The first time I opened the maroon leather-bound book, I felt as if Reality, with a heavy iron-laden fist, just punched me in the face. Then in the gut. I think it left my nose bleeding for a while.

Andee and I spent a good part of our morning at the library, looking through several Creative Writing undergraduate theses to give us an idea on how to begin our critical essays. While our list of possible sources and related literature is yet to be completed, another cause of panic came by in the form of a presentation of the introduction for our essays on Friday. In a mad scramble for sources, I downloaded every related article I could possibly get from the literary journals I found online at the library (thank the literary gods for UP's access to Project Muse!) - which left me at a loss with where to start, and even how. Andee and I figured that at least, by looking at how previous CW undergrads did their work, we could probably get a head start on our own as well.

And what an ignition that was.

I can still feel blood dripping down my nose. Is this how you taste like, Senioritis?

--

I was supposed to go to UP extra early today because I was to research at the library for related literature I could use for my thesis' critical introductory paper. On mornings like this (when I really need to do something despite my exhaustion and/or laziness) I usually go on auto-pilot, with my feet automatically being dragged to the kitchen, toasting my bread or getting my peanut butter or whatever, reaching for the remote of the TV to keep me awake, and pulling out a jug of water from the fridge. By the time I've taken a bite out of my freshly prepared peanut-butter toast, I noticed my cellphone vibrating from underneath my pillow and figured it might be my mother calling. Turns out, it was the merciful gods of scholarly endeavors giving me the thing I needed the most.

(Actually, it was really just Ria, and a couple of other friends doing the text brigade.)

I've almost forgotten the feeling of anticipating for a suspension of classes ever since college began - DepEd and PAGASA announcements no longer excite me like they once did the moment I stepped into "the real world" (aka the world after high school) and felt for myself the prejudice against the most stressed-out members of the student population. Never mind that we do not have the advantage of school buses or Dad's car, never mind that we have books and photocopied readings to protect and prioritize under our umbrellas, never mind that the universities we now go to turn into a soggy, flooded, gloomy microcosm of the sorry state of the entire metro - no. We are older, we are wiser. We are mature enough to brave the storms of Finals week, hell, we should be able to wade through the literal ones too. (I guess this is the part where we decry our so-called independence, huh? "We're not waterproof!" is the battle cry.)

But today, something short of a miracle occurred, and with gray skies still looming, it's safe to say that today, Friday, 24th of June, students from the University of the Philippines are licensed to borrow a line from Maroon 5 and never, ever leave their beds.

It's a very welcome feeling, this legitimate staying-under-the-covers feeling. Despite the overwhelming sense of superiority brought upon by one's personal choice to cut classes because of sloth, there's still nothing more relieving than staying in bed because you really don't have to. The weight of a resolved mind is nothing compared to the lightness of a guilt-free conscience.

Also, for the last couple of days I've been feeling awful thanks to colds, cough, and headache. I'm guessing they're all caused by the abrupt changes in temperature coupled by the stress due in large part to academics which severely aggravated the colds, cough, and headache all the more. It's a vicious cycle. I kinda need this break.

So in short, I am still under a sea of bed covers, with my stuffed elephant by my side and box of tissue on the other. I should be doing something productive now, I really should. But the library is two jeepney rides away, and my head is conveniently parked on this pillow. The rain is still pouring heavily outside and there is no way I can leave the dorm without getting any part of my body drenched. My body (and ultimately, the universe) has decided - I guess I'm not going anywhere today. Thank you, heavens.

--

That sentence has a lot of weight. Just saying it out loud (and/or typing it down) sounds so surreal - not just because I still cannot wrap my head around the idea that I am already in my fourth year, but also because before I was able to finally get my Form 5 and consider myself an eligible student for the incoming semester, I had to wait in line for hours, panic about what subjects to choose, lose patience over the system, walk back and forth between very hot and humid buildings despite heavy rainfall, use my charms to the highest (and most desperate) extent, and beg and almost sell my kidney for a slot - just so I could complete the fifteen units I needed. And all this while having an acid reflux. Talk about stressful.

This week was yet another proof that it takes both luck AND ingenuity to survive enrollment in UP - and everything else, actually.

School starts next week. I am in denial.

The last time he ever wrote about her was right after their last– was at a friend's– before their fifth– when she was drunk and he wasn't– it was during– or was it after?– he wrote of her cheeks, no, her wrists—

It was a long time since he last wrote about her.

--

It's not unusual to hear people say they've given up on fairy tales. In fact, count me in on that statistic. I'm nineteen - hell, I've been rejected, I've cried myself to sleep, I've clung on to Jeff Buckley's Last Goodbye, I've been through what I'd like to call "life's ceremonial jade-ing." I've long believed that fairy tales do not happen, and for the most part, do not exist, really.

Most people must be guilty of using the word "Disney" as an insult. In our course, anyone who chooses the "Disney" version of Little Mermaid would probably be considered a disgrace. If you still see Prince Charming as your proverbial life hero, your bookshelf (and life) must lack variety. Clearly, you haven't gone out to read tragedies, let alone experience them. Which is a shame. Because there is more to life than the Disney perspective.

But see, it's through the rose-colored glasses of Disney that I first saw life outside the four walls of my home. It was Mickey and the gang that showed me that things will always be okay when you have a great (and diverse!) set of friends. It was Snow White's seven dwarfs that introduced me to the different types of people you can meet, it was Ariel's friends under the sea that opened my eyes to new worlds that I could never have imagined on my own. It was Mary Poppins inside my head when I refused to tae an awfully disgusting antibiotic, and it was Belle's love for books that sealed my fate as a reader. For all their flight and fancy, the Disney movies that I saw growing up were all instrumental in making me realize that your world doesn't have to be confined within what you know - some stories may not be real, they may be imaginary and all in your head, but there's nothing wrong with that. And sometimes, it's even the most unreal that speak volumes about what really is.

I no longer wish for fairy tales. But I forever owe Walt Disney my love for stories and the art of telling them. Just having to step into a place where magic happens was enough to make me feel grateful for all the tales he's woven into our lives.

P.S. I look so dark in this picture, I cannot even- (finish this sentence properly.) My friends, proof that this year, summer happened.

The high school barkada outing we have been planning for years finally, finally happened. (We have no "group name" we just refer to ourselves as "Friends" - which isn't exactly wrong, really, but isn't unique either. Oh well.) With a little luck and help from the universe (aka my parents) we were able to find a location at the very last minute and before you know it, we were off to Anilao.

The barkada wasn't complete, and we won't be any time soon because Inna is in Canada already. It's such a shame that we weren't able to do this while she was here - mostly we just hang around each other's houses, watching lame-ass movies, eating chips, gossiping about batchmates - the usual. The funny thing is we were okay with it. We were never the kind of friends who went out to swanky restaurants or shopped together - we were fine just lazing around on someone's bedroom or Trixie's pool. It was the company that mattered, not the venue. But I guess this summer we figured it was about time we grew up and ventured someplace else. After all, we were almost twenty years old! We needed a proper outing. Thankfully, majority of us managed to pull some strings and take some time off - and this happened.

And so this was that. It probably was the most fun we've ever had in a long while. Doesn't it amaze you how with high school friends, the amount of time or distance that separates you will never get in the way of you guys reconnecting? It was as if we were back where we left off four years ago, in St. Paul, wearing our checkered skirts. A lot has changed, and yet it felt like nothing did - it was a comforting kind of sameness just being with them again.

It was just a twenty to thirty-minute dive for each of us but it was probably the most beautiful half hour I've had in a while. Just to see marine life in their natural habitat was truly humbling - if this was what we had under our shores, how come we never really appreciate it? A beautiful pink and purple fish passed by in front of me, and I thought to myself, there are so many things in the world I have yet to see and yet to know - I can't wait to discover more of them.

It was such a shame that we weren't able to bring a proper underwater camera (the camera used for the scuba shots were the resort owner's) - I would have loved to share all that I've seen with you guys. But I guess you'd have to experience it for yourself then :)

Me having a very "P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney" moment. This was definitely one of my most memorable experiences ever - something I can cross off my bucket list. I'm looking forward to scuba diving again, but more than that I can't wait to do it again with Friends. :)

Our Striptease Aerobics class had our "mini-recital" on the last day of summer classes. For about three to four days, we mashed up our routines and choreographed our steps for our group presentations, with our polos in hand and hair cascading down our shoulders. It wasn't exactly an R-18 kind of show, of course, but let's just say it was sexy enough to raise the temperature with our hips swaying in tune to a trusty R&B gapang song. :>

But seriously, it really was the best, most empowering PE class I've ever taken - the last time I've felt this confident about myself was about ten pounds ago. I wouldn't mind taking this again and again, even if I didn't have to. The best part was convincing myself that I could pull off puta red lipstick, after all! - just not for everyday purposes, though.

I went with Mommy's officemates at BOI during their outing at Bagac, Bataan last May 6. It was my first snorkeling experience and it really affirmed my love with the water. I was the only girl in the group that decided to snorkel (the rest just stayed at the beach) and several of the young boys in the group, who were the sons of mom's officemates, thought I was a high school junior! Imagine that. I think they still don't believe I'm turning twenty this year. They cried bluff when I told them so. I, of course, take that as a compliment. Ha!

I got a hold of a blue starfish and it was beautiful - it was the first time I ever saw a starfish in its natural habitat. (No worries, I returned the starfish safely to its home.) This was me having a pretty Misty moment. I was almost tempted to challenge someone for the Cerulean City badge - almost.

Shoutout to my "summer buddies" Mark, Jas, and Adrian, all of whom have Math/Physics and PE, like me. For most of our four weeks together they've filled their guts with fat and oil courtesy of the much-loved Beach House. (Yes, just them, since I've brought with me canned goods for lunch every single day.) You know you've found friends you can grow old with when you can spend three straight afternoons just being vain around two huge letters of the alphabet representing your school. Or when you can imagine an entire civilization with instead of call centers you have bike centers generating electricity and a prison where criminals are being tickled to death. We've talked about our funerals (a barkada mausoleum with life-sized statues!), our futures (Mark gets the weird kids) and even Tekken characters and their history (my friends are obsessed so I had to know who Lilli was and what a ghost battle meant), and yet we still never ran out of things to say.

On some days, several of our other friends would join us in the afternoon, meeting up at our newest favorite tambayan somewhere near Maginhawa, that quaint little teashop called Moonleaf, and again we would laugh about our cringe-worthy pasts, uncertain presents, and idealized futures - this time, over wintermelon milk tea and pearls - like there's just no time and no place else to talk about them but right then and there. It was always a riot, and it was never a bore - this was what we truly needed. I missed these kinds of genuine dates, the kind that had us all under the same roof with all our stories and worries and joys and pains, the kind that made me feel sad about the Katipunan jeep finally arriving when it's time to come home.

The summer of 2011 has been a pleasant surprise. I was expecting a rather uneventful and acads-filled two months mainly because of summer class (my choice, really, but still) accompanied by a rather warranted sense of lethargy brought upon by the intense heat. To me, summer does not bring about images of sand between my toes and the glistening sea; it's usually just the dread of cougar-age temperatures in Celsius and the anticipation for lazy afternoon naps. There's the usual out-of-the-country trip with the family, but other than those four or five days (sometimes a week or more), the rest of vacation is usually spent mainly on what I'm ashamed to admit I do best: bumming around.

But much to my surprise (and amusement, of course), I'm glad to say that I've spent most of my summer without my laptop - or rather, I've gone on days without it. Which means I've actually stepped out of my house, went someplace else (that is not virtual) and had actual stories to tell about how my day(s) went. And I've put my nifty little point-and-shoot camera to good use. I am so proud of myself, really.

