ride' story

"Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance."

poem of the week

If You Forget Me
Pablo Neruda


I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine

anak ng ungas naman oh!

napaka-indolent/useless/unproductive ko these days... ok, may masabi lang.

a poetic description of poetry itself by the greatest romantic poet of all time

(Neruda's somehow personal yet universal account of poetry)


Poetry
Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

behind distant hills

you couldn't see the whole of a mountain once you're in it.
hence, you're bound to stay away
forever, if you want to get hold of its beauty.
and when it is soon out of view
it only gets more and more vivid
as new eyes could now paint
an image
soft as silent tears,
coming down freely
under the influence
of gravity
and infinite memories.

The one that got away

i've read this about a year ago... and having it pass my sight this morning for the second time, mmm... i just thought it would be nice to share it! :)



The one that got away
Source: The Manila Times
By: Mark J. Macapagal


In your life, you'll make note of a lot of people. Ones with whom you shared something special, ones who will always mean something. There's the one you first kissed, the one you first loved, the one you lost your virginity to, the one you put on a pedestal, the one you're with...and the one that got away.

Who is the one that got away? I guess it's that person with whom everything was great, everything was perfect, but the timing was just wrong. There was no fault in the person, there was no flaw in the chemistry, but the cards just didn't fall the right way, I suppose.

I believe in the fact that ending up with someone, finding a longtime partner that is, does not lie merely in the other person. I can actually argue that an equal part, or maybe even the greater part, has to do with the matter of timing. It has to do with you being ready to settle down and commit to someone in a way that goes beyond the little niceties of giddy romance.

How often have you gone through it without even realizing it? When you're not ready to commit in that mature manner, it doesn't matter who you're with, it just doesn't work. Small problems become big; inconsequentials become dealbreakers simply because you're not ready and it shows. It's not that you and the person you're with are no good; it's just that it's not yet right, and little things become the flashpoint of that fact.

Then one day you're ready. You really are. And when this happens you'll be ready to settle down with someone. He or she may not be the most perfect, they might not be the brightest star of romance to ever have burned in your life, but it'll work because you're ready. It'll work because it's the right time and you'll make it work. And it'll make sense, it really will.

So that day comes when you're finally making sense of things, and you find yourself to be a different person. Things are different, your approach is different, you finally understand who you are and what you want, and you've become ready because the time has truly arrived. And mind you, there's no telling when this day will come. Hopefully you're single but you could be in a long-term relationship, you could be married with three kids, it doesn't matter. All you know is that you've changed, and for some reason, the one that got away, is the first person you think about.

You'll think about them because you'll wonder, "What if they were here today?" You'll wonder, "What if we were together now, with me as I am and not as I was?" That's what the one that got away is. The biggest "What if?" you'll have in your life.

If you're married, you'll just have to accept the fact that the one that got away, got away. Believe me, no matter how fairy tale you think your marriage is, this can happen to the best of us. But hopefully you're mature enough to realize that you're already with the one you're with and this is just another test of your commitment, one which will just strengthen your marriage when you get past it. Sure, you'll think about him/her every so often, but it's alright. It's never nice to live with a "might have been," but it happens.

Maybe the one that got away is the one who's already married. In which case it's the same thing. You just have to accept and know that your memories of that person will probably bring a nice little smile to your lips in the future when you're old and gray and reminiscing.

But if neither of that is the case, then it's different. What do you do if it's not yet too late? Simple...find him, find her. Because the very existence of a "one that got away" means that you'll always wonder, what if you got that one?

Ask him out to coffee, ask her out to a movie, it doesn't matter if you've dropped in from out of nowhere. You'd be surprised, you just might be "the one that got away" as well for the person who is your "the one that got away."

You might drop in from out of nowhere and it won't make a difference. If the timing is finally right, it'll all just fall into place somehow and you know, I'm thinking, it would be a great feeling, in the end, to be able to say to someone, "Hey you, you're the one that almost got away."

why does 28 always have to be a lonely day?

i don't know. all i know is just it's too boring to drink all alone on a 28.

walk the talk

this is an email shared by Niko Papasideris, a not-so-new indie recording artist from Nashville, TN, whom i met on MySpace some years ago. i admit, i do not entirely agree with the wordplay, but hey, it's another way of looking at the road ahead!

****************************************************************
Why I Have No Goals
Roy H. Williams

"Goal," in my experience, is a favorite word of people who talk and dream and dream and talk. And then they get together to "network" with other talkers. There's always a lot of noise in these meetings but it's unlikely that anything of consequence is going to happen. People who chatter about goals are rarely willing to die on that mountain.

