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On the brink of change (and sleeplessness)
The last few weeks have been incredibly overwhelming. The things that I've got on my plate right now weigh so much, that I cannot help feeling like the next several months (even years) of my life depend a great deal on this crucial time. Because of this, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately - some serious, critical pondering about my self and my future, and everything else in between. I guess that's inevitable, given that I'm almost graduating and I'm at this point where everything is about to change. But it's also a bit daunting, especially since I have always pushed thoughts about the future away (and quite successfully so.) I'm afraid this time however, "Let's cross the bridge when we get there," isn't going to cut it anymore because the bridge, all rickety and atop an endless pit of darkness, is already right before me.
1. My thesis is probably the most understandable cause of all this stress, that goes without saying. The vision is still there, but I'm finding it difficult to get to where I want to go, because (1) I feel that my original plan was too ambitious and (2) a lot of other equally important things are demanding for my time and attention. Other papers to write, books to read, meetings to attend - I mean, sure, this is not the first sem I've had an incredibly demanding schedule, but this is the sem where it actually all matters. I cannot afford to have dried out creative juices at this point. This is the last sem, and I can't mess it up.
2. Speaking of the last, lately I've been taking in UP like a lover just waiting for the break-up to happen. I'm feeling overly nostalgic about everything, from my solitary afternoon walks to random lunch dates with friends and coursemates. I've only been in the university for four years but I don't think I see myself someplace else. After having been embraced by this campus, I can't leave- I just can't.
Just last Sunday, I took the LAE, aka the next most important exam of my life next to the UPCAT. Law school has always been the goal since high school, and UP the destination. Getting into UP Law would mean so much not only to me, but to a lot of people around me too. And of course, it would affirm not having to leave the university at all. By itself, the pressure that comes along with passing is understandable. But what was even more disheartening than the pressure was the exam itself. It was difficult - it was exhausting both mentally and emotionally. Long after the pencil had been put down, the feeling of fatigue and anxiety still remains. It was that tough.
This test is going to define the next four years or so of my life. The only thing that's more frustrating is the waiting for the results. I'm trying my best to shrug it off and not worry about it, but I think I'm failing. Miserably.
3. Yesterday I had a conversation with a classmate whom I've only gotten close with in the last six months or so. We were never really friends and we've only been in the same class once, but we hit it off immediately the first time we bumped into each other at the Acad Oval. Apparently, we had a lot of things in common aside from belonging in the same department (DECL), like us being Scorpios, and falling for mechanical engineers, among others. Since that day, we would see each other unexpectedly on campus, and after the usual pleasantries of Hi and How are yous, we would always find ourselves in the same situation as the other.
We had a talk the other day about the ambiguity of feelings, especially with boys who value physics over poetry. It wasn't as if I don't already know the things we said to each other, but somehow, just sharing them and having someone else understand completely made everything clearer.
Futures and feelings always remain uncertain, but at least there are people to make you feel less alone, less scared.
4. Something certain, however, is a particular milestone this week. For all the worries I have about the future, at least for now, this is something permanent I can hold on to. It's the quiet constant that's been keeping me together lately.
Admittedly though, it makes me think a lot about the next few years or so, especially after my cousin's wedding last Saturday. Not that I'm imagining my gown and arranging the flowers in my head already - God, no. It does however beg the question of longevity and devotion. We've managed to reach this point mostly unscathed, but how long can we keep this up, considering the many changes that are just about to come? How stable is this anchor we're holding on to?
Twenty years, five years, or even maybe just a year from now, I might look back on this post and scoff at the triviality of these things I am now considering important. Perhaps they will not even change the course of my history as much as I believe they would. And maybe I'm just over-thinking things. But until everything is calm, and until things have fallen into place, these feelings will be pervading my thoughts, distracting me all day and keeping me up all night, forcing me to blog about them in the hopes of lulling myself to sleep.
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A Very Clingy Greeting.
I've been trying to begin this paragraph for about an hour now but so far the only thing I've gotten out of it is the vertical blinking cursor judging me for the lack of anything of substance. It's been looking at me, judging me intently, with a kind of questioning glance that said, "How can you not say anything to Andee?" You see, therein lies the problem. Yes, there are so many things I can say to you. In fact, I cannot think of anything that we cannot talk about. We have talked about the weather and sex and post-structuralism and milk tea and boys and their jackets and yet I feel like there is still so much we have not touched. Like lipsticks. Or donkeys and horses and other farm animals. But then I am reminded of a particular person who turned pretty with makeup on and who is vaguely tangential to a donkey reference, and I think, "Oh God, maybe we have talked about everything."
Also, we have been together for roughly the last four years. And I think that for every single day of those four years, not counting the weekends and holidays and vacations, we've seen each other. That means around 220 days a year of being physically together (yeah, I did some math - don't ask), and that's not counting our texts and chats. That means it's been 880 days of talking in person and a total of 1460 days communicating with each other since we met. That also means I see you more often than I do my parents.
That's a lot.
So, why then, am I finding this extremely difficult? It's not that I don't have anything to say or that we haven't been seeing each other enough. Clearly I can say anything whenever, wherever.
I guess it all boils down to the fact that for all our 1460 days together, I have never written you a letter.
Now before you say anything, this isn't about my thesis. I won't be using this as a manuscript, don't worry.
We all know a letter is a very intimate conversation with anyone, enclosed in the exclusivity of the paper and the envelope. It possesses a distinctiveness in that anything that transpires in it is only between the receiver and the sender. It is affirming on some degree to the relationship between the two. But the one thing that distinguishes a letter from a regular conversation is that it's one-way. It's just the "I" talking to the "you," - it never answers back.
And I guess this is what stumps me. I can't imagine talking to you without you laughing or throwing me that look of annoyance or slapping me - anything, anything from you. I think we've gotten to that cliched point of finishing each other's sentences, or more accurately, completing each other's expressions of amusement. It just isn't a talk with you without me throwing you a Karla face all of a sudden or you raising your eyebrows in a sinister way.
Wow. I never thought of all people, you would be the most difficult to write to.
I hope this doesn't make you love me any less or take away my title as your Most Clingy Friend. I swear if I could just write you a decent letter that would so much as stir your goosebumps, I would have done that much sooner. But I can't, and to tell you frankly, I'd rather not. Because if anything, that only affirms how close we really are, that not even the separation brought upon by a piece of paper can come between us. There is no space for a letter, because there is nothing a letter can contain that we cannot share in person.
And besides, I'd rather not write you a letter because it's sure to sound cheesy and needy and clingy and I'm just not like that. (Ha! See, I can imagine you rolling your eyes!) So you know what, I'm not gonna write you a letter.
("Stop trying to make a letter happen! It's not going to happen!" - obligatory Mean Girls reference)
I am going to post this picture though, just to show you how I think we're both gonna react if I said all this in person.
I love you, and there is no one else I would have spent my entire college life with. I've always found comfort in our closeness, and I pray that even if the actual, physical nearness were to change, the familiarity wouldn't. So I hope I won't get to have a reason to ever write you a letter, because truth be told, I'd rather always have you in person.
Happy birthday, Andee! :)
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Now drive me far away, away, away
Listening to Deftones on a cool Monday afternoon while attempting to write a news article, reading about Rizal and the revolution, watching an impeachment trial, trying to review for math and logic for an upcoming (very major, life-altering) exam, wondering about the future.
And all I can think of right now is I just want to get away.
It doesn't help that Chino Moreno's voice makes your hormones want to rage with someone. Look through all the comments on their videos on YouTube and you'll see how people have classified their music as, to be very decorous about it, passionate. In a perfect world, all the hooking up scenes (in film or otherwise) would have Deftones playing in the background.
It feels good to know you're mine Now drive me far away, away, away I don't care where just far away.
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On my bedside table: The Marriage Plot
(Part 1 of On My Bedside Table's The Best of 2011 edition)
First of all, an apology is very much in order. This was supposed to have been posted more than a week ago, but a lot of things got in the way, mostly acads and thesis, partly other personal stuff. I'm now thinking of not doing this list in succession as I fear that I may not be able to do it as religiously as I would want to, but without doubt, I will write about them all in the course of the next few weeks. But let's not go into all that anymore. Without further ado, the first book that made significant impact on my life in 2011..
 This was one of those rare books that I read about a few weeks before its release, eagerly anticipated through some preview excerpts, and immediately rushed out to get the moment I heard it arrived on our shores. Yep, it was that kind of book. "The Marriage Plot" was actually the first Eugenides book that I have read, and while a lot of people say his other works are by far so much better, I find this a very fitting welcome to his works, given the situation in which I read it.
Probably the major reason why I was so thrilled about this? The lead character, Madeleine Hanna, was an English major at Brown University in the mid-1980's who was in the middle of writing her thesis on Victorian era novels. Of course, all that spelled out a big, fat "IS THIS ME?" as I first read the blurbs. (Note that this is just the first "IS THIS ME?" comment I had uttered among the many in the course of reading this book.) There aren't many novels about female English majors who are passionate about their course, you know. It got me very curious and, to my delight, hooked. Judging by just the first line, and even the first page, alone - "To start with, look at all the books." - I already had a feeling this was going to be one of those novels I would not be putting down until I had read it completely. And yes, that was exactly what happened. It began with a description of the paperbacks and hardbounds that cluttered her bookshelf - from Austen to Barthes. How quickly my heart palpitated! It was like looking at my own shelf, or at least a shelf that I have always dreamed of. ("IS THIS ME?" number 2)
Madeleine and her obsession with books is not the main topic of this novel, however, it plays a big part. The title, "The Marriage Plot" (which can be off-putting for some, because it does lend a chick-lit-esque sound to it) is a reference to the recurring theme in Victorian novels and consequently almost all great love stories: women finding the men they will marry. This was mentioned first in Madeleine's Semiotics class - which she enjoyed, by the way ("IS THIS ME!?" number 3) - by one of her professors, who suggests the strong influence of this narrative on the framework of novels and literature in general. A novel discussing the Novel - it's kind of meta in a way, which makes it all the more interesting. (Which is why I will italicize the word Novel to refer to the novel in general and its place in literature, to differentiate it from the novel as in this book.)
Madeleine's grappling with literary criticism and structuralism serves as a backdrop to her own personal struggles regarding her past, present, and future, ("IS IT MEEEE!?" number 4) all somewhat intersecting through two important points: the great love of her life/turbulent bad boy and genius, Leonard, and the best-friend-forever-longing/sensitive religious studies major, Mitchell. The juxtaposition of these three characters was done so eloquently for me - their characters were fleshed out through a consciousness that very clearly echoed their state of minds and respective fields. While Madeleine viewed life through novels and literary devices, Mitchell did so with such mystification and curiosity, and Leonard through biological decadence.
There is still so much to the plot than just a love triangle and an English major. But it would take too much of the fun out if I laid it all on the table. A lot of people have been saying that this is not Eugenides best work, but I believe they are missing the point when they say that the characters are too inert or lack clarity. It is precisely the ambiguity and the haziness that this book is questioning, both regarding the art of the Novel and real life - without the comfort of the societal dictates that the idea of marriage, or anything else considered "secure," brings. How much are our dreams and motivations dependent on the changing face of society? How much does our future change once the setup of normal social structures evolve? Do the risks we take chase off worries or congeal them? By analyzing the evolution of the Novel, he also brings into light the evolution of society, and in turn, the fruition of our psyche, especially as we are thrust outside the comforting walls of the academe.
The book may feel a bit alienating to someone who isn't familiar with Barthes or Bronte or Wharton, but anyone who has ever questioned the promise of the future that lay ahead after college would definitely find familiarity in this one. It helped that it came to me in a time where I find myself in somewhat the same place as Madeleine. I too am faced with the rest of my life ahead of me - but what would become of me? How would the choices I make define my future? The idea of graduation somewhat introduces the feeling of adulthood, of invincibility, of the desire to make decisions only my way. But it also makes one realize how much of the future one is putting at stake even in the simplest choices like what thesis topic to pursue, or by choosing who to love and who to leave behind.
"The Marriage Plot" could not have come at a better time in my life. That five-minute brisk walk to Fully Booked Katipunan to secure myself a copy was most definitely worth it. I haven't enjoyed a book this much in a long time; and I have never been so appreciative of being an English major (and taking all those comparative literature classes) until this. Labels: best of 2011, books
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On my bedside table: The Best of 2011 Edition
I will be the first to admit that I have not exactly been reading for enjoyment as much as I would like to (and I have said this numerous times before), with most of my time devoted to writing papers, reviewing for LAE, or just plain bumming around, which has given me a huge backlog in my reading list. There were some books I am still in the middle of, and some books I gave up on as well. But the several books that I did finish in 2011 were probably the most important and thought-provoking that I've come across in the last four years or so. While I busied myself mostly with classics and literary canons both local and foreign, which are all mostly required for school, I did manage to squeeze in more contemporary but equally ground-breaking work from authors that I have only discovered the previous year. Some I've looked for in bookstores for months, others I just got drawn to on the bookshelf; some took a couple of weeks' savings, others just a few pesos cheaper than a bottle of beer, but all of them rewarding in their own ways, satisfying with every line break and character.
I'm glad to say that quite a handful of them left me a bit paralyzed after having read the last page - the kind of impact they had on me felt like a lover saying goodbye, or a close friend moving out of the country. It's always painful having to say goodbye to characters you've spent almost every night with, but like friendships, the beauty is in the reminiscing, and unlike breakups, you can always go back for a second (or a third) helping when you're just feeling lonely and not feel remorseful about it. Also, unlike breakups, you wouldn't mind sharing it to your friends because they were just so, so good.
With that, I'd like to write about some of the books that were most compelling to me in 2011. These are not all of the books I've read in 2011 - just the few that I can say truly changed me on some level, as a writer, as a person, or both. I have to say too that I cannot assure these would be completely unbiased reviews of these books, nor would they be critical in a literary sense, because I'd prefer to share my experience with them on a more personal level.
I shall start tomorrow. I'll do one book at a time, as I feel like they each deserve their own posts. (Also, it wouldn't take too much of my time to write about just one per day.) They will be in no particular order although I think I would like to start with what was the most symbolic and timely of them all - Jeffrey Eugenides' "The Marriage Plot."
Until then. Labels: best of 2011, books
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So long, farewell, 2011!
 To cap off the year, I saw The Sound of Music on stage last night with my family at Resorts World Manila. Nobody can contest that this is my favorite musical ever - I think I've seen this film more than a hundred, possibly even a thousand times. I grew up singing along to every single song and mouthing the words to every line, and every time I saw it as a kid I would find myself identifying with a different Von Trapp kid, depending on what my age was at the time. It truly is a wonderful, remarkable movie, something me and my family (from both sides!) never get tired of. It comes as no surprise then that we would go out and buy tickets for the show. I have always wondered what the Broadway/staged version was like, because being the fangirl that I am, I knew very well that there were several changes made in the film.
