It's over, almost

The summer classes are over. This means that I no longer have to wake up very early in the morning. I had a 7:30 this summer. That's a reeelief! I still have to give a final exam on Tuesday though .
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrh!
A brownout just cut my Caspian Prince download! And I can't seem to resume it! Waaah!
Where was I? Oh, the final exam I have to give on Tuesday.
I'll be attending a seminar on Photo Editing and Desktop Publishing the whole next week, all the five working days. Then there's the group of students I am training for the ACM Programming Contest and the Smart Sweep Contest. They are a bunch of brilliant students. Not the geek kind. But a bunch who knows how turn every algorithmic nightmare into one helluva party.
We have to finish two applications (card games) in time for the orientation seminar for the Freshies. We are experiencing a dwindling enrollment in our Computer Science and Management Information System programs. We need to work on this one, hard.
Just when I thought that I was free of the 7:30, it was jaw-dropping when I saw my schedule for the first semester. Monday - Friday, 7:30 am!
You see, I have a problem with this schedule. I teach Computer Science subjects. I handle both the elementary and advanced programming subjects, data structures, and the design and analysis of algorithms. The 7:30s I will have this first semester are both advanced programming. I need an LCD projector for this class. And offices open at 8:00 am. Yes, we do not have our own LCD projectors in our department. So we depend on the Computer Center and our College. Like I said, their offices open at 8:00 and they don't allow us to borrow the projector late in the afternoon the day before. The projectors can't stay in our office overnight. But I will try to work out this one.
When all this work is done, I am so going to the beach and bask under the sun's deadly rays! I will conquer Malamawi!

On Giving

I have never considered my work, work, 'til this day. I am tired. Until this day, I never had difficulty waking up early in the morning. When everyone is enjoying their summer, trying to catch up on the sleep they have missed out, I am cheerfully waking up early, dawn after dawn. I've always considered the new morn a blessing and a chance to help one more soul, one more person who needs help. My philosophy has always been that help is always around, all one has to do is ask. So, as long as I can give the help, i'll give it, with cheerful mood.
Sometimes, life can be cruel. But I take it. I take with a big heart. Bring it on bitches! I may be ridiculed, I may be cautioned but I'll never be stopped. Oddly so, I feel tired. Stressed out. Life is indeed a box full of chocolates. You never know what you will get. But it no longer matters. It must never matter. But that's until today.
I feel the urge to no longer give a damn, not one bit. Bahala na, the famous Filipino saying goes. I wanna be free.
But what does this mean? Giving up on the one thing I so believe in? I am not asking for anything grand, anything in silver and gold.
All I am asking is we all enjoy the sunset for the sunset that it is. The full moon that it is, sans embellishments, just the full moon hanging in the dark blue sky.
It is futile. Futile to try to please everyone. That is true. But that won't stop me from trying.
This world will never be the world that we want this to be. Never. I don't have to tell you why.
Because we don't wallow in the why, we move on. We no longer search for answers, we become the answers.
We may fail others, but knowing that we try our damn best, all we could ever say is, it sucks to be them.
I know I should not have said those words. But that's the whole point of it all. We say what we need to say and never regret it. Because at that instant, that's what I wanted to say, that's what I needed to say.
I guess, what's left to say is this.
Do what you think is right. But the moment you mess with my brown ass, your dark butt crack might just be the only thing that will be served to you every morning, every noon and every night!
That was uncalled for. But like I said, that's what I needed to say at that moment. And nothing, I mean nothing, would have changed that.
Now that that is out of my system, I'll be ok. I am ok. I am good! Ready to take on the world and I have never felt better!