I have no goals. But I do have plans.

A plan puts you in motion toward a destination. The destination you choose is irrelevant. It is (1.) motion, (2.) determination and (3.) commitment that separate destination-reaching explorers from goal-setting chipmunks.

Count the cost, explorer. "Am I willing to die on this mountain?"

A goal without a plan is wishful thinking.
A plan without action is self-delusion.

Here are three questions I'd like to ask:

1. What are you trying to make happen?
2. How will you measure success?
3. What's the first thing you need to do to get started?

no more tagay for me?

i can't believe it, but my vice is taking its toll on me this early. i miss my bad-ass alcohol tolerance because now it only takes a week of stress and three hours of unlimited shots to knock me dead. my lungs are also getting weaker. i was not like this before.

i know i'm not 100% healthy and that i should be taking medications of some freakin' sort, but i just don't think i can give up my vice/s at once and go cold turkey. god can i imagine it sending me fatal seizures! but the thing is, now i have to do it in moderation, else i'll wreck my nerves and go all the way six feet below the ground. (mmm.. why is it always six? why not seven or eight?)

if there is any absurd principle behind this equally absurd thinking, that would be the love of life. yes, i love being alive, however ridiculous it may sound, and i don't want to spend my entire life worrying about things, so i'd rather do anything that affords enjoyment whenever i feel like doing it. i'm going to die early, anyway. but of course i am also familiar with the word "control" and i know when to hit that "moderate button" on. i'm still not worrying that much, but i'm starting to feel something funny in my body, plus my eyebags have sagged down the floor—it's the final bitch slap!

in the course of wandering

memory, too, is made of water. earth is both hard and malleable, air fills all space. but water, in taking the shape of the vessel it occupies, is of infinite shape.
because memory encompasses all elements, it, too, is eternal, it includes both origin and destination, the past and the future.

-Rio Alma

a carnival friday

i had a very disturbing Friday morning. believe me. it was my third day as a slacker-no-more and it was supposed to be a great day because during Fridays we are allowed to move away from looking like poor corporate slaves. i could wear by favorite black Tootsie Roll vintage shirt and maong pants, and just feel comfortable without any disturbing collar or blistering sandals.

the first thing i heard on the radio was the mournful passing away of Michael Jackson. i mean, i don't know him personally, but no kidding, i was really affected. maybe it's all because of—yes—him and his songs playing a big part of my childhood. you know me, i'm a fan of classic 70s to 90s music, and i can be a human music library of these decades. my childhood was fruitfully spent discovering things on my own while listening to old songs instead of playing patintero outside (sadly, i never learned to play it well). anyway, most of Jacko's socially-conscious pop music and love songs, i grew up with and learned to love. i remember making my first cross stitch design of a world with a band-aid plastered onto it and a small caption saying, "Heal the World". oh c'mon! i was idealistic even when i was eight! and now i'm getting even more affected while listening to my cousin's MJ playlist... i'm now on Gone Too Soon. it depresses the hell out of me. some of my favorites are Heal the World, Will You Be There, Man in the Mirror, Ben, I'll Be There, She's Out of My Life, I just Can't Stop Loving You, The Girl is Mine, and the list goes on. he's not my most favorite singer, though, but he's one of those, and indeed, most of my favorite songs are from him. i'm surely gonna miss his trademark—the Moonwalk. god was he a great performer!

then there are tributes everywhere, while when Michael Jackson was still alive, people loathed him. i say, when you like someone because he is a great artist, just like him because of that. you don't give a shit on what's he gonna do with his personal life. until now i still hold on to Dr. House's words: "You're dying and suddenly everybody loves you." sad but true.

so off i went to work and hardly found a good spot on the railway train. it was 7:30 a.m.—a crucial hour—and there were only few carriages making their rounds from North Avenue to Taft and vice versa! what do you expect? i just stood still in front of the crowd and found myself being pushed inside the vehicle... no effort at all! when it finally came to Kamuning station, i was astounded by the immense crowd that fell flat on my sight. god was it so overfilled, i could hardly find my way out! then on the highway was a mad congestion as if there was an assembly of some sort. i felt crazy! but the agitation didn't stop there. going down the station, i found myself in a constant elbow fight, trying to go against the current of other MRT patrons dismally lined up in two for single-journey tickets... and in between those lines was a lady lying flat on her back with either arm under her head, as if she was in the middle of a sweet dream. and she was in between the lines, for Chrissake! oh well, i don't really understand what's happening with the world today.

