Brutality of the Goddess

i’d have to hand to summer 2007 for being the wackiest, most adventure filled summer by far.  you cannot imagine how extremely memorable this summer has been.  in fact, no amount of words can do justice in adequately conveying my experience.  the bloopers.  the bombs.  the big fat booboos.  i can feel a smile starting to curl.

let’s start with indonesia.  here’s the airport signage that was posted in big bold letters just as we arrived at the sukarno-hatta airport: IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SUSPECT, REPORT TO POWERS.  i’ll never forget that sign.  ever.

at bandung the afternoon before the opening dinner where we had to wear our traditional costumes.  our coach mark asked me to deliver his barong tagalog to someone in the hotel services department to have it pressed to perfection.  so i went straight to his room and flung open the cabinet where i took out his barong after mistakenly taking out the traditional indian costume of his room mate.  instead of going two floors down to the hotel lobby to inquire, i telephoned the home services department to ask about their pressing and ironing service.  here’s our dialogue:

kring. kring…

me: hello sir, do you have an ironing service?

the man: ha?  ayning?  ayning service?  no..we don have ayning service.

he dropped the phone.  i thought it was rather impossible that a four-star hotel shouldn’t have an ironing and pressing service so i decided to take the barong out of the room and talk to the hote personnel in the flesh.  here’s our dialogue with one of the hotel staff members at the lobby:

me: excuse me sir, how much is your ironing service?

the man (confused): ayning?

me: yes, ironing.  (i made ironing gestures)

the man (enlightened): ah…oh!  AYRRRROOONING SERVICE!  Ah yes, we have!  we have!

elated, i gave him the barong and bore in mind that the word ‘ironing’ had a new pronounciation: ayrrroning.  with emphasis on the rrrr.

just this afternoon, we had three new members in our youth and teen ministry.  all of them were koreans.  we invited them to join us in our last summer hurrah outing at sibulan and all three of them gladly obliged.  the agreement was that we’d all head home by 4pm.

thing is, our korean friends didn’t ask permission from their guardian and so they had to go home by 2PM.  we were at a beach house that was 3km from civilization.  my father was at a prayer meeting and he couldn’t fetch us.  tito chito was with his parents.  tito terry had an important appointment.  that left lycar, ronald, and i with no choice but to excort our friends all the way back to their homes.

it was 1:30PM and we had to trudge 3km to the highway under a tormentingly hot afternoon sun.  as if that wasn’t punishment enough, after 2km, one of our friends stopped.  that was when i thought the universe must’ve really been conspiring against us: her sandal broke big time and she couldn’t walk.  ronald and i were forced to find a nearby store that sold slippers.  if it was any consolation, we found one a few meters away.  thing was, they only had one pair left and it was 2 sizes bigger than our friend’s size.

at that time, it didn’t matter anymore.  a few minutes later, a pedicab arrived and we gladly jumped at the opportunity of flagging it down.  it was sunday and the driver had to bring his wife and kids.  so while our friends took the comfy seats, we had no choice but to take the back ride.  pity ronald who had to make do with the place where sacks were loaded on.

last night, we toured some friends from cebu around silliman and a bit of downtown dumaguete.  after more than an hour of walking around campus and the city, it was time to head for their hotel.  we flagged down a pedicab and told the driver to take us to check-in hotel.  he paused for a moment, as if in thought.  we told him it was near po’s marketing.  he nodded and said, "ay oh, sakto, sakto. ali na mo."

a few minutes after we went on board, the poor man chuckled sheepishly and asked one of us, " Day, asa jud gani nang check-in?  bag-o ra man gud ko diri."  hence, we had to give him directions.

just as we were about to pass mcdo, he was hesitant to turn.  " mahadlok ko."

our friend ernie kidded by saying, " unsa man diay ka?  criminal?"

then lycar said, " nong, lapas na ug 8.  ok ra jud na, di ra ka dakpon."

after much convincing, the pedicab driver eventually turned.  going at full speed, we told him to make a left turn.  to which he did, without slowing down.  we headed directly towards a lamp post and i screamed " manong, poste!".  he twisted abruptly and dropped us off our destination.  after that, lycar and i decided to use our good ol’ legs to take us to scooby’s.

more to come…hehe…

This coming elections has gotten me all fired up.  It will be the first of its kind that I’ll be taking part in, after all; and I am more than interested and more than serious to vote for the people whom I think can best represent me and who can give me what I deserve as a citizen of this fair country.  Never mind the fact that cheat bonanzas will be sporadic.  That’s given in Philippine politics.  The trick there is not to let it dampen your zest to have a say on how your country should be governed.

