Penpusher

A Cliche Heartbreak

2011-05-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

It was fourteen minutes after seven o’clock of this day when I finally decided to write about my heartbreak. It was storming violently outside and I can no longer hear the comfort songs that have been playing loudly on my speakers. The setting was a cliché. I’m quite sure that I’ve already read or watched this somewhere. It was a lazy evening but everybody seems busy. There were no stars in the sky although I haven’t checked. There are just certain things in life that you need not a proof or two for you to be persuaded.

I wanted to make this post and not to make this post. Weird and contradicting. You see, when I write, I usually learn from myself. When I hear the little voice which talks inside my head, I judge whether I make sense or not. Now, I wanted to hear myself out and judge whether I make sense or not. On the other hand, I don’t want to make this post because this will make me remember those happy times that I temporarily want to remove from my mind, for the greater heartbreak doesn’t lie on remembering the bitter details about your petty fights but on remembering the happy times together and why it won’t happen again.

My books for the Mathematical paper that I am currently working on are scattered on my table since Sunday. I haven’t opened them yet because as he said during one of those quarrels, my mind is closed and I am not capable of any learning at this time of my life. All has been said and done and I was the one who made the decision to finally give up on what we’re trying so hard to work on. When I think about the memories and happy moments we shared together, I know that I have made a wrong decision, that I have made myself a little more miserable. Yes, something in me is convinced that we can solve this together just like the other problems that made our relationship even stronger. But my rational ego tells me that I made the right decision, that I may be unhappy with my own choice but everyone else will agree that what I did was right and logical. I am preserving myself.

I am afraid to sleep. I am terrified to even close my eyes for I know that all my dreams will be about him. I am scared of myself. I know that some time from now, I will regret the decisions that I made and would want to go back to the time when I gave up and change everything. I am scared of everyone else because they would give me too many what if’s: what if you didn’t give up, what if your problem magically solved itself and what if you’re still together. I know that I would cry for the death of my dreams, for the loss of my plans on being together for the rest of our lives and for the defeat of myself who had been hanging in there for quite some time now. I know that more than missing his smiles, the warmth of his hand and the way he makes me feel so special, I will miss the girl I was whenever we are together. I will miss laughing and feeling so happy just because today is another day that we will be spending loving each other. I will miss the girl who wakes up feeling sorry because she slept accidentally while her boyfriend and she were texting the night before. I will miss the girl who gets all the butterflies in her tummy whenever her boyfriend tells her how much he loves her. I will definitely miss the way everything was, the way every verb is written at their present tense.

Now I’m taking too much time writing every sentence of this post, thinking each of it ends with a period. You see, I am not very fond of endings. I am not so proud of what I did, neither am I happy, but as a grown up, I am supposed to decide not for myself only but for the best of everyone involved. I hope I made the right decision. I hope everything will get better sooner. *hugs and pats her dear self*

How Have You Been

2011-05-22T08:11:00.001-07:00

How have you been? I ask the similar question to myself. It was more than six months when I last blogged something vague and unusual, not really explaining what’s going on with my life, and receiving comments which ask me about what happened to my writing. Well, I was and am okay. I can’t say that I was really busy because I clearly remember those times when I slack around and took this blog for granted. Now, I am trying to make it up for this little place.

First, I edited the description of myself in the little sidebar on the right. I am now nineteen. I already lost the privilege of saying aloud that I am sixteen and is actively updating this blog every week. I am now nineteen with the same doubts and fears I had when I was sixteen. I am now nineteen with higher expectations from people around me. I am now nineteen, as confused as ever.

Second, I am now on my fourth and final year in college. I am both thrilled and tired, and I do not have the slightest idea on how it could be. I am thrilled that finally, I will be graduating from school. I know that I should make the most of learning this year and not think about leaving school finally but after the endless nights of proving nothing and too many powerful mornings of eternal yawning, the thought that I’m finally graduating is too sweet to ignore and too spicy to think about often. I am also thrilled to think about the final subjects that I will be taking. Majority of those subjects are related to the thesis that I am currently working on so it’s nice to study something which screams its usefulness.

Third, I am done with Sage. Sage is a review center which admits incoming senior high school students and helps them pass the challenging college entrance examinations. As my memory allows me to recall, I made a post last year telling the blog-o-sphere about recent developments about Sage. This summer, I again committed myself to Sage. I was an Algebra teacher, a brand that I love to call myself. I had so much fun with the Sage experience this year, as well as last year, and that makes me nostalgic this early. This is my last year in teaching there and I will miss making and checking Math problems. I will miss communicating with students and trying to answer all of the ambiguities that they believed in. I will miss the Sage experience and every little lesson and fun that it gave me.