Which is not to say that from now on I'm going to live life without the Internet. God knows that is not possible. But then again, at least I'd be able to say that I've spent the last few weeks of my summer doing stuff I could write about, not doing stuff just so I could blog about them. So, allow me, for the next couple of posts or so, to share with you how my summer went: from striptease recital, to beaches, to racing, to Disneyland. It all happened so quickly and I have yet to recover, but am I glad - tan lines, sunburn, and all :)

(Just so you know, I'm listening to Teen Daze as I write this; ironic, I know, listening to them as the summer ends AND writing about summer on the last day of May, but hey it's all about perspective, and who's to say I can't cap off my summer like this?)

Isn't it thrilling how one person, one man, one stranger, can put into music the complexities of the sentiments you thought you were going through alone? How can words coming from a person you've never met sum up the entire spectrum of feelings you've attached to parts of yourself no one else knows? How is it possible that amidst the sea of faces and crowded arms, you feel like it's only you and him engulfed in the music, like a secret only you two share?

There is a reason why this band, and particularly that man, will always have a place in my life. Through my roughest times and my best moments, it's them I come running home to after all the tears and the sighs. It was She Will Be Loved that I cried to on the piano when everything else was falling apart, it was Songs About Jane that I played endlessly on my iPod when things started to shift gears before I even got the chance to admit that they were. In fact, all of their albums I've listened to from beginning to end, and there is just no way a Maroon 5 song won't be appropriate for any kind of feeling or situation in my life.

Thank you, Adam Levine, for gracing us with your hotness. Thank you, James Valentine, Jesse Carmichael, Michael Madden, and Matt Flynn, for leaving us an incredible experience. And thank you, Maroon 5, for making me feel loved. Last night, and always.


How does it feel to know you never have to be alone when you come home?

He was playing with his phone, twirling it between his index finger and thumb, trying to make it seem like this was what he always did when there were pauses to fill between the how-are-yous and what's-your-next-class, but the quivering of his fingers said otherwise. I should know. I've mastered the skill of phone-swiveling.

"Don't you ever get annoyed that people never call you by your first name?" I asked, finally shattering the cafeteria buzz that disguised itself as awkward silence between us.

I was, after all, curious. I wondered how anyone ever got to calling him anything other than Tan.

"Who would want to be called Genesis anyway? I mean, even I would be annoyed if anyone called me that," he replied without hesitation.

I couldn't even imagine myself calling him Genesis. Even if we become friends, or even just close acquaintances - the kind that had inside jokes about our respective partners, or this as-good-as-rubber baked mac I was trying to eat. I wondered what his mom called him? I assume Sassa would give his real name when she called him at home and his mom picks up the phone. Hi Tita, can I speak with Gen please? Genesis! It's your girlfriend! Or when she would introduce him to her friends. Hi guys, this is Tan. It sounds too impersonal. And odd. This is Gen. It sounds even odder.

I laughed, both at his remark and at the thought inside my head. Gen Tan. I cannot imagine feeling any more glad about being Anne Cruz. Default, but without fault. He laughed too. At me, with me, I cannot be sure. And with that, the lull sneaked its way back between us again, like it always did. We weren't really friends - only connected because as they say in Disneyland (and in this university), it's a small world after all. I suppose after this we're now entitled to an eyebrow-raise or even a small "Uy!" that wouldn't seem too pretentious.

Finally, 5:30. He stood up to leave, carrying with him the Lock-and-Lock water bottle he had refilled a few minutes ago and a giant paper bag (that I'm guessing contained either a really large stuffed toy or a whole lot of shoes), and said goodbye. I wished him luck about his surprise and asked him to greet Sassa a happy birthday for me. I glanced at my phone and wondered if I should be going as well. No new messages.

Wednesday was about to end, quietly lifting the burden of the week from the students as Thursday is slowly ushered in. I could see the sun from behind the trees, as tired from the day as the students inside the cafeteria were. For a group meeting, for a quick snack, for a glass of water - people saying hi, people coming, people walking away faster than you can wave them hello. It was the way things were. The most people can give you is their five minutes, and before you can even crack a joke that would cement familiarity, the bell rings, the professor comes in, your friend texts you, the sun sets, time's up - you're to be somewhere else. I don't complain. Instead, I put the earphones back in my ear, and resumed nodding to Metric's Collect Call.

I tried browsing through my notes about trigonometric functions to while away the time, feeling stupid because I was in a building with people who have likely mastered them in their sleep. I tried to blend in with the crowd, tried to make it look like I don't mind being alone again, because I don't. It's just better to be feeling alone with someone, rather than being alone, period. It's okay to wait when someone else is waiting. No matter that it's almost a stranger whose path I'm unlikely to cross again - at least, for a while, I wasn't the loner girl on the table by the water dispenser.

I glanced at my phone again, hoping that the message, the person I was waiting for had arrived; hoping that the minutes would shatter the waiting. 5:32.

A short story of mine, "In Her White Dress," has been featured on Stache Magazine's All-Art April 2011 issue - and it's such a thrill! I only found out about it today because honestly, as soon as I submit anything, be it for features or acads, I try to get it off my mind as quickly as I possibly can lest it gets me up all night worrying about typos, mistakes, could-have-beens, should-have-beens. I'm glad it turned out well - and on the pages of this magazine! (Which, might I add, has exponentially been gaining a mass of followers.) To be featured on the Art Issue makes me feel truly ecstatic because the entire issue is filled to the brim with works of very talented artists, designers, writers, and musicians - they are all so inspiring, and it's unbelievable to have a work of mine placed alongside all of them :) The PDF copy is available for free on their website - I hope you get your copies! The whole thing is quite a treat, really.

Thanks again, Stache! Special mention to my friend, Ayiene, who is the website editor. You guys have done a truly awesome job! Keep inspiring the youth! :)

It's about time I wrote something on the class that has gotten me all worked up and sweaty every morning.

No, it's not Math 2. Although that gets my palms sweaty in a different kind of way - it's a different kind of rush when you're computing percent increases and VAT at seven o'clock in the freakin' morning. (I'd like to think of it as the "anti-rush" rush: the huge feeling of annoyance that takes over you for being awake so early in the morning that it eventually wakes you up because the irritation in itself already generates energy.)

What else is there to talk about? Striptease Aerobics. :>

First, the history: It really wasn't something I was expecting to take this summer. In fact, taking up PE wasn't even a part of the plan. My goal was to take at least one subject this summer: either Math 2 (which is my last GE course, and in fulfillment of the requirements for the Ateneo LAE application) or PI 100 (aka The Rizal Course.) I pre-enlisted in all available classes for Math 2 and PI 100 in the morning, not minding the huge demand and apparent aggressiveness of every other upperclassman out there. I needed a subject, period. About two days before the deadline of the pre-enlistment period, I was lurking around the pre-enlistment module, looking for what other subjects were available. I decided to check out the PEs, and lo and behold, they were offering Striptease, which I have always enlisted in since first year and never got. Obviously, the demand for this subject is intense - it's a for-women only class, and I bet every girl in the university was secretly raring to strut her stuff. I nonchalantly clicked on the "Enlist" button and never thought of it again.

Long story short: I got in. 25 slots. The demand 200+. If that's not "meant to be" I don't know what else is. It's the universe telling me it's my fate to take this PE before I graduate! (Or that it's my fate, as in, it's my fall-back job in the future when all else fails. Ha!)

Before I forget, it's a Striptease Aerobics class. Meaning, we don't literally rip off our clothes in class and bare our jelly-bellies as we grind to Lady Gaga. We dance using repetitive steps but with sensual movements. We touch and whip our hair, we stick out our butts, we crawl on the floor - we bite our lip with gusto. Even our warm-ups involve serious hip-thrusting action. But it's a dance.

We've spent the last few days putting together the combinations we've learned so far. We're getting better and better each day! At first, we only had sexy-shoulder-moving, now we wipe the floor with our backs and knees. I never thought I could sweat so much just by a few seemingly "simple" sexy moves. A three- to four-minute song could make your legs ache and your tongue beg for hydration. It's that intense. It's a total body workout, really.

My classmates and I joke that we have newfound respect for strippers now. It requires complete submission - you must not hesitate to spread your legs, slither on the floor, and rock your hips back and forth. We only dance for an hour or so each day and we feel like we hiked and climbed the Himalayas. For anyone to do it with precision every night for endless hours on end is very, very impressive, indeed! But all bastos hirits and possible anti-feminist notions aside, it is an important realization to discover how fierce and unstoppable the woman can be - we only have to unlock the potential of our minds and of course our bodies to come to terms with ourselves.

I have my insecurities about my body, I'll be the first to admit that. I hate that my front is well-endowed in my puson area and not somewhere north. I don't think I have the most bootylicious rear, and I have an underdeveloped torso fluidity. I'm the last person on earth, nay, the universe, to think that I'm sexy. (Thankfully, I think, The Boyfriend is the first, but that is irrelevant, and this is just me convincing myself to feel better. Ha. Ha. Hahaha. End rant.) But looking at myself in the mirrors of the dance studio, one hour everyday, every week, seeing myself swaying my hips in rhythm to Katy Perry's "E.T" - I can't help but feel hot. At least in those few precious moments, crawling to "Kiss me, ki-ki-kiss me," I feel that I deserve to be kissed, that I need to be kissed - and I can make you, just watch me throw my head back and caress my hair. It's a powerful feeling.

It takes a certain amount of courage to stand in front of a mirror, having my body staring back at me, while stopping the voice inside my head from having the urge to count the pounds and the inches. But once the song starts, that voice is tuned out by the desire of the flesh itself and I'm forced to move, to dance, to feel.

It's funny that a lot of the reactions I've been getting from friends range from jealousy to shock, but I'm surprised, even disgust. I guess sometimes it slips my mind that UP is typically more liberal than others, and that it takes a while for other people to welcome the idea of sexuality and sensuality as part of our everyday culture. (Hey, it's not everywhere you see a university offering Sekswalidad at Kasarian as electives and having a naked man for an iconic symbol.) This is what I will always be grateful for about our university - it widens our perspective on a lot of things we usually just put into boxes. I'm not surprised there is a stereotype that UP students are wild - but see, that's because society has such a boxed up notion of "wild." For most people, "wild" is the boy who openly discusses sex with his partner, "wild" is the professor who teaches his students how to use a condom, "wild" is a girl who opens her legs and grinds her hips up and down. Regardless of the circumstances, "wild" is wild for a lot of people - but why should it be a bad thing? If being "wild" makes you better understand your body, allows you to comprehend your choices, and gives you the opportunity to make the right decisions, then why shouldn't you be "wild"?

Going back, I'm obviously looking forward to the rest of the summer - this is the most fun I've had in a non-major class in a long time. It's about time PE started getting really interesting. And the best part about this? Hell, this is a practical skill I could actually use in the real world! Future husband should be pleased.

In a somewhat unrelated photo, this is UP during the summer.

It's our university's version of "snow." Tufts of cotton float in the air and sprinkle the grass with their immaculate whiteness. Beautiful, I tell you.

(I wish I took a better picture though; the campus is always a sight to behold.)

If there's one thing I'm surprised I can do quite well, it's detaching. Growing up, I've always thought I had separation anxiety issues - I would cry when my mom leaves for work, I would hang on to my grandmother's legs after every visit. I clearly remember one phase in my kindergarten life where my mom and I had this little routine: she'd bring me to the gate, I'd walk about thirty steps away from her, then I'd run back crying and wiping my snot on her pencil skirt. Then she'd bring me to the gate again, and I'd wave her goodbye before I finally lose her in the bustle of students running late and sisters returning to school after mass. Looking back, that would've been evident signs of the Cannot Let Go complex.

But when I ruminate on all the things I've had to let go of in the last few years, I'm (pleasantly) surprised that it didn't take much of a struggle. For someone who used to hold on to things until I got rope burn, I was able to walk away without devastating injuries. Yes, the pain was there, and of course I felt confused and resentful. Yet there was always that window for release - there was never a "I cannot do that" moment. They were always, "I'd rather not do it, of course, but what the hell, it's not like I can't." Which I think explains why giving The Cold War has become my expertise. And which some people mistake as strength, when all it really is (I think for me, at least) is indifference.