That being said, there are a few things that a lot of us ought to remember before we cast our votes.  For those of you who have been in and around the election process since goodness knows when, these sweet reminders may not necessarily be out-of-the-box-new.  For first time voters, well, you may have heard it before but then, it does pay to read through just incase you may have forgotten a few practical dos and don’ts of election time.

YOUR VOTES ARE NOT FOR

SALE

. Sadly, a lot of us have forgotten this bit—or to put it more appropriately, a lot of us play amnesia-victim when it comes to this.  But seriously, your right to vote has no price tag precisely because it’s not as cheap as you think it is.  No one ought to buy it because in principle, no one can afford it.  The right to vote is your official vanguard to all your other rights.  The act of someone offering you money in exchange for your vote is reason enough not to vote for him/her—he thinks you’re that cheap.  Selling it to some corrupt and selfish idiot who has an I.Q of a cretin is tantamount to selling your right to enjoy to the fullest the faculties of life.  You don’t deserve to endanger yourself.  And oh, my apologies to cretins.

BEWARE OF THE BECAUSE-OF-ME POLITICIAN.  Yes, they do exist beyond the TV screen and they may be living amongst us.  The Because-of-Me politician is, as the name implies, someone who claims that you owe him/her your vote because he/she believes that only he/she has been able to contribute a jillion things to society and that only he/she has made your life an iota better.  Here is a quintessential Because-of-Me politician line: “ Kung dili pa tungod nako, wala mo karoy pagkaon!  Kung dili pa tungod nako, wala tay taytayan!  Kung dili pa tungod nako, wala napaayo ning atong dalan!  Kung dili pa tungod nako, nag-ugod-ugod na sa kalisod ang atong nasod!”  should you come across someone of such nature, drop him/her from your list.  The old brag has failed to realize that, in the first place, it’s his/her job to serve the people and the fact that he ran for office means that he/she is willing to be a servant leader.  Second, he/she owes it to the people to do his/her job well considering that money used for his/her projects are tax payers’ money.  The money that he holds as his monthly salary comes from what you pay in taxes.  You deserve to get back in terms of quality services what you paid to the government in terms of taxes.  The reason why we have new infrastructure projects and probably social services is because of your efforts.  You do not owe your public servants anything.  They are the ones who owe you something.

DITCH MR./MS. POPULARITY.  Election time is a time to look for people who can sit in public office and assert our best interests as citizens while he/she is at it.  Ergo if someone runs for public office simply banking on his popularity—on his being famous (or infamous at that), drop him/her from the list.  Election time is not a popularity contest.  It’s serious business.  It can determine the progress of your country in the next three years or so.  Someone who banks on his/her popularity as his/her main reason for running should be tied up in a sack and smoked.  Clearly the person has no tangible plans for the people. He/she clearly has no platform to speak of and will only end up talking about him/herself and his/her family background stretching as far back as his/her ancestors during campaigns.  Now, that kind of speech isn’t even worth listening to.

SCRUTINIZE THE PLATFORM.  That is, if the candidate has a platform of government to begin with.  The platform consists of the candidate’s general program of action.  In dunce world lingo, that’s basically what he/she plans to do once he/she is in office.  You wouldn’t want to have an airhead occupying a seat in public office, now would you?  And you certainly wouldn’t want someone who’s as detached to the people he/she is bound into service to as Pluto is as far away from the Sun.  You want to have someone who has the vision.  Someone who also has the ability to implement what he proposes.  Someone who walks the talk, who practices what he/she preaches.  You get the picture.  You want to see a substantial platform that tackles the mobilization of human resources—education, transportation, infrastructure, the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals).  You want to see a platform that covers development at a multilateral approach and at a broad scale.  Look for that and ditch the politician who doesn’t even know what a platform of government is in the first place.