The significance of this musical to me is beyond complex, really. Over the years, in the countless times that I have played this on VHS and spun this on VCD, DVD, and now Blu-Ray, this movie has attached itself to various stages in my life, adding intricate layers to the already numerous shades of meanings it has for me. Watching the entire film will remind me of memories of the past, of people, of places, and no one viewing is ever the same - it's like rereading a book and rediscovering things you haven't noticed before. One of my many lolas was a nun, whom I loved visiting at their convent, but who always reminded me that I'm a bit too mischievous to become a nun myself. She always reminded me of the Mother Abbess because of her kind words of wisdom. My maternal grandmother, Wowa, used to play the songs for me on the piano, and has become (and still is) one of the reasons why music is so deeply instilled in me. My parents always made sure we had several copies of this movie at home and the three of us would always sing along together inside their bedroom - in fact, just last year Papa bought Mom the 45th anniversary Blu-Ray collection of the movie, complete with special features, picture books, and even a small jewel box.
But perhaps one of the most poignant memories that I have of the Sound of Music is watching it beside Inang in her room. Papa installed a TV and DVD player in front of her bed a few years ago so that she could be entertained despite having to stay indoors all day. Her favorite film was The Sound of Music - perhaps on some level it reminded her of a childhood that wasn't too far from the story: a strict father, a relatively young mother, and a household of seven children. She enjoyed the songs just as much as everyone else did, and found it just as visually appealing. But she always insisted on skipping the part where the Nazis were chasing the family, mostly because it reminded her too much of WW2. She would much rather put on repeat the scenes with songs instead of sirens.
We were originally scheduled to watch the play at Resorts World on December 2, but on December 1, Inang passed away. The idea that something so painful would now be attached to this happy antidote of a film is not what troubled me the most - it's that I could no longer share it with her. In my head I was already picturing how I was going to tell her about it – how the film actually traced its roots to a Broadway musical, how the children fared against the Hollywood Von Trapps, how the songs were just the way as we remembered it. Even the lights that were by then already set up all around the buildings at Newport City and the Christmas decors that adorned the hotel lobbies – the details, big and small, I was only too excited to share.
Last night was bittersweet for each of us in the family who watched. We couldn't discuss the play without mentioning Inang in some way - something she used to say, something she would have said. It was a very complicated, twisted feeling of nostalgia and happiness hearing Maria sing of her favorite things to make the sad feeling go away.
In many ways, 2011 turned out to be better than I expected. Looking back, this year has been truly kind to me - I visited many places, reconnected with old friends, strengthened bonds with family and particular people. It was truly a blessing. Losing Inang is probably the only truly painful thing that happened to me this year, which on many ways magnifies the hurt, but in retrospect also dulls the ache, for there are so many other things to be thankful about: family to lean onto, friends to care about, stories to share. While the pain will probably not go away any time soon, it doesn't dampen the spirits either.
2012 is going to be a big year, I can tell. It feels like 2007 all over again, with graduation and exam results looming in. I'm sure there are going to be major bumps along the way too, just like every other year that has passed. But I can only pray that 2012 turns out to be just as wonderful, just as empowering, if not more. There is nothing else we can do really other than just cross our fingers and wish for good things. And when all else fails, at least let us wish for the courage to brave the bad ones - or the willingness to think of the good things to get us through, when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when we're feeling sad.
Happy new year, everyone! :)
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Have yourselves a merry little Christmas.
I hope this midnight, tomorrow, and in the days to come, instead of thinking of the things we have lost or never got to have, let us be thankful for the family we have with us, the food on our table, and the gifts left unwrapped; the hands held, and the words said; the people in our lives, and the moments we've shared with them.
Let's celebrate the love - the pure, unconditional love that was given to us on this day all those thousand years ago. Sending out all my love to you on this very special day.
 Merry Christmas, everyone!
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Being a Creative Writ-Eng'g student.
They say most people today are always a half, a quarter, a part-something. Half-American. Half-Chinese. One-fourth Norwegian. Fifty percent blue-eyed. Twenty percent with hitchhiker's thumb; recessive gene. You get the idea. My parents are full-blooded Filipino, I was born and raised in Manila, and I have no significant clarifications regarding the pronunciation of my surname. I have always been a 100% something for most of the things in my life, and I had no intention of having it otherwise - or so I thought.
Looking back, I think I have spent almost half of my stay in UP with my heart leaning a little bit towards one college in particular, in that one building that's all the way on the other side of the Acad Oval. Not that I have ever considered shifting - God, no. I love my course and my department too much to even think about belonging someplace else. In fact, if only I could have taken more electives, I would have signed up for at least one class in every department in our college. I love CAL, I really do.
But I love more people outside CAL, and quite honestly, they all belong to one place, that of angas, intellect, and moneyed alumni: the College of Engineering.
Half of my barkada is comprised of students from Eng'g (or who used to be from Eng'g). Several of my previous crushes (emphasis on previous!) were from Eng'g. My first friends outside my barkada were also from Eng'g.
I've had a lot of people come up to me and ask if I already shifted to Eng'g. That's because I spend quite a hefty amount of time either with Eng'g students or being in places associated with them. I do have my own affairs inside my college, but more often than not, I feel like I've been adopted by affiliation.
It comes as no surprise then that I spent the last school week of the year practically loitering around Melchor Hall again. After all, it was Engineering Week, and who's to say I can't be a part of it?
Karla, Andee, and Ria being vain as usual
Spot Miss ERG! Gwapo by day, chicks by night!
Someone is being molested in this photo.
ERG people!
On the Eng'g Steps is the place to be.
Spotted at the Lantern Parade! A rare Pokemon!
Before Ms. Eng'g
At the ERG home front!
Behind-the-scenes at Ms. Eng'g
Ms ERG with his (her?) "Mommies"
Eng'g Week has always been magical for me - from the epic org-bashing Smokers Night, to the concluding battle of beauty/kapogian Ms. Engineering, and everything else in between. It's where friendships are sealed and affections are affirmed. The promise of a better second semester lies in the secrets that unravel in the midst of Eng'g Week - well that's what's happened to me, at least. While this year held no surprises, it was still particularly special for it was my last as an undergrad. I spent it with my friends, just like I always did, and I couldn't have had it any other way. I am really, truly hoping this won't be my last as a UP student ;)
And so, to the College of Engineering, thank you for making me feel like a part of you. For the memories, for the friends, for the love - I owe you big time, Eng'g. Here's to you!
(photo credit: Ria Esguerra)
Labels: UP
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Out of the blue.
I took the Ateneo law entrance exam last Saturday. To say that I welcomed it with tremendous anxiety was an understatement: it was the first law admissions test I had to take (the UP LAE was moved to January 22), it was in an entirely different environment (hello, Rockwell), I had so many things to do last week regarding my acads, and the distress over my lola's passing is still pretty much a big factor in my current mental and emotional state.
But all the stress in the world doesn't excuse me from taking the exam. I saw two friends that day: Abby, a former classmate who is a Comparative Literature major (she graduated last April), and Maica, one of my friends from my LAE review. Seeing familiar faces definitely helped ease some nerves, but all throughout, the voice inside my head just kept screaming expletives out of panic (a la Lizzie McGuire's cartoon counterpart). The test was divided into three parts, with the first two given forty minutes each, and the last one an hour. Part 1 was like an IQ test that pretty much had all the reading comprehension, math, and abstract reasoning bundled up in one package. It was alright, and all throughout, I said to myself, "Kaya na 'to." Boy, did I speak too soon. Part 2 and Part 3 were all logic - strength and weakness of arguments, applicability of statements, truth and falsity of premises - the whole entire shebang. The questions per se were not other-worldly difficult, it's just that the time really was not enough. 100 questions in 40 minutes! And the passages were not at all short either. The reading comprehension part was tedious; I'm glad my literature background got my ass covered on that. The questions pertaining to logical reasoning weren't exactly alien to me, but of course it still required much mulling over - something you cannot do for long when given such limited time.
I did finish the test unscathed, thankfully. Results will be posted around the second week of April. Oh, the wait! The long, agonizing wait! I'm crossing my fingers - both for Ateneo and UP, of course. At this point I'm still in no place to choose where I would like to go - I haven't even taken the LAE yet; but my concern right now is just to do well on the exams. Maroon or blue would do fine by me. I've always been curious about what it would be like to be an Atenean, but of course, UP is my alma mater and I'd never want to leave. Let's just wait and see. (And try not to think about it for a while.)
It's been four years since I last felt this jittery over an entrance exam, four years since my intellect has been judged so severely. I feel like a high school senior, again. But unlike 2007, I guess I'm taking things in better stride now. I'm more relaxed (relatively) and more realistic than idealistic. Ah, maturity.
 Ah, Rockwell.
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The whole time before the exam (including the previous night), I was talking to Inang, asking her to intercede for me. Both my immediate grandmothers dreamed of being lawyers - in fact, my maternal grandmother (whom I call Wowa) was already in her first or second year as a law student when she stopped because she had to work. Meanwhile, Inang graduated only from high school but her level of education was never the sole indication of her intelligence. I was with my Wowa the whole afternoon that Friday because she and my grandfather fetched me from UP, and she told me once again of her law school travails - which helped me feel less nervous about the upcoming test. But that night, I also found comfort in talking to Inang, even just inside my head. Somehow, in an ironic kind of way, it made things less menacing when I told her I was also doing it for her.
After the exam, I visited my aunt who lived with Inang. I was telling her about the test, and other school-related things, when I suddenly felt the urge to share with her my sadness over the lost picture. I was using her laptop that time because I was showing her something on Facebook when she thought of opening one album in her My Pictures folder. Lo and behold, there it was: the entire album of my high school graduation party, with all my pictures, including that of Inang and I.
I do not take it as a sign of me passing or anything, because finding that photo is not about law school - it's so much more than that. I guess it's a way of coming to terms with the reality of the events. While I still cannot say I have fully let go, I can at least acknowledge that I'm getting there. But of course, seeing the picture again was reassuring on so many levels. It affirms in me the permanence of love; that she is not lost, that she never will be.
-- Labels: family, law school
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I found it.
 They say things find you when you need them to find you.
I love you, Inang.
-- Labels: family
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On losing people, pictures, words.
My paternal grandmother passed away last Friday. She was the oldest person in the family (she was 91), but also the wisest, and quite possibly the funniest. She never had a trace of dementia or Alzheimer's disease; she was fully aware of how charming John Lloyd Cruz is, and never forgot the words to Doe a deer a female deer... even after almost fifty years. She was kind and gentle, but also honest and brutally frank. She's the first to notice how much weight we put on, but she's also one to compliment my gigantic earrings.
I left for Diliman last Tuesday without Inang to say goodbye to for the first time. It's a terrible, terrible loss and I still have not come to terms with it to be honest.
In a frantic search for comfort and some assurance, I raided my laptop last night for this particular picture of us during my high school graduation party. It is clear in my head, this photo. I am wearing my Paulinian uniform and she is in her wheelchair, and we are both smiling. I remember it perfectly because I used to say I will compile my pictures with my grandparents (after my maternal grandmother remarked that she was making an album of me and my grandfather) but I never got through to doing it. I was desperately clicking through all folders, everything that could possibly be opened, crying, sobbing, pleading, hoping that it was there somewhere - nothing. I found all the other pictures of that year, but not of that night, not of the two of us. I even found pictures of my mom, my dad, and my aunt with their own shots with Inang, but not that particular picture I was looking for. The entire album of that graduation party, I have no clue where it is, if I uploaded them or transferred it somewhere. It's not on my laptop and it's not on my hard drive. It's not in any storage device I have with me right now.
And as if dying itself wasn't the superlative of a loss, being unable to find that picture underscored the fact that indeed she is gone - now, tomorrow, for good. Suddenly I was angry, I was confused, I was sad: for losing the photo, for not being able to have more photos, for the opportunities to show her more love now lost.
Before I knew it I was crying not just for her, but for the three other grandmothers who passed away in the last seven years. They should have seen me graduate, they should have seen me go to law school. They should have been given more chances to see us kids grow into adults, to thank our parents fully, to just be the solid foundations that they were to our family. They deserved to continue being given the love we are only so willing to share. There was still so much to do, to say. Somehow it dawned on me again that all the moments I shared with them were not enough at all.
I lay awake in bed in a maddening assortment of crying and forcing myself to sleep, for what else is there to do?
I've been trying to find the words to truly express my grief but they are lost to me, just like Inang and I's picture. I wish I were strong enough to write about being fully accepting of all this, of finally being able to say goodbye without hesitation. I wish I had a better ending to this post, something to tie the pieces together for closure perhaps. But I can't and I don't, and all I have right now is a chaos of words trying to make sense of things in the absence of order, trying to deal with the loss of a photo, of a grandmother.
-- Labels: family
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I am writing you a letter.
For my thesis, I've chosen to work on creative nonfiction, which I think is deserving of more attention as a serious form of literature, especially in the Philippines. For most people, creative nonficton is either one of only two things: the 1000-word (or less) features we read on magazines and lifestyle sections of the newspaper, or the kind of writing people "do" when they blog and talk about themselves. While CNF on its own is not one to be harsh on labels (as it is battling with some sort of identity crisis itself), it is begging to be defined as something other than those two, or more precisely, beyond them. CNF is not just "expressing yourself" i.e. the kind that writes about what you ate for breakfast or how well that skirt went with those boots. Yes it does involve including an "I" as the narrator of a story, but it does not always have to be completely about it - the "I" is merely just the starting point to a larger narrative, a deeper web of stories and people and places. It can be the entry to a myriad of other perspectives in which the story will establish itself far outside the spheres of the writer's own world.
The gap between the "I" and the "you" is what got me curious about the culture of epistolarity, or letter-writing, in the first place. I grew up writing letters, to myself, to my parents, to objects that can obviously not reply, and I have always been fascinated by the whole art behind it: how it begins with a nervous greeting, like the quivering one feels when making a first impression, then ends with an hopeful valediction, thankful that the reader went through the entire thing. There is a quiet, unpretentious intimacy that happens between the writer and the reader because the letter is exclusive to both of them. Within each letter lies a continuing transfer of influence over the narrative: the sender of the letter asserts his voice to the "you" in the beginning and all throughout, but steps aside and makes way for the reader to respond in the end. It's quite absorbing how the "I" can evolve in the course of a single letter in order to accommodate the "you."
The first semester required us to write a critical paper on our topic; that is, we were to research and come up with a criticism and an exploration of the genre and theme we wanted to dip our toes into. It was particularly hard for me because while there has always been an abundance of letters (yes, even in the age of e-mail), it is precisely this sheer number that makes it hard to decipher a certain criteria. Because epistolarity as a genre has never been fully established (especially in the Philippines), it was difficult to actually find letters that I could try to follow and consider as framework. Whose work do I criticize? Which ones do I want to emulate? What should they be about? I had to go through a lot of anthologies and sift them through to see if the writer by any chance wrote an open letter to anyone. Luckily, I did, and was I surprised at the possibilities each letter provided. It was a daunting task, since like what I said, no one I know has done this before, and so I felt like I was alone in creating a niche for myself. I did use books on epistolary novels as references, and even bought a book from Amazon about epistolary histories. But it paid off. I think I have come up with a good enough explanation of what I wanted to do in my critical paper.
Now comes the more challenging, but also more liberating part. The second sem means it is finally time for us to do our creative work - meaning, to write what it was we were set out to do in the first place. For me this means writing letters, to people, to places, to events. I want to explore the idea of the "you" as something more than just a faceless audience member and into something of a particular reader. I will try to do long-form narratives to echo the kind of writing done before the Internet reduced everything to 160-characters. It will be a challenge, but I am up for it. I just finished my first letter-essay last night (and was proud I didn't break the deadline I made for myself!) and I am hoping it is well-received by my thesis adviser. I think I have nine more to go.