Busy

Busy? I am. I've got loads of things that I have to do. I usually know that I am becoming a slave to my work when I suddenly chance upon one of my hard bound books on my table untouched for weeks already. Like the one I started reading last January, Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune. I don't know if you read her but she's the author of the House of Spirits.
Daughter of Fortune is about Eliza Sommers, orphaned at birth. She is to fall in love with Joaquin, a lowly clerk as described by the summary. And she gets pregnant by Joaquin who decides to go work in San Francisco (they are from Chile). She follows him.
The novel starts with "Everyone is born with some special talent, and Eliza Sommers discovered early on that she had two: a good sense of smell and a good memory."
Of course, I still can't tell you what happens to Eliza in San Francisco. How she even decided to go there. How she met and fell in love with Joaquin. I am curious though if Isabel describes in one of the chapters in the novel a love scene. I envy writers who could vividly describe such scenes, you would think it's their scene they are engraving!
The book cover has a picture of a woman with short, boyish bobbed hair and a sharp look. Looking straight at me. She wears a pair of earrings with only the left in sight. She has her left arm angled at her waist. She wears a black long sleeved dress with lace patterns at each end of the sleeves. Embracing her neck is a pattern laced as well. And a golden pendant secures this lace in place. Her brows are trimmed. She just looks straight at me, as if asking intently and with urgency, when I will finish the book.
It's May now, and I still am at the book's first chapter.
I miss those days when I almost had all the time to read. I even remember bringing a book and reading it on a jeepney ride to work. But of late, time has been so elusive. And to think that I am only an instructor at a local university (read: UNDERPAID).
Once I get the chance, I'll devour every book I have yet to read! And I have over twenty in my shelf! Everytime I chance upon a book worth my while, I buy it, even if I don't have the time to read it yet. I encourage you to do the same.
Reading is bliss (when you are not busy).

Thank you

I was watching the video streaming of UPLB's graduation ceremonies last Saturday. I saw a number of familiar faces receiving their diplomas in their togas, shaking the hands of the Chancellor and all. For a while there, I was excited. Probably because I miss UPLB, a lot. I miss my friends there. Then it hit me. A sudden pang of both desire and remorse. Desire because I wanted to be there, not as a member of the audience, but as part of the graduating class. Remorse because, I was not able to finish my thesis, my lone ticket to receiving that Master's degree I so desire. I wanted my net connection to lag if not be disconnected at once. But it didn't happen. And so I sat through it. Everyone was requested to stand up for UP Naming Mahal. I remember my undergrad graduation (April 26, 2001), the one time I sung the UP Naming Mahal with much fervor and emotion.
The fireworks that was displayed was spectacular! The traditional rally which used to be the highlight was overshadowed by the fireworks display, lighting in different colors and forms the dark, dark sky.
I think what happened next was nothing short of a cleenex moment. I had to get out, I had to do something. I went to Chinito's Camins where we usually have our fellowship. Interestingly enough, I was not in the mood for a drink. I was just there for like 30 minutes. We transferred to Catribo and sat comfortably at UL's. Still I wasn't in the mood for any drink.
I was searching for something I didn't know what.
Then there you were, in your black Adidas jacket, a pair of denim shorts and slippers. That was all I needed. You were all I needed to see to be comforted. You didn't even have to say anything. You didn't even have to see me.
I was suddenly craving for beer, had a pitcher of four seasons gin and two shots of margarita blue and a bottle of San Mig Light.
I went home, contented, feeling light but not wobbly.
I got inside my room. Turned off the lights, lied down on my bed and whispered, "thank you."