DON’T EASILY BE SWAYED BY CHEEZY JINGLES AND EXTRAVAGANT ADS.  Believe me, being in government is not about who has the catchiest election jingle or who has the most colorful posters.  It’s about being the man/woman who can move heaven and earth just to make the people’s lives a bit more bearable.  Unless they can get the G7 (the seven richest and most industrialized countries in the world) to toss coins into the tin can every time they dance Boom-Tarat-Tarat, think again before writing them on your kodigo.

The clock is ticking.  The next few days will determine where our country will be headed to in the next three years before we finally change presidents (assuming but not conceding that she will finally leave Malacañang and quit fibbing).   This coming election is as crucial as any other election in our country so think about it.  Think about it really hard.  You’re paying them; you’re hiring them to serve you.  You’re the boss.  They’re the servants here.

pong was right.  my blog is gathering a lot of dust.  i’m glad i have a few minutes to spare today for a little update.

there’s nothing special behind the new hairstyle.  i was just dying of boredom with a hairstyle i’ve had since i was in gradeschool.  it seemed all too uptight for me.  seventeen had a lot to do with the new one, though. 

i’m not going anywhere this summer.  not to tarlac for the pidc nor to indonesia for the audc.  it’s okay.  at least i have a lot of spare time to brush up on my spanish, begin french and italian, and to finish that text book i’ve been dying to read for the longest time now: essentials in international relations.

ma’am irma pal offered me a regular column at the metropost.  i’m hoping you guys could spare some time to read that too.  it would be quite a shame if no one read it.  i did spend a few minutes each day thinking about what to write next.

the tourism office also offered me a chance to write about the literary history of dumaguete for a coffee table book that will be circulated worldwide.  it’s called buglas: beautiful negros.  i was a bit hesitant to accept the project at first but something’s prodding me–and i don’t know what it is–to take it.  thank God for the opportunity.  i hope i’ll deliver.

i’m into entrepreneurship and sales this summer, representing the TIME group of companies.  i sell books worth big bucks.  that’s why i have to spend time studying the prospectus to make sure my clients buy it hook line and sinker.

we’re also planning for the sg this summer.  it pays to use all the time you’ve got before classes actually start.  actually, before the balancing act starts, if you know what i mean.

i’m also coming up with a children’s book i’m hoping to give as a gift to a family friend’s preteen kid.  it’s the beginning of the Darangan series. this one’s called the Spirit Case.  but the title’s still subject to change.  i hope i’ll finish it before classes start.

i don’t particularly consider this summer the busiest yet.  i’m having fun.  i still get to sleep in the afternoons despite the heat.

until next time.

the most incredibly unbelievable thing has happened.  no, it’s not armageddon and no, pigs still haven’t defied the law of gravity.  bob and i, certified math lizards (not wizards) in high school have been chosen to represent our section in college algebra for the annual math week quiz bowl.  and guess what?  i’m not joking.

stifle your laughter for a few more minutes.  i know, it does sound like something completely out of the ordinary.  after all, personally speaking, math and i are like oil and water–we don’t necessarily mix.  i’m better known as someone who plays with words–not numbers.  and i write essays in literal sentences not mathematical sentences.

how this happened is completely beyond me and no amount of pleading or begging will be good enough to coax my anciano math teacher into withdrawing our participation.  never in my life did i dream of joining some math quiz bowl and i thought i never would given that my inclination does not point towards doodling with radicals, special factors, and a host of algebraic expressions.

in masscom speak, it gives one nosebleed.  we masscom students are known to have the same mathematical skills as an ant.  it takes some of us a jillion years to come up with a simplified version of a horizontal equation that goes beyong three terms.  simply put, math and masscom students are two parallel lines that simply cannot meet at a common plane.

