Pish Tosh.
Water, is taught by thirstEmily Dickinson
(c.1859)
Water, is taught by thirst.
Land--by the Oceans passed
Transport--by throe--
Peace--by its battles told--
Love, by Memorial Mold--
Birds, by the Snow.
***
"Today is a good day to feel stupid."Me
(2007, written on back page of notebook)
I went to school today, but I didn't attend a single class. Instead, I just bummed around; I stayed at the gazebo --and sat and yawned and OD'd on the fumes of a marker used by a girl who sat next to me--for three hours, and I read a poem--over and over again--until I had memorized the entire animal.
What is a Memorial Mold???
I had no idea. All I could think of was bread--and mold. And so I went home feeling like I had wasted a bath. I should have just stayed home and slept.
***
My head has been feeling strangely empty since yesterday. But yesterday was better; I felt like my head was full of nitrous oxide--laughing gas--and so I did nothing but laugh. I laughed after leading the class to prayer, I laughed all throughout Business Writing class, and I laughed at our dog when I clapped my hand and startled it awake. Ahahaha.
Now, I just feel dull. Burned-out. Aaaugh.
"Where is my mind? Where is my mind? Wheeere is my mind? "
--The Pixies, Where is my Mind?
Yammerings of a schizo man-hater-sympathizer
I haven’t had a good guy friend in (I pause typing to use my fingers to count)—seven years.
It wasn’t always like this. In grade school, I had two gay men for good (there is no best) friends. And I was a tomboy. And we had a grand time. But then, I lost their friendship in high school; one transferred to Ateneo two years ahead of me, sprouted an Adam’s apple and became a creep—not just any creep, he was a creep who carved “Kix pogi” (“Kix” being his new macho nom de guerre) onto his classroom’s broom closet. The other one was coerced into “straight-ness” by his religion, so now he lives a pseudo-straight existence; it goes without saying that he has become a bore to talk to as well.
And so I am this: a guy friend-starved college student. It worries me a teeny weeny bit that males do not have representation in my triangle of friends (yes, triangle; I only have three friends). I just can’t get this feeling out of my system that I might be missing out on something. Anyway, I do not like to believe that my personality is naturally predisposed to keeping guys at bay. I guess it’s just tough when you’re in the Humanities Division (which is made up of 99% MassComm students and 1% English); the prospective guy friends there are slim pickings. It’s always—always—that they’re either openly flamboyantly gay (not my kind of gay), or they’re really really good looking and so self-absorbed that making friends with them would be pointless. There’s a third group—those who are gay but in hiding; I’d rather not hang out with them ‘coz they’ve got issues—plus they can’t make up their mind (and things are bound to get complicated).
Anyhoo, it’s sad that the only guys I see in school outside the Humanities are:
a. slung around their girlfriend’s necks.
b. addicted to DoTA—that automatically disqualifies them from “the list”
c. pitiful sex-starved idiots in search of nubile bodies and pretty faces—that automatically disqualifies me from “their list”
d. there is no D. If there is, I have forgotten it because Papa is having a rollicking good time playing with the videoke player in the next room.
I don’t know when I had this strange yearning for male—platonic—male companionship. Dammit it must be all those shtufid K-dramas and American dramas (in the mold of O.C., OTH, or Everwood). They make it appear that having a male friend is fun!!! Hah, I must not be fooled. If the guys around me are any indication, then it would be correct to say that 98% of guys are smarmy, insensitive, raging-hormone oafs, totally unlike the caring, sensitive, thoughtful, witty, and funny types so masterfully portrayed by cute Korean actors.
I apologize in advance if there are males reading this (!) whose sensibilities (!) have been offended. I just can’t help it: in my world, all men must be marginalized.
***
In other news, I have finished the second (and hopefully final) drafts of my two Sarangani articles. I’m keeping my fingers, toes, and everything else crossed that the editor will finally get off my back and just approve the frigging articles for publication. I cannot take another week—or, God forbid, month—of stressful revisions. It’s bloody work, I tell you. Already I have incurred stress-induced zit regions on my face. I swear I’ll cry and tear my hair out if the editor asks me for another “total revision.” Merciful editor, please read this and be moved.
I have a problem--if you can call it that.
Great thoughts--brilliant thoughts--always run through my mind.