Yes, indifference. I have learned to become indifferent to situations I do not want and people I prefer to not handle. I don't know if it's the adult thing to do, or even the decent one at that, but it gets me through. Sometimes, it's this uncaring, uninterested attitude that actually gets things done and makes me feel more satisfied with how things fall into place.

What the hell, this is just me justifying my apparent lack of interest for the Internet lately. I can't explain the irony behind my detachment from this evil, time-consuming, soul-eating digital cloud right when summer started. But for what it's worth, it's starting to seem like my summer isn't going to be wasted staring at the screen. And I don't mind that at all.

But maybe a few days from now things will change, who knows? Maybe after the Holy Week, I'd feel the need to click the Chrome logo again, when classes resume and get more interesting. For the sake of the curious, I'm taking summer classes to finally rid myself of the remaining GE subjects left in our curriculum: Math 2 (Practical Math, where we compute electric bills and VAT) and - drumroll please - my last ever PE in my college life: Striptease.

Oh yes, how could I possibly not write about that? :>

In the meantime, I shall go because my iPod is beckoning. Warpaint's Exquisite Corpse and The Fool, and Rumer's Seasons of My Soul have been on loop for the last couple of days. Ah, I don't regret trading my Internet hours for that.

That being said though, there is still nothing more comforting than the presence of a best friend, a person who can see right through you regardless of the layers of clothing you wear or the amount of pretentious theories you claim to believe in. My very, very good friend (who I believe has transcended best friend-dom and deserves something more than that hackneyed label, but that's another post altogether) who is dorming a few blocks away from me texted me and invited me to join her for dinner. This person is admittedly the one friend I couldn't have possibly survived college without - we've shared the same heartaches and we've talked about practically everything - and of course, I couldn't say no to her. Our talks would always range from the shallow (how funny it was that random high school batchmates were hooking up) to the most profound (how we draw the line between being moral and being religious) but it never gets old, it never gets tiring. Usually we end up talking about the same things but there's just an unexplainable kind of relief knowing that we will always see eye-to-eye and understand each other even in the most ridiculous of situations. The night almost always ends with an "assessment" of our relationships, just because after all social, cultural, superficial, and existential topics has been exhausted, that's the only interesting thing left to talk about, and every time it ends up with us being on exactly the same place - whether happy and contented, or confused and conflicted, we're always on the same page. It's funny and ironic and incredible that there are people like her I can feel an infinite affinity to and it's something I'm assured I will never lose. The universe just reiterated my belief in that tonight and I'm grateful.

I'm not really sure what's the point I wanted to make when I started typing; I'm not even sure if I do have a point. I just initially wanted to weed away the remaining thoughts that have been lingering inside my head so that I can finally get to sleep. Then again, I've always been a blind believer of things happening for a reason, and though I can't find the technical means to defend that right now, I know somehow, the universe has its reasons for making this day turn out the way it did. Maybe it wanted to make me feel that I'm not alone, maybe it wanted to reassure me that I'm not as indifferent or as apathetic as I think myself to be. Or maybe the universe just thinks I could use a good amount of discourse today, both internal and external, and it conveniently arranged my day to accommodate for that. Whatever your reasons may be, thank you, universe, for making it up to me somehow. May your kindness never cease - or at least until this week, you know I'm excited as fuck for my PE class.

Now that that's out of my head, I can finally get to sleep.

(Or not. I just remembered I'll have to Wiki German measles again.)

I'm not a fan of the word "forever" - I don't like using it in my essays, stories, and even my very few (and lame) attempts at poetry on secret parts of my notebooks and/or scratch papers. The last time I used it as a punctuation to an excessive sense of emotion was for my (still undying, albeit now more quiet) love for Nathan Scott, the character from One Tree Hill I unabashedly obsessed over. Other than that, I'm afraid it hasn't found my way into my regular "serious" vocabulary since.

"Forever" requires - no, more like compels - a certain kind of commitment: that of a lifetime. Forever. Eternity. For all of time. It's supposed to be held in esteem, I suppose, and I guess there's nobility in that, especially for relationships (not necessarily romantic) that truly value "forever" and stick to it. But what I don't like is how after the unexpected "expiration" of the word, it gets blatantly rebuked and upbraided. "I thought you said forever! What happened to our forever!?" - aside from the very obvious melodramatic overtones, I hate that no matter how true the sentiment behind these statements may be, well, it was founded on unrealistic grounds. Really? You expected someone to stay with you for all of time and not stop loving you? Really?

It's not that I'm such a jaded, cynical bitch who feels deprived and unloved. My parents still adore each other after 28 years of being boyfriend-girlfriend/husband-wife (HAHA) and I have a boy I can attach the suffix "-friend" to with no spaces whom I love with all my heart and soul shoes (*moment of cheese*). But I don't know, I'm just not comfortable with the whole idea of it. I don't like pushing someone or something towards that expectation when in all likelihood, it's going to be (not impossible but) very difficult to uphold.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is for me to consider anything as worthy of my "forever" is definitely something. But right now, I've just affirmed my conviction that yes, indeed, despite my pretty logical line of reasoning, there is one thing I am willing to believe in; there is something I am willing to hold on to for all of eternity.

Yes my mom and I went to the opening of Forever 21 at SM Makati today and the whole time I was trying to control my hyperventilation. I've only been to the Megamall branch about three times before (the first time was on my 19th birthday) and to say that it was a delight would be the biggest understatement of the century. Just looking at the accessories rack with all those earrings- ahhhh, don't get me started on the gushing. (Let's just say that their big hoop earrings, flirty floral finds and reasonably priced tanks get me weak in the knees.)

Unfortunately, it's too out of the way for me because we live in the South so trips to this store were reserved for special occasions and planned in advance. So imagine my surprise when one particularly sullen Friday afternoon, as I descended the escalator of SM Makati to meet up with my mom (we usually meet up at the Ayala station so we could have dinner with my dad and go back to Paranaque together), this huge gigantic poster of the unmistakable brand welcomed me like a long lost child. It was love at first, second, third, every sight. They were everywhere and it required herculean effort to conceal my squeals. Every Friday since then, we've anticipated its opening and finally, finally - it was here! Now my Fridays are just about to get a little bit sweeter.

I'll probably post pictures of some of my purchases soon (particularly my earrings) because I figured it wouldn't be too bad to share and quite frankly, this blog deserves a break from its usual text-heavy style.

In the meantime, allow me to reconsider my stand on the "F" word while I look adoringly at my new dress.

(2)

So I walked into the room and it reeked of pizza and beer, with a little bit of sunshine spying on us.

(3)

So I walked into the room but it reeked of leftover pizza and beer. The sun is creeping through my blinds, like an intruder spying on my sheets that smelled of us.

(4)

So I walked into the room hoping to get some sleep but it reeked of leftover pizza and beer. It's a very humid Tuesday afternoon, and the sun is creeping through my blinds, spying on my sheets that always smelled of us.

(5)

So I walked into the room hoping to get some sleep but it reeked of leftover pizza and beer, like it usually does on a Friday night, except it's a very humid Tuesday afternoon with the sun creeping through my blinds like an intruder spying on us, except there wasn't even that anymore, only your toothbrush and my sheets that would not stop smelling of us.

--

Universe, what are you trying to tell me?

As if my bookshelves couldn't contain any more. My books are what's keeping me sane right now - they provide a welcome distraction to my otherwise mess of a life. Don't they always? Anyway, lately, I've been buying a lot of books that (1) of course, I want and (2) are on The Daunting List of Books in Philippine Literature in English That Every Creative Writing Major Should Read Before She Dies/Attempts To Do Her Thesis. Mostly the latter because next semester, I'm going to be a senior (!!!) and as a pre-thesis requirement we are to take CW199, a subject which requires us to read around a hundred books/selections from the Philippine literary scene. Even for a bookworm like me, it still feels extremely overwhelming. And from the "horror stories" I've heard so far about this subject, it's something we cannot afford to not take seriously (i.e. It has a significant effect on our would-be graduating status.) But so far, I'm enjoying what I've bought so far (mostly short story anthologies) and I'm really not complaining - yet.

At least it's my bookshelf gaining weight and not me. Ha!

Yes, I am seriously judging anyone who complains about their 30-paged required readings.

This song could not have come to me at a more perfect time. Today, after a surprise lunch of nachos and pasta, I had someone explain to me how ratchets work as I thoroughly enjoyed a honey glazed donut. In between bites, I laughed, not because I didn't appreciate the science, but precisely because I did, even if I didn't have to, even if I didn't want to. I laughed because it isn't difficult for us to switch gears from kinematics to fiction to politics, all with his hand on the wheel, and the other entangled in mine. I laughed because it's always the most mundane things that affirm the affection. I laughed because I secretly marveled at how the honey glazed donut always just has the right amount of sweetness, as I licked the sugar off my hands before holding his again.

Right now, there is no other song to better punctuate the silences, the differences, thetogetherness. Thank you, The Wannadies. I needed this. :)

First, get the definitions over with. An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. Of all the animals in the world, about more than ninety percent of them are invertebrates. It is general knowledge that humans have spinal columns. Some don't, however.

It is easy to secure an invertebrate. She looks like other vertebrates at first glance. But you will easily see signs of the lack of backbone once she starts talking. She is silent. She looks like she has a problem. You feel compelled to ask her what's wrong. She shakes her head and forces a smile. You proceed with your life. You look at her again and it's the same expression. You get worried. She looks at you, then looks away. Your conscience bothers you. You buy her a drink. She smiles.

Let her tell you her name. Allow yourself to listen to her stories: about how she feels alone, how nobody understands her, how stressed she is, how her head's been aching for the last few days. You don't want her to cry, so you put your arm around her. She will say she's okay, she will thank you for being there. She will text you good night before you sleep. There will be a smiley face. You will feel better about making her feel better.

Buy her lunch. Ask her what she wants. She will tell you, Whatever you want. You will feel selfish for deciding for her, so you ask her again what she wants. She throws the question back at you. Finally, you decide on beef steak. She will shake her head and say, Can I have chicken? You will oblige. You will buy chicken for both of you. She will never bring out her wallet. You will never ask. It never becomes an issue. You will eat lunch together for the next few weeks.

She will tell you how irritated she is in this one class. Her professor did not explain the lesson well. Try to understand where she is coming from. Look at your watch. It's only twelve-thirty in the morning. And it's just a long exam. It can wait. She needs you. In between her sobs, she asks you how you are. You tell her you have an exam tomorrow. She remembers something she forgot to tell you. You cannot put down the phone. She will tell you you are the only one who understands. You wonder if she has any other friends.

You will wake up to your phone vibrating, she is calling. She is angry. You didn't say good night. She got worried. She was studying last night. You were supposed to stay up with her. You were her moral support. She will begin to question your sincerity. She will doubt the weight of your promises. If you cannot even stay true to your word of saying good night, how will she believe you really care? You blame your pillow. But you fall asleep again anyway.

She will demand for your time. Your breaks will be spent with her. She needs you to hold her hand and tell her things will be okay. In the hallway, you see a friend. You ask him how he and Anne are doing. He smiles. We're doing great, he says. Anne is in class. They'll see each other later that week after their exams. You wonder why Anne doesn't ask him to fetch her in class. He is not needed, you conclude. You smile. Then you realize you still have that exam. You look at your watch. She comes out of the restroom. You give her back her bag. She raises her eyebrow and asks you, Can't you be a gentleman for me? She walks ahead of you. She makes you feel needed.

Your friends text you about a party. You want to go. Before you even ask permission, you notice a new update from her on a social networking site. It's a lyric about feeling ignored and unappreciated. You ask her what's wrong. She feels alright. You tell her about the party. She does not reply. Your friends start calling. You decide to go. Five hours later, you check on the thread. She will be musing about how men never understand and that they never know when to put their girlfriend's feelings first. All her friends agree with her. You will feel inadequate.