The PHILIPPINES

It was all over the news. Director Dante Mendoza's "Serbis" made it in the list of nominees in the Palme d'Or of the Cannes Film Festival. Being the news savvy that I am, I searched the web for additional information. I checked out the official website of the Cannes but I found nothing. So I googled it instead. There were a number of hits. Checking the results one by one (excluding those from Philippine pages), there was no mention of "Serbis." Not giving up, one entry aroused my interest. It reads "Cannes Film Festival snubs British movies for the second year running." And there I found this: Eight of the directors on the 19-strong shortlist have never appeared in Cannes' main competition before and hail from Belgium, Turkey, France, China, Argentina, the Philippines, Brazil and Italy. I always love reading this. Every time an article has to refer to the Philippines, there's the. Of course that's not to mean anything special, it's only the English language's being queer. But nonetheless, I love it. I love the Philippines.
We may be a small country, but we are a great one too. We may have looked stupid in the eyes of the world, what with the US health insurance scam (the latest among the many scandals that involved the Philippines), we must never forget the more important things that we have taught the world. We are after all, Asia's first democratic country. But I don't have to mention that we still need a lot of work to make democracy work in the grass roots rather just in the halls of Congress (even in Congress, the light of democracy has never been dimmer, almost put out) and articles such as this. We must never forget how we, as one nation, taught the world how to bloodlessly oust a dictator. And I know, in the near future we are going to teach the world that we can stand as one nation in making the Philippines a greater nation.
We must never forget Paeng's right arm. There's Manny Pacquiao's too. Both his left and right fists.
We must of course never forget the many Filipinos who have sacrificed family to be able to work abroad. This is no easy feat, and for that, I commend all of you. They are, after all, helping the economy keep afloat with their monthly remittances reaching record highs month after month.
Let us also not forget those who have decided to stay. They, too, are heroes. Seeing that the battle has to be fought here and not anywhere else is as well not an easy feat. Never mind those who have stayed to spread mayhem and chaos (read: politicians). One has to just look at the jeepney driver who tirelessly brings us to our workplace morning after morning. Our metro aids who put to heart the care of our streets, dawn after dawn.
The list is a very long one. But I will not end this without mentioning and giving the importance that they have long deserved, our farmers. They have long been ignored by government. They have long been sidelined by the autocrats who think they are gods and us, their slaves! I hope, the Republic that is the Philippines will not have to pay for this.
They say there is a rice crisis. There might be truth to that though quite a number argue otherwise. But one has to just look at the rising price of rice to know that there is something wrong and that we need to act, now.
Serbis, by the way, is a movie about a family that maintains a prostitution den to get by.
I pray to dear God, that the administration will see reason in ceasing to pimp the country, my beloved country, to capitalists that selfishly see profit only.

Cold

Last weekend was a lazy one for me. For starters, I was down with a terrible flu! But that did not stop me from cleaning the kitchen. Exhausted, I decided to relax. I asked my mom for chicken soup and settled comfortably on the couch. First up was Juno. It was my fourth. And it still made me cry. I know, it's not a tear jerker. But borrowing Brenda's (Juno's step mom) words, I am not made of stone. I finsihed the bowl of chicken soup and was ready for the next one in the list, Click. And I don't have to say it still made me cry even if it was my 6th. I stopped liking Jennifer Aniston after she and Brad called it quits. But my sister wanted to see the Break Up. She, Jennifer, dated Vince Vaughn right? And eventually broke up with him. Oh Jennifer! Don't worry, she did not make me cry. But Garry did! I wish someone make me dinner and say that he loves me, dearly. And into a deep slumber I fell. I didn't want to make my bed when I woke up. Didn't feel like waking up. I felt like the whole world was on my shoulders. But I could not close my eyes either. So I helped my self with toast and some reheated chicken soup. Then another DVD caught my ever watchful eyes. There was Another Gay Movie, Dead or Alive, Fly Boys, Accepted and Krrish (thanks to my friendly pirate neighbor). I gave Accepted a try and I liked it. I remember the day when I got accpetance letters from the schools I applied in. And that was like a gazillion years ago! I can't imagine how my life would have turned out if not one college accepted me. I guess I was one lucky bitch. :) I was hesitant to watch Krrish. I haven't heard of it. My hunch turned out to be right. It's an Indian movie. I've read that Indian movies always have song and dance numbers between scenes. So I picture early 90's Filipino movies. At first it was funny. You see, Krishna had a rock hard chiseled body, think Matthew McConaughey, er, Sylvester Stallone. Then I got the hang of it. And for one moment there, kinilig ako! The movie starred Hrithik Roshan (I googled him and he has made over 20 movies) and he's got wonderful eyes! Just imagine (lol). Then it rained. It rained and it's summer! I suddenly realized, I was with flu, it's raining, summer classes are to start tomorrow and I have a 7:30! Just imagine (lol), a 7:30 for summer! It sucks to be me, bigs time!
I slept early last night, right after PBB. I woke up at around 5:30, still feeling heavy. It was cold. And you, you were just staring at me blankly. I said hello and not one smile from you. It made me feel colder. You, with your almost blue sclera, almost yellow skin. Your jaw almost square. Traces of pimple scars on both your cheeks. And your hair, your unkempt hair. I wanted you to smile, I needed you to smile back. One little grin.
Nada. Just that cold stare, blank and cold.
*Sniff*