Lastly, I am up to so many things right now. As I mentioned, I am currently working on my Mathematical paper. Aside from that, I am currently inclined to digital photography. I love the way every simple things magically turn special when captured by the lens. I love the way I look fine when I smile even though gazillion of things are running in my mind. Aside from those things, I am also trying to commit myself to writing again. I do not know why in particular. I just realized that everything moved so swiftly when I abandoned my pen and paper, and I feel sorry for the times worthy of a blog post but then the feeling is not as intense and real as it was before and so I cannot write about it at the moment. I want to commit myself to writing again because this is my other world, the one who listens to all my boredom and ranting. This little space catches all my happy thoughts and stores it so that I can read them some time, when I forgot the things that matter and cannot anymore remember how it feels to be really happy. This reminds me of the melancholic times too and tells me again and again that I can get through anything that is happening in and with my life.

Till next post, blog-o-sphere! I am back, hopefully!

Cho Chang

2010-11-01T02:47:00.000-07:00

She woke up this morning and glued her edges. It was a big world for a little fragile thing like her. She yawned and folded her sheets, not really ready to embrace the breath of the morning. This will be a long day. She has to keep her poise and show everyone her beauty. No one should notice. No one will understand. She has to play her role. She should not break apart in front of everyone. Heartbreak check: rapid.

She threw a glance outside her window and looked twice in disbelief. It was the first day of the changed season. The sky was both yellow and blue and pink clouds invite her to fly and drink euphoria. She smiled. She smiled wider. It was so ironic to see a peaceful sky above a chaotic world.She wondered how many other souls are wearing the same mask as hers: the mask of strength and bliss covering all the opposites in her pretty face. She glided towards the nearest leaf, the drizzle of the night still embedded on the smooth green face of the plant. She moved her eyes towards the sparkling water on the leaf and she saw herself: her elegance, her fragility, the excess pain in her eyes. She got her make-up from her drawer and started painting herself: pink for her womanhood, yellow for the lightness of her environment, orange for all her undying hopes, and black for her real feelings. She has to be really careful for she was only glued. She walked towards her door at the edge of the tree and kissed her home goodbye, for she is not sure if this is where she’ll head later. She said a short prayer then jumped. At last, she seems ready to go outside and continue living.

She stopped by to Sunflower for her breakfast. She ordered some Nectar and drank it as coffee. It was so sweet and energizing, simply enough to help her get through the day. Then she went to the park: the happiest place that she knows. She heard the intoxicating laughter of the playing children, the vows of the lovers around and the buzzing of the bees. But he was not there, as she expected. Every eyes turn to see her, eyes which cannot see through her pain. The people caught their cameras and started focusing on her. She is a true beauty. She danced and made her photos extraordinary. She was so pretty that she was able to put smiles in the faces of all the people who saw her. She moved with so much grace, never really minding the falling yellow leaves. She sung a lullaby. No one noticed her singing. No one actually heard it. It was like a melody that no one can hear but affects the mood of everybody. She smiled. She laughed. It was so ironic that she can easily make everyone happy except herself. The show is almost done.

Cho Chang finished her seventh song with a little tear in her left eye. Those were the songs of her whole life: her hopes, her fears, her only love, and her bitterness. No. The tear will not flow. It will just wash away her colors. It will ruin the show. It will vaporize the glue that’s keeping her whole. No. the tear will not flow. She felt a strong lump in her throat. No. She is strong. She can fight her tears. She began flying to another happy place then a little child pointed at her and said, “Look, mom! A crying butterfly in autumn!”. “No honey. Butterflies never cry,” the mother answered. And Cho Chang flew and flew and flew.

On Teaching and Learning

2010-05-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

It’s a week since I started teaching in Sage Review Group. Sage is a review centre which helps students to pass various college entrance examinations. At first, I must admit that I was just concentrated in being employed this summer and earning some sufficient money. I just don’t want to spend it slacking around especially now that I won’t be spending it on school. But little by little, I was seeing the beauty of what I was doing. Little by little, I was focusing more on what the students are learning even though it’s more than of what’s ask from me.

Way back three years ago, it was I who was sitting in those chairs, faced with a pen and a notebook, hoping that somehow, Sage Review Group will help me achieve my dreams. “Bringing your dreams... a step closer to you...” is the motto of Sage. I was once aspiring to pass the UPCAT, like the students I am teaching now, and it makes me shiver to realize that a large part of their future is in my hands. I was also once sitting in those chairs, thinking about what’s ahead of me and wondering about my tomorrow. I was very uncertain that time. I didn’t have plans. I didn’t have back-up plans. I know what I want yet I am not sure how to achieve all those. I was giving my entire trust to the knowledge I gained from elementary, high school and from Sage. I want to pass UPCAT that time, and a part of me was saying that she will never forgive me if I didn’t.