Hold her hand. Carry her things. Buy her food. Give her medicine. Understand her mood swings. Let her take the lead. Tell her everything you're doing. Do not leave her out of the conversation. Do what she says. Follow her when she walks out. Don't point out her mistakes. See beyond her insecurities. Praise her. Let her know you are there. Forget her irrationality. She makes you feel needed. She makes you feel like a man. She needs taking care of. She is fragile. She is special.

You wouldn't even consider dating a vertebrate. Doing so would mean not being required to see each other when you two are loaded with academic works. A vertebrate will let you spend time with your friends without her feeling insecure. You wouldn't want your phone not ringing with "Where are you?" and "Who are you with?" texts. You would definitely hate the opportunity to choose your own lunch for yourself. Your back would miss the weight of her girly-colored bag. Vertebrates are independent; they do not allow their lives to revolve around you. Why would you want that?

An invertebrate will divide her days in two ways: Time with you, time not with you. The latter part will be spent in agony, despair and confusion. She will make you question your priorities. Why would you choose a measly homework when she is feeling down and alone? She will take it against you when she says I'm okay, and you believe her and don't read between her sighs indicating that she really isn't. She will demand you to call her again after she hangs up on you. Twice. She will let you bring her home everyday. She will be incapable of going home without you. In fact, she will be incapable of anything without you. There is no other world existing without the two of you in it. She will find it difficult to decide, to choose, to make a point without you in mind. She will need you. She will hurt you, but you will believe she didn't mean to. She only just wants to feel that you care.

You feel what you have is special; this is truly what you want, and consequently this is truly what you need. You will open your Biology book. You will see the different kingdoms of the animal world. You will study about symbiotic relationships. You will read about parasitism, and how usually they are done by worms, bacteria, and insects. They are all invertebrates.

--

Everything else about that day was blurry - I don't remember much about what I said, what we learned in school, or what I had for recess - but there are some details I'm highly unlikely to forget. I was four years old, wearing my black-and-white checkered skirt for the first time in my life. I belonged to Kinder 1 - Pink AM, a first among the many shades of that color that would make a significant impact on my life. I had a new set of crayons and a Polly Pocket bag. My shoes were shiny and my socks were neatly folded down to my ankles.

And certainly, we aren't. After almost two decades of friendship, I can very much say we're not like most friends. We don't just read through each other's thoughts, or finish each other's sentences, or call each other everyday. For all the complexities there are, ultimately, it really is the time we've spent together that has sealed this friendship. It really boils down to that. When you've been friends with someone for so long, losing touch just isn't an option anymore. I think we've reached this point where it doesn't matter how long we haven't talked to each other or how far apart we are - just put us together and we can pick up where we left off.

Today is Hope's birthday. I know she wants a surprise and she would love to have people blindfolding her and presenting her with cakes and balloons. But I've known her longer than I've known how to spell the word 'caterpillar' - and coming from me, those kinds of surprises would mean nothing already. We've gone past that stage. We no longer need the gifts and the party hats - right now, we just need the words, the acknowledgement, the same kind of reassurance we had in each other that day in kindergarten when we promised to be playmates forever; that no matter the distance or the time, in this time in our lives, when everything is changing and life is starting to unfold, she would always be my Enemy, and I would always be hers. And that would always, always be more than enough.

Thank God, she came late in that class.

Happy birthday, Enemy! Let's bond soon, okay? Love you! :*

Appropriate description for how this month has been turning up so far.

Just to give you guys an idea of what (else) is taking up most of my time for the last few weeks and will continue to do so in the couple of days ahead:

On the brighter side, I got an incredible surprise from the CRS - I was enlisted in a much-sought-after PE that had a demand of almost two hundred and slots for only twenty five! I have literally dreamt of taking this PE since first year, and I am beyond ecstatic that I got it FINALLY. The universe wanted this to happen! (I think!) What it is, I'll let you know soon enough. Let's just say it's bound to make my summer really sizzling...

Writing is a form of masochism, that's what our fiction professor always says. It's a painful sort of release, much like an exorcism, I guess, only in an internally turbulent way. It's more than just writing words on a page; it's wanting to calm the tension inside you, to flesh out the voices of different characters in your head, to make something real come out of the surreal. My writing "philosophy" has never been about the fantastic images or fabulous settings, because I admit I don't have the skills (yet) to perfectly craft such a story. But I find pleasure in writing about the little moments, the quiet ones that almost go unnoticed because I find them the most powerful. Their weight comes not in the grandness of the moment itself, but the slow, creeping poignant effect it brings long after it is over.

So far, I am enjoying the stories I've read in this collection. This just might overtake David Foster Wallace's "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men" on my list of favorite short story collections (but it's too early to say.) I am also particularly in love with the cover design, the title in a simple black serif font atop a plain yellow background. Very simple and hushed, echoing perhaps the tenderness of the book itself. And the title? Do I even dare to begin about the title? It was practically screaming out to me the first time I saw it on the shelves - maybe it's the universe's way of reassuring me that I actually belong to the books/in this course/among the words/in this literary world?

Maybe I'm just going delusional because this week is the final one for the semester and it's still far from over. Hearing book titles speak to you might be a very telling sign of hysteria. Ah, the perks of being a writer.

I stared at the small piece of bread, round and flat, with the top a little more brown than the rest, the entire surface shiny and glistening, like the ones my dad used to bring home. Hopia has always been Daddy’s signature pasalubong; he said he never believed in chocolates and candies for dessert, and he always got them at a cheaper price anyway because the lady selling them thinks he’s Chinese. We have the same eyes, Daddy and I. The family calls it alkansya – piggy bank eyes, they say. The tiny little slits appear when we smile, when we sneeze, when we take a bite, when I try to remember the names of relatives, when the early six-thirty a.m. sun hits his eye in the morning as he drives us to school.

Melissa is staring aghast at the rows of hopiang monggo atop our cafeteria counter. She said she only tasted it once and never tried it again. It smells like gasoline, she said. Once she decided it was disgusting, the rest of us could not possibly like it anymore. Tricia never ate anything but her mom’s chocolate chip cookies for recess, and Cindy has never tried hopia before. I was the only one who enjoyed eating it for dessert, for merienda, for breakfast – but secretly of course, in the confines of our own living room, with only my parents and my brother as witnesses.

I gave my five-peso coin to the Manang, motioning for the first hopia in the row. How quickly the smell found its way to me, and eventually my friends! I saw them wrinkle their noses in disgust as I started moving the piece of bread closer to my mouth. It looked a little glossier than what my dad usually brought home but smelled like gasoline just the same. An oddly addicting taste and smell. I do not want them to think this is too easy for me – I close my eyes and pretend disgust. I pull it away from my face and I hear Melissa laughing. Tricia and Cindy are cheering for me. At the back of my head, I know this would be easy. I take a bite and feel my eyes squint their way into an alkansya and for that moment I am sitting across dad in our small, dining table, looking Chinese even though our surname sounds more like a telenovela character. I take a bite and I chew; slowly I taste the gasoline and soon I smell it, like I did as I sat on the passenger seat with dad driving me and my brother to school, like I did the time we went to the hospital after Dad never woke up. I let its strangely delicious flavor swirl inside my mouth like a current of emotion. Tricia hugs me and I lean on her shoulder, wetting her sleeve. See, it wasn’t so bad, I hear Melissa say.

--

Depending on what mood I'm in, Mondays are either the most productive or most useless days of my week. It is general knowledge that (most) UP students do not have class on Mondays so more often than not it can be the saving grace from the uselessness of the weekend (because God knows it's hard to be productive on Saturdays and Sundays) - you can catch up on your acads or catch up on your sleep. Either way's fine.

Since it's almost the end of the sem, obviously my Mondays have been more of the Cram-and-get-everything-done kind. Not that they've all been one hundred percent spent that way, but you get the picture. Of course there will inevitably be short (not really) naps and the occasional random musings that are normal of a person who is alone in a nine-square-meter room. Usually brought upon by random songs on my iPod.

Like my concerns about my own future: about this summer, the next school year, the LAE, graduation. I know it's too early to be anxious about stuff like this, but I can't help it. I don't usually worry about them but with everything so close all of a sudden, how can I not think about it? Big changes are sure to come this year, this 2011. And not just to myself but for most people around me. This year can possibly define my career- heck, my life. Can't time just maybe stop for a while and give me something to hold on to, something I can be certain of, before life throws its shit at me?

It doesn't help that this week is Hell Week and the amount of tension is just about to exponentially increase as days go by and I am bound to stress over every little detail that I come across.

Then it rained and Portishead decided to say hello. "Glory Box." Seriously? Beth Gibbons on a dark, moody, lonely Monday? Suddenly, I was feeling all sorts of emotional, comforted, distressed- a twisted bundle of sentiments I cannot exactly put my finger on.

Sometimes songs are all I have. I realized, as I lay on my bed, lazily typing a blog entry and a Philosophy paper, taking in the entire "Dummy" album, what I really needed was some snuggling. Or beer. Or maybe a secret rendezvous, an illicit night out. Just something, something to go with this song. Something to make me feel sane. Whichever comes first. I'll gladly hold on to it.

The last few weeks have been toxic, really toxic. The next ones aren't going to get any better either, maybe even worse. The semester is coming to a close, yet I don't feel a sense of relief washing over me just yet. I just really want this semester to end already but there's still so many things to write, to revise, to do- it's completely frustrating.

It's no secret that this sem is probably one of the toughest I've had so far. With majors taking up most of my Form 5, it's safe to say that I really am a Creative Writing major now, staying up late for character revisions and literary analysis. It's not always a walk in the park, especially when I reach this point of complete and total stagnation- when no words come out of me, no thoughts; just a loud, piercing kind of silence that looms over me like a dark cloud. It's a vicious cycle really: I can't write because I feel tired and I'm tired because I can't write. It has been like that for most of the semester, and it has just been really exhausting. Sometimes I'm still surprised at how I peel myself off my bed and go to school even on zombie-mode.

But if there's one thing that keeps me excited, not so much about my school work, but about still getting up at least, is getting to see the people I care for, the people I admire. It's such a hackneyed thing to say but I've only truly come to appreciate it in the last few months. Everyday what keeps me going is the interesting conversations I share with my friends, how we're worried about our future, how we want to carve our places in the Philippine literary scene, how we can't wait to become our own selves- random, daily conversations that aren't really important, but aren't stupid and shallow either.

I am also constantly in awe of my professors who are all geniuses in their own way, having already made a name for themselves in their chosen fields. All of my professors this semester are PhD holders and going to class, even just for the stories they share about their experiences, is already enough to make the few thousand bucks I paid for that class worth it. Just the other day, I saw a modern adaptation of Macbeth directed by my playwriting professor and I realized how lucky I am to be in this college, in this university; how much of a privilege it was just to be surrounded with these unbelievably artistic people. It makes me want to do better as a writer, as an individual.

It's amazing how we gather the strength we need to carry on from the most mundane of things. The other day, while enjoying the religious revelation that was Moonleaf, my boyfriend was explaining something about cars and the clutch and other parts of an automative I wouldn't really notice (nothing new really since we always have this geeky kind of talking, him of mechanics, me of literature) when I realized how grateful I am to be with such a dedicated, intelligent person. That he can talk to me about the dynamics of a car over a cup of milk tea makes me want to grab my Norton Anthology and explain my sociological analysis of The Rape of the Lock.

The way he would talk about bomb calorimeters or centrifugal force, the way our professor would tell us about bringing out the moment in each play, the way my friend elaborated her plan of taking up further studies after college- all these talks, these conversations, they all make me feel like I am in the company of such diverse but equally brilliant people.

And I realize, how can I not be motivated after that? How can I still have an excuse for feeling unenthusiastic when here I am, mingling with people who are so committed to what they do? The dedication does not take away the stress, that I am sure of. But for the most part, it makes it more valuable, more significant. Maybe it's about time I take a cue from them.

Just a couple more weeks to go, Karla. Keep it together.