and about what i did at work? don't ask. i don't even know what it is. :)

pure scribbles

it's been a long while since i last had this urge to stick my thoughts on this darn-slash-newly-dressed-slash-everything-gets-confusing blogsite. i don't know. my friend Joycee even told me maybe it's because blogging is a thing lazy bums like us are doing all day that perhaps it's a way of detaching and finally freeing myself from this slothful post-graduation stage. i still don't know. put my two cents on the idea that blogging is what i usually do when i'm fired up with loads of work, and that being a three-month-old slacker is finally taking its toll rotting my very own brain. (oh well, i'm back to this blogging craze!)

i want to write about something. i really do. in the past weeks, i got to discover a lot of things which i would love to write about: poems, books, movies, issues, Johnny Depp, and the list goes on.. strangely, though, this want never turned itself into something similar to must, need, or even will. i just took the pleasure of being the sole spectator on a movie or book i was indulging into. i'm a fancier for these things. you take me into something you would like me to see, and you would readily know if i liked it or not. i'm a good liar but when it comes to compliments and adoration, i'm a first-rate jerk.

anyway, the last time i had a good shot of philosophical, better yet call it larger-than-life conversation, was long before my other friend Jaycee would fly to Dumaguete for his further intellectual pursuit. god, i miss it when i'm with someone i can share my thoughts with. most of the time when i finish reading a book, i impulsively turn ecstatic that i find just about anyone i could discuss my sentiments with; and with a lousy pick, i usually end up saying crap and suddenly wanting to exterminate the person whom i'm having a hard time explaining one times one with. that sure was selfish of me, but how can i help it? i'm excited and ecstatic, i could even kill a cat.



on reading and finding a good read

exactly a month ago, i bought this very good book, Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. if you've read that, too, then probably you would know what's with all this cursing i'm in right now. that's what you call a book. it's not just because it's a pile of printed materials bound on a fancy cover and all that stuff, but it's the interaction with the brain that matters the most. sorry, but this is definitely not the same with Twilight. this, in fact, is what i couldn't understand with people today. yeah, maybe they're in to something like leveraging their reading habits, that taste will eventually develop in time and whatever, but, isn't it good if they start from something great? i know it's too early for new book enthusiasts to swim into the thoughts of Albert Camus, but at least they can start with something light yet spectacular as The Little Prince or To Kill a Mockingbird. i remember the time we were assigned to do a book review of Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. so we went to this bookstore in a mall and nearly everyone was screaming their lungs out upon knowing that another saga of this Twilight thing was "available, so hurry and grab your own copy now!" darn did they go gaga in front of the Twilight shelf that they looked like a bunch of asylum patients hugging their copies all the way to the cashier. it's depressing, though.

finding a good book is hard, but finding out if a book is good is an entirely different story. as what our review class professor imparted, "You don't have to eat the whole egg to tell if it's rotten." i thought it was from Ernest Hemingway. i sure have it in my notes, but it's from Joseph Parisi anyway, and i don't know the guy. my mistake. good thing we were not given objective tests in that subject, though. in my case, and i know it's also the same with yours or some of you, at the very least, chasing your study (in this case, READING) spirits is quite a hard job. most of the time, especially when you're reading a novel or literature of some sort, the story goes all the way confusing as it grows and sets out different branches of thought you wouldn't understand in the first place what the hell they are for in the story. some books i left half-read because of this. but one sunny day (oh, i'm trying to be poetic), i heard from this bookstore-sponsored radio segment what i needed to learn in the course of reading. "Read. Just keep on reading. Never force yourself to understand the book chapter by chapter. Later on you will come to a point where everything will just fall into the right place, and soon you'll realize why some things needed be there." how i loved these words! this is the same thing i experienced while reading Of Mice and Men. just for the sake of reading it and being able to cook up my own thoughts about the book, i did, and when i came to that revelation part, i nearly got killed with it! it was brilliant. only a genius like Steinbeck can seize readers by the throat like that.

indeed, in a good story, there is a purpose for every word. sometimes you can feel that they're only there to arouse emotions and all, but more than anything, symbolic representations are there to build up the story. they are, in another sense, its foundation. so read. it's a good investment.