 Letters by Bienvenido Santos One of the books that inspired me to work on this as my thesis topic How fascinating it is to have a portrait of your life in letters!
So there, my thesis, in a nutshell. This has been what's occupying my time, my mind, and my sanity lately. It's funny how suddenly my course-mates and I have gone from lax, carefree students who submit papers late to zombie-like creatures that cannot stop talking and worrying about our stories, novels, and thesis proposals. People think that being a Creative Writing major entitles you to just do whatever and charge it to artistic license, but writing, for us at least, requires more than just a selfish purpose. It's about getting your story out there, sure, but it's fleshing out others' too. It's taxing, emotionally, mentally, and physically, to do that because writing is something you can only do yourself - you have no one to help you write. But sometimes just having a single willing ear (or more like a willing eye) to read through your work is enough reassurance. Even if it's just your blockmate whom you asked to spell-check for you.
I have about four months left. Let's see what happens.
Labels: CW, thesis
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Running to, from, away.
(I know I promised to write about my thesis after someone asked it in my question box, but after this afternoon, this felt like it needed to be written first. It had to. I shall do a post about my thesis over the weekend.)
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I ran four kilometers today after a year of not jogging at all, and after two years of not jogging at the Oval. Long story short, it has been (more than) a while, but I surprised myself with how well my body responded to all the pushing my mind did. It's always nice to know I can do things that are far beyond my own expectations, especially when it comes to this.
Running around today brought me back to where I was the first time I did it two years ago. I was still at that point where I felt like I had lost myself tremendously amidst the insecurities and fears that suddenly came my way that year. I was on the receiving end of a lot of bruises to my ego - not being fought for, not being chosen, not being good enough - little things, really, but they all piled up and made such a mess of me. Then the idea of jogging came up. I was in a horrible state emotionally and mentally that I just said to myself, Why the hell not? What further harm can tiring my body do anyway when so far all I've been feeling on the inside is exhaustion anyway?
But things happened and fell into place: people came into the picture and made things okay. Suddenly jogging became fun, it became something to look forward to. It was no longer about me comparing myself to someone else or proving someone wrong - it suddenly became an intimate affair with just myself. Sure, my body still ached every time I got home, but it stopped being a chore, and actually became something that allowed me to be other than what I really was at that time: a mess. Because jogging was so uncharacteristic of me, jogging made me feel like I wasn't Karla - I was just... a runner. Running. To someone, from it all, away - it didn't matter. I was moving.
The second semester of 2009 brought unexpected but welcome changes to my life. I can, of course, ascribe that mostly to one person, who started seeing me beyond the standards everyone (myself included) was so keen on putting on myself. But this person notwithstanding, looking back, things started to change only after I made the conscious decision to let the baggage go. It was stupid, all of it, all of them, I finally realized. The first move I did after that was the running. Saying yes to jogging suddenly meant saying yes to letting myself open up to possibilities.
It was cathartic, running again today after two years. So much has changed, from my pace to even my disposition. Yet it's comforting knowing that even after all this time, there are things that stay the same. Jogging still and will always remind me of that time I finally let go of all the resentment. Of being loved, of being appreciated, of being thought of as worth it - each step just reiterated these feelings all over again. To run under those same trees, being reminded that it didn't matter how quick, just how far, was liberating. I was running by myself, but it was during those moments that I felt most cherished; there was togetherness despite being alone. No one was beside me but it didn't feel lonely.
It still doesn't. And it was wonderful to feel that again, truly wonderful.
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Of lines you wish you wrote yourself.
<![CDATA[<br />
<blockquote>24<br />
You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won't tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you've done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you're tired. You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and you're trying not to tell him that you love him, and you're trying to choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for.</blockquote><br />
An excerpt from Richard Siken's poem "You Are Jeff" published in the Yale University Press Books Unbound website. So beautiful.<br />
<br />
<i>Like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for.</i>]]>
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Why, hello there.
While I am guilty of not completely updating this blog as often as I used to, I shall not waste any more time apologizing and share with you a random moment of vulnerability instead.
One of the few things I call my own and (sometimes) refuse to share with anyone else is my walk. Every afternoon after my last class, instead of waiting for the jeep in the Faculty Center waiting shed where everyone else is, I choose to walk through the Freshie Walk aka Roces St., the road that cuts through the Acad Oval and leads me to the two waiting sheds by the Engineering building. There is this overwhelming sense of control I get when I see people scrambling like mad to ride the always-full Katipunan jeeps at the FC while I make my way nonchalantly to the Freshie Walk. Why are they all still waiting there when you can just go to the other side? I feel like I'm carrying this wonderful new secret every time I cross the street to Roces while everyone else is waiting, anxious and not moving a single step.
It's not a very long walk, probably five-minutes at best, but I prefer to take it slow especially when it's around 5:30 and has just rained, the streets glowing with car lights and the reflection of a gray, dusky sky. It's my favorite part of the day actually, more than eating toasted raisin bread for breakfast or finally putting on my eye mask before bed. It's when I truly am by myself, only my thoughts and the songs on my iPod as my companions, but I don't mind.
These days I've been feeling more alone - not the suicidal kind, not the Oh I am so unloved kill me now kind. Just the I literally don't have anyone with me kind. I spend six days at the dorm, my classes are at odd hours, and I've been seeing people less and less each day. Sure, I have several other friends, but the circumstances of being seniors/graduating students allow us the convenience of seeing each other only by chance and surprise, not predetermined lunch and dinner dates.
More than that, however, there has been this looming sense of isolation that dawned on me a while back. My friends (and even I, myself) see me as this optimistic, cheery girl; the kind that will pull a sunshine out of my ass even when it's all cumulonimbus and rain showers. But certain realizations just made me doubt my faith in myself a little - how capable I really am of being alone, how worthy I am of the things I've been getting, how far I can go without having to break. Little nagging thoughts, really, but frustrating all the same.
It's obviously a lot more complicated than that. The funny thing is I haven't shared this with anyone, at least not completely; mostly because I'm a believer of making things go away when left unmentioned (which hardly ever works, but, well...) and partly because I just don't want anyone worrying about me. I mean, this is me obviously just over-thinking things, and at best I'll just be diagnosed PMS-ing, and at worst, as a whiny, selfish brat.
But really, I think, I'm just afraid of putting myself out there and letting anyone tell me what I'm afraid to hear: that yes, I am alone, and that yes, there is nothing else to do about it. I just have to deal with it. Which is, of course, the only possible recourse. I've said it to myself a million times before, I've had the "Yes, I can do it!" pep talk. However these days, it's just not cutting it. Because no matter how positive I try to make myself feel, it is still just myself cheering me on, and no one else. That's how it feels.
And so I take these walks, to remind myself why it's good to be alone and why having company doesn't always translate to getting somewhere. The relief I receive from the majestic green arch the trees form above me, the comfort I find in Stars or Metric or John Mayer or Sugarfree (especially Burnout, which I have officially declared my UP/senioritis song) - those are things not being alone cannot provide. I take these walks, if only to convince myself that at least even for a while, even for just the few precious minutes it takes to traverse Roces Street, I don't need anyone. I don't. I really don't.
But convincing always requires some level of delusion, doesn't it?
-- Labels: senioritis
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Lost and finding.
First year, first sem. I entered the wrong classroom on the first day of class.
Fourth year, second sem. I entered the wrong classroom on the first day of class.
I'd like to think this is probably the universe's way of giving me closure, or making me come full circle - coming together with how I commenced, closing with how it opened, ending where I began - the whole shebang.
I could always wax metaphoric and say that if my life were a short story, that little running motif of getting lost in class would have been an effective literary device. It could be symbolic of how the character, despite having been in the university for four years, is still only under the illusion that she has found her way - that the people she had met, the things she had learned, the words she had said do not mean anything in the grander scheme of things, for she is still but a lost little girl looking for the right direction. That the idea of graduating only means getting a piece of paper, not discovering one's true purpose. The meaning of everything is still somewhere, possibly written in your Form 5 or somewhere in your head, hidden by the trees or masquerading in the sky, but it's not entirely visible and still remains to be found. Getting lost in the beginning and getting lost even in the end is indicative of how uncertain everything still is - even when your status says graduating, even when your affections have been affirmed, even when your dreams have been set on stone.
Of course, this isn't a short story, and reading a little bit too much into things is just one of the side effects of being a literature major. For all I know it could only be indicative of my lack of sleep or Oreos, or both.
But then again, that's why I am where I am. The thing with writing is that it gives you the illusion of control over a certain kind of reality, and often that spills out of the page and into your own. And if that means believing in a greater recurring narrative just to make myself feel better (and less ashamed - because dear God, this happened to me and I'm already a senior!) then why the hell not?
Second sem, let's see what you got.
Labels: UP
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The last week or so.
The week of October 26th (and the few days after) had been quite exceptional.
I went out with my family on the 26th. Had an extremely funny mall-hopping date with The Boyfriend on the 27th. Held a Rockband/Just Dance/Karaoke party at my house with my college friends on the 28th. Went out for drinks at BF with my high school friends on the 29th. Ate dinner out with my parents on the 30th. Scoured the stalls of 168 with my mom, aunt, and lola on the 31st.
Then I got sick on November 1st and skipped going to the cemetery. Stuffed my face with pizza and liempo instead. Lounged around mostly in bed on the 2nd. And got myself in full battle mode for enrollment on the 3rd.
I am now officially a twenty-year-old enrolled for what would (hopefully!) be my last semester in college.
Oh, what change a week can bring.
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And now back to regular programming..
 Possibly my last picture as a teenager. (Also: learning how to smile without teeth)
After last night's sudden urge to wax dramatic (which I will still blame on the hormones, while I still can), today I'm going to feel excited again! My birthday is always something I look forward to and no amount of dramatic decade-shift is going to take the good vibes away.
So bring it on, October 26! :)
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Dearest raging teenage hormones,
I have blamed you for most of my unwarranted episodes of sudden stupidity, used your name in vain when my logic failed to have been used appropriately, and hated your debilitating effects on my face and my body every twenty-eight days or so. Because of this I have given you a name that you probably don't deserve, but possibly secretly liked: whore-moans.
Thanks to you, I have had the (dis)pleasure of saying too much with alcohol in my blood, crying over spilled milk (aka beer), not caring about the future, going to school without a wink of sleep, dissing a friend, liking boys that don't deserve my attention, feeling incredibly insecure about my self, attaching my self-worth to the numbers on the scale -- yep, the whole buffet of "youthful misgivings."
And yet, you were also responsible for (1) the flush on my cheeks the first time I saw James Lafferty on screen, (2) my overwhelming bouts of rage over people who crossed my lines [not THE line, just my lines which I drew for myself because I'm angsty like that], (3) the spontaneity in screaming expletives in utter delight, in hugging someone from behind, and holding someone's hand, and (4) a string of other moments as a result of a sudden surge of emotions.
Twenty doesn't only sound old - it is old. It means saying goodbye to all the irrationality of the teenage years, with the expectation that you've learned enough in the last seven years of your life to stop doing stupid things. But what if I keep being stupid? What if I don't stop making the same mistakes? Losing the suffix "-teen" in my age somehow leaves no room for errors. And that scares me. At least with you in my system, I could just give a giant "Fuck y'all, I'm a teenager and I don't care!" to the world, and everyone can dismiss it as an episodic attack of the hormones.
Now, with your expiration coming near, where does that leave me? I wish you didn't have to go so soon, not with me still trying to make sense of body parts and feelings and everything in between.
One day, I'm sure I'm going to be more than glad for finally getting rid of you. My logic will thank the heavens for finally disposing of the hormones that keep distracting the brain from doing its purpose. But until then, I'm singing your praises and giving my thanks for the nights to remember and the days to regret, for the noise of exploding emotions and the quietude of hands that held.
It has been a wild ride. You may not get to stay but the feelings of having you will. And now for the last time, I sing: Let's get these teen hearts beating faster, faster.
Yours 'til the whore moans, K
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On My Bedside Table: The Long-Awaited Edition
I have been failing tremendously on my pseudo-New Year's Resolution to update my blog with more book posts this year. I promised myself that I should be doing more On My Bedside Table posts with the intention that with every update comes a new round of books at least twice a month. Sadly, I haven't had the time nor the money to afford to read new books at that frequency. I'm tired of using acads an excuse to everything, because I'm also partly blaming myself for not committing to reading so much more than I should have, but I also cannot say that it wasn't a major factor in my having to give up reading for pleasure.
But alas, there's no use complaining about that anymore. Now that the sembreak is (almost!) over, I can finally relish once again in the fact that I can resume to reading the books I actually do like. You all know I read several books at the time; I have this habit of reading several chapters from any book I feel like sifting through, then putting it down in exchange for another one when I get bored, only to pick it up again a few days or weeks later. The narratives don't necessarily jumble up in my head thankfully, but the problem with that is now that I finally have the time to continue where I left off, I have so much to begin with! Not that I'm complaining, though. I actually don't mind. At least I have something(s) to get me off of the Internet for a while.
Obviously, I have two sets of bedside table books waiting to be devoured again: one at home, and one at the dorm. Shall we begin?
Books On My Bedside Table: In Katipunan  - The Art of the Personal Essay edited by Phillip Lopate. I bought this about two years ago way before I had decided that I was to take up creative nonfiction as my chosen genre for my thesis. I had always been most in love with CNF, and perhaps I had an inkling even back then that this was what I truly wanted to do. This anthology was where I got the idea for my thesis, actually, and while it doesn't contain the material I needed, it still gives me a lot of ideas regarding what I want to do. Besides, all the essays in it are such a joy to read, even if I weren't doing CNF, it's still easily one of the best books I ever bought.
- The Likhaan Anthology of Philippine Literature in English from 1900 to the Present edited by Gemino Abad. This is our "textbook" for my CL151 (Phil. Lit) class
 and though I've perused it long before this semester, I've new-found appreciation for it after thoroughly discussing the texts, especially the poetry. The short stories were all brilliant choices for me, because it had a good mix of different topics written by writers from different generations and class, as were the essays.
- Ballerina by Edward Stewart. I bought this book for Php50 at Book Sale a few months after seeing Black Swan. It's narrative is somewhat parallel to that: two dancers who eventually become friends, then competitors in the highly cutthroat world of ballet. This kind of brings out my ballerina frustrations because I still recognize a lot of the steps - I stopped ballet when I was in fourth grade, just a year before I went on pointe because our teacher left for Australia, and I had to choose academics over going to a different, farther school. A huge part of me still wishes I never gave up on that.
- Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. On one lazy Thursday afternoon, I decided to go to National Bookstore Katipunan out of boredom, and came back home with this twenty-peso find. Php20. A classic Fitzgerald novel that I hardly ever see on shelves! I just had to buy it. I've always wanted to see the lifestyles of the rich and famous through Fitzgerald's eyes. (It's far more glamorous than how Gossip Girl presents it to be, I believe) And besides, it's the twenties/thirties era!