The first time I opened the maroon leather-bound book, I felt as if Reality, with a heavy iron-laden fist, just punched me in the face. Then in the gut. I think it left my nose bleeding for a while.

Andee and I spent a good part of our morning at the library, looking through several Creative Writing undergraduate theses to give us an idea on how to begin our critical essays. While our list of possible sources and related literature is yet to be completed, another cause of panic came by in the form of a presentation of the introduction for our essays on Friday. In a mad scramble for sources, I downloaded every related article I could possibly get from the literary journals I found online at the library (thank the literary gods for UP's access to Project Muse!) - which left me at a loss with where to start, and even how. Andee and I figured that at least, by looking at how previous CW undergrads did their work, we could probably get a head start on our own as well.

And what an ignition that was.

I can still feel blood dripping down my nose. Is this how you taste like, Senioritis?

--

I was supposed to go to UP extra early today because I was to research at the library for related literature I could use for my thesis' critical introductory paper. On mornings like this (when I really need to do something despite my exhaustion and/or laziness) I usually go on auto-pilot, with my feet automatically being dragged to the kitchen, toasting my bread or getting my peanut butter or whatever, reaching for the remote of the TV to keep me awake, and pulling out a jug of water from the fridge. By the time I've taken a bite out of my freshly prepared peanut-butter toast, I noticed my cellphone vibrating from underneath my pillow and figured it might be my mother calling. Turns out, it was the merciful gods of scholarly endeavors giving me the thing I needed the most.

(Actually, it was really just Ria, and a couple of other friends doing the text brigade.)

I've almost forgotten the feeling of anticipating for a suspension of classes ever since college began - DepEd and PAGASA announcements no longer excite me like they once did the moment I stepped into "the real world" (aka the world after high school) and felt for myself the prejudice against the most stressed-out members of the student population. Never mind that we do not have the advantage of school buses or Dad's car, never mind that we have books and photocopied readings to protect and prioritize under our umbrellas, never mind that the universities we now go to turn into a soggy, flooded, gloomy microcosm of the sorry state of the entire metro - no. We are older, we are wiser. We are mature enough to brave the storms of Finals week, hell, we should be able to wade through the literal ones too. (I guess this is the part where we decry our so-called independence, huh? "We're not waterproof!" is the battle cry.)

But today, something short of a miracle occurred, and with gray skies still looming, it's safe to say that today, Friday, 24th of June, students from the University of the Philippines are licensed to borrow a line from Maroon 5 and never, ever leave their beds.

It's a very welcome feeling, this legitimate staying-under-the-covers feeling. Despite the overwhelming sense of superiority brought upon by one's personal choice to cut classes because of sloth, there's still nothing more relieving than staying in bed because you really don't have to. The weight of a resolved mind is nothing compared to the lightness of a guilt-free conscience.

Also, for the last couple of days I've been feeling awful thanks to colds, cough, and headache. I'm guessing they're all caused by the abrupt changes in temperature coupled by the stress due in large part to academics which severely aggravated the colds, cough, and headache all the more. It's a vicious cycle. I kinda need this break.

So in short, I am still under a sea of bed covers, with my stuffed elephant by my side and box of tissue on the other. I should be doing something productive now, I really should. But the library is two jeepney rides away, and my head is conveniently parked on this pillow. The rain is still pouring heavily outside and there is no way I can leave the dorm without getting any part of my body drenched. My body (and ultimately, the universe) has decided - I guess I'm not going anywhere today. Thank you, heavens.

--

That sentence has a lot of weight. Just saying it out loud (and/or typing it down) sounds so surreal - not just because I still cannot wrap my head around the idea that I am already in my fourth year, but also because before I was able to finally get my Form 5 and consider myself an eligible student for the incoming semester, I had to wait in line for hours, panic about what subjects to choose, lose patience over the system, walk back and forth between very hot and humid buildings despite heavy rainfall, use my charms to the highest (and most desperate) extent, and beg and almost sell my kidney for a slot - just so I could complete the fifteen units I needed. And all this while having an acid reflux. Talk about stressful.

This week was yet another proof that it takes both luck AND ingenuity to survive enrollment in UP - and everything else, actually.

School starts next week. I am in denial.

The last time he ever wrote about her was right after their last– was at a friend's– before their fifth– when she was drunk and he wasn't– it was during– or was it after?– he wrote of her cheeks, no, her wrists—

It was a long time since he last wrote about her.

--

It's not unusual to hear people say they've given up on fairy tales. In fact, count me in on that statistic. I'm nineteen - hell, I've been rejected, I've cried myself to sleep, I've clung on to Jeff Buckley's Last Goodbye, I've been through what I'd like to call "life's ceremonial jade-ing." I've long believed that fairy tales do not happen, and for the most part, do not exist, really.

Most people must be guilty of using the word "Disney" as an insult. In our course, anyone who chooses the "Disney" version of Little Mermaid would probably be considered a disgrace. If you still see Prince Charming as your proverbial life hero, your bookshelf (and life) must lack variety. Clearly, you haven't gone out to read tragedies, let alone experience them. Which is a shame. Because there is more to life than the Disney perspective.

But see, it's through the rose-colored glasses of Disney that I first saw life outside the four walls of my home. It was Mickey and the gang that showed me that things will always be okay when you have a great (and diverse!) set of friends. It was Snow White's seven dwarfs that introduced me to the different types of people you can meet, it was Ariel's friends under the sea that opened my eyes to new worlds that I could never have imagined on my own. It was Mary Poppins inside my head when I refused to tae an awfully disgusting antibiotic, and it was Belle's love for books that sealed my fate as a reader. For all their flight and fancy, the Disney movies that I saw growing up were all instrumental in making me realize that your world doesn't have to be confined within what you know - some stories may not be real, they may be imaginary and all in your head, but there's nothing wrong with that. And sometimes, it's even the most unreal that speak volumes about what really is.

I no longer wish for fairy tales. But I forever owe Walt Disney my love for stories and the art of telling them. Just having to step into a place where magic happens was enough to make me feel grateful for all the tales he's woven into our lives.

P.S. I look so dark in this picture, I cannot even- (finish this sentence properly.) My friends, proof that this year, summer happened.

The high school barkada outing we have been planning for years finally, finally happened. (We have no "group name" we just refer to ourselves as "Friends" - which isn't exactly wrong, really, but isn't unique either. Oh well.) With a little luck and help from the universe (aka my parents) we were able to find a location at the very last minute and before you know it, we were off to Anilao.

The barkada wasn't complete, and we won't be any time soon because Inna is in Canada already. It's such a shame that we weren't able to do this while she was here - mostly we just hang around each other's houses, watching lame-ass movies, eating chips, gossiping about batchmates - the usual. The funny thing is we were okay with it. We were never the kind of friends who went out to swanky restaurants or shopped together - we were fine just lazing around on someone's bedroom or Trixie's pool. It was the company that mattered, not the venue. But I guess this summer we figured it was about time we grew up and ventured someplace else. After all, we were almost twenty years old! We needed a proper outing. Thankfully, majority of us managed to pull some strings and take some time off - and this happened.

And so this was that. It probably was the most fun we've ever had in a long while. Doesn't it amaze you how with high school friends, the amount of time or distance that separates you will never get in the way of you guys reconnecting? It was as if we were back where we left off four years ago, in St. Paul, wearing our checkered skirts. A lot has changed, and yet it felt like nothing did - it was a comforting kind of sameness just being with them again.

It was just a twenty to thirty-minute dive for each of us but it was probably the most beautiful half hour I've had in a while. Just to see marine life in their natural habitat was truly humbling - if this was what we had under our shores, how come we never really appreciate it? A beautiful pink and purple fish passed by in front of me, and I thought to myself, there are so many things in the world I have yet to see and yet to know - I can't wait to discover more of them.

It was such a shame that we weren't able to bring a proper underwater camera (the camera used for the scuba shots were the resort owner's) - I would have loved to share all that I've seen with you guys. But I guess you'd have to experience it for yourself then :)

Me having a very "P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney" moment. This was definitely one of my most memorable experiences ever - something I can cross off my bucket list. I'm looking forward to scuba diving again, but more than that I can't wait to do it again with Friends. :)

Our Striptease Aerobics class had our "mini-recital" on the last day of summer classes. For about three to four days, we mashed up our routines and choreographed our steps for our group presentations, with our polos in hand and hair cascading down our shoulders. It wasn't exactly an R-18 kind of show, of course, but let's just say it was sexy enough to raise the temperature with our hips swaying in tune to a trusty R&B gapang song. :>

But seriously, it really was the best, most empowering PE class I've ever taken - the last time I've felt this confident about myself was about ten pounds ago. I wouldn't mind taking this again and again, even if I didn't have to. The best part was convincing myself that I could pull off puta red lipstick, after all! - just not for everyday purposes, though.

I went with Mommy's officemates at BOI during their outing at Bagac, Bataan last May 6. It was my first snorkeling experience and it really affirmed my love with the water. I was the only girl in the group that decided to snorkel (the rest just stayed at the beach) and several of the young boys in the group, who were the sons of mom's officemates, thought I was a high school junior! Imagine that. I think they still don't believe I'm turning twenty this year. They cried bluff when I told them so. I, of course, take that as a compliment. Ha!

I got a hold of a blue starfish and it was beautiful - it was the first time I ever saw a starfish in its natural habitat. (No worries, I returned the starfish safely to its home.) This was me having a pretty Misty moment. I was almost tempted to challenge someone for the Cerulean City badge - almost.

Shoutout to my "summer buddies" Mark, Jas, and Adrian, all of whom have Math/Physics and PE, like me. For most of our four weeks together they've filled their guts with fat and oil courtesy of the much-loved Beach House. (Yes, just them, since I've brought with me canned goods for lunch every single day.) You know you've found friends you can grow old with when you can spend three straight afternoons just being vain around two huge letters of the alphabet representing your school. Or when you can imagine an entire civilization with instead of call centers you have bike centers generating electricity and a prison where criminals are being tickled to death. We've talked about our funerals (a barkada mausoleum with life-sized statues!), our futures (Mark gets the weird kids) and even Tekken characters and their history (my friends are obsessed so I had to know who Lilli was and what a ghost battle meant), and yet we still never ran out of things to say.

On some days, several of our other friends would join us in the afternoon, meeting up at our newest favorite tambayan somewhere near Maginhawa, that quaint little teashop called Moonleaf, and again we would laugh about our cringe-worthy pasts, uncertain presents, and idealized futures - this time, over wintermelon milk tea and pearls - like there's just no time and no place else to talk about them but right then and there. It was always a riot, and it was never a bore - this was what we truly needed. I missed these kinds of genuine dates, the kind that had us all under the same roof with all our stories and worries and joys and pains, the kind that made me feel sad about the Katipunan jeep finally arriving when it's time to come home.

The summer of 2011 has been a pleasant surprise. I was expecting a rather uneventful and acads-filled two months mainly because of summer class (my choice, really, but still) accompanied by a rather warranted sense of lethargy brought upon by the intense heat. To me, summer does not bring about images of sand between my toes and the glistening sea; it's usually just the dread of cougar-age temperatures in Celsius and the anticipation for lazy afternoon naps. There's the usual out-of-the-country trip with the family, but other than those four or five days (sometimes a week or more), the rest of vacation is usually spent mainly on what I'm ashamed to admit I do best: bumming around.

But much to my surprise (and amusement, of course), I'm glad to say that I've spent most of my summer without my laptop - or rather, I've gone on days without it. Which means I've actually stepped out of my house, went someplace else (that is not virtual) and had actual stories to tell about how my day(s) went. And I've put my nifty little point-and-shoot camera to good use. I am so proud of myself, really.