one thing about the grownups... and us

last night i was teaching my grandmother how she could put the "my webcam" window on top of the other applications so she could see herself on the computer screen. make it more complex with yahoo messenger photo sharing. it was a pretty hard task, me teaching her about computer stuff and all, and especially because we were just talking online. she hardly even knew any part of the computer, so i had to explain everything, even how a touchpad looks and works and all. i was like goin' back to my old job of explaining things to customers when i was still in that darn call center. but it felt good anyway. not the call center job (my goodness!), but that thing between me and my lola. it's not just because her blood runs through my veins that i had to be patient with her and all. it's the same thing when i was still teaching my mother how to use the computer. patience to the test. but isn't it great, the reversal of roles? how they patiently taught us to walk.. read and write.. and now it's our turn to introduce them to the things that are new to them, like computers and cellphones. it's pure bliss!



one more thing about the grownups... and us

this one is not good, not even funny. and this is the type of grownups i wouldn't even understand. i once had this conversation with two people about relationships, marriage and all. i finally said that i don't want to be beholden to nothing and to no one, and that i don't even see the idea of marriage as glamorous as others do. and so they went on saying, "Bata ka pa. Haha. (with 'haha', believe me) Bata ka pa nga." i nearly poked their eyes out with a pen. personally, i'm open with the idea of spending each other's lives together without marriage, and they were saying that i'm a kid?! c'mon! i don't even like the thought of me doing other person's bed, preparing his breakfast, putting on his tie and all. it sucks! and mind you, annulment is way more expensive than a wedding. maybe the guys i talked to and i we're not on the same page when it comes to things like this. and maybe i would change preferences come some enlightening years or when i just feel like marrying. who knows? but the thought of people saying that i'm still a kid surely gets to my nerves. just because what i believe to be true is different from the truth other people embrace does not mean that one has the right to say that i'm just a kid. right? that's why we were given our own bodies, and brains, for that matter. this would surely be a sad, boring place if all of us were to think the same way.

some grownups still have to grow up.



one last thing about the grownups... and us

i'm not dropping any name. but to say that i wasted four years of my life for enrolling a course that is not nursing, which Person A wanted me to take to have an easy ticket to America, is a lousy remark. i love the degree i have right now, and i know i would have other means of going abroad. i also understand that Person A only wanted the best for me (at least the best that he thinks is best for me), but to say "WASTED FOUR YEARS"? that's extremely annoying.

grownups are sometimes lousy speakers. one must not listen to them all the time.. and, indeed, it will take eons for them to grow up.

for we are all lovers of words

Since Feeling is First
E.E. Cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

___________________________________________________


The Theory of Absence
By Dunya Mikhail
Translated by Elizabeth Winslow

The Hypothesis: I am tense and so are you.
We neither meet nor separate.

The desired result: We meet in the absence.

The proof: As tension turns people into arcs, we are two arcs.
We neither meet nor separate (the hypothesis)
so we must be parallel.
If two parallel lines are bisected by a third line
(in this case, the line of tension)
their corresponding angles must be equal (a geometrical theorem).
So we are congruent (because shapes are congruent
when their angles are equal)
and we form a circle (since the sum
of two congruent arcs
is a circle).
Therefore, we meet in the absence
(since the circumference of a circle
is the sum of contiguous points
which can each be considered
a point of contact).

___________________________________________________


A Boundless Moment
Robert Frost

He halted in the wind, and -- what was that
Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost?
He stood there bringing March against his thought,
And yet too ready to believe the most.

"Oh, that's the Paradise-in-bloom," I said;
And truly it was fair enough for flowers
had we but in us to assume in march
Such white luxuriance of May for ours.

We stood a moment so in a strange world,
Myself as one his own pretense deceives;
And then I said the truth (and we moved on).
A young beech clinging to its last year's leaves.

a very creamy chocolate

they say chocolates are aphrodisiac. if you'll ask why a lover gives you a whole box, then at least now you know.

a part-"Como Agua Para Chocolate" (Like Water for Chocolate) and part-"Dream of a Ridiculous Man", this screenplay of Joanne Harris's novel, "Chocolat" unleashes the roughness and sweetness of life through the story of an unmarried mother, Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche), whose wanderlust has blown her into a traditional French village set in a bygone era of innocence and simplicity, inadvertently awakening its sleeping desires and passion. by putting up a chocolate shop across the church, she found herself at the center of gossips as the neighborhood becomes curious of her resistance to follow the norms, as well as her refusal to attend mass.