at the very least, this will be a new experience and it’s a thrillingly new way of spending valentine’s, for the love of math.  if we win, it’ll be as if aristotle became best performer in a ballet concert.  if we don’t, no one would notice after all, it would simply be within the norms for us to floop.

will this finally commence a love affair with mathematics?  i doubt.  i still say math and i are like two unlike terms.  we cannot be put together…however, we can still hang out in the same expression.

i will forever remember february 8, 2007.  it’s the day when i felt extra competitive in all aspects of my life.  it’s just one of those days when i have that stubborn belief that good enough is simply not good enough.  it’s when my inner perfectionist rears up its head and gets my fighting spirit at an all time high.  it’s the day that i felt like kicking butts and beating people at their own games.

february 8, 2007 was the day that i felt like keeping abreast with local and national affairs because i wanted to analyze each and every even.  it’s the day that i studied my lessons twice over and did an advanced study on the lessons that were to come.  it’s the day that i felt like out-eating everyone else during lunch and dinner.  it’s the day that i couldn’t help but feel that being ditched in second place would be no less than a death sentence.

february 8, 2007 is a day like no other.  and even until now, i doubt my competitive air has abated. 

i thank a certain fathead who made me feel like being buried in ten jillion pounds of crap for triggering this feeling.  it’s been a long time since i actually felt like Bonifacio who despite being only armed with bolos was nonetheless the unceasing, unflailing idealist and revolutionary.  no, i do not seek to bring down the government or anything  my reasons are more selfish that you think. besides, i have my self to worry about first.

let’s just say that there are certain situations in your life that bring you into that fork in the road.  it makes you choose whether to wallow in eternal misery and cast yourself into oblivion or to rise from the crummy ashes, head high, chin up, with your fist in the air in a swift declaration that you are ready to fight (or redeem yourself).

today i realized that i am not the wallower and that i chose the second path because i know that we all have the capability to use any depressing situation in our lives as challenges to overcome not stumbling blocks to be overcome upon.

i can feel the power seething beneath my skin and coursing through my veins.  i’ll meet you no where else but at the top, mis amigos.

the major subject in the course that i’m taking up right now isn’t exactly something that gives me hourly doses of eureka moments.  don’t get me wrong.  the teacher is brilliant and i love her with all me heart but hey, the subject never fails to give me a free ticket to dreamland whenever it rears its ugly head every wednesday and friday.

to be frank, i’m not exactly interested in developmental communication and it’s not something that i would relish pursuing all the days of my life.  hey, i’d rather be out in the world churning out children’s stories than interviewing sleazy government employees and getting passed around in their equally sleazy government offices trying to decipher the meaning of hunger and poverty.

my head droops and my eyelids suddenly weigh a thousand tons everytime filipino class ends and the bells rings prodding us to make our way to guy hall for our beloved major.  it feels as if the sandman had this habit of sprinkling grains of sand all over us as we make our way to the confines of our little nook in the dormitory-turned-class building.

i have to hand it to that class however for allowing us to hone our artistic skills over the drone of reporters.  in fact at some point, it has even transformed me into a linguist of sorts as every session encourages me to come up with an imaginary language scribbled on the upper margins of my fillers.

i have to hand it to our class.  we never seem to tire of talking about how extremely poor and pathetic the third world countries are.  we never seem to tire of talking about how hungry the kids in kenya have become.  we never seem to tire of talking about agriculture, development (or the lack of it), and industry and how communication simply ties everything together.

the hell with it.

all that talk about hunger, poverty, and illiteracy is making me hungry, poor, and illiterate.

now if only we could bring a little coffee maker in class…scratch that.