Which is not to say that from now on I'm going to live life without the Internet. God knows that is not possible. But then again, at least I'd be able to say that I've spent the last few weeks of my summer doing stuff I could write about, not doing stuff just so I could blog about them. So, allow me, for the next couple of posts or so, to share with you how my summer went: from striptease recital, to beaches, to racing, to Disneyland. It all happened so quickly and I have yet to recover, but am I glad - tan lines, sunburn, and all :)

(Just so you know, I'm listening to Teen Daze as I write this; ironic, I know, listening to them as the summer ends AND writing about summer on the last day of May, but hey it's all about perspective, and who's to say I can't cap off my summer like this?)

Isn't it thrilling how one person, one man, one stranger, can put into music the complexities of the sentiments you thought you were going through alone? How can words coming from a person you've never met sum up the entire spectrum of feelings you've attached to parts of yourself no one else knows? How is it possible that amidst the sea of faces and crowded arms, you feel like it's only you and him engulfed in the music, like a secret only you two share?

There is a reason why this band, and particularly that man, will always have a place in my life. Through my roughest times and my best moments, it's them I come running home to after all the tears and the sighs. It was She Will Be Loved that I cried to on the piano when everything else was falling apart, it was Songs About Jane that I played endlessly on my iPod when things started to shift gears before I even got the chance to admit that they were. In fact, all of their albums I've listened to from beginning to end, and there is just no way a Maroon 5 song won't be appropriate for any kind of feeling or situation in my life.

Thank you, Adam Levine, for gracing us with your hotness. Thank you, James Valentine, Jesse Carmichael, Michael Madden, and Matt Flynn, for leaving us an incredible experience. And thank you, Maroon 5, for making me feel loved. Last night, and always.


How does it feel to know you never have to be alone when you come home?

He was playing with his phone, twirling it between his index finger and thumb, trying to make it seem like this was what he always did when there were pauses to fill between the how-are-yous and what's-your-next-class, but the quivering of his fingers said otherwise. I should know. I've mastered the skill of phone-swiveling.

"Don't you ever get annoyed that people never call you by your first name?" I asked, finally shattering the cafeteria buzz that disguised itself as awkward silence between us.

I was, after all, curious. I wondered how anyone ever got to calling him anything other than Tan.

"Who would want to be called Genesis anyway? I mean, even I would be annoyed if anyone called me that," he replied without hesitation.

I couldn't even imagine myself calling him Genesis. Even if we become friends, or even just close acquaintances - the kind that had inside jokes about our respective partners, or this as-good-as-rubber baked mac I was trying to eat. I wondered what his mom called him? I assume Sassa would give his real name when she called him at home and his mom picks up the phone. Hi Tita, can I speak with Gen please? Genesis! It's your girlfriend! Or when she would introduce him to her friends. Hi guys, this is Tan. It sounds too impersonal. And odd. This is Gen. It sounds even odder.

I laughed, both at his remark and at the thought inside my head. Gen Tan. I cannot imagine feeling any more glad about being Anne Cruz. Default, but without fault. He laughed too. At me, with me, I cannot be sure. And with that, the lull sneaked its way back between us again, like it always did. We weren't really friends - only connected because as they say in Disneyland (and in this university), it's a small world after all. I suppose after this we're now entitled to an eyebrow-raise or even a small "Uy!" that wouldn't seem too pretentious.

Finally, 5:30. He stood up to leave, carrying with him the Lock-and-Lock water bottle he had refilled a few minutes ago and a giant paper bag (that I'm guessing contained either a really large stuffed toy or a whole lot of shoes), and said goodbye. I wished him luck about his surprise and asked him to greet Sassa a happy birthday for me. I glanced at my phone and wondered if I should be going as well. No new messages.

Wednesday was about to end, quietly lifting the burden of the week from the students as Thursday is slowly ushered in. I could see the sun from behind the trees, as tired from the day as the students inside the cafeteria were. For a group meeting, for a quick snack, for a glass of water - people saying hi, people coming, people walking away faster than you can wave them hello. It was the way things were. The most people can give you is their five minutes, and before you can even crack a joke that would cement familiarity, the bell rings, the professor comes in, your friend texts you, the sun sets, time's up - you're to be somewhere else. I don't complain. Instead, I put the earphones back in my ear, and resumed nodding to Metric's Collect Call.

I tried browsing through my notes about trigonometric functions to while away the time, feeling stupid because I was in a building with people who have likely mastered them in their sleep. I tried to blend in with the crowd, tried to make it look like I don't mind being alone again, because I don't. It's just better to be feeling alone with someone, rather than being alone, period. It's okay to wait when someone else is waiting. No matter that it's almost a stranger whose path I'm unlikely to cross again - at least, for a while, I wasn't the loner girl on the table by the water dispenser.

I glanced at my phone again, hoping that the message, the person I was waiting for had arrived; hoping that the minutes would shatter the waiting. 5:32.

A short story of mine, "In Her White Dress," has been featured on Stache Magazine's All-Art April 2011 issue - and it's such a thrill! I only found out about it today because honestly, as soon as I submit anything, be it for features or acads, I try to get it off my mind as quickly as I possibly can lest it gets me up all night worrying about typos, mistakes, could-have-beens, should-have-beens. I'm glad it turned out well - and on the pages of this magazine! (Which, might I add, has exponentially been gaining a mass of followers.) To be featured on the Art Issue makes me feel truly ecstatic because the entire issue is filled to the brim with works of very talented artists, designers, writers, and musicians - they are all so inspiring, and it's unbelievable to have a work of mine placed alongside all of them :) The PDF copy is available for free on their website - I hope you get your copies! The whole thing is quite a treat, really.

Thanks again, Stache! Special mention to my friend, Ayiene, who is the website editor. You guys have done a truly awesome job! Keep inspiring the youth! :)

It's about time I wrote something on the class that has gotten me all worked up and sweaty every morning.

No, it's not Math 2. Although that gets my palms sweaty in a different kind of way - it's a different kind of rush when you're computing percent increases and VAT at seven o'clock in the freakin' morning. (I'd like to think of it as the "anti-rush" rush: the huge feeling of annoyance that takes over you for being awake so early in the morning that it eventually wakes you up because the irritation in itself already generates energy.)

What else is there to talk about? Striptease Aerobics. :>

First, the history: It really wasn't something I was expecting to take this summer. In fact, taking up PE wasn't even a part of the plan. My goal was to take at least one subject this summer: either Math 2 (which is my last GE course, and in fulfillment of the requirements for the Ateneo LAE application) or PI 100 (aka The Rizal Course.) I pre-enlisted in all available classes for Math 2 and PI 100 in the morning, not minding the huge demand and apparent aggressiveness of every other upperclassman out there. I needed a subject, period. About two days before the deadline of the pre-enlistment period, I was lurking around the pre-enlistment module, looking for what other subjects were available. I decided to check out the PEs, and lo and behold, they were offering Striptease, which I have always enlisted in since first year and never got. Obviously, the demand for this subject is intense - it's a for-women only class, and I bet every girl in the university was secretly raring to strut her stuff. I nonchalantly clicked on the "Enlist" button and never thought of it again.

Long story short: I got in. 25 slots. The demand 200+. If that's not "meant to be" I don't know what else is. It's the universe telling me it's my fate to take this PE before I graduate! (Or that it's my fate, as in, it's my fall-back job in the future when all else fails. Ha!)

Before I forget, it's a Striptease Aerobics class. Meaning, we don't literally rip off our clothes in class and bare our jelly-bellies as we grind to Lady Gaga. We dance using repetitive steps but with sensual movements. We touch and whip our hair, we stick out our butts, we crawl on the floor - we bite our lip with gusto. Even our warm-ups involve serious hip-thrusting action. But it's a dance.

We've spent the last few days putting together the combinations we've learned so far. We're getting better and better each day! At first, we only had sexy-shoulder-moving, now we wipe the floor with our backs and knees. I never thought I could sweat so much just by a few seemingly "simple" sexy moves. A three- to four-minute song could make your legs ache and your tongue beg for hydration. It's that intense. It's a total body workout, really.

My classmates and I joke that we have newfound respect for strippers now. It requires complete submission - you must not hesitate to spread your legs, slither on the floor, and rock your hips back and forth. We only dance for an hour or so each day and we feel like we hiked and climbed the Himalayas. For anyone to do it with precision every night for endless hours on end is very, very impressive, indeed! But all bastos hirits and possible anti-feminist notions aside, it is an important realization to discover how fierce and unstoppable the woman can be - we only have to unlock the potential of our minds and of course our bodies to come to terms with ourselves.

I have my insecurities about my body, I'll be the first to admit that. I hate that my front is well-endowed in my puson area and not somewhere north. I don't think I have the most bootylicious rear, and I have an underdeveloped torso fluidity. I'm the last person on earth, nay, the universe, to think that I'm sexy. (Thankfully, I think, The Boyfriend is the first, but that is irrelevant, and this is just me convincing myself to feel better. Ha. Ha. Hahaha. End rant.) But looking at myself in the mirrors of the dance studio, one hour everyday, every week, seeing myself swaying my hips in rhythm to Katy Perry's "E.T" - I can't help but feel hot. At least in those few precious moments, crawling to "Kiss me, ki-ki-kiss me," I feel that I deserve to be kissed, that I need to be kissed - and I can make you, just watch me throw my head back and caress my hair. It's a powerful feeling.

It takes a certain amount of courage to stand in front of a mirror, having my body staring back at me, while stopping the voice inside my head from having the urge to count the pounds and the inches. But once the song starts, that voice is tuned out by the desire of the flesh itself and I'm forced to move, to dance, to feel.

It's funny that a lot of the reactions I've been getting from friends range from jealousy to shock, but I'm surprised, even disgust. I guess sometimes it slips my mind that UP is typically more liberal than others, and that it takes a while for other people to welcome the idea of sexuality and sensuality as part of our everyday culture. (Hey, it's not everywhere you see a university offering Sekswalidad at Kasarian as electives and having a naked man for an iconic symbol.) This is what I will always be grateful for about our university - it widens our perspective on a lot of things we usually just put into boxes. I'm not surprised there is a stereotype that UP students are wild - but see, that's because society has such a boxed up notion of "wild." For most people, "wild" is the boy who openly discusses sex with his partner, "wild" is the professor who teaches his students how to use a condom, "wild" is a girl who opens her legs and grinds her hips up and down. Regardless of the circumstances, "wild" is wild for a lot of people - but why should it be a bad thing? If being "wild" makes you better understand your body, allows you to comprehend your choices, and gives you the opportunity to make the right decisions, then why shouldn't you be "wild"?

Going back, I'm obviously looking forward to the rest of the summer - this is the most fun I've had in a non-major class in a long time. It's about time PE started getting really interesting. And the best part about this? Hell, this is a practical skill I could actually use in the real world! Future husband should be pleased.

In a somewhat unrelated photo, this is UP during the summer.

It's our university's version of "snow." Tufts of cotton float in the air and sprinkle the grass with their immaculate whiteness. Beautiful, I tell you.

(I wish I took a better picture though; the campus is always a sight to behold.)

If there's one thing I'm surprised I can do quite well, it's detaching. Growing up, I've always thought I had separation anxiety issues - I would cry when my mom leaves for work, I would hang on to my grandmother's legs after every visit. I clearly remember one phase in my kindergarten life where my mom and I had this little routine: she'd bring me to the gate, I'd walk about thirty steps away from her, then I'd run back crying and wiping my snot on her pencil skirt. Then she'd bring me to the gate again, and I'd wave her goodbye before I finally lose her in the bustle of students running late and sisters returning to school after mass. Looking back, that would've been evident signs of the Cannot Let Go complex.

But when I ruminate on all the things I've had to let go of in the last few years, I'm (pleasantly) surprised that it didn't take much of a struggle. For someone who used to hold on to things until I got rope burn, I was able to walk away without devastating injuries. Yes, the pain was there, and of course I felt confused and resentful. Yet there was always that window for release - there was never a "I cannot do that" moment. They were always, "I'd rather not do it, of course, but what the hell, it's not like I can't." Which I think explains why giving The Cold War has become my expertise. And which some people mistake as strength, when all it really is (I think for me, at least) is indifference.