traveling with her dead mother's ashes, Vianne darted into the lives of religious and conservative villagers who are either long-repressed or faithfully trying to keep up with the collectively-accepted form of morality, dictated by Comte Paul, the village head. played by Alfred Molina, 2005 MTV Movie Awards for Best Villain nominee for his portrayal of Doc Ock in Spiderman 2, the ever righteous and reserve Comte Paul, who's muddled by his own busted-up family affairs and constrained by the limits of what he knew was best for everyone, would do anything to keep the village's inherited pattern of thought, as he makes a slick villain of himself through exercising authoritative control over their new young parish priest, Pierre Henri (Hugh O'Conor), taking part as far as to edit or even write his sermons, and urging people to despise the threatening influence of the radical Vianne. people are compelled to confess and repent for the slightest offense, and even for their so-called "too much indulgence" in chocolates, as if it would contaminate their spirits.

the way the churchgoers passively abide by their traditional guiding principles reminds us of the dear Miss Maudie Atkinson in Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" as she recounts to Scout Finch her observations of how people seem to live in a circus: "There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results."

when Roux (the demigod Johnny Depp) and other gypsies—otherwise called pirates—sailed into the rivers of the village and found a good spot in its banks, Vianne forged friendship with them, which exasperated the comte and the townspeople. their ire called forth a protest against her and her chocolateria, as summarized in a pretext of the comte's ordinance, "Boycott Immorality." Roux, the only person whom Vianne fails to guess his favorite chocolate, offered to repair the chocolate shop's door, which is expressive of shielding Vianne from the persistent unjustified criticisms of the people who are reluctant to accept changes and new ideas.

as for me (yup, that's right, FOR ME; don't protest), any movie with Johnny Depp in it is a good film, though there was not enough of him in this story. working again with Director Lasse Hallstrom after "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", Depp exuded his distinguishing trait as an actor once more in this poetic story of people seeking acceptance and a sense of normality.

aside from the use of food as symbolic imagery, the story partly resembles "Como Agua Para Chocolate" in terms of magic realism, although in this movie, it is very lightly unfolded. at the same rate, Dostoyevsky's short story only does affect the screenplay throughout the entire extent of self-liberation. a traffic of thoughts is revealed to one's judgment, bordering feminism and Christianity.

"Chocolat" oozes in fragrance and sweetness with every delicate scene of melting and molding chocolates, and at the same time, this concoction of sweet tales about individuality, family, and coexistence has a fairy tale look and feel, and is narrated on a light, enchanting note. the peculiar thing about this, though, is the tralatitious spreading of chocolate syrup on every dish, as seen on the birthday of Vianne's landlady, who later on became her friend. spending the rest of the party on a decadent evening of dance at Roux's boat—a pre-taste of the fertility feast on the coming Easter Sunday—is not surprisingly bothersome for the comte and his followers, and which they also find extremely immoral. the viewer soon learns how strong his words impact his subordinates. however, in the attempt to topple down the chocolateria, the comte finds himself caught in a dilemma of his own cynicism and blinded by the same idea he is selling.

and although Vianne was only brought to that land by a sly northern wind, bearing her mother's kismet, dispensing ancient cacao remedies and traveling forever with the wind, she finds her roots in the village in an enchanting tale of standing up for one's belief and finally, the glorious feeling of being released.

"I think that we can't go around... measuring our goodness by what we don't do. By what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think... we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create... and who we include."- Pierre Henri

oftentimes, a movie with what seems to be a simple plot on the surface turns out to be something wonderful, and it's amazing how people can make sense so deep and philosophical with the use of sweet little things like chocolates. four out five stars for "Chocolat"!






*photo from The Reader's Eye
*my god, this has 913 words in it, and this is not required! (longer than what i passed in our Reviews class. haha!) :p
*oh well, i'm soooooooo bored...

sometimes it's also in the name

i have a theory. a very lame theory. for years i've been trying to formulate a fail-proof technique on how to gain favorable outcomes from almost everything i do, although i know things don't always come as planned and expected. i was just thinking, is there something in me that dictates what i would become, as well as the actual part of getting there? above all, i admit that the basic equation is effort plus a little luck plus what you know and who you know. but, could it be that it is also in the genes? zodiac signs? size and shape? color of the eyes? birthmarks? or even in names?

i can't help sharing my self-woven fact that the most successful people (here in the Philippines at the very least) have peculiar names or those that are sure to ring a bell on one's ears. of all the names i've heard, it is almost always true that either real strength or metaphoric rays is radiated through one's name. here, people with non-generic names, i think, have an inherent "plus 50 points" or bluntly said, are 50% ahead in terms of making and building a name.

in the literature and arts, we have Bienvenido Lumbera, Nicomedes Márquez Joaquin, Virgilio S. Almario, F. Sionil Jose, Mario Eric Gamalinda, Mauro Malang Santos, Juan Nakpil, Levi Celerio, Lucrecia Kasilag, Lino Brocka, and Ang Kiukok, to name a few. in politics, it is pretty obvious that their names are as strange as their personas. how these corrupt politicians kill and steal our money and come home to dine with their families at night is just bemusing! but, yes, their names are strange and they are famous.

my very lame theory was somehow supported by a blog i've seen on www.good.is, which is a well-substantiated explanation of how names eventually affect the lives of people in terms of their chosen careers, and i had a good laugh discovering that there are actually people whose names have amusing connections with their professions. read and find out if you are one.