February has arrived.  the infamous month linked to valentines, love, cupid, and everything that screams coupledom.  for a stark minority, the month is somewhat interchangeable with april fools.  for some, february is the new november.  go figure.

however, for those who are attached to a special someone, a better (or bitter) half, a novio, a paloma mia, a cariño, or cherie amour, or whatever else you call it, february 14 may be a day not out of the ordinary.

for those who just recently go attached or who are flooded with invitations for dinner dates and the like, here is a semi-comprehensive guide on the kinds of dates there.  actually, there aren’t too many.  and since we shall do this in the philippine context (traditional, conservative, blah blah blah…) let the date be a guy and the datee, siempre, a girl (unless some of you are opposed to that then just drop me a line or something).

1. MR. MUCHO DINERO. mr mucho dinero bleeds, smells, and reeks of cash–no, not the kind that jingles but the kind that can actually be folded.  he has no problem with resources for as long as he will be able to spend a few precious moments with you.  he can treat you out to the most expensive restaurant in town, drive you around in the most expensive car in town, and give you a valentine gift that can very well qualify as a dowry.  when you are out with mr. mucho dinero, you can almost feel as if you’re going out with the son of the sultan of brunei. mr. mucho dinero is not afraid to spend, spend, spend–impulsively at that.  hey, he might even be the one to buy you your valentine getup.  no how’s that?

2. MR. KURIPOTITIS.  Oh man, oh man.  it’s amazing that he even considered to ask you out on a date knowing that he is in perpetual belief that his wallet has cancer and that a single peso is worth a million bucks.  You’d be lucky if mr. kuripotitis spends for your pedicab trip to the place where he plans to take you out on a date.  on ordinary cases, mr. kuripotitis will insist that the two of you use your legs and walk towards wherever you plan to eat and spend valentines at.   don’t expect a lavish and extravagant v-day.  hell, you might not even get the works.  here’s what mr. kuripotitis might give you: a santan he just broke off on his way to your classroom, three pieces of maxx candy in red (candy still has ample sugar content but costs way cheaper than a bar of tobleron i.e 3pcs candy=Php2.00 while tobleron=<or> Php 37.50), a recycled valentine card which he stole from his dormmate.  if he takes you out to eat tempura at bosing’s, he just might ask you to pay for half of the total cost.  if you don’t want to starve to death on your date, make sure you eat dinner first before going out with mr. kuripotitis.

3. MR. NO TENGO DINERO.  slightly the same as mr. kuripotitis except that as his name suggests literally, he really doesn’t have the resources to begin with.  in his lack of anything to spend, the only thing he can give you is a valentine greeting and probably he will offer to stroll around the campus with you on foot.  that way, you don’t have to spend anything but time.

4. MR. TORPE. it’s a great, great, great, achievement if you manage to get mr. torpe to ask you out.  if he asks you our up front, he might do it in a voice as faint as a whisper.  his eyes would be wandering all over the place and he would be bending a piece of metal behind his back to release pressure and tense feelings.  don’t expect a quality conversation with mr. torpe.  he will be too shy to even utter a word.  somehow, his vocabulary for the first few hours of your date may be limited to monosyllabic words and you will be given the burden of having to think of all sorts of things to keep the conversation going.  expect then, to dominate the conversation as mr. torpe will be exceptionally silent most of the time and too conscious of his gestures and movements. 

5. MR. CONFIANZA.  confianza.  confidence.  too much confidence.  beware.  he thinks he is God’s gift to women and therefore since he asked you out, he believes and is fully convinced that you must be the luckiest damn girl in the world.  he will suffocate you with the hot air he emits (and destroy the environment by contributing to the greenhouse effect in addition).  he will dazzle you and bore you to death with his achievements.  he will not stop talking about his favorite topic: himself. so in case you decide to go out with him, bring a good book to read (or bash him on the head).  you’ll need it.  badly.

6. MR. BRAINIAC.  prepare for mental overload.  going out with the nerd, with mr. brainiac will leave you speechless if you are not a nerd like him simply because you will never be able to follow his line of thinking or understand all the fancy polysyllabic latin words in his jargon–in geek speak.  you will have the theory of existentialism as you appetizer, the theory of relativity as your first course, the quantum theory as your second course, and newton’s law of motion for desert.  by the time your date is over, your iq will have shot up by 50 points.

so far, these are the the kinds of dates that i have spotted out.  i will be adding more in due time so please, please, be patient.