- All The Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen. This author's debut novel is an exploration of the life of three men straight out of college - suddenly away from the comforts of their intellectual pursuits and burdened with the harshness of "the real world." I'm actually only a few chapters away from finishing the book, and I can say that it does indeed give you an accurate, if not startling, picture of reality after you've finally gotten your diploma - suddenly everything changes: your priorities, your love, your ideals. It's pretty scary, yet it's actually exciting too, the way everything converges in the end; not what you expected, but maybe what you needed.
 - Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Yes, I have had this on my list for about six months now. You have to understand that it's an incredibly heavy book with extremely small letters. That being said, however, it is probably one of the first thick, hefty novels that I have never gotten bored of. I rarely count the chapters when I have this in my hands. And quite honestly, I think I have found a new hero in Alexei Karenin. That man is the god of indifference - I bow down, really.
- The Secret Life of the English Language by Martin H. Manser. This one is not a novel, but a fascinating run through of the evolution of the English language. It touches on its history as well as its interesting oddities, like the origins of expressions/idioms and the lost meaning of some common words we use today. It's a light read, but it's pretty extensive considering the amount of information it has. And if you're geeky enough, these little pieces of trivia could be great conversation starters! "Who would have known that the word "nerd" came from Dr. Seuss?" Of course, that'll be interesting only to girls who find the English language equally attractive.
- To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. This one, I'm still in the process of finishing for my book report for CL122 (Literary Theory) class due on Monday. It is a short novel, but much of it occurs in just a single day; its form is focused on the stream of consciousness style, and is a subversion on the typical narrative way of driving a story. An exploration of the self, family, time, and life in general, this book is representative of Woolf's attempts at taking part in the Modernist ideology.
- On Beauty by Zadie Smith. I've long wanted to pick up something by Zadie Smith and was torn between White Teeth and this one. I ultimately chose this one because it speaks about something I'm more interested in at the moment: the convergence of cultures and principles set in the always intellectually turbulent groves of a university. It's about two families, both of which have their lives deeply entrenched in the academe, and how they deal with their differences as well as surprising similarities. I'm still only one-third through the book but I can already tell it's a great novel.
- The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. You could say this is my "love at first sight" novel of the year. It was also my inaugural purchase at the newly opened Fully Booked Katipunan just a few blocks away from my dorm. (Oh, the temptation!) A glimpse of what the novel contains: An English major. Undergraduate thesis. Jane Austen, George Eliot, and other Victorian novelists. Literary criticism. Derrida. A love triangle. Love after graduation. If this novel isn't reflective of where I am right now, I don't know what else is. I immediately went out to buy it the morning after I read about it. I shall make it a priority this sembreak.
My semester officially ends on Monday. Oh, dear books, be patient. My heart is ecstatic - I cannot wait to spend my nights with you again! See you in about forty-eight hours. Labels: books
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Closing time.
A peculiar mix of pour homme and jasmine milk tea lingered in the air while they drove along the streets just outside the university. She had an exam the next day and could use an extra hour or two of sleep, really. But it was a Friday and Fridays always held in it a certain kind of enchantment she couldn't say no to. He texted her if she wanted to eat out and without hesitation, she said yes.
It was her first time riding his car tonight - in fact her first time riding anyone's car. She wasn't comfortable breaking into his space, as she was just as reluctant letting him in hers. There was a teddy bear nudged between the rear window and the car seat, she noticed. She didn't need to ask to figure out it may have been from someone special. So he had a past, she thought. I have too. Only hers was an unrealistic longing for Ryan Gosling. His, meanwhile, was an actual girl. She wasn't jealous, no. There had been a confirmation of their feelings after all, just two weeks ago. But she still felt the awkward silences creeping in between them every now and then, threatening to destroy the little bubble she has created for them.
He was still driving silently, his eyes focused on the tail lights and the road in front of him. Meanwhile, her hands wanted to search for his, in a silent, desperate call for affirmation, that indeed she did not make the wrong decision of agreeing to this sudden milk tea date, and of confessing to him twelve days ago, or rather, at all, after being classmates (and seatmates) for only three months. But she couldn't because they weren't at that point of letting fingers intertwine yet and acknowledge this so-called understanding. The only kind of touching they've had so far was her elbow brushing against his as she took down notes, and the electric rush from that should be enough.
Not long after, a car cut in front of them forcing him to honk in agitation. She stiffened in her seat, her hands holding onto her jasmine tea that threatened to spill all over her and his car. That's the last thing she wanted, not during this first time. Should I say something? What do I say? She isn't well-versed in passenger-seat small talk, let alone any kind of small talk, especially with a guy one particularly liked, so she couldn't be sure if she was supposed to comment on anything. She whispered a feeble Oh my god that asshole under her breath instead, to which he laughed and said, "Wow, you took the words right out of my mouth."
Was that, finally, an affirmation? She couldn't be too sure but she was willing to take it as such. She smiled and looked outside the window again, trying to imagine what other things she now unconsciously knew about him. The way he would shake his head when he hears a corny joke, the side of the handkerchief he wiped his face with (always the one with the monogram), the way he pronounced "comfortable" (komf-tabuhl). There was still a lot she didn't know, like the song currently playing in the background, and there remained a lot of space around his own personal bubble that she needed to get to know, but she was getting there. At least, she hoped so.
"You can change the song, if you want," he quipped. He must have noticed her indifference towards this dude rapping about his sexual exploits. She reached out for the knob in the stereo, trying her best to look like she knew what she was doing, when he cut her suddenly and said, "Why don't you just put your iPod instead?"
"I don't have it with me," she said.
Which was a shame because it was a big deal, God knew it was. She would have happily plugged in hers and played the playlists she's made for him, and he would finally hear the song she was telling him about, the one in that movie she wanted to see, the one that Justin Timberlake got wrong. She would have sung shamelessly along with the chorus, and he would have laughed, maybe regret letting her sing a little bit, but he would have loved it. She would have reached out for his hand again, and this time for real, and he would hold back. He wouldn't let it go even as he switched gears, and she would have been glad.
For now, she would have to find comfort in knowing that he was somehow making her a part of her space already, and acknowledging her song preferences should be symbolic enough. For now, it's just her hand on his knee, but him not putting it away. For now, the iPod inside her head should be content, for the song would be playing in the background nonetheless, plugging itself to the soundtrack of her night.
Closing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
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Can you believe this is post number 500? I can't, either. Labels: 500th post, fiction
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Almost there.
And so the semester nears its conclusion.
As I type, I am in the middle of cramming Marxism and Cultural Studies for my Literary Theory exam while biting into my barely crunchy peanut butter toast. I just finished printing my 30-paged critical introduction for my thesis, whose final submission is today. (Ah, the smell of ink on new paper!) I am not even in the process of tidying up my room which is currently a battlefield of books, readings, and notebooks, sleep and distress fighting it out in the final battle that is this semester. The break is so close I could almost taste it, but the thought of a take-home exam, a reaction paper, and a screenplay still waiting to be written cautiously anchors me back to reality.
The other day, a very dear friend of mine lost her mom to cancer. She was a mother to all of us, and it breaks my heart to just think of days actually going by without her - what more her family. I pray for nothing but strength and courage for all of them left behind, the same kind of bravery that their mother exemplified while she was alive. When I attended her wake, my friend told me that her mom tried her best to not complain about her pain - she wanted them to go on about their everyday as if she were not suffering. Suddenly, grumbling about finishing my requirements felt so foolish, so shallow. How do we even justify feeling defeated and overwhelmed when there are so many others in twice as much pain?
There is no room for complaints. At this point, even the thought of whining can take away precious time that could have otherwise been used for other things. However, there should always be a place for gratefulness - that I am physically exhausted and mentally drained because I am learning, that I feel incapable because I am pushing myself to always do better, that I am living alone because my parents care about my convenience, that I have to sacrifice time for leisure for opportunities that may not come knocking back again.
I have to remind myself this every now and then to stop me from ripping my hair out and giving up completely. Even if it means having to blog in the middle of reviewing, just to keep me motivated. Anxiety can make me stay up all night in the strangest of ways, but it's a sudden sense of appreciation that wakes me up in the morning.
The battle's almost won, and we're only several miles from the sun.
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Why, hello there, October.
So it's the first day of October and I'm feeling particularly cheery, despite the probable presence of another storm (literally) raining on my parade. Nothing spectacular has happened to me, really, and in fact, I think I may have gotten myself buried deeper in a truckload of requirements thanks to the recent class suspensions. I'm supposed to be panicking and not having the time to even think about anything other than literary theory and epistolary history.
But it's the first of the month, and that always marks something to smile about: a reminder that the semester is finally coming to a close, the months are adding up to assure me that everything is going strong, the year is reminding me we're getting nearer to yet another end - it's always a welcome guest, the first day. Always.
It also signals twenty five more days to go before my birthday. I'm turning twenty in a few weeks, and I have to admit - I'm kinda scared to let the raging teenage hormones go.
So hi, October. Fancy having you around, finally.
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Where are my Oreos when I most need them?
Once again, I've arrived at this time, this place, where everything feels like they weigh ten times more than what they should; where words that need to be said seem to hide themselves in cracks between other words that don't; where minutes appear to diminish exponentially as they by.
Hello, hell week(s). We meet again.
I wish I could blog more, but there is almost nothing going in my life that isn't in the tiniest bit related to acads. Which is a shame. A shaaame.
In the meantime, I am finding refuge in cookies and yogurt and oatmeal bars and more cookies.
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Of blonde ambitions.
Last Saturday, the UP Pep Squad has once again proven its claim as the Icons of Reinvention in cheerleading after they defended their crown at the UAAP Cheerdancing Competition.
There are dumb blondes, and then there are UP blondes. This year the team went all out in proclaiming their love for the Queen of Pop by donning bleach blonde hair and conical bras. It was, as always, a fun and spunky number executed flawlessly by the entire team. Their dance moves were sensational; I liked how they used only samples of Madonna's songs as it kept the whole routine fresh and unexpected. And of course the stunts! Phenomenal. UP is known for building their pyramids with just one count, and I swear to God, they have nailed that to perfection. On most parts, I just couldn't help myself from going, "How is that even humanly possible!?" Flying boys and girls all over the floor and with smiles still plastered on their faces at that. But what really makes the UP Pep stand out for me is the way they have this aura, this vibe that no other squad can match - laging may angas. May bangis. I cannot think of a suitable English counterpart for those words right now, but really, that's what UP will always, always have that can never be taken away from them: the UP Pep Swag!
I was part of the crowd again, like I was last year and in 2008, and so far my friend and I's theory that UP wins when we watch live still remains to be disproved. We practically gave up on the tickets and were firm in not going Friday night, but I suppose the gods of school spirit really wanted us to be there so badly that tickets just suddenly found their way to us by magic! (aka a very good friend from the Ateneo) We found ourselves on the Gen Ad bleachers again, but no qualms - it's definitely where all the fun happens. Donning black, shouting for the school with what remains of my already worn-out vocal chords, and just basking in the revelry of school spirit - that was how I always want to remember being a student of UP: superior and proud.
I will never forget seeing the 2007 CDC performance of the UP Pep back when I was a senior in high school. The "UP Rocks" routine had angas written all over it, and that moment is still clear inside my head, about getting goosebumps several times in the performance, particularly the part where they did the Oblation pose, and towards the end when the girls and boys were dancing separately with pom-poms. I remember telling myself then, "UP talaga eh," and suddenly appealing to the mercy of the cosmos that it has to be this university, and nothing else. If I don't get to cheer "U-nibersidad ng Pilipinas!" for real, I may never forgive my sixteen-year-old self who took the exam. All versions of me will never forgive myself. I couldn't remember a time in my life when I didn't want to go in UP.
And now, four years later, I have just cheered my lungs out (again) for the last time as an undergraduate student. But I pray it's not the last. I'm finding myself in the same place again, wishing and praying that the university will grant me another four years of suffering but also immense enthusiasm. I'm hoping I'd still get to call myself a UP student even after having gotten my graduation pictures. I don't want to say goodbye just yet.
Let's go blonde, Karla. Legally blonde. ;)
-- Labels: UP
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On the brink of change (and sleeplessness)
The last few weeks have been incredibly overwhelming. The things that I've got on my plate right now weigh so much, that I cannot help feeling like the next several months (even years) of my life depend a great deal on this crucial time. Because of this, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately - some serious, critical pondering about my self and my future, and everything else in between. I guess that's inevitable, given that I'm almost graduating and I'm at this point where everything is about to change. But it's also a bit daunting, especially since I have always pushed thoughts about the future away (and quite successfully so.) I'm afraid this time however, "Let's cross the bridge when we get there," isn't going to cut it anymore because the bridge, all rickety and atop an endless pit of darkness, is already right before me.
1. My thesis is probably the most understandable cause of all this stress, that goes without saying. The vision is still there, but I'm finding it difficult to get to where I want to go, because (1) I feel that my original plan was too ambitious and (2) a lot of other equally important things are demanding for my time and attention. Other papers to write, books to read, meetings to attend - I mean, sure, this is not the first sem I've had an incredibly demanding schedule, but this is the sem where it actually all matters. I cannot afford to have dried out creative juices at this point. This is the last sem, and I can't mess it up.
2. Speaking of the last, lately I've been taking in UP like a lover just waiting for the break-up to happen. I'm feeling overly nostalgic about everything, from my solitary afternoon walks to random lunch dates with friends and coursemates. I've only been in the university for four years but I don't think I see myself someplace else. After having been embraced by this campus, I can't leave- I just can't.
Just last Sunday, I took the LAE, aka the next most important exam of my life next to the UPCAT. Law school has always been the goal since high school, and UP the destination. Getting into UP Law would mean so much not only to me, but to a lot of people around me too. And of course, it would affirm not having to leave the university at all. By itself, the pressure that comes along with passing is understandable. But what was even more disheartening than the pressure was the exam itself. It was difficult - it was exhausting both mentally and emotionally. Long after the pencil had been put down, the feeling of fatigue and anxiety still remains. It was that tough.
This test is going to define the next four years or so of my life. The only thing that's more frustrating is the waiting for the results. I'm trying my best to shrug it off and not worry about it, but I think I'm failing. Miserably.
3. Yesterday I had a conversation with a classmate whom I've only gotten close with in the last six months or so. We were never really friends and we've only been in the same class once, but we hit it off immediately the first time we bumped into each other at the Acad Oval. Apparently, we had a lot of things in common aside from belonging in the same department (DECL), like us being Scorpios, and falling for mechanical engineers, among others. Since that day, we would see each other unexpectedly on campus, and after the usual pleasantries of Hi and How are yous, we would always find ourselves in the same situation as the other.
We had a talk the other day about the ambiguity of feelings, especially with boys who value physics over poetry. It wasn't as if I don't already know the things we said to each other, but somehow, just sharing them and having someone else understand completely made everything clearer.
Futures and feelings always remain uncertain, but at least there are people to make you feel less alone, less scared.
4. Something certain, however, is a particular milestone this week. For all the worries I have about the future, at least for now, this is something permanent I can hold on to. It's the quiet constant that's been keeping me together lately.
Admittedly though, it makes me think a lot about the next few years or so, especially after my cousin's wedding last Saturday. Not that I'm imagining my gown and arranging the flowers in my head already - God, no. It does however beg the question of longevity and devotion. We've managed to reach this point mostly unscathed, but how long can we keep this up, considering the many changes that are just about to come? How stable is this anchor we're holding on to?