What's in a name? Sometimes, a job
by Mark Peters


The Synchronous World of Aptronyms

Have you heard about the gardener named Alan Bloom or the defense attorney Scott Free? How about the brilliant professor of genetics, Dr. Murray Brilliant? Or the winner of the the Nez Perce County Fair hog-calling contest, Jolee Bacon?

Such perfect marriages of profession and handle sound like old-fashioned jokes from a paleo-comedic era.

Nuh-uh.

These kismetic combos of name and job are truth, not truthiness. Preposterously well-named people like Rita Book the librarian and Diane Berry the mortician have aptronyms—names that are particularly suited to a person’s profession. Folks have been wondering about “nominative determinism” and the “name-career hypothesis” for decades, and collecting the words also called aptonyms, jobonyms, namephreaks, perfect fit last names, and euonyms is a perennial hobby of word-herders.

The word aptronym dates back to at least 1925, and no less respectable a publication than New Scientist has been the home of much aptronym-discussing, though they prefer the term nominative determinism, a name for the phenomena that is both science-y and destiny-ish. In 1994, New Scientist introduced that term and discussed such cases as Dr. Misri (a depression-focused psychiatrist), R.A. Sparks (author of electronics textbooks), C.J. Berry (a make-your-own wine maven), and J. Angst, who co-wrote a book on bipolar disorder. Over the years, the letters page of New Scientist has been an ever-replenishing source of aptronyms, and I particularly enjoyed a 2005 issue that mentioned fish researchers Andrew Bass and Steven Haddock, as well as the journalist Elaine Lies, who probably does not agree that her aptronym is apt.

Timothy Noah of Slate—who lacks his own aptronym, unless he collects a metric ark-load of animals—is a top contender for collector laureate of the aptronym world, as his pieces have brought many to light. He’s collected dentists named Fear, Hurt, Toothman, Chu, Plack, and Puller, as well as an economist named Dollar, a gastroenterologist named Colon, a professor of religion named Godlove, an ophthalmologist named Blinder, and a urologist named Peters. (I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that…) Noah’s crowning glories are the discovery of sexual misconduct researcher Charol Shakeshaft and lawyer Sue Yoo, two professionals whose names must make their lives very interesting (and annoying).

For aptronym insight, you can’t do better than Verbie Prevost, literature professor and head of the English department at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, who I heard give a paper on this topic at the American Name Society conference a few months ago. As to whether or not the name influenced her, Verbie said her parents probably did not intend to steer their daughter toward an inevitable destiny as an English prof: “They were simply naming me after my grandmothers—Verbie for the maternal grandmother and Ann for the paternal one. I’m not sure it ever occurred to them to think about the connection even when I displayed an early interest in become a writer or an English teacher—as early as elementary school, in fact.”

In her paper, Verbie said that taunt-bearing schoolmates were equally uninterested in her name’s meaning: “I also do not really recall much reference being made to the aptronymic quality of my name during my K-12 school days, but then my classmates probably weren’t fully aware of my future plans. Instead, they primarily teased me about the unusualness of the name.” Admirably, Verbie has managed to not go bonkers from endless jokes about her name, like an old boyfriend who said her sister was named Nounie and another friend who calls Verbie’s children the pronouns.

You could say I have an aptronym, though it’s a bit of a stretch. As I’ve heard tell, my great-grandmother, who was more than a tad bonkers, wasn’t thrilled with the choice of Mark, saying, “What’s that? Like a mark on the wall?” (Guess she never heard of the Bible. Yeeps). But since making marks on paper is my favorite thing to do, even more than plowing through a bag of barbecue chips while watching about five episodes of The Shield in one sitting, the name does fit. I am a mark-er.

What about you, oh nameless readers? Is there a Randall Anonymous, who floats name-free notions across the web, or a Carol Comment with something to say? You know what to do, commentadores.