Yes, indifference. I have learned to become indifferent to situations I do not want and people I prefer to not handle. I don't know if it's the adult thing to do, or even the decent one at that, but it gets me through. Sometimes, it's this uncaring, uninterested attitude that actually gets things done and makes me feel more satisfied with how things fall into place.

What the hell, this is just me justifying my apparent lack of interest for the Internet lately. I can't explain the irony behind my detachment from this evil, time-consuming, soul-eating digital cloud right when summer started. But for what it's worth, it's starting to seem like my summer isn't going to be wasted staring at the screen. And I don't mind that at all.

But maybe a few days from now things will change, who knows? Maybe after the Holy Week, I'd feel the need to click the Chrome logo again, when classes resume and get more interesting. For the sake of the curious, I'm taking summer classes to finally rid myself of the remaining GE subjects left in our curriculum: Math 2 (Practical Math, where we compute electric bills and VAT) and - drumroll please - my last ever PE in my college life: Striptease.

Oh yes, how could I possibly not write about that? :>

In the meantime, I shall go because my iPod is beckoning. Warpaint's Exquisite Corpse and The Fool, and Rumer's Seasons of My Soul have been on loop for the last couple of days. Ah, I don't regret trading my Internet hours for that.

That being said though, there is still nothing more comforting than the presence of a best friend, a person who can see right through you regardless of the layers of clothing you wear or the amount of pretentious theories you claim to believe in. My very, very good friend (who I believe has transcended best friend-dom and deserves something more than that hackneyed label, but that's another post altogether) who is dorming a few blocks away from me texted me and invited me to join her for dinner. This person is admittedly the one friend I couldn't have possibly survived college without - we've shared the same heartaches and we've talked about practically everything - and of course, I couldn't say no to her. Our talks would always range from the shallow (how funny it was that random high school batchmates were hooking up) to the most profound (how we draw the line between being moral and being religious) but it never gets old, it never gets tiring. Usually we end up talking about the same things but there's just an unexplainable kind of relief knowing that we will always see eye-to-eye and understand each other even in the most ridiculous of situations. The night almost always ends with an "assessment" of our relationships, just because after all social, cultural, superficial, and existential topics has been exhausted, that's the only interesting thing left to talk about, and every time it ends up with us being on exactly the same place - whether happy and contented, or confused and conflicted, we're always on the same page. It's funny and ironic and incredible that there are people like her I can feel an infinite affinity to and it's something I'm assured I will never lose. The universe just reiterated my belief in that tonight and I'm grateful.

I'm not really sure what's the point I wanted to make when I started typing; I'm not even sure if I do have a point. I just initially wanted to weed away the remaining thoughts that have been lingering inside my head so that I can finally get to sleep. Then again, I've always been a blind believer of things happening for a reason, and though I can't find the technical means to defend that right now, I know somehow, the universe has its reasons for making this day turn out the way it did. Maybe it wanted to make me feel that I'm not alone, maybe it wanted to reassure me that I'm not as indifferent or as apathetic as I think myself to be. Or maybe the universe just thinks I could use a good amount of discourse today, both internal and external, and it conveniently arranged my day to accommodate for that. Whatever your reasons may be, thank you, universe, for making it up to me somehow. May your kindness never cease - or at least until this week, you know I'm excited as fuck for my PE class.

Now that that's out of my head, I can finally get to sleep.

(Or not. I just remembered I'll have to Wiki German measles again.)

I'm not a fan of the word "forever" - I don't like using it in my essays, stories, and even my very few (and lame) attempts at poetry on secret parts of my notebooks and/or scratch papers. The last time I used it as a punctuation to an excessive sense of emotion was for my (still undying, albeit now more quiet) love for Nathan Scott, the character from One Tree Hill I unabashedly obsessed over. Other than that, I'm afraid it hasn't found my way into my regular "serious" vocabulary since.

"Forever" requires - no, more like compels - a certain kind of commitment: that of a lifetime. Forever. Eternity. For all of time. It's supposed to be held in esteem, I suppose, and I guess there's nobility in that, especially for relationships (not necessarily romantic) that truly value "forever" and stick to it. But what I don't like is how after the unexpected "expiration" of the word, it gets blatantly rebuked and upbraided. "I thought you said forever! What happened to our forever!?" - aside from the very obvious melodramatic overtones, I hate that no matter how true the sentiment behind these statements may be, well, it was founded on unrealistic grounds. Really? You expected someone to stay with you for all of time and not stop loving you? Really?

It's not that I'm such a jaded, cynical bitch who feels deprived and unloved. My parents still adore each other after 28 years of being boyfriend-girlfriend/husband-wife (HAHA) and I have a boy I can attach the suffix "-friend" to with no spaces whom I love with all my heart and soul shoes (*moment of cheese*). But I don't know, I'm just not comfortable with the whole idea of it. I don't like pushing someone or something towards that expectation when in all likelihood, it's going to be (not impossible but) very difficult to uphold.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is for me to consider anything as worthy of my "forever" is definitely something. But right now, I've just affirmed my conviction that yes, indeed, despite my pretty logical line of reasoning, there is one thing I am willing to believe in; there is something I am willing to hold on to for all of eternity.

Yes my mom and I went to the opening of Forever 21 at SM Makati today and the whole time I was trying to control my hyperventilation. I've only been to the Megamall branch about three times before (the first time was on my 19th birthday) and to say that it was a delight would be the biggest understatement of the century. Just looking at the accessories rack with all those earrings- ahhhh, don't get me started on the gushing. (Let's just say that their big hoop earrings, flirty floral finds and reasonably priced tanks get me weak in the knees.)

Unfortunately, it's too out of the way for me because we live in the South so trips to this store were reserved for special occasions and planned in advance. So imagine my surprise when one particularly sullen Friday afternoon, as I descended the escalator of SM Makati to meet up with my mom (we usually meet up at the Ayala station so we could have dinner with my dad and go back to Paranaque together), this huge gigantic poster of the unmistakable brand welcomed me like a long lost child. It was love at first, second, third, every sight. They were everywhere and it required herculean effort to conceal my squeals. Every Friday since then, we've anticipated its opening and finally, finally - it was here! Now my Fridays are just about to get a little bit sweeter.

I'll probably post pictures of some of my purchases soon (particularly my earrings) because I figured it wouldn't be too bad to share and quite frankly, this blog deserves a break from its usual text-heavy style.

In the meantime, allow me to reconsider my stand on the "F" word while I look adoringly at my new dress.

(2)

So I walked into the room and it reeked of pizza and beer, with a little bit of sunshine spying on us.

(3)

So I walked into the room but it reeked of leftover pizza and beer. The sun is creeping through my blinds, like an intruder spying on my sheets that smelled of us.

(4)

So I walked into the room hoping to get some sleep but it reeked of leftover pizza and beer. It's a very humid Tuesday afternoon, and the sun is creeping through my blinds, spying on my sheets that always smelled of us.

(5)

So I walked into the room hoping to get some sleep but it reeked of leftover pizza and beer, like it usually does on a Friday night, except it's a very humid Tuesday afternoon with the sun creeping through my blinds like an intruder spying on us, except there wasn't even that anymore, only your toothbrush and my sheets that would not stop smelling of us.

--

Universe, what are you trying to tell me?

As if my bookshelves couldn't contain any more. My books are what's keeping me sane right now - they provide a welcome distraction to my otherwise mess of a life. Don't they always? Anyway, lately, I've been buying a lot of books that (1) of course, I want and (2) are on The Daunting List of Books in Philippine Literature in English That Every Creative Writing Major Should Read Before She Dies/Attempts To Do Her Thesis. Mostly the latter because next semester, I'm going to be a senior (!!!) and as a pre-thesis requirement we are to take CW199, a subject which requires us to read around a hundred books/selections from the Philippine literary scene. Even for a bookworm like me, it still feels extremely overwhelming. And from the "horror stories" I've heard so far about this subject, it's something we cannot afford to not take seriously (i.e. It has a significant effect on our would-be graduating status.) But so far, I'm enjoying what I've bought so far (mostly short story anthologies) and I'm really not complaining - yet.

At least it's my bookshelf gaining weight and not me. Ha!

Yes, I am seriously judging anyone who complains about their 30-paged required readings.

This song could not have come to me at a more perfect time. Today, after a surprise lunch of nachos and pasta, I had someone explain to me how ratchets work as I thoroughly enjoyed a honey glazed donut. In between bites, I laughed, not because I didn't appreciate the science, but precisely because I did, even if I didn't have to, even if I didn't want to. I laughed because it isn't difficult for us to switch gears from kinematics to fiction to politics, all with his hand on the wheel, and the other entangled in mine. I laughed because it's always the most mundane things that affirm the affection. I laughed because I secretly marveled at how the honey glazed donut always just has the right amount of sweetness, as I licked the sugar off my hands before holding his again.

Right now, there is no other song to better punctuate the silences, the differences, thetogetherness. Thank you, The Wannadies. I needed this. :)

First, get the definitions over with. An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. Of all the animals in the world, about more than ninety percent of them are invertebrates. It is general knowledge that humans have spinal columns. Some don't, however.

It is easy to secure an invertebrate. She looks like other vertebrates at first glance. But you will easily see signs of the lack of backbone once she starts talking. She is silent. She looks like she has a problem. You feel compelled to ask her what's wrong. She shakes her head and forces a smile. You proceed with your life. You look at her again and it's the same expression. You get worried. She looks at you, then looks away. Your conscience bothers you. You buy her a drink. She smiles.

Let her tell you her name. Allow yourself to listen to her stories: about how she feels alone, how nobody understands her, how stressed she is, how her head's been aching for the last few days. You don't want her to cry, so you put your arm around her. She will say she's okay, she will thank you for being there. She will text you good night before you sleep. There will be a smiley face. You will feel better about making her feel better.

Buy her lunch. Ask her what she wants. She will tell you, Whatever you want. You will feel selfish for deciding for her, so you ask her again what she wants. She throws the question back at you. Finally, you decide on beef steak. She will shake her head and say, Can I have chicken? You will oblige. You will buy chicken for both of you. She will never bring out her wallet. You will never ask. It never becomes an issue. You will eat lunch together for the next few weeks.

She will tell you how irritated she is in this one class. Her professor did not explain the lesson well. Try to understand where she is coming from. Look at your watch. It's only twelve-thirty in the morning. And it's just a long exam. It can wait. She needs you. In between her sobs, she asks you how you are. You tell her you have an exam tomorrow. She remembers something she forgot to tell you. You cannot put down the phone. She will tell you you are the only one who understands. You wonder if she has any other friends.

You will wake up to your phone vibrating, she is calling. She is angry. You didn't say good night. She got worried. She was studying last night. You were supposed to stay up with her. You were her moral support. She will begin to question your sincerity. She will doubt the weight of your promises. If you cannot even stay true to your word of saying good night, how will she believe you really care? You blame your pillow. But you fall asleep again anyway.

She will demand for your time. Your breaks will be spent with her. She needs you to hold her hand and tell her things will be okay. In the hallway, you see a friend. You ask him how he and Anne are doing. He smiles. We're doing great, he says. Anne is in class. They'll see each other later that week after their exams. You wonder why Anne doesn't ask him to fetch her in class. He is not needed, you conclude. You smile. Then you realize you still have that exam. You look at your watch. She comes out of the restroom. You give her back her bag. She raises her eyebrow and asks you, Can't you be a gentleman for me? She walks ahead of you. She makes you feel needed.

Your friends text you about a party. You want to go. Before you even ask permission, you notice a new update from her on a social networking site. It's a lyric about feeling ignored and unappreciated. You ask her what's wrong. She feels alright. You tell her about the party. She does not reply. Your friends start calling. You decide to go. Five hours later, you check on the thread. She will be musing about how men never understand and that they never know when to put their girlfriend's feelings first. All her friends agree with her. You will feel inadequate.