Really, it is no joke to be a teacher. I can only relate now that I had a little experience. I am admiring more today those teachers who were really able to teach me well, because I already know how difficult it is to make everyone understand the lesson’s point. It takes both skill and passion to be able to teach well. A teacher should be hardworking and knows what she/he is teaching, yes, but more than that, a teacher should be filled with the passion to impart her knowledge but just enough to leave her students hungrier for more knowledge. I realized, over the past week, that a teacher is supposed to be in love with what she/he is teaching in order to teach students not only the lesson but the importance of the lesson. More than passing the UPCAT, I want my students to know the importance of working hard for a word problem even if it isn’t so realistic. I want my students to learn, to think, to not give up easily because this is the real lesson behind every book and every examination.

I still have two weeks in Sage, two weeks to really give my best in every learning session that I am to handle. I still have two weeks to make the students realize that it’s not about passing the UPCAT alone, it’s also about finding the joy in learning. Sage is not just about bringing your dreams a step closer to you, but it is also about making you realize what these dreams really are, for many students still don’t know what they want in their lives. I still have fourteen days to encourage and help them improve in whatever weakness they have. I have two weeks to give them the advices which worked for me, and the advices which I failed to heed three years ago.
I wish, I can inspire them... as much as my teachers were able to inspire me so much.

Breathing Life Into This Site Again

2010-04-07T20:02:00.000-07:00

It’s been quite a while. Actually, it’s been more than a while since I last updated this blog. I know. I sort of abandoned it and failed all my goals of creating at least 10 posts per month. I started making 30 posts a month, then down to 20, then 10, then 5, then none. There was even a time when I don’t remember this site anymore. And there were also times when I remember this but choose not to make a post or two. Surely, my hiatus was a choice and I feel sorry for this little space in the Internet.

I was ‘silent’ for some reasons. My second year in college was testing all of my abilities and I need to prove myself that I can pass all my subjects and not retake anything anymore. Because of this goal, I was to do everything to comply with myself. By everything, I mean spending majority of my time in studying and solving Math problems, and also, I have to limit myself to care about the things which distract me. I was overworking myself and I just realized that now. I kept pushing that wall which creates my boundary It was both pride and self-satisfaction, and also, inspiration.so that I can turn some of my limitations to capabilities, and eventually, skills. I kept ignoring the things which make me comfortable if not happy, and one of these things is this blog. I was only looking at Math, not to expressing oneself and the addiction to words and expressions. I also tried and was able to make several posts while I was trying so hard with Math and these posts were vague and impaired and heartbroken. It was as if I only write because of my disappointments and I can’t convey happy thoughts anymore through words. Truly, I was trying too hard, so hard that it doesn’t flow naturally and continuously, so hard that instead of feeling more comfortable, it was as if I was putting myself in a little bottle. Then, I stopped writing and just chose to prioritize Math.

Meanwhile, while taking a break in writing and prioritizing Math, I was finally seeing the beauty of that ‘subject’. Little by little, it was not a simple subject anymore but an interest and then, a field which I am intertwining myself with. I don’t know when it started and when I was turning my world the opposite way but it was as if I woke up one day and realized that I am in love with Math, the subject I cursed and hate not so long ago. The realization and feeling was appropriate. After all, I was a Math major and to love the field which I am in will make my life less miserable. At least, if ever I face difficulties, there is a consolation that I love what I am doing so I’ll continue doing it even if it brings out the worst in me. While I was heading to the writing world and was looking forward to be a writer in any way, I u-turned to the opposite side which is to the numbers’ world and I was looking forward in being a Mathematician. Man, I am not in any drugs, really. It just so happen that my first and second love were opposite fields.

Now, I’m having a break from school. I am also planning to use this break to rest and rejuvenate, and bring back the passion I once lost. I’ll try my best not to try hard (what?!). I’ll try my best to stay inspired so that my posts will be a good-read in some ways and not full of heartaches or broken egos. I want to make this blog speak again, to make it contain all that I feel again and to be the catch-basin of all the memories which I never wanted to forget – the bad ones which hopefully made me wiser and the good ones which made my life worth-living. I want to breathe life into this blog again, but more importantly, I want that life to last. Because for the past months of silence, I learned that it is not about finding happiness and finding love. It is more of making those two last long, if not forever.

See you soon, blog-o-sphere!

Waiting, Wishing and Wanting

2009-12-30T06:16:00.000-08:00

She sits by the front porch of their little home, beneath the same sky he also sees. It has always been comfortable to stay under the canopy of those tall Acacia trees without anyone knowing what she's doing. She tiptoes every night for the fear of judgments and curfews and waits here until she cannot stand the chills of the night anymore. Other nights, she brings a shawl o a jacket, mostly when she can hear the snores of the others, a sign that they are deep and lost in their own paradise of make-believe and therefore she can wait a little longer than usual. Some nights, she brings nothing but herself and her guilt of broken promises.