Ely Buendia for senator?

after sleeping away my three-day battle for four 1000-to-1,500-word reviews of a classic movie, new and old books, and theatrical plays, strange musings dawned upon me and necessitated me to finish the most pretentious assignment ever in our marriage and family class (imagine me writing a ludicrously odd breakdown of expenses in my—ehem—future wedding; WTH). and for the heck of passing it—yup, two energy-charged hours at dusk that never got drained until the next day. with much vigor left unexpended, i brooded over an issue of the Philippines Free Press—P50 in Manila, but free and plenty indeed from a seminar on Pinoy reading habits the other week.

"The perfect political animal" is the phrase that the author, who's an incredibly great speaker, used to frame the picture. Ely Buendia for Senator? i almost couldn't imagine it. no, i could never imagine it. as i started to immerse into the text, i could feel that the writer merely wanted to set-up some ironies, which somehow proved me right.

but whether Ely is fit for office or not, i didn't care. well, at some point i did because it raised relative issues then. what disturbed me was the way the article was written. i never expected that style from a reputable magazine—a fortress of Philippine journalism for that matter; and i was disappointed because it was my first time to finish a whole thing in that publication. it's as if i was just reading a blog like this—a mare's nest, cluttered. i had awkward moments while reading the interview. more than that, i felt uneasy to find myself abhorring that same article that excited my neurons when i first saw its title on the front page. i was thinking that if the writer had spent more time for that, then it could have been crafted into a close-to-perfect account of political stance. the points were made clear; but those points were downplayed by incorporating them into an informal interview type.

it's reminiscent of a remark from our historical/cultural writing professor, who's also the big man behind our reviews, on a 3000-word draft article i wrote lazily three hours before the deadline: "This is a research material for an article on Quiapo. Kindly fix this." ('yun oh!) but i knew it was still for editing, and was definitely not for nationwide circulation. my scruples wouldn't allow me to pass something like that had it been for publishing anyway.

everyone can write. i believe that. but it's a different story in terms of serious publications. the same goes with social and street blunders like "no parking on BOTH sides," which should have been EITHER SIDE; "fill-UP the form," which must be fill-OUT; "sign up FROM 6am to 5pm," which seems too tiring if you literally sign up for 11 hours, it should have been BETWEEN 6 a.m. AND 5 p.m. (woohoo! i love you, sir!); plus the "NG vs NANG" and "IBA-IBA vs IBA'T IBA" errors.

more people, mostly children, live by these mistakes. it would be a happier world if there's a regulating body that checks and approves signboards to spare people from ignorance and hapless cognitive content. there is a proper way of speaking, and a proper way of writing. it's not enough that we all get each other's point. remember McLuhan, "The Medium is the Message," whose book, when it came back from the typesetter's, had on the cover "The Medium is the Massage." see what i mean?

p.s.
sorry, this really has nothing to do with Ely being a good pick for senator. i just thought it would be a catchy title. just blundering some lousy ideas here. hehe. wooo! three days na lang, E-heads concert na ulit!!! :)

how do i hate 28? let me count the ways...

six hours earlier, i retired myself to a queasy hibernation after my mother gleefully remarked that i looked like an Igorot as she greeted me at the doorstep. and that was it. with my native-looking headband that strangely takes its roots all the way from Japan and my bouncing iron-curled hair still primly fashioned on my apex, i reluctantly went upstairs without a single word. another six troubling hours earlier, i lost my four-year-old school ID somewhere on the cigarette-butt flooded Dapitan steet. something must be extremely wrong with 28...

as much as i would like to dismiss this thought, i simply could not help it. i myself do not subscribe to feng shui and the rest of the occult-smothered fortune telling schemes, but the thing is, i am persistently endowed with an indistinguishable first-hand misfortune every, before, and after 28, and whether or not i am thinking of it, hell and earth never miss their commitment to give me that slimy shit, that sometimes i feel i can even transmit the relatively undeserved bad luck to persons i am with.

i hate 28 as much as i hate bugs and cockroaches, and people who aren't responsible enough to keep their wet umbrellas shut when walking on a covered pathway. i hate 28 as much as i hate big chunks of ginger and garlic on my food, and children who touch your knees when making their way inside public transportation. i hate 28 as much as i loathe muds of spit on the trodden path, cherry-topped with some yellowish slimy phlegm. i hate 28 as much as i hate chewed bubblegum on my skirt, the snatcher of my phone, and people who flaunt their English on streets, subways, and in places like Quiapo and Divisoria. and for the creamiest crap, i hate 28 as much as i hate the terribly no-brainer commercials, soap operas, and films in the Philippines, particularly that possessed Tiki-Tiki ad, the frenzy Gagambino, and the ultimate summary of downright Pinoy psychological error, KC and Richard's When I Met You.