Finally, midterms is over.  i can’t believe how extremely delighted i am to have rushed into battle armed with more than a hundred’s worth of pages crammed into my brain and to have emerged in one piece–alive to tell the tale of how it is to have read two chapters of wilbur schramm from morning till night.  alive after making a comprehensive reviewer of my infamous religion handouts (the text on the handouts were microscopic).  alive after immersing myself unbelievably in college algebra.  midterms is finally over and i couldn’t be any happier.

admittedly, i was in a state of shock prior to my midterms.  after three semesters of only having to take one or two midterm exams, i couldn’t believe i had to take midterm examinations for all of my subjects.  it felt so much like high school except that high school was way more cumbersome and saddistic. 

now we can all look forward to the glory of taking our finals and taking a bow after a whole school year of working doubly hard just to get that coveted 4.0.  my goal is to hibernate during the entire summer vacation and wake up energized and feeling as if i’ve had enough of too much sleep.  impossible.

it amazes me how some people think that i barely get any sleep.  that’s just so weird.  i love to sleep and i jump on the dreamland express whenever i get the chance to.  i mean, nine hours of sleep just isn’t enough now, is it?

i just hate it when i have to rise and shine and everything just seems so perfect.  the temperature, the folds of my blanket, the softness of the pillows.  it makes me feel lethargic and sleepy and nice all over that i’ve often entertained thoughts of skipping class and just sleeping the day away.  of course that never happened.  i can’t bear the thought of having to miss class. 

forgive me for yacking away.  i’m just so glad that i can use my blog again after a week’s agony of being unable to access my little spot in cyberspace.

the next entry should be a lot more interesting.  something about valentines.  don’t cringe.  it’s not gonna be anything cheezy or what.

i’m not particulary interested in my filipino class or in any filipino class for that matter. my command of the language is amazing–amazingly horrendous, that is.  once i was asked to report in class and i stopped in the middle of my report, pressed my lips together, composed myself, inhaled deeply before saying, "ma’am, puede ko magbinisaya?  di jud nako carry and tagalog."  with a look of utter pity, my teacher agreed to allow me to speak the language that i could best express myself in.

lately though, i believe i’m having fun.  i enjoy filipino because of our lengthy discussions of philippine epics.  i can’t help but crack up at the most outrageous scenes in the story.  believe me, it’s too obvious that the author or whoever came up with the epics wanted to achieve a happy ending at all costs.

case in point: in darangan, mabaning’s brother was killed by datu mapondi.  mapondara, mabaning’s brother, as you know is one of the good guys and HE CANNOT SIMPLY EVAPORATE FROM THE STORY.  thus, just as mapondara lay dead, enter madali who came from goodness knows where and brings mapondara back to life using his power as a ‘manghuhula’ (hmm…i wonder how fortune tellers can actually bring a person back to life…). 

there was also another part in the same story wherein the hero, mabaning, was nearly defeated by the vile datu mapondi.  just as mapondi was about to shred mabaning into a thousand little maranaw shreds, enter bantugan from his kingdom a jillion miles away bringing with him an army to save the day.  wow.  talk about coming just in the nick of time.

in the story indarapatra at sulayman, king indarapatra orders his brother sulayman to kill the four beasts who have been plaguing the kingdom.  we see prince sulayman as the perfect principe: dashing, debonair, brave, and above all skilled with the sword.  unfortunately, just as he was about to slay the third beast (a huge bird that has the habit of swooping down on a poor little village whenever), he made the horrid mistake of chopping off big bird’s wing and not running for it just in time.  hence, the wing fell on top of him, squashing him dead.  indaraptra knows about his brother’s death through a nifty plant in the veranda and comes to the rescue.  and get a load of this–i love this part, the line, actually, so i’ll state it as i read it: nang lumingon siya ay bigla niyang nakita and mahiwagang tubig na lunas na ginamit niya upang mabuhay muli si sulayman.  hark!  talk about the magic agua popping out of nowhere.

