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. :)
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
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.
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.
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