2008 is yet the most dreadful year i struggled to survive-- faulty termination and a series of unfortunate, i mean UNFORTUNATE, very unfortunate (did i say unfortunate?) events. 2008=28. and if my memory serves me well, the first time i had this shedding of my uterine lining accompanied by excruciating cramps, which i naively thought of as a C-level diarrhea, minus all the BM, was on the 28th of January when i was in grade five. but menstruation isn't really an unfortunate event in womanhood, although disturbing and distressing. and maybe i was not at all unfortunate every 28. maybe i really have to thank this day for giving me an excuse for my inherent idiocy and absent-mindedness. and if you happen to be born on the 28th of any effing month or if you're into celebrating whatever event on the same date, i'm sorry for wasting three minutes of your time and for relentlessly dissing you special date, but... it's 28 and i'm in deep shit!

sweet potatoes

scientific name: ipomoea batatas
sa Tagalog, KAMOTE.

***************************************

lately i've been having difficulties in writing. i believe it's not because i've been running out of things to say. in fact, whenever i'm slapped with a certain topic, a web of intertwined ideas clutter my brain; too much, that i do not seem to know how to put them into words. so i end up thinking and planning carefully how to sort them, until the time is up and all that's left is will, coupled with my mastery of procrastination, and Jesus Christ. wow. one must know that most sacrilegious writers and writer wannabes suddenly become religious roughly an hour before the deadline.

beyond the wee hours of idle daydreaming and planning how to make a manuscript less stupid in the critical eyes of professors—

(random: talk about being OC. upon checking if the term "wee" would properly address my thoughts, i stumbled upon this thing in urban dictionary:

wee - the time spent in your life peeing

i wasted my life in the wee hours tags: pee, time, bathroom, life, important) rotflmao!

—i find it more convenient to read books and magazines, look at old pictures and make silly slideshows, or update this multiply site. holy cow! i'm less than 20 days away from finally getting this shit off, and until now i still regret (sometimes) having worked only to lose my drive in studying, thinking that i could have done better than those it's-a-little-point-zero-three to dean's list, and that 3s in those subjects i swallowed like bitter pills because i stubbornly did not want them like that lame PGC and Pol Dy are beyond repair, so why waste my effort when i know there's no silver tint at the end of my effin' gay rainbow? i can really be such a pessimist at times. i'm not a fan of numbers, but i know i could have made it only if i willed, but i did not, and this remorse is buggin' me 16 days before classes end. sweet Jesus!

***************************************

our supposed thesis defense day is over, but not yet the "grilling of asses and butchering of students alive," as how my friend Jaycee puts it. good thing Sir Nikki Salandanan, one of our panelists (i intended to put this thing near Jaycee's name for good luck. yiii!), who was all crabbed and harassed last night after nearly 12 hours of baking the balls of hopeful kids, agreed to call our presentation off and move it tomorrow, this time, with the other panelist, so it would be easier for his part, and so was heaven's grace for us.

***************************************

28 is my "malas day" and not friday the 13th. i've celebrated a couple of birthdays that fell on this widely-anathematized day, but hey! i'm still alive!

in a hopeless attempt to dispose off my P68-resume, my friend-slash-thesis-mate Joseinne and I signed up in any, i mean ANY participating company in the job fair, just because Reuters' booth was not manned (but we placed our resumes at the table anyway) and Inquirer's was, to our dismay, all emptied; plus, the other publishing companies have already packed up. imagine us applying in Ayala Land Corporation. what the heck are we going to do there? sell houses? write PR newsletters or make advertorials for houses? we just did not think any job would suit us there, but we signed up anyway instead of going for Maynilad or 7-11.

and my friend? well, she ended up submitting her last copy of resume in the Kumon booth. holy guacamole!

then i suddenly remembered that my cover letter was like "I am seeking to align myself with one of the most respected news agencies in the Philippines today." come on, Ayala Land!

***************************************

and i thought i was lucky on friday the 13th...

cookie-dookie

i mixed everything
butter and cream
the tips of my fingers
all dressed with flour
two cups of water
and gone was the hour

if not for the bright moon
and the falling of leaves
i had used the right spoon
and watched over my cookies
'cause they turned out so sweet
i wanted to believe

i cried for my cookies
and how bad it felt
then i remembered
how much i loved salt
now i know i need not bake
any bread of that sort

'cause all i had to do

was let it all loose

shut my eyes close

and stick my tongue out