Hold her hand. Carry her things. Buy her food. Give her medicine. Understand her mood swings. Let her take the lead. Tell her everything you're doing. Do not leave her out of the conversation. Do what she says. Follow her when she walks out. Don't point out her mistakes. See beyond her insecurities. Praise her. Let her know you are there. Forget her irrationality. She makes you feel needed. She makes you feel like a man. She needs taking care of. She is fragile. She is special.

You wouldn't even consider dating a vertebrate. Doing so would mean not being required to see each other when you two are loaded with academic works. A vertebrate will let you spend time with your friends without her feeling insecure. You wouldn't want your phone not ringing with "Where are you?" and "Who are you with?" texts. You would definitely hate the opportunity to choose your own lunch for yourself. Your back would miss the weight of her girly-colored bag. Vertebrates are independent; they do not allow their lives to revolve around you. Why would you want that?

An invertebrate will divide her days in two ways: Time with you, time not with you. The latter part will be spent in agony, despair and confusion. She will make you question your priorities. Why would you choose a measly homework when she is feeling down and alone? She will take it against you when she says I'm okay, and you believe her and don't read between her sighs indicating that she really isn't. She will demand you to call her again after she hangs up on you. Twice. She will let you bring her home everyday. She will be incapable of going home without you. In fact, she will be incapable of anything without you. There is no other world existing without the two of you in it. She will find it difficult to decide, to choose, to make a point without you in mind. She will need you. She will hurt you, but you will believe she didn't mean to. She only just wants to feel that you care.

You feel what you have is special; this is truly what you want, and consequently this is truly what you need. You will open your Biology book. You will see the different kingdoms of the animal world. You will study about symbiotic relationships. You will read about parasitism, and how usually they are done by worms, bacteria, and insects. They are all invertebrates.

--

Everything else about that day was blurry - I don't remember much about what I said, what we learned in school, or what I had for recess - but there are some details I'm highly unlikely to forget. I was four years old, wearing my black-and-white checkered skirt for the first time in my life. I belonged to Kinder 1 - Pink AM, a first among the many shades of that color that would make a significant impact on my life. I had a new set of crayons and a Polly Pocket bag. My shoes were shiny and my socks were neatly folded down to my ankles.

And certainly, we aren't. After almost two decades of friendship, I can very much say we're not like most friends. We don't just read through each other's thoughts, or finish each other's sentences, or call each other everyday. For all the complexities there are, ultimately, it really is the time we've spent together that has sealed this friendship. It really boils down to that. When you've been friends with someone for so long, losing touch just isn't an option anymore. I think we've reached this point where it doesn't matter how long we haven't talked to each other or how far apart we are - just put us together and we can pick up where we left off.

Today is Hope's birthday. I know she wants a surprise and she would love to have people blindfolding her and presenting her with cakes and balloons. But I've known her longer than I've known how to spell the word 'caterpillar' - and coming from me, those kinds of surprises would mean nothing already. We've gone past that stage. We no longer need the gifts and the party hats - right now, we just need the words, the acknowledgement, the same kind of reassurance we had in each other that day in kindergarten when we promised to be playmates forever; that no matter the distance or the time, in this time in our lives, when everything is changing and life is starting to unfold, she would always be my Enemy, and I would always be hers. And that would always, always be more than enough.

Thank God, she came late in that class.

Happy birthday, Enemy! Let's bond soon, okay? Love you! :*

Appropriate description for how this month has been turning up so far.

Just to give you guys an idea of what (else) is taking up most of my time for the last few weeks and will continue to do so in the couple of days ahead:

On the brighter side, I got an incredible surprise from the CRS - I was enlisted in a much-sought-after PE that had a demand of almost two hundred and slots for only twenty five! I have literally dreamt of taking this PE since first year, and I am beyond ecstatic that I got it FINALLY. The universe wanted this to happen! (I think!) What it is, I'll let you know soon enough. Let's just say it's bound to make my summer really sizzling...

Writing is a form of masochism, that's what our fiction professor always says. It's a painful sort of release, much like an exorcism, I guess, only in an internally turbulent way. It's more than just writing words on a page; it's wanting to calm the tension inside you, to flesh out the voices of different characters in your head, to make something real come out of the surreal. My writing "philosophy" has never been about the fantastic images or fabulous settings, because I admit I don't have the skills (yet) to perfectly craft such a story. But I find pleasure in writing about the little moments, the quiet ones that almost go unnoticed because I find them the most powerful. Their weight comes not in the grandness of the moment itself, but the slow, creeping poignant effect it brings long after it is over.

So far, I am enjoying the stories I've read in this collection. This just might overtake David Foster Wallace's "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men" on my list of favorite short story collections (but it's too early to say.) I am also particularly in love with the cover design, the title in a simple black serif font atop a plain yellow background. Very simple and hushed, echoing perhaps the tenderness of the book itself. And the title? Do I even dare to begin about the title? It was practically screaming out to me the first time I saw it on the shelves - maybe it's the universe's way of reassuring me that I actually belong to the books/in this course/among the words/in this literary world?

Maybe I'm just going delusional because this week is the final one for the semester and it's still far from over. Hearing book titles speak to you might be a very telling sign of hysteria. Ah, the perks of being a writer.

I stared at the small piece of bread, round and flat, with the top a little more brown than the rest, the entire surface shiny and glistening, like the ones my dad used to bring home. Hopia has always been Daddy’s signature pasalubong; he said he never believed in chocolates and candies for dessert, and he always got them at a cheaper price anyway because the lady selling them thinks he’s Chinese. We have the same eyes, Daddy and I. The family calls it alkansya – piggy bank eyes, they say. The tiny little slits appear when we smile, when we sneeze, when we take a bite, when I try to remember the names of relatives, when the early six-thirty a.m. sun hits his eye in the morning as he drives us to school.

Melissa is staring aghast at the rows of hopiang monggo atop our cafeteria counter. She said she only tasted it once and never tried it again. It smells like gasoline, she said. Once she decided it was disgusting, the rest of us could not possibly like it anymore. Tricia never ate anything but her mom’s chocolate chip cookies for recess, and Cindy has never tried hopia before. I was the only one who enjoyed eating it for dessert, for merienda, for breakfast – but secretly of course, in the confines of our own living room, with only my parents and my brother as witnesses.

I gave my five-peso coin to the Manang, motioning for the first hopia in the row. How quickly the smell found its way to me, and eventually my friends! I saw them wrinkle their noses in disgust as I started moving the piece of bread closer to my mouth. It looked a little glossier than what my dad usually brought home but smelled like gasoline just the same. An oddly addicting taste and smell. I do not want them to think this is too easy for me – I close my eyes and pretend disgust. I pull it away from my face and I hear Melissa laughing. Tricia and Cindy are cheering for me. At the back of my head, I know this would be easy. I take a bite and feel my eyes squint their way into an alkansya and for that moment I am sitting across dad in our small, dining table, looking Chinese even though our surname sounds more like a telenovela character. I take a bite and I chew; slowly I taste the gasoline and soon I smell it, like I did as I sat on the passenger seat with dad driving me and my brother to school, like I did the time we went to the hospital after Dad never woke up. I let its strangely delicious flavor swirl inside my mouth like a current of emotion. Tricia hugs me and I lean on her shoulder, wetting her sleeve. See, it wasn’t so bad, I hear Melissa say.

--

Depending on what mood I'm in, Mondays are either the most productive or most useless days of my week. It is general knowledge that (most) UP students do not have class on Mondays so more often than not it can be the saving grace from the uselessness of the weekend (because God knows it's hard to be productive on Saturdays and Sundays) - you can catch up on your acads or catch up on your sleep. Either way's fine.

Since it's almost the end of the sem, obviously my Mondays have been more of the Cram-and-get-everything-done kind. Not that they've all been one hundred percent spent that way, but you get the picture. Of course there will inevitably be short (not really) naps and the occasional random musings that are normal of a person who is alone in a nine-square-meter room. Usually brought upon by random songs on my iPod.

Like my concerns about my own future: about this summer, the next school year, the LAE, graduation. I know it's too early to be anxious about stuff like this, but I can't help it. I don't usually worry about them but with everything so close all of a sudden, how can I not think about it? Big changes are sure to come this year, this 2011. And not just to myself but for most people around me. This year can possibly define my career- heck, my life. Can't time just maybe stop for a while and give me something to hold on to, something I can be certain of, before life throws its shit at me?

It doesn't help that this week is Hell Week and the amount of tension is just about to exponentially increase as days go by and I am bound to stress over every little detail that I come across.

Then it rained and Portishead decided to say hello. "Glory Box." Seriously? Beth Gibbons on a dark, moody, lonely Monday? Suddenly, I was feeling all sorts of emotional, comforted, distressed- a twisted bundle of sentiments I cannot exactly put my finger on.

Sometimes songs are all I have. I realized, as I lay on my bed, lazily typing a blog entry and a Philosophy paper, taking in the entire "Dummy" album, what I really needed was some snuggling. Or beer. Or maybe a secret rendezvous, an illicit night out. Just something, something to go with this song. Something to make me feel sane. Whichever comes first. I'll gladly hold on to it.

The last few weeks have been toxic, really toxic. The next ones aren't going to get any better either, maybe even worse. The semester is coming to a close, yet I don't feel a sense of relief washing over me just yet. I just really want this semester to end already but there's still so many things to write, to revise, to do- it's completely frustrating.

It's no secret that this sem is probably one of the toughest I've had so far. With majors taking up most of my Form 5, it's safe to say that I really am a Creative Writing major now, staying up late for character revisions and literary analysis. It's not always a walk in the park, especially when I reach this point of complete and total stagnation- when no words come out of me, no thoughts; just a loud, piercing kind of silence that looms over me like a dark cloud. It's a vicious cycle really: I can't write because I feel tired and I'm tired because I can't write. It has been like that for most of the semester, and it has just been really exhausting. Sometimes I'm still surprised at how I peel myself off my bed and go to school even on zombie-mode.

But if there's one thing that keeps me excited, not so much about my school work, but about still getting up at least, is getting to see the people I care for, the people I admire. It's such a hackneyed thing to say but I've only truly come to appreciate it in the last few months. Everyday what keeps me going is the interesting conversations I share with my friends, how we're worried about our future, how we want to carve our places in the Philippine literary scene, how we can't wait to become our own selves- random, daily conversations that aren't really important, but aren't stupid and shallow either.

I am also constantly in awe of my professors who are all geniuses in their own way, having already made a name for themselves in their chosen fields. All of my professors this semester are PhD holders and going to class, even just for the stories they share about their experiences, is already enough to make the few thousand bucks I paid for that class worth it. Just the other day, I saw a modern adaptation of Macbeth directed by my playwriting professor and I realized how lucky I am to be in this college, in this university; how much of a privilege it was just to be surrounded with these unbelievably artistic people. It makes me want to do better as a writer, as an individual.

It's amazing how we gather the strength we need to carry on from the most mundane of things. The other day, while enjoying the religious revelation that was Moonleaf, my boyfriend was explaining something about cars and the clutch and other parts of an automative I wouldn't really notice (nothing new really since we always have this geeky kind of talking, him of mechanics, me of literature) when I realized how grateful I am to be with such a dedicated, intelligent person. That he can talk to me about the dynamics of a car over a cup of milk tea makes me want to grab my Norton Anthology and explain my sociological analysis of The Rape of the Lock.

The way he would talk about bomb calorimeters or centrifugal force, the way our professor would tell us about bringing out the moment in each play, the way my friend elaborated her plan of taking up further studies after college- all these talks, these conversations, they all make me feel like I am in the company of such diverse but equally brilliant people.

And I realize, how can I not be motivated after that? How can I still have an excuse for feeling unenthusiastic when here I am, mingling with people who are so committed to what they do? The dedication does not take away the stress, that I am sure of. But for the most part, it makes it more valuable, more significant. Maybe it's about time I take a cue from them.

Just a couple more weeks to go, Karla. Keep it together.