Twenty years, five years, or even maybe just a year from now, I might look back on this post and scoff at the triviality of these things I am now considering important. Perhaps they will not even change the course of my history as much as I believe they would. And maybe I'm just over-thinking things. But until everything is calm, and until things have fallen into place, these feelings will be pervading my thoughts, distracting me all day and keeping me up all night, forcing me to blog about them in the hopes of lulling myself to sleep.
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A Very Clingy Greeting.
I've been trying to begin this paragraph for about an hour now but so far the only thing I've gotten out of it is the vertical blinking cursor judging me for the lack of anything of substance. It's been looking at me, judging me intently, with a kind of questioning glance that said, "How can you not say anything to Andee?" You see, therein lies the problem. Yes, there are so many things I can say to you. In fact, I cannot think of anything that we cannot talk about. We have talked about the weather and sex and post-structuralism and milk tea and boys and their jackets and yet I feel like there is still so much we have not touched. Like lipsticks. Or donkeys and horses and other farm animals. But then I am reminded of a particular person who turned pretty with makeup on and who is vaguely tangential to a donkey reference, and I think, "Oh God, maybe we have talked about everything."
Also, we have been together for roughly the last four years. And I think that for every single day of those four years, not counting the weekends and holidays and vacations, we've seen each other. That means around 220 days a year of being physically together (yeah, I did some math - don't ask), and that's not counting our texts and chats. That means it's been 880 days of talking in person and a total of 1460 days communicating with each other since we met. That also means I see you more often than I do my parents.
That's a lot.
So, why then, am I finding this extremely difficult? It's not that I don't have anything to say or that we haven't been seeing each other enough. Clearly I can say anything whenever, wherever.
I guess it all boils down to the fact that for all our 1460 days together, I have never written you a letter.
Now before you say anything, this isn't about my thesis. I won't be using this as a manuscript, don't worry.
We all know a letter is a very intimate conversation with anyone, enclosed in the exclusivity of the paper and the envelope. It possesses a distinctiveness in that anything that transpires in it is only between the receiver and the sender. It is affirming on some degree to the relationship between the two. But the one thing that distinguishes a letter from a regular conversation is that it's one-way. It's just the "I" talking to the "you," - it never answers back.
And I guess this is what stumps me. I can't imagine talking to you without you laughing or throwing me that look of annoyance or slapping me - anything, anything from you. I think we've gotten to that cliched point of finishing each other's sentences, or more accurately, completing each other's expressions of amusement. It just isn't a talk with you without me throwing you a Karla face all of a sudden or you raising your eyebrows in a sinister way.
Wow. I never thought of all people, you would be the most difficult to write to.
I hope this doesn't make you love me any less or take away my title as your Most Clingy Friend. I swear if I could just write you a decent letter that would so much as stir your goosebumps, I would have done that much sooner. But I can't, and to tell you frankly, I'd rather not. Because if anything, that only affirms how close we really are, that not even the separation brought upon by a piece of paper can come between us. There is no space for a letter, because there is nothing a letter can contain that we cannot share in person.
And besides, I'd rather not write you a letter because it's sure to sound cheesy and needy and clingy and I'm just not like that. (Ha! See, I can imagine you rolling your eyes!) So you know what, I'm not gonna write you a letter.
("Stop trying to make a letter happen! It's not going to happen!" - obligatory Mean Girls reference)
I am going to post this picture though, just to show you how I think we're both gonna react if I said all this in person.
I love you, and there is no one else I would have spent my entire college life with. I've always found comfort in our closeness, and I pray that even if the actual, physical nearness were to change, the familiarity wouldn't. So I hope I won't get to have a reason to ever write you a letter, because truth be told, I'd rather always have you in person.
Happy birthday, Andee! :)
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Now drive me far away, away, away
Listening to Deftones on a cool Monday afternoon while attempting to write a news article, reading about Rizal and the revolution, watching an impeachment trial, trying to review for math and logic for an upcoming (very major, life-altering) exam, wondering about the future.
And all I can think of right now is I just want to get away.
It doesn't help that Chino Moreno's voice makes your hormones want to rage with someone. Look through all the comments on their videos on YouTube and you'll see how people have classified their music as, to be very decorous about it, passionate. In a perfect world, all the hooking up scenes (in film or otherwise) would have Deftones playing in the background.
It feels good to know you're mine Now drive me far away, away, away I don't care where just far away.
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On my bedside table: The Marriage Plot
(Part 1 of On My Bedside Table's The Best of 2011 edition)
First of all, an apology is very much in order. This was supposed to have been posted more than a week ago, but a lot of things got in the way, mostly acads and thesis, partly other personal stuff. I'm now thinking of not doing this list in succession as I fear that I may not be able to do it as religiously as I would want to, but without doubt, I will write about them all in the course of the next few weeks. But let's not go into all that anymore. Without further ado, the first book that made significant impact on my life in 2011..
This was one of those rare books that I read about a few weeks before its release, eagerly anticipated through some preview excerpts, and immediately rushed out to get the moment I heard it arrived on our shores. Yep, it was that kind of book. "The Marriage Plot" was actually the first Eugenides book that I have read, and while a lot of people say his other works are by far so much better, I find this a very fitting welcome to his works, given the situation in which I read it.
Probably the major reason why I was so thrilled about this? The lead character, Madeleine Hanna, was an English major at Brown University in the mid-1980's who was in the middle of writing her thesis on Victorian era novels. Of course, all that spelled out a big, fat "IS THIS ME?" as I first read the blurbs. (Note that this is just the first "IS THIS ME?" comment I had uttered among the many in the course of reading this book.) There aren't many novels about female English majors who are passionate about their course, you know. It got me very curious and, to my delight, hooked. Judging by just the first line, and even the first page, alone - "To start with, look at all the books." - I already had a feeling this was going to be one of those novels I would not be putting down until I had read it completely. And yes, that was exactly what happened. It began with a description of the paperbacks and hardbounds that cluttered her bookshelf - from Austen to Barthes. How quickly my heart palpitated! It was like looking at my own shelf, or at least a shelf that I have always dreamed of. ("IS THIS ME?" number 2)
Madeleine and her obsession with books is not the main topic of this novel, however, it plays a big part. The title, "The Marriage Plot" (which can be off-putting for some, because it does lend a chick-lit-esque sound to it) is a reference to the recurring theme in Victorian novels and consequently almost all great love stories: women finding the men they will marry. This was mentioned first in Madeleine's Semiotics class - which she enjoyed, by the way ("IS THIS ME!?" number 3) - by one of her professors, who suggests the strong influence of this narrative on the framework of novels and literature in general. A novel discussing the Novel - it's kind of meta in a way, which makes it all the more interesting. (Which is why I will italicize the word Novel to refer to the novel in general and its place in literature, to differentiate it from the novel as in this book.)
Madeleine's grappling with literary criticism and structuralism serves as a backdrop to her own personal struggles regarding her past, present, and future, ("IS IT MEEEE!?" number 4) all somewhat intersecting through two important points: the great love of her life/turbulent bad boy and genius, Leonard, and the best-friend-forever-longing/sensitive religious studies major, Mitchell. The juxtaposition of these three characters was done so eloquently for me - their characters were fleshed out through a consciousness that very clearly echoed their state of minds and respective fields. While Madeleine viewed life through novels and literary devices, Mitchell did so with such mystification and curiosity, and Leonard through biological decadence.
There is still so much to the plot than just a love triangle and an English major. But it would take too much of the fun out if I laid it all on the table. A lot of people have been saying that this is not Eugenides best work, but I believe they are missing the point when they say that the characters are too inert or lack clarity. It is precisely the ambiguity and the haziness that this book is questioning, both regarding the art of the Novel and real life - without the comfort of the societal dictates that the idea of marriage, or anything else considered "secure," brings. How much are our dreams and motivations dependent on the changing face of society? How much does our future change once the setup of normal social structures evolve? Do the risks we take chase off worries or congeal them? By analyzing the evolution of the Novel, he also brings into light the evolution of society, and in turn, the fruition of our psyche, especially as we are thrust outside the comforting walls of the academe.
The book may feel a bit alienating to someone who isn't familiar with Barthes or Bronte or Wharton, but anyone who has ever questioned the promise of the future that lay ahead after college would definitely find familiarity in this one. It helped that it came to me in a time where I find myself in somewhat the same place as Madeleine. I too am faced with the rest of my life ahead of me - but what would become of me? How would the choices I make define my future? The idea of graduation somewhat introduces the feeling of adulthood, of invincibility, of the desire to make decisions only my way. But it also makes one realize how much of the future one is putting at stake even in the simplest choices like what thesis topic to pursue, or by choosing who to love and who to leave behind.
"The Marriage Plot" could not have come at a better time in my life. That five-minute brisk walk to Fully Booked Katipunan to secure myself a copy was most definitely worth it. I haven't enjoyed a book this much in a long time; and I have never been so appreciative of being an English major (and taking all those comparative literature classes) until this. Labels: best of 2011, books
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On my bedside table: The Best of 2011 Edition
I will be the first to admit that I have not exactly been reading for enjoyment as much as I would like to (and I have said this numerous times before), with most of my time devoted to writing papers, reviewing for LAE, or just plain bumming around, which has given me a huge backlog in my reading list. There were some books I am still in the middle of, and some books I gave up on as well. But the several books that I did finish in 2011 were probably the most important and thought-provoking that I've come across in the last four years or so. While I busied myself mostly with classics and literary canons both local and foreign, which are all mostly required for school, I did manage to squeeze in more contemporary but equally ground-breaking work from authors that I have only discovered the previous year. Some I've looked for in bookstores for months, others I just got drawn to on the bookshelf; some took a couple of weeks' savings, others just a few pesos cheaper than a bottle of beer, but all of them rewarding in their own ways, satisfying with every line break and character.
I'm glad to say that quite a handful of them left me a bit paralyzed after having read the last page - the kind of impact they had on me felt like a lover saying goodbye, or a close friend moving out of the country. It's always painful having to say goodbye to characters you've spent almost every night with, but like friendships, the beauty is in the reminiscing, and unlike breakups, you can always go back for a second (or a third) helping when you're just feeling lonely and not feel remorseful about it. Also, unlike breakups, you wouldn't mind sharing it to your friends because they were just so, so good.
With that, I'd like to write about some of the books that were most compelling to me in 2011. These are not all of the books I've read in 2011 - just the few that I can say truly changed me on some level, as a writer, as a person, or both. I have to say too that I cannot assure these would be completely unbiased reviews of these books, nor would they be critical in a literary sense, because I'd prefer to share my experience with them on a more personal level.
I shall start tomorrow. I'll do one book at a time, as I feel like they each deserve their own posts. (Also, it wouldn't take too much of my time to write about just one per day.) They will be in no particular order although I think I would like to start with what was the most symbolic and timely of them all - Jeffrey Eugenides' "The Marriage Plot."
Until then. Labels: best of 2011, books
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So long, farewell, 2011!
To cap off the year, I saw The Sound of Music on stage last night with my family at Resorts World Manila. Nobody can contest that this is my favorite musical ever - I think I've seen this film more than a hundred, possibly even a thousand times. I grew up singing along to every single song and mouthing the words to every line, and every time I saw it as a kid I would find myself identifying with a different Von Trapp kid, depending on what my age was at the time. It truly is a wonderful, remarkable movie, something me and my family (from both sides!) never get tired of. It comes as no surprise then that we would go out and buy tickets for the show. I have always wondered what the Broadway/staged version was like, because being the fangirl that I am, I knew very well that there were several changes made in the film.
The significance of this musical to me is beyond complex, really. Over the years, in the countless times that I have played this on VHS and spun this on VCD, DVD, and now Blu-Ray, this movie has attached itself to various stages in my life, adding intricate layers to the already numerous shades of meanings it has for me. Watching the entire film will remind me of memories of the past, of people, of places, and no one viewing is ever the same - it's like rereading a book and rediscovering things you haven't noticed before. One of my many lolas was a nun, whom I loved visiting at their convent, but who always reminded me that I'm a bit too mischievous to become a nun myself. She always reminded me of the Mother Abbess because of her kind words of wisdom. My maternal grandmother, Wowa, used to play the songs for me on the piano, and has become (and still is) one of the reasons why music is so deeply instilled in me. My parents always made sure we had several copies of this movie at home and the three of us would always sing along together inside their bedroom - in fact, just last year Papa bought Mom the 45th anniversary Blu-Ray collection of the movie, complete with special features, picture books, and even a small jewel box.
But perhaps one of the most poignant memories that I have of the Sound of Music is watching it beside Inang in her room. Papa installed a TV and DVD player in front of her bed a few years ago so that she could be entertained despite having to stay indoors all day. Her favorite film was The Sound of Music - perhaps on some level it reminded her of a childhood that wasn't too far from the story: a strict father, a relatively young mother, and a household of seven children. She enjoyed the songs just as much as everyone else did, and found it just as visually appealing. But she always insisted on skipping the part where the Nazis were chasing the family, mostly because it reminded her too much of WW2. She would much rather put on repeat the scenes with songs instead of sirens.
We were originally scheduled to watch the play at Resorts World on December 2, but on December 1, Inang passed away. The idea that something so painful would now be attached to this happy antidote of a film is not what troubled me the most - it's that I could no longer share it with her. In my head I was already picturing how I was going to tell her about it – how the film actually traced its roots to a Broadway musical, how the children fared against the Hollywood Von Trapps, how the songs were just the way as we remembered it. Even the lights that were by then already set up all around the buildings at Newport City and the Christmas decors that adorned the hotel lobbies – the details, big and small, I was only too excited to share.
Last night was bittersweet for each of us in the family who watched. We couldn't discuss the play without mentioning Inang in some way - something she used to say, something she would have said. It was a very complicated, twisted feeling of nostalgia and happiness hearing Maria sing of her favorite things to make the sad feeling go away.
In many ways, 2011 turned out to be better than I expected. Looking back, this year has been truly kind to me - I visited many places, reconnected with old friends, strengthened bonds with family and particular people. It was truly a blessing. Losing Inang is probably the only truly painful thing that happened to me this year, which on many ways magnifies the hurt, but in retrospect also dulls the ache, for there are so many other things to be thankful about: family to lean onto, friends to care about, stories to share. While the pain will probably not go away any time soon, it doesn't dampen the spirits either.
2012 is going to be a big year, I can tell. It feels like 2007 all over again, with graduation and exam results looming in. I'm sure there are going to be major bumps along the way too, just like every other year that has passed. But I can only pray that 2012 turns out to be just as wonderful, just as empowering, if not more. There is nothing else we can do really other than just cross our fingers and wish for good things. And when all else fails, at least let us wish for the courage to brave the bad ones - or the willingness to think of the good things to get us through, when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when we're feeling sad.
Happy new year, everyone! :)
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Have yourselves a merry little Christmas.
I hope this midnight, tomorrow, and in the days to come, instead of thinking of the things we have lost or never got to have, let us be thankful for the family we have with us, the food on our table, and the gifts left unwrapped; the hands held, and the words said; the people in our lives, and the moments we've shared with them.
Let's celebrate the love - the pure, unconditional love that was given to us on this day all those thousand years ago. Sending out all my love to you on this very special day.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
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Being a Creative Writ-Eng'g student.