i also find parts of the other epics simply ridiculous but interesting nonetheless.  kung sa ako pang pinulongan–trampas gayud! 

let’s take hudhud for instance.  aliguyon and pumbakhayon were in the middle of the greatest freaking duel in the mythological history of the ifugao people.  just when things got a lot more thrilling, in came one of the their moms to ask if her baby boy pumbakhayon could take a break and eat lunch.  the thing is, aliguyon had to agree!  i could actually hear someone scream ‘RECESS!’ in the middle of their fight.  wow.  if i were aliguyon i would’ve just chopped the guy’s head off when he stopped.

Moral of the story Biag ni Lam-ang: never go up the mountains killing igorots.  you just might smell like hell.  take lam-ang for instance, the moment the village maidens bathed him in the river, hell, the fishes died because of the stink and the grime that came off him.

Bidasari was even more outrageous.  first off, her parents actually forgot they brought a baby in the forest thus leaving her by the river bank.  second, i’ve never heard of someone who actually told their adversary how best they could be killed.  that’s bidasari for ya.

and of course, who could forget Labaw Donggon who just couldn’t get enough of beautiful women–even one that was taken.  dah sana!  gibitay lagi ilawom sa balay sa bana sa iyang ganahang agawon.

then you have tulalang who’s tall dark and never mind who falls in love in the blink of an eye, who orders his accessories to fight in his stead.  and then you have tuwaang the only freakin guy who made the diwata utter a word.  i wonder how good he looked.  he must’ve been drop dead gorgeous.

that’s philippine epic for you.  it’s unbelievable but undeniably enjoyable.

it’s been a long time since i’ve been able to jot down some of my thoughts here.  this is my first post of the year and i don’t intend on making it a pulitzer-worthy composition, mind you.  i just need to take a lot of stuff off my mind given the fact that my mwf sched always leaves me drained.

what to write?  what to write?  here are some things i’m looking forward to in 2007.

1. DE LOVELY.  i’m watched this movie twice already and i still can’t get enough of it.  this is the only movie sent a deluge of tears down my cheeks.  the story revolved around cole porter one  of my favorite composers of all time.  the man’s a genius and a legend but the way his life was depicted in the movie humanized him to the last fingernail.  to begin with, the songs meant a lot to me since i grew up listening to cole porter’s songs from the great american songbook.  the movie wasn’t just about cole’s life but more importantly it was about love.  the movie’s tagline: a love that never dies, and music that lives forever.  the movie was de-ritz, delightful, and totally de-lovely.

2. TUESDAYS, THURSDAYS, SATURDAYS, AND SUNDAYS.  no doubt, these are the only days of the week which leave me enough room to hybernate and reenergize after the rigors of an 8am-6pm schedule.  i just love the feeling of having to think about nothing but sleep.

3. SUMMER BREAK.  i’m looking forward to summer break for one reason: it gives me ample time to write new books.  i’m thinking of creating a more interesting book version of the philippine epics particularly darangan, ulahingan, and hudhud–slightly tweaked, but written for kids who just can’t get enough of magic and adventure.

4. CONQUERING STAGE FRIGHT. it’s embarrassing but i do get goosebumps when i have to play the violin in front of a crowd.  but i vowed to myself that i’d vanquish that silly feeling this year and i’m looking forward to it.

5. A NEW SCHOOL YEAR.  my sophomore year isn’t through yet but i’m already excited for my junior year.  i can’t wait to be an almighty, powerful junior!  kidding.  but really, i’m excited.

6. TROUBLE.  i have this potential for attracting trouble but then, that’s a given.  all i could do is laugh about it and consider an interesting twist in the story of my life.  things would be awfully boring if nothing happened, don’t you think?  but of course, trouble should only come in moderation if at all.  i’m still enjoying the peacefulness of my life bigtime.

So far, these are the things that i could think of.  i’ll resume to my raving, ranting mode later on when the need arises.  i can’t be staki if i’m always wistful and hopeful, you know.  it’s just so not me.  hehe…