But that's just it; my mind is the only racetrack where my brilliant thoughts choose to run.
As such,
I am the only one who recognizes my genius.
Everyone else,
they think I'm just a mute.
What thoughts may come at 3:00 AM
I should be ashamed. I promised my editor-in-chief that I'd send in my articles before the start of exams. The exam days have gone by, and I have yet to accomplish 1/2 of my writing homework.
There is no end to the shame I must feel. Sir Don reminded our Poetry class a good few times that we should submit our papers on time. 75% of the class, including moi, was not around (and was still in front of the PC speed-typing our analyses) when Sir Don came to class this afternoon to collect our papers.
***
Anyhoo, I am already quite heavy-eyed. It never ceases to dumbfound me how I can spend fruitless hours sitting through long posts without a tinge of guilt, knowing that I have loads of paperwork to write. Even in the midst of exams and deadlines, I still find a way to prioritize senseless pursuits--if only to delay the work at hand. I remember one time, when I was in second year, I spent the night before the final exams reading Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen from start to finish. I do not remember how I fared in my exams then; perhaps the repercussions of that spontaneous decision to do some marathon-reading is the reason I am no longer an aspiring Med student, and instead, an aimless writer-wannabe.
Nevertheless, here I am, minding my post at 3:13 in the morning, when I should be getting much-needed sleep after subjecting myself to a week of sleep-deprivation. "Learning from countless mistakes the past" is a non-existent concept to me.
Okay, seriously though, I should go to sleep.
***
Sigh. Why is it that some great bloggers take too long to update their blogs? This is inhuman, making me wait for almost a month, coming to your site and seeing the same date and the same by-now-already-sickening title. Come on man, get off your lazy bum and start writing magnificent drivel already!
Why I Think I'll Die of a Heart Ailment at an Early Age
Suppressing one's anger and annoyance can not be very good for one's health.
Right now, I'm trying to be as calm, diplomatic, and civilized as I can while I type away in my little cubicle here at Netopia. There is another student behind me who is chirpily humming the birthday song every 3 seconds.
*Deep breaths, just keep taking deep breaths...It must be said: there is nothing in the world that annoys me more than hearing unnecessary and repetitive noise. It's up there alongside with people who sing along to songs although they never get the lyrics right. And people who make those "tsup-tsup" sounds while listening to songs with catchy melodies.
I'll give her the benefit of the doubt; she probably has no idea how offensive her caterwauling is to my eardrums since she's got headphones clamped to her ears.
Meanwhile, this energy ball of aggression and loathing ferments in my stomach, where it will probably languish and convert itself into fuel for a future heart attack. I say: it isn't the kind-hearted people who die early; it's the non-confrontational kind who dig themselves an early grave, what with the amount of pent-up and 'outbursts' they harbor.
I try and ward off a future "birthday song" LSS attack by staging a mini-concert inside the confines of my mind. How apt that the song playing in my mind is Radiohead's "Karma Police"
"...(s)he buzzes like a fridge, (s)he's like a detuned radio..."
Do you ever...
*find yourself with a sudden, uncontrollable urge to rush to the bathroom, only to find out you're all out of Kleenex and FHM issues?
*get all 'hot and bothered' at the most inappropriate occasions (i.e., in the middle of Biology class, in a crowded cinema, during your annual recollection/retreat, in an island where the only other inhabitants are middle-aged nuns, eunuchs, or tourists from any of the 10 countries with the highest AIDS rates)?
*hold a firm belief that 'self-gratification' is a sin punishable by eternal damnation in the fiery pits of hell, but still remain a slave to your 'biological' drives?
Have I got the solution for you, you naughty little horndog!
sigh.
Not one of my 'good' days. Last night I slaved over my Discourse Analysis report until early morning today. I looked at the clock; 7:30 AM--I figured I could still afford to sleep one hour before coming to my 9:15 class.
When I woke up it was already 11:30 AM; I missed my Features class for the nth time, and I was already 30 minutes late for my DA report.
I need a hug.
Tomorrow--err, later this morning, I will be leaving for Sarangani again. This time I'll be interviewing Alsons Aquaculture's plant director and someone else, and a few others. I'm currently giving myself a pep talk on overcoming shyness and being a good interviewer. Hope it works.