They say most people today are always a half, a quarter, a part-something. Half-American. Half-Chinese. One-fourth Norwegian. Fifty percent blue-eyed. Twenty percent with hitchhiker's thumb; recessive gene. You get the idea. My parents are full-blooded Filipino, I was born and raised in Manila, and I have no significant clarifications regarding the pronunciation of my surname. I have always been a 100% something for most of the things in my life, and I had no intention of having it otherwise - or so I thought.
Looking back, I think I have spent almost half of my stay in UP with my heart leaning a little bit towards one college in particular, in that one building that's all the way on the other side of the Acad Oval. Not that I have ever considered shifting - God, no. I love my course and my department too much to even think about belonging someplace else. In fact, if only I could have taken more electives, I would have signed up for at least one class in every department in our college. I love CAL, I really do.
But I love more people outside CAL, and quite honestly, they all belong to one place, that of angas, intellect, and moneyed alumni: the College of Engineering.
Half of my barkada is comprised of students from Eng'g (or who used to be from Eng'g). Several of my previous crushes (emphasis on previous!) were from Eng'g. My first friends outside my barkada were also from Eng'g.
I've had a lot of people come up to me and ask if I already shifted to Eng'g. That's because I spend quite a hefty amount of time either with Eng'g students or being in places associated with them. I do have my own affairs inside my college, but more often than not, I feel like I've been adopted by affiliation.
It comes as no surprise then that I spent the last school week of the year practically loitering around Melchor Hall again. After all, it was Engineering Week, and who's to say I can't be a part of it?
Karla, Andee, and Ria being vain as usual
Spot Miss ERG! Gwapo by day, chicks by night!
Someone is being molested in this photo.
ERG people!
On the Eng'g Steps is the place to be.
Spotted at the Lantern Parade! A rare Pokemon!
Before Ms. Eng'g
At the ERG home front!
Behind-the-scenes at Ms. Eng'g
Ms ERG with his (her?) "Mommies"
Eng'g Week has always been magical for me - from the epic org-bashing Smokers Night, to the concluding battle of beauty/kapogian Ms. Engineering, and everything else in between. It's where friendships are sealed and affections are affirmed. The promise of a better second semester lies in the secrets that unravel in the midst of Eng'g Week - well that's what's happened to me, at least. While this year held no surprises, it was still particularly special for it was my last as an undergrad. I spent it with my friends, just like I always did, and I couldn't have had it any other way. I am really, truly hoping this won't be my last as a UP student ;)
And so, to the College of Engineering, thank you for making me feel like a part of you. For the memories, for the friends, for the love - I owe you big time, Eng'g. Here's to you!
(photo credit: Ria Esguerra)
Labels: UP
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Out of the blue.
I took the Ateneo law entrance exam last Saturday. To say that I welcomed it with tremendous anxiety was an understatement: it was the first law admissions test I had to take (the UP LAE was moved to January 22), it was in an entirely different environment (hello, Rockwell), I had so many things to do last week regarding my acads, and the distress over my lola's passing is still pretty much a big factor in my current mental and emotional state.
But all the stress in the world doesn't excuse me from taking the exam. I saw two friends that day: Abby, a former classmate who is a Comparative Literature major (she graduated last April), and Maica, one of my friends from my LAE review. Seeing familiar faces definitely helped ease some nerves, but all throughout, the voice inside my head just kept screaming expletives out of panic (a la Lizzie McGuire's cartoon counterpart). The test was divided into three parts, with the first two given forty minutes each, and the last one an hour. Part 1 was like an IQ test that pretty much had all the reading comprehension, math, and abstract reasoning bundled up in one package. It was alright, and all throughout, I said to myself, "Kaya na 'to." Boy, did I speak too soon. Part 2 and Part 3 were all logic - strength and weakness of arguments, applicability of statements, truth and falsity of premises - the whole entire shebang. The questions per se were not other-worldly difficult, it's just that the time really was not enough. 100 questions in 40 minutes! And the passages were not at all short either. The reading comprehension part was tedious; I'm glad my literature background got my ass covered on that. The questions pertaining to logical reasoning weren't exactly alien to me, but of course it still required much mulling over - something you cannot do for long when given such limited time.
I did finish the test unscathed, thankfully. Results will be posted around the second week of April. Oh, the wait! The long, agonizing wait! I'm crossing my fingers - both for Ateneo and UP, of course. At this point I'm still in no place to choose where I would like to go - I haven't even taken the LAE yet; but my concern right now is just to do well on the exams. Maroon or blue would do fine by me. I've always been curious about what it would be like to be an Atenean, but of course, UP is my alma mater and I'd never want to leave. Let's just wait and see. (And try not to think about it for a while.)
It's been four years since I last felt this jittery over an entrance exam, four years since my intellect has been judged so severely. I feel like a high school senior, again. But unlike 2007, I guess I'm taking things in better stride now. I'm more relaxed (relatively) and more realistic than idealistic. Ah, maturity.
Ah, Rockwell.
--
The whole time before the exam (including the previous night), I was talking to Inang, asking her to intercede for me. Both my immediate grandmothers dreamed of being lawyers - in fact, my maternal grandmother (whom I call Wowa) was already in her first or second year as a law student when she stopped because she had to work. Meanwhile, Inang graduated only from high school but her level of education was never the sole indication of her intelligence. I was with my Wowa the whole afternoon that Friday because she and my grandfather fetched me from UP, and she told me once again of her law school travails - which helped me feel less nervous about the upcoming test. But that night, I also found comfort in talking to Inang, even just inside my head. Somehow, in an ironic kind of way, it made things less menacing when I told her I was also doing it for her.
After the exam, I visited my aunt who lived with Inang. I was telling her about the test, and other school-related things, when I suddenly felt the urge to share with her my sadness over the lost picture. I was using her laptop that time because I was showing her something on Facebook when she thought of opening one album in her My Pictures folder. Lo and behold, there it was: the entire album of my high school graduation party, with all my pictures, including that of Inang and I.
I do not take it as a sign of me passing or anything, because finding that photo is not about law school - it's so much more than that. I guess it's a way of coming to terms with the reality of the events. While I still cannot say I have fully let go, I can at least acknowledge that I'm getting there. But of course, seeing the picture again was reassuring on so many levels. It affirms in me the permanence of love; that she is not lost, that she never will be.
-- Labels: family, law school
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I found it.
They say things find you when you need them to find you.
I love you, Inang.
-- Labels: family
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On losing people, pictures, words.
My paternal grandmother passed away last Friday. She was the oldest person in the family (she was 91), but also the wisest, and quite possibly the funniest. She never had a trace of dementia or Alzheimer's disease; she was fully aware of how charming John Lloyd Cruz is, and never forgot the words to Doe a deer a female deer... even after almost fifty years. She was kind and gentle, but also honest and brutally frank. She's the first to notice how much weight we put on, but she's also one to compliment my gigantic earrings.
I left for Diliman last Tuesday without Inang to say goodbye to for the first time. It's a terrible, terrible loss and I still have not come to terms with it to be honest.
In a frantic search for comfort and some assurance, I raided my laptop last night for this particular picture of us during my high school graduation party. It is clear in my head, this photo. I am wearing my Paulinian uniform and she is in her wheelchair, and we are both smiling. I remember it perfectly because I used to say I will compile my pictures with my grandparents (after my maternal grandmother remarked that she was making an album of me and my grandfather) but I never got through to doing it. I was desperately clicking through all folders, everything that could possibly be opened, crying, sobbing, pleading, hoping that it was there somewhere - nothing. I found all the other pictures of that year, but not of that night, not of the two of us. I even found pictures of my mom, my dad, and my aunt with their own shots with Inang, but not that particular picture I was looking for. The entire album of that graduation party, I have no clue where it is, if I uploaded them or transferred it somewhere. It's not on my laptop and it's not on my hard drive. It's not in any storage device I have with me right now.
And as if dying itself wasn't the superlative of a loss, being unable to find that picture underscored the fact that indeed she is gone - now, tomorrow, for good. Suddenly I was angry, I was confused, I was sad: for losing the photo, for not being able to have more photos, for the opportunities to show her more love now lost.
Before I knew it I was crying not just for her, but for the three other grandmothers who passed away in the last seven years. They should have seen me graduate, they should have seen me go to law school. They should have been given more chances to see us kids grow into adults, to thank our parents fully, to just be the solid foundations that they were to our family. They deserved to continue being given the love we are only so willing to share. There was still so much to do, to say. Somehow it dawned on me again that all the moments I shared with them were not enough at all.
I lay awake in bed in a maddening assortment of crying and forcing myself to sleep, for what else is there to do?
I've been trying to find the words to truly express my grief but they are lost to me, just like Inang and I's picture. I wish I were strong enough to write about being fully accepting of all this, of finally being able to say goodbye without hesitation. I wish I had a better ending to this post, something to tie the pieces together for closure perhaps. But I can't and I don't, and all I have right now is a chaos of words trying to make sense of things in the absence of order, trying to deal with the loss of a photo, of a grandmother.
-- Labels: family
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I am writing you a letter.
For my thesis, I've chosen to work on creative nonfiction, which I think is deserving of more attention as a serious form of literature, especially in the Philippines. For most people, creative nonficton is either one of only two things: the 1000-word (or less) features we read on magazines and lifestyle sections of the newspaper, or the kind of writing people "do" when they blog and talk about themselves. While CNF on its own is not one to be harsh on labels (as it is battling with some sort of identity crisis itself), it is begging to be defined as something other than those two, or more precisely, beyond them. CNF is not just "expressing yourself" i.e. the kind that writes about what you ate for breakfast or how well that skirt went with those boots. Yes it does involve including an "I" as the narrator of a story, but it does not always have to be completely about it - the "I" is merely just the starting point to a larger narrative, a deeper web of stories and people and places. It can be the entry to a myriad of other perspectives in which the story will establish itself far outside the spheres of the writer's own world.
The gap between the "I" and the "you" is what got me curious about the culture of epistolarity, or letter-writing, in the first place. I grew up writing letters, to myself, to my parents, to objects that can obviously not reply, and I have always been fascinated by the whole art behind it: how it begins with a nervous greeting, like the quivering one feels when making a first impression, then ends with an hopeful valediction, thankful that the reader went through the entire thing. There is a quiet, unpretentious intimacy that happens between the writer and the reader because the letter is exclusive to both of them. Within each letter lies a continuing transfer of influence over the narrative: the sender of the letter asserts his voice to the "you" in the beginning and all throughout, but steps aside and makes way for the reader to respond in the end. It's quite absorbing how the "I" can evolve in the course of a single letter in order to accommodate the "you."
The first semester required us to write a critical paper on our topic; that is, we were to research and come up with a criticism and an exploration of the genre and theme we wanted to dip our toes into. It was particularly hard for me because while there has always been an abundance of letters (yes, even in the age of e-mail), it is precisely this sheer number that makes it hard to decipher a certain criteria. Because epistolarity as a genre has never been fully established (especially in the Philippines), it was difficult to actually find letters that I could try to follow and consider as framework. Whose work do I criticize? Which ones do I want to emulate? What should they be about? I had to go through a lot of anthologies and sift them through to see if the writer by any chance wrote an open letter to anyone. Luckily, I did, and was I surprised at the possibilities each letter provided. It was a daunting task, since like what I said, no one I know has done this before, and so I felt like I was alone in creating a niche for myself. I did use books on epistolary novels as references, and even bought a book from Amazon about epistolary histories. But it paid off. I think I have come up with a good enough explanation of what I wanted to do in my critical paper.
Now comes the more challenging, but also more liberating part. The second sem means it is finally time for us to do our creative work - meaning, to write what it was we were set out to do in the first place. For me this means writing letters, to people, to places, to events. I want to explore the idea of the "you" as something more than just a faceless audience member and into something of a particular reader. I will try to do long-form narratives to echo the kind of writing done before the Internet reduced everything to 160-characters. It will be a challenge, but I am up for it. I just finished my first letter-essay last night (and was proud I didn't break the deadline I made for myself!) and I am hoping it is well-received by my thesis adviser. I think I have nine more to go.
Letters by Bienvenido Santos One of the books that inspired me to work on this as my thesis topic How fascinating it is to have a portrait of your life in letters!
So there, my thesis, in a nutshell. This has been what's occupying my time, my mind, and my sanity lately. It's funny how suddenly my course-mates and I have gone from lax, carefree students who submit papers late to zombie-like creatures that cannot stop talking and worrying about our stories, novels, and thesis proposals. People think that being a Creative Writing major entitles you to just do whatever and charge it to artistic license, but writing, for us at least, requires more than just a selfish purpose. It's about getting your story out there, sure, but it's fleshing out others' too. It's taxing, emotionally, mentally, and physically, to do that because writing is something you can only do yourself - you have no one to help you write. But sometimes just having a single willing ear (or more like a willing eye) to read through your work is enough reassurance. Even if it's just your blockmate whom you asked to spell-check for you.
I have about four months left. Let's see what happens.
Labels: CW, thesis
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Running to, from, away.
(I know I promised to write about my thesis after someone asked it in my question box, but after this afternoon, this felt like it needed to be written first. It had to. I shall do a post about my thesis over the weekend.)
--
I ran four kilometers today after a year of not jogging at all, and after two years of not jogging at the Oval. Long story short, it has been (more than) a while, but I surprised myself with how well my body responded to all the pushing my mind did. It's always nice to know I can do things that are far beyond my own expectations, especially when it comes to this.
Running around today brought me back to where I was the first time I did it two years ago. I was still at that point where I felt like I had lost myself tremendously amidst the insecurities and fears that suddenly came my way that year. I was on the receiving end of a lot of bruises to my ego - not being fought for, not being chosen, not being good enough - little things, really, but they all piled up and made such a mess of me. Then the idea of jogging came up. I was in a horrible state emotionally and mentally that I just said to myself, Why the hell not? What further harm can tiring my body do anyway when so far all I've been feeling on the inside is exhaustion anyway?
But things happened and fell into place: people came into the picture and made things okay. Suddenly jogging became fun, it became something to look forward to. It was no longer about me comparing myself to someone else or proving someone wrong - it suddenly became an intimate affair with just myself. Sure, my body still ached every time I got home, but it stopped being a chore, and actually became something that allowed me to be other than what I really was at that time: a mess. Because jogging was so uncharacteristic of me, jogging made me feel like I wasn't Karla - I was just... a runner. Running. To someone, from it all, away - it didn't matter. I was moving.
The second semester of 2009 brought unexpected but welcome changes to my life. I can, of course, ascribe that mostly to one person, who started seeing me beyond the standards everyone (myself included) was so keen on putting on myself. But this person notwithstanding, looking back, things started to change only after I made the conscious decision to let the baggage go. It was stupid, all of it, all of them, I finally realized. The first move I did after that was the running. Saying yes to jogging suddenly meant saying yes to letting myself open up to possibilities.
It was cathartic, running again today after two years. So much has changed, from my pace to even my disposition. Yet it's comforting knowing that even after all this time, there are things that stay the same. Jogging still and will always remind me of that time I finally let go of all the resentment. Of being loved, of being appreciated, of being thought of as worth it - each step just reiterated these feelings all over again. To run under those same trees, being reminded that it didn't matter how quick, just how far, was liberating. I was running by myself, but it was during those moments that I felt most cherished; there was togetherness despite being alone. No one was beside me but it didn't feel lonely.