As often as I could

And by "as often as I could" I dont mean every five minutes... Corny, I know. It sucks to be me!

AdSense

I recently checked my AdSense account (read: 10 seconds ago). Of course, I did not expect to see over a hundred dollars there. I also did not expect these words from my friend: "Huh? Chene gale kien tan visit di tu yu blog???" OUch, bigs time (Marvs, borrow ha)! Anyway, I am back! And I intend to update this as often as I could! :)

Of Cement Benches, Lamp Posts, Waves and Balot

Zamboanga City's boulevard, I must admit, is not the best in the world. It's not even the best in the Philippines. But it's the only one we've got around here. And it has a million stories to tell. If only those white paint colored cement benches could talk, it could tell of men who promised the moon, the full moon, and the stars littered in the dark, dark sky to win the hearts of women. If only those lamp posts could speak, it could tell of those who found light and reason to go on and move on. If only those rough rocks mossed by the rushing waves from Basilan Strait could talk, it could tell of the countless souls who have searched for answers. If only the sea itself could talk, it could tell of those who have breathed its salty breeze to find peace, to find meaning.

Last Saturday night...

Yes, dot dot dot! I was looking at my posts here and saw this draft. I can't remember which Saturday night I was to refer to.

Besides, there have been too many Saturday nights I want to forget! Too many I want to bury. Too many I want those waves to crush on those mossed and sharp rocks .

From now on, no more blue musings. Oh, I just crossed my fingers. :)

The Marathon

The Ateneo Fiesta 2007, dubbed AtFest07, kicked off last Friday, November 30, 2007. The opening event was the traditional 5-kilometer run. This was from the waterpool in Pasonanca to the La Purisima Campus of Ateneo. Over forty joined the event. I was one of those who arrived at a little past five am. It was to start at 5 a.m.

But I was lucky because the run started late! I failed to prepare for the event. I wasn't there to win anyway. I was there to prove to myself that I can do it. That I have the balls to run the 5 kilometers in short shorts and a pair of pink socks! :) I don't have to say that I didn't win. I did not even figure in the top ten! It took me 34 minutes to finish the race sans water, sans rest! I ran, actually more like jogged! I enjoyed it. I really did. Father Tony, the Father President, also joined the marathon. Even grade schoolers were there. And those kids were amazing! You should have seen them running like mice! They were fast! I'm not sure if two of them outran me, but someone from their group did, that I am sure of!

When I reached the finish line, I was looking for Lito who was covering the event on a bike. He was carrying my pink bag. Yes, apart from my socks which were pink, my bag was also pink. :)

He was nowhere to be found. Apparently, he had a flat tire. So, I was roaming around the campus in those short shorts. I didn't care anyway. I was just worried about the wet shirt I was wearing. It wasn't pink! Though I brought one. I was to wear the shirt of the team I was representing, the Faculty and Staff. It's gray. Oh well, at least I had my bag and socks. :)

Finally, after waiting for a little over thirty minutes, Lito arrived with my bag. I changed clothes, got into a pair of pants and a pink superman shirt, all too ready for the parade.

It was, well, a memory I'd want to come back to someday. When everyone and everything seem to run after me, I will just have to go back to the Marathon and relive it. I faced it, I ran for it and I finished it!

I placed eleventh. :)

Go to ateneofiesta.com to check out AtFest07.