He lies awake all night, until the sun eats the moon away and he'll get up to start working. He cannot stop thinking about the past, the present and the future, making him all restless and unhappy while everyone snoozes… well, except her, of course. This has been his life after she decided to just meet him there. He constantly checks his mobile phone for any message from her wrongly sent to him. He waits emptily for her broken promises. He is absently hopeful to meet her again, just hanging in that desire because he knows that he cannot just throw all those memories away.
Two years of absence. Two years since she saw his dark complexion, and who can tell, maybe he is darker now, but she likes his skin tone so much. Two years since they talked about what’s up, and she’s sure that his voice is now bigger, deeper, defining his manhood. Two years since she delivered her sad goodbye. She still doesn’t know how to make her promises real, or if she has to make her promises real. Who knows, as he aged, he might lose his interests as he lost his innocence. She doesn’t know if he’s waiting for her, like she patiently does, or he’s happily living the rest of his life without her. After all, there are no signs of him, except her instincts, except her feelings, but what good are those abstracts? She needed something real, something to convince her to be true to her empty words.

Two years of waiting. Two years since he saw her long and black hair and he doesn’t know whether she cut it short or it’s longer now. He hopes that it's longer, for it adds to her irresistible charisma. Two years since they talked about what’s up, and he hopes that she still talks the way she does, for it is distinct and melodious and very mature. She seldom speaks English and finds it humble about her. Two years since he delivered his sad goodbye. He still doesn’t know whether she remembers him, occasionally, or maybe frequently like he does. He doesn’t know whether he still needs to hope, to wait, to wish secretly for her. There are no signs that she’s coming back. No messages, no letters, no missed calls. She must have forgotten her promises, for people forget the things that don’t really matter. Some days, he will wake up and go on with his life, hoping that when the nighttime comes, he will not wait anymore… because it hurts, it really does. But everything changes when he sees the stars, because her smile is bright as those little sparks. There are no signs of her, except his instincts and the voice in his head that says “What if she comes back?”, but what good are those abstracts? He needed something tangible for a fresh hope of another day. He needed something to silence the other voice which whispers, “What if she doesn’t come back?”

And it took them two years… and counting, to do the nightly routine of waiting and wishing and wanting.

Still

2009-12-23T04:43:00.000-08:00

Wake me from my deep sleep, awaken all of my quiescent senses. Shake me until I don’t feel the insensitivity anymore, until I feel the flux of my blood running in every little inch of my body. At least I’m alive, maybe not dancing but breathing. Shout loud noises into my ears until I am deaf of the silence no more, until your voice sends up and down shivers right into my spine. Open my eyes to the terrible circumstance of my reality. Show me the redness of the Earth. Show me other things than those I saw before I took the time to sleep. Show me that there’s more to life than those inevitable pain. Let me be familiar with your scent until I forgot his. Let me smell the fragrance of life, of new love, of hope so I’ll forgot about the scent of lost, of helplessness, of nostalgia and love, too. Teach me how to trust again. Teach me how to love again. Teach me how to live again. Because I forgot how.

Bring me some new diary… without the old scent of sunshine and longing and sweet forgiving, and I’ll try to write my life without him, without anything from him, without anything about him. Straighten the pretty stationery of those teens which know nothing about love. Make sure that the paper is of different shade, of different hue, just like my anticipated life now. Throw the key of my old little diary for no one remembers what happened, no one knows I’m already awake. Nothing should ever be the same as my bitter before. Nothing should ever be similar at some point or another. Bring me a pen and ink which doesn’t fit very well to my hand for if it does, I’ll just remember the bittersweet touch of his fingers tangling mine. And I will start sleeping all over again into that soft bed and comfortable pillows of isolation. I don’t know when I’ll wake up. I don’t know if I will ever wake up. I cannot lose the same battle twice. I just can’t.

Switch to a new song of a new beginning. Burn that mix tape. Break that music player. Destroy all of his notes, all of his painful chords. Close not just the chapter of that life but close the whole novel. Close the entire book. Tear every pages of that thing. Throw it to the fire. Never leave a thing for if you do, I might sleep again and I don’t want to be on that state of hopelessness, on that insensitivity, on that emptiness inside. Do not cure my amnesia. I want to stay this way. I don’t want those nightmares to control me again and hold me to my throat where I can hardly breathe and call for some help. I don’t want those ghosts of him to haunt me every night when it’s late and I am all alone and kill me with insomnia and excessive thinking and endless longing. Don’t allow them to see me once more. Don’t allow him to hurt me one more time. Never again… because for the long run, I feel so pathetic to run around the circles of his planet, never realizing that I am hiding from myself for he is still in my heart, in the core and essence of my being and existence. Never again… for in