It still doesn't. And it was wonderful to feel that again, truly wonderful.
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Of lines you wish you wrote yourself.
<![CDATA[<br />
<blockquote>24<br />
You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won't tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you've done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you're tired. You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and you're trying not to tell him that you love him, and you're trying to choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for.</blockquote><br />
An excerpt from Richard Siken's poem "You Are Jeff" published in the Yale University Press Books Unbound website. So beautiful.<br />
<br />
<i>Like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for.</i>]]>
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Why, hello there.
While I am guilty of not completely updating this blog as often as I used to, I shall not waste any more time apologizing and share with you a random moment of vulnerability instead.
One of the few things I call my own and (sometimes) refuse to share with anyone else is my walk. Every afternoon after my last class, instead of waiting for the jeep in the Faculty Center waiting shed where everyone else is, I choose to walk through the Freshie Walk aka Roces St., the road that cuts through the Acad Oval and leads me to the two waiting sheds by the Engineering building. There is this overwhelming sense of control I get when I see people scrambling like mad to ride the always-full Katipunan jeeps at the FC while I make my way nonchalantly to the Freshie Walk. Why are they all still waiting there when you can just go to the other side? I feel like I'm carrying this wonderful new secret every time I cross the street to Roces while everyone else is waiting, anxious and not moving a single step.
It's not a very long walk, probably five-minutes at best, but I prefer to take it slow especially when it's around 5:30 and has just rained, the streets glowing with car lights and the reflection of a gray, dusky sky. It's my favorite part of the day actually, more than eating toasted raisin bread for breakfast or finally putting on my eye mask before bed. It's when I truly am by myself, only my thoughts and the songs on my iPod as my companions, but I don't mind.
These days I've been feeling more alone - not the suicidal kind, not the Oh I am so unloved kill me now kind. Just the I literally don't have anyone with me kind. I spend six days at the dorm, my classes are at odd hours, and I've been seeing people less and less each day. Sure, I have several other friends, but the circumstances of being seniors/graduating students allow us the convenience of seeing each other only by chance and surprise, not predetermined lunch and dinner dates.
More than that, however, there has been this looming sense of isolation that dawned on me a while back. My friends (and even I, myself) see me as this optimistic, cheery girl; the kind that will pull a sunshine out of my ass even when it's all cumulonimbus and rain showers. But certain realizations just made me doubt my faith in myself a little - how capable I really am of being alone, how worthy I am of the things I've been getting, how far I can go without having to break. Little nagging thoughts, really, but frustrating all the same.
It's obviously a lot more complicated than that. The funny thing is I haven't shared this with anyone, at least not completely; mostly because I'm a believer of making things go away when left unmentioned (which hardly ever works, but, well...) and partly because I just don't want anyone worrying about me. I mean, this is me obviously just over-thinking things, and at best I'll just be diagnosed PMS-ing, and at worst, as a whiny, selfish brat.
But really, I think, I'm just afraid of putting myself out there and letting anyone tell me what I'm afraid to hear: that yes, I am alone, and that yes, there is nothing else to do about it. I just have to deal with it. Which is, of course, the only possible recourse. I've said it to myself a million times before, I've had the "Yes, I can do it!" pep talk. However these days, it's just not cutting it. Because no matter how positive I try to make myself feel, it is still just myself cheering me on, and no one else. That's how it feels.
And so I take these walks, to remind myself why it's good to be alone and why having company doesn't always translate to getting somewhere. The relief I receive from the majestic green arch the trees form above me, the comfort I find in Stars or Metric or John Mayer or Sugarfree (especially Burnout, which I have officially declared my UP/senioritis song) - those are things not being alone cannot provide. I take these walks, if only to convince myself that at least even for a while, even for just the few precious minutes it takes to traverse Roces Street, I don't need anyone. I don't. I really don't.
But convincing always requires some level of delusion, doesn't it?
-- Labels: senioritis
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Lost and finding.
First year, first sem. I entered the wrong classroom on the first day of class.
Fourth year, second sem. I entered the wrong classroom on the first day of class.
I'd like to think this is probably the universe's way of giving me closure, or making me come full circle - coming together with how I commenced, closing with how it opened, ending where I began - the whole shebang.
I could always wax metaphoric and say that if my life were a short story, that little running motif of getting lost in class would have been an effective literary device. It could be symbolic of how the character, despite having been in the university for four years, is still only under the illusion that she has found her way - that the people she had met, the things she had learned, the words she had said do not mean anything in the grander scheme of things, for she is still but a lost little girl looking for the right direction. That the idea of graduating only means getting a piece of paper, not discovering one's true purpose. The meaning of everything is still somewhere, possibly written in your Form 5 or somewhere in your head, hidden by the trees or masquerading in the sky, but it's not entirely visible and still remains to be found. Getting lost in the beginning and getting lost even in the end is indicative of how uncertain everything still is - even when your status says graduating, even when your affections have been affirmed, even when your dreams have been set on stone.
Of course, this isn't a short story, and reading a little bit too much into things is just one of the side effects of being a literature major. For all I know it could only be indicative of my lack of sleep or Oreos, or both.
But then again, that's why I am where I am. The thing with writing is that it gives you the illusion of control over a certain kind of reality, and often that spills out of the page and into your own. And if that means believing in a greater recurring narrative just to make myself feel better (and less ashamed - because dear God, this happened to me and I'm already a senior!) then why the hell not?
Second sem, let's see what you got.
Labels: UP
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The last week or so.
The week of October 26th (and the few days after) had been quite exceptional.
I went out with my family on the 26th. Had an extremely funny mall-hopping date with The Boyfriend on the 27th. Held a Rockband/Just Dance/Karaoke party at my house with my college friends on the 28th. Went out for drinks at BF with my high school friends on the 29th. Ate dinner out with my parents on the 30th. Scoured the stalls of 168 with my mom, aunt, and lola on the 31st.
Then I got sick on November 1st and skipped going to the cemetery. Stuffed my face with pizza and liempo instead. Lounged around mostly in bed on the 2nd. And got myself in full battle mode for enrollment on the 3rd.
I am now officially a twenty-year-old enrolled for what would (hopefully!) be my last semester in college.
Oh, what change a week can bring.
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And now back to regular programming..
Possibly my last picture as a teenager. (Also: learning how to smile without teeth)
After last night's sudden urge to wax dramatic (which I will still blame on the hormones, while I still can), today I'm going to feel excited again! My birthday is always something I look forward to and no amount of dramatic decade-shift is going to take the good vibes away.
So bring it on, October 26! :)
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Dearest raging teenage hormones,
I have blamed you for most of my unwarranted episodes of sudden stupidity, used your name in vain when my logic failed to have been used appropriately, and hated your debilitating effects on my face and my body every twenty-eight days or so. Because of this I have given you a name that you probably don't deserve, but possibly secretly liked: whore-moans.
Thanks to you, I have had the (dis)pleasure of saying too much with alcohol in my blood, crying over spilled milk (aka beer), not caring about the future, going to school without a wink of sleep, dissing a friend, liking boys that don't deserve my attention, feeling incredibly insecure about my self, attaching my self-worth to the numbers on the scale -- yep, the whole buffet of "youthful misgivings."
And yet, you were also responsible for (1) the flush on my cheeks the first time I saw James Lafferty on screen, (2) my overwhelming bouts of rage over people who crossed my lines [not THE line, just my lines which I drew for myself because I'm angsty like that], (3) the spontaneity in screaming expletives in utter delight, in hugging someone from behind, and holding someone's hand, and (4) a string of other moments as a result of a sudden surge of emotions.
Twenty doesn't only sound old - it is old. It means saying goodbye to all the irrationality of the teenage years, with the expectation that you've learned enough in the last seven years of your life to stop doing stupid things. But what if I keep being stupid? What if I don't stop making the same mistakes? Losing the suffix "-teen" in my age somehow leaves no room for errors. And that scares me. At least with you in my system, I could just give a giant "Fuck y'all, I'm a teenager and I don't care!" to the world, and everyone can dismiss it as an episodic attack of the hormones.
Now, with your expiration coming near, where does that leave me? I wish you didn't have to go so soon, not with me still trying to make sense of body parts and feelings and everything in between.
One day, I'm sure I'm going to be more than glad for finally getting rid of you. My logic will thank the heavens for finally disposing of the hormones that keep distracting the brain from doing its purpose. But until then, I'm singing your praises and giving my thanks for the nights to remember and the days to regret, for the noise of exploding emotions and the quietude of hands that held.
It has been a wild ride. You may not get to stay but the feelings of having you will. And now for the last time, I sing: Let's get these teen hearts beating faster, faster.
Yours 'til the whore moans, K
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On My Bedside Table: The Long-Awaited Edition
I have been failing tremendously on my pseudo-New Year's Resolution to update my blog with more book posts this year. I promised myself that I should be doing more On My Bedside Table posts with the intention that with every update comes a new round of books at least twice a month. Sadly, I haven't had the time nor the money to afford to read new books at that frequency. I'm tired of using acads an excuse to everything, because I'm also partly blaming myself for not committing to reading so much more than I should have, but I also cannot say that it wasn't a major factor in my having to give up reading for pleasure.
But alas, there's no use complaining about that anymore. Now that the sembreak is (almost!) over, I can finally relish once again in the fact that I can resume to reading the books I actually do like. You all know I read several books at the time; I have this habit of reading several chapters from any book I feel like sifting through, then putting it down in exchange for another one when I get bored, only to pick it up again a few days or weeks later. The narratives don't necessarily jumble up in my head thankfully, but the problem with that is now that I finally have the time to continue where I left off, I have so much to begin with! Not that I'm complaining, though. I actually don't mind. At least I have something(s) to get me off of the Internet for a while.
Obviously, I have two sets of bedside table books waiting to be devoured again: one at home, and one at the dorm. Shall we begin?
Books On My Bedside Table: In Katipunan - The Art of the Personal Essay edited by Phillip Lopate. I bought this about two years ago way before I had decided that I was to take up creative nonfiction as my chosen genre for my thesis. I had always been most in love with CNF, and perhaps I had an inkling even back then that this was what I truly wanted to do. This anthology was where I got the idea for my thesis, actually, and while it doesn't contain the material I needed, it still gives me a lot of ideas regarding what I want to do. Besides, all the essays in it are such a joy to read, even if I weren't doing CNF, it's still easily one of the best books I ever bought.
- The Likhaan Anthology of Philippine Literature in English from 1900 to the Present edited by Gemino Abad. This is our "textbook" for my CL151 (Phil. Lit) class and though I've perused it long before this semester, I've new-found appreciation for it after thoroughly discussing the texts, especially the poetry. The short stories were all brilliant choices for me, because it had a good mix of different topics written by writers from different generations and class, as were the essays.
- Ballerina by Edward Stewart. I bought this book for Php50 at Book Sale a few months after seeing Black Swan. It's narrative is somewhat parallel to that: two dancers who eventually become friends, then competitors in the highly cutthroat world of ballet. This kind of brings out my ballerina frustrations because I still recognize a lot of the steps - I stopped ballet when I was in fourth grade, just a year before I went on pointe because our teacher left for Australia, and I had to choose academics over going to a different, farther school. A huge part of me still wishes I never gave up on that.
- Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. On one lazy Thursday afternoon, I decided to go to National Bookstore Katipunan out of boredom, and came back home with this twenty-peso find. Php20. A classic Fitzgerald novel that I hardly ever see on shelves! I just had to buy it. I've always wanted to see the lifestyles of the rich and famous through Fitzgerald's eyes. (It's far more glamorous than how Gossip Girl presents it to be, I believe) And besides, it's the twenties/thirties era!
- All The Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen. This author's debut novel is an exploration of the life of three men straight out of college - suddenly away from the comforts of their intellectual pursuits and burdened with the harshness of "the real world." I'm actually only a few chapters away from finishing the book, and I can say that it does indeed give you an accurate, if not startling, picture of reality after you've finally gotten your diploma - suddenly everything changes: your priorities, your love, your ideals. It's pretty scary, yet it's actually exciting too, the way everything converges in the end; not what you expected, but maybe what you needed.
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Yes, I have had this on my list for about six months now. You have to understand that it's an incredibly heavy book with extremely small letters. That being said, however, it is probably one of the first thick, hefty novels that I have never gotten bored of. I rarely count the chapters when I have this in my hands. And quite honestly, I think I have found a new hero in Alexei Karenin. That man is the god of indifference - I bow down, really.
- The Secret Life of the English Language by Martin H. Manser. This one is not a novel, but a fascinating run through of the evolution of the English language. It touches on its history as well as its interesting oddities, like the origins of expressions/idioms and the lost meaning of some common words we use today. It's a light read, but it's pretty extensive considering the amount of information it has. And if you're geeky enough, these little pieces of trivia could be great conversation starters! "Who would have known that the word "nerd" came from Dr. Seuss?" Of course, that'll be interesting only to girls who find the English language equally attractive.
- To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. This one, I'm still in the process of finishing for my book report for CL122 (Literary Theory) class due on Monday. It is a short novel, but much of it occurs in just a single day; its form is focused on the stream of consciousness style, and is a subversion on the typical narrative way of driving a story. An exploration of the self, family, time, and life in general, this book is representative of Woolf's attempts at taking part in the Modernist ideology.
- On Beauty by Zadie Smith. I've long wanted to pick up something by Zadie Smith and was torn between White Teeth and this one. I ultimately chose this one because it speaks about something I'm more interested in at the moment: the convergence of cultures and principles set in the always intellectually turbulent groves of a university. It's about two families, both of which have their lives deeply entrenched in the academe, and how they deal with their differences as well as surprising similarities. I'm still only one-third through the book but I can already tell it's a great novel.
- The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. You could say this is my "love at first sight" novel of the year. It was also my inaugural purchase at the newly opened Fully Booked Katipunan just a few blocks away from my dorm. (Oh, the temptation!) A glimpse of what the novel contains: An English major. Undergraduate thesis. Jane Austen, George Eliot, and other Victorian novelists. Literary criticism. Derrida. A love triangle. Love after graduation. If this novel isn't reflective of where I am right now, I don't know what else is. I immediately went out to buy it the morning after I read about it. I shall make it a priority this sembreak.
My semester officially ends on Monday. Oh, dear books, be patient. My heart is ecstatic - I cannot wait to spend my nights with you again! See you in about forty-eight hours. Labels: books
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Closing time.
A peculiar mix of pour homme and jasmine milk tea lingered in the air while they drove along the streets just outside the university. She had an exam the next day and could use an extra hour or two of sleep, really. But it was a Friday and Fridays always held in it a certain kind of enchantment she couldn't say no to. He texted her if she wanted to eat out and without hesitation, she said yes.
It was her first time riding his car tonight - in fact her first time riding anyone's car. She wasn't comfortable breaking into his space, as she was just as reluctant letting him in hers. There was a teddy bear nudged between the rear window and the car seat, she noticed. She didn't need to ask to figure out it may have been from someone special. So he had a past, she thought. I have too. Only hers was an unrealistic longing for Ryan Gosling. His, meanwhile, was an actual girl. She wasn't jealous, no. There had been a confirmation of their feelings after all, just two weeks ago. But she still felt the awkward silences creeping in between them every now and then, threatening to destroy the little bubble she has created for them.
He was still driving silently, his eyes focused on the tail lights and the road in front of him. Meanwhile, her hands wanted to search for his, in a silent, desperate call for affirmation, that indeed she did not make the wrong decision of agreeing to this sudden milk tea date, and of confessing to him twelve days ago, or rather, at all, after being classmates (and seatmates) for only three months. But she couldn't because they weren't at that point of letting fingers intertwine yet and acknowledge this so-called understanding. The only kind of touching they've had so far was her elbow brushing against his as she took down notes, and the electric rush from that should be enough.
Not long after, a car cut in front of them forcing him to honk in agitation. She stiffened in her seat, her hands holding onto her jasmine tea that threatened to spill all over her and his car. That's the last thing she wanted, not during this first time. Should I say something? What do I say? She isn't well-versed in passenger-seat small talk, let alone any kind of small talk, especially with a guy one particularly liked, so she couldn't be sure if she was supposed to comment on anything. She whispered a feeble Oh my god that asshole under her breath instead, to which he laughed and said, "Wow, you took the words right out of my mouth."
Was that, finally, an affirmation? She couldn't be too sure but she was willing to take it as such. She smiled and looked outside the window again, trying to imagine what other things she now unconsciously knew about him. The way he would shake his head when he hears a corny joke, the side of the handkerchief he wiped his face with (always the one with the monogram), the way he pronounced "comfortable" (komf-tabuhl). There was still a lot she didn't know, like the song currently playing in the background, and there remained a lot of space around his own personal bubble that she needed to get to know, but she was getting there. At least, she hoped so.
"You can change the song, if you want," he quipped. He must have noticed her indifference towards this dude rapping about his sexual exploits. She reached out for the knob in the stereo, trying her best to look like she knew what she was doing, when he cut her suddenly and said, "Why don't you just put your iPod instead?"
"I don't have it with me," she said.
Which was a shame because it was a big deal, God knew it was. She would have happily plugged in hers and played the playlists she's made for him, and he would finally hear the song she was telling him about, the one in that movie she wanted to see, the one that Justin Timberlake got wrong. She would have sung shamelessly along with the chorus, and he would have laughed, maybe regret letting her sing a little bit, but he would have loved it. She would have reached out for his hand again, and this time for real, and he would hold back. He wouldn't let it go even as he switched gears, and she would have been glad.
For now, she would have to find comfort in knowing that he was somehow making her a part of her space already, and acknowledging her song preferences should be symbolic enough. For now, it's just her hand on his knee, but him not putting it away. For now, the iPod inside her head should be content, for the song would be playing in the background nonetheless, plugging itself to the soundtrack of her night.
Closing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
--
Can you believe this is post number 500? I can't, either. Labels: 500th post, fiction
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Almost there.
And so the semester nears its conclusion.
As I type, I am in the middle of cramming Marxism and Cultural Studies for my Literary Theory exam while biting into my barely crunchy peanut butter toast. I just finished printing my 30-paged critical introduction for my thesis, whose final submission is today. (Ah, the smell of ink on new paper!) I am not even in the process of tidying up my room which is currently a battlefield of books, readings, and notebooks, sleep and distress fighting it out in the final battle that is this semester. The break is so close I could almost taste it, but the thought of a take-home exam, a reaction paper, and a screenplay still waiting to be written cautiously anchors me back to reality.
The other day, a very dear friend of mine lost her mom to cancer. She was a mother to all of us, and it breaks my heart to just think of days actually going by without her - what more her family. I pray for nothing but strength and courage for all of them left behind, the same kind of bravery that their mother exemplified while she was alive. When I attended her wake, my friend told me that her mom tried her best to not complain about her pain - she wanted them to go on about their everyday as if she were not suffering. Suddenly, grumbling about finishing my requirements felt so foolish, so shallow. How do we even justify feeling defeated and overwhelmed when there are so many others in twice as much pain?
There is no room for complaints. At this point, even the thought of whining can take away precious time that could have otherwise been used for other things. However, there should always be a place for gratefulness - that I am physically exhausted and mentally drained because I am learning, that I feel incapable because I am pushing myself to always do better, that I am living alone because my parents care about my convenience, that I have to sacrifice time for leisure for opportunities that may not come knocking back again.
I have to remind myself this every now and then to stop me from ripping my hair out and giving up completely. Even if it means having to blog in the middle of reviewing, just to keep me motivated. Anxiety can make me stay up all night in the strangest of ways, but it's a sudden sense of appreciation that wakes me up in the morning.
The battle's almost won, and we're only several miles from the sun.
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Why, hello there, October.
So it's the first day of October and I'm feeling particularly cheery, despite the probable presence of another storm (literally) raining on my parade. Nothing spectacular has happened to me, really, and in fact, I think I may have gotten myself buried deeper in a truckload of requirements thanks to the recent class suspensions. I'm supposed to be panicking and not having the time to even think about anything other than literary theory and epistolary history.
But it's the first of the month, and that always marks something to smile about: a reminder that the semester is finally coming to a close, the months are adding up to assure me that everything is going strong, the year is reminding me we're getting nearer to yet another end - it's always a welcome guest, the first day. Always.
It also signals twenty five more days to go before my birthday. I'm turning twenty in a few weeks, and I have to admit - I'm kinda scared to let the raging teenage hormones go.
So hi, October. Fancy having you around, finally.
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Where are my Oreos when I most need them?
Once again, I've arrived at this time, this place, where everything feels like they weigh ten times more than what they should; where words that need to be said seem to hide themselves in cracks between other words that don't; where minutes appear to diminish exponentially as they by.
Hello, hell week(s). We meet again.
I wish I could blog more, but there is almost nothing going in my life that isn't in the tiniest bit related to acads. Which is a shame. A shaaame.
In the meantime, I am finding refuge in cookies and yogurt and oatmeal bars and more cookies.
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Of blonde ambitions.
Last Saturday, the UP Pep Squad has once again proven its claim as the Icons of Reinvention in cheerleading after they defended their crown at the UAAP Cheerdancing Competition.
There are dumb blondes, and then there are UP blondes. This year the team went all out in proclaiming their love for the Queen of Pop by donning bleach blonde hair and conical bras. It was, as always, a fun and spunky number executed flawlessly by the entire team. Their dance moves were sensational; I liked how they used only samples of Madonna's songs as it kept the whole routine fresh and unexpected. And of course the stunts! Phenomenal. UP is known for building their pyramids with just one count, and I swear to God, they have nailed that to perfection. On most parts, I just couldn't help myself from going, "How is that even humanly possible!?" Flying boys and girls all over the floor and with smiles still plastered on their faces at that. But what really makes the UP Pep stand out for me is the way they have this aura, this vibe that no other squad can match - laging may angas. May bangis. I cannot think of a suitable English counterpart for those words right now, but really, that's what UP will always, always have that can never be taken away from them: the UP Pep Swag!
I was part of the crowd again, like I was last year and in 2008, and so far my friend and I's theory that UP wins when we watch live still remains to be disproved. We practically gave up on the tickets and were firm in not going Friday night, but I suppose the gods of school spirit really wanted us to be there so badly that tickets just suddenly found their way to us by magic! (aka a very good friend from the Ateneo) We found ourselves on the Gen Ad bleachers again, but no qualms - it's definitely where all the fun happens. Donning black, shouting for the school with what remains of my already worn-out vocal chords, and just basking in the revelry of school spirit - that was how I always want to remember being a student of UP: superior and proud.
I will never forget seeing the 2007 CDC performance of the UP Pep back when I was a senior in high school. The "UP Rocks" routine had angas written all over it, and that moment is still clear inside my head, about getting goosebumps several times in the performance, particularly the part where they did the Oblation pose, and towards the end when the girls and boys were dancing separately with pom-poms. I remember telling myself then, "UP talaga eh," and suddenly appealing to the mercy of the cosmos that it has to be this university, and nothing else. If I don't get to cheer "U-nibersidad ng Pilipinas!" for real, I may never forgive my sixteen-year-old self who took the exam. All versions of me will never forgive myself. I couldn't remember a time in my life when I didn't want to go in UP.
And now, four years later, I have just cheered my lungs out (again) for the last time as an undergraduate student. But I pray it's not the last. I'm finding myself in the same place again, wishing and praying that the university will grant me another four years of suffering but also immense enthusiasm. I'm hoping I'd still get to call myself a UP student even after having gotten my graduation pictures. I don't want to say goodbye just yet.
Let's go blonde, Karla. Legally blonde. ;)
-- Labels: UP
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She's a modern lover; it's an exploration, she's made of outer space
Hello, I'm Karla Bernardo. If you Google my name, you will find the Wikipedia entry of a Canadian serial-killer (and trust me, you do not want
to read about that - but I'm sure you will because now you're curious), which is why I suggest you type Bombastarr instead so you can stalk me better.
I spent eight-and-a-half years of my life in the University of the Philippines, where I graduated with degrees in Creative Writing and Juris Doctor. It is also where I learned how to speak a bit of Italian, got a taste of the best tapsilog, and took striptease for PE.
I love telling stories, as much as I enjoy finding them.
<![CDATA[<center><font style="color: #ffffff;">____</font>Want <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/09096636074047764491">more</a>?</center><br>]]>
Featured Works
Stargirl ( Cover story for Nadine Lustre, Scout, January-February 2017)
Surreal / So Real (at Scout)
Ode to a Great Love's 17-year-old Self ( Love.Life, Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Postcard from Diliman
( Youngblood, Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Writer for Philippine Law Register
A Call to Arms (January 2017)
Expecting the Expected (March 2016)
Former Writer for Stache Magazine
The Hero's Journey (June 2013)
The 8 People You Become In Your Youth (June 2013)
The Best Bad Idea That Is Argo (April 2013)
Mike Ross Remembers Everything You Don't (August 2012)
Style Between the Riffs (August 2012)
Book Lovers Never Sleep Alone (June 2012)
A Spectrum of Change (December 2011)
Digital Art (October 2011)
Elements of Style (June 2011)
In Her White Dress (All-Art April 2011 issue)
Morning After Pill ( Fervore: Literary Folio 2013, UP Portia Sorority)
How To Make a Blueberry Cheesecake ( Kalas: Kalasag Literary Folio 2011, UP College of Arts and Letters)
January 14th ( 100: The Hundreds Project, UP Writer's Club)
An Ode to The
Pillow Book (at New-Slang)
Introductions (at TeenInk)
One by One (at TeenInk)
Ask, and you shall be answered
Got a comment, question, violent reaction, love letter, or random piece of information you want to share with me? Just fire away. I don't bite.
(I changed my form and went back to Freedback because Ask.fm's being a bitch, requiring people to sign up for accounts before asking questions. Because I love you guys, I tweaked my ask box a bit, so that the questions will now go directly to my e-mail, but I'll be posting the answers still on my Ask.fm for convenience. TL;DR - I'll still be getting your questions so no worries. You're still free to harass me / send me your love.)
Answers
Most Frequently Asked QuestionAre you a pornstar?No, I am not a pornstar, stripper, or your friendly neighborhood call girl. It's just a fancy pseudonym with a long history, and two R's. Rawr.
Bombastarr.com
Bombastarr is my personal blog and my little corner in the Internet since 2005. Yes, I started writing here when I was 13 years old (aka when I was very angsty, hormonal, and always gushing at the littlest things) -- ergo, you'd have to forgive me if you come across an old post that reeks of immaturity and slightly unpolished grammar. I did a lot of growing up here, and from the looks of it, there's still a lot of growing up to do, so I don't think I'll be leaving this place any time soon.
The domain, Bombastarr.com, was purchased on June 2014 and
launched on July 2014, on the blog's ninth year (and fifth month, to be exact).
It's crazy to think that this blog is now thirteen years old, because (1) that seems like an eternity in internet years, and (2) that means if my blog were a kid, it's a teenager! That's insane.
Here's to more tales, explosive and otherwise.
So, why Bombastarr?
If you've been living under a rock and think I'm a threat to world peace or an object of covetousness, sorry to disappoint you, folks: it's just a fancy pseudonym.
As in most things, it started in high school. It began as a joke between me and a couple of friends during our freshman year. We were practicing for a field demonstration dance which involved the use of shawls, and being the crazy-always-trying-to-be-funny person that I was (or I always attempted to be) I started doing poses with the garment. Someone started taking my picture using my phone, and one shot looked like I was posing for those B-list movies (or should it be R-list, as in R-rated?) of the vegetable-nomenclature variety. #IKYWIM. Hence, the word, "Bombastarr." Yes, very cheeky, I know, but for a 13-year-old, it was quirky enough to figure as a username. That was 2005, right around the time I trying to decide on a URL for a new blog. It's been a lot of years since, and what started as a joke became something I've eventually embraced as an identity.
Despite the many other chances I've gotten to permanently move (to Multiply, Livejournal, Tumblr, Wordpress; to a bigger platform where I can earn or use the blog as a venue for commerce), I've come to realize that Bombastarr is something I can never truly leave behind. It is a place I've grown to appreciate and love because it is a place I can call my own. It's a venue for my rants, my views, my writing. It is home, and it is who I am.
Bombastarr is a glimpse of my life: the thoughts, ideas, and stories that shape it into what it is, and what it will still become. This journal has been with me for all my crazy, often embarrassing adventures, but I'm sure there will be more anecdotes and feelings and people to write about. Which is something I'm really looking forward to. After all, you know what they say about the greatest stories - sometimes, there's still a lot that's left unwritten.
Credits and thank you's
This blog is hosted by PhilHosting.net, and powered by Blogger. The layout is coded entirely by me.
Photo hosting: TinyPic, Photobucket
Question box: EmailMeForm, Ask.fm
Copyright © BOMBASTARR
Elsewhere, she wanders
<![CDATA[
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@karlabernardo
Friends, links & affiliates
<![CDATA[
<h1>Links & Affiliates</h1><div class="blogbody">
<a href="http://maryofthewild.com/" target="_blank">Ayiene Silvestre</a><br>
<a href="http://biancabiancita.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Bianca Cabillar</a><br>
<a href="http://latenightepisodes.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Cars Pascual</a><br>
<a href="http://ceejaedelrosario.tumblr.com" target="_blank">Ceejae Del Rosario</a><br>
<a href="http://inipitadventures.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Daryll Santillan</a><br>
<a href="http://mirelasestrellas.blogspot.com/" target=_"blank">Eura Yuste</a><br>
<a href="http://kissingfriday.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Gyk Icmat</a><br>
<a href="http://imyouronlyhope.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Hope Velasco</a><br>
<a href="http://deathcabforkitty.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Kaisa Aquino</a><br>
<a href="http://vain-aholic.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Maye Dellosa</a><br>
<a href="http://thedramaholic.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Ninin Sampiano</a><br>
<a href="http://speakinginwords.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Patrick Santiano</a><br>
<a href="http://walledplayground.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Paula Deveraturda</a><br>
<a href="http://thebestdamnconstellation.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Regine Aurellano</a><br>
<a href="http://arceecola.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Rose Basa</a><br>
<a href="http://spencetheknight.wordpress.com" target="_blank">Spence the Knight</a><br><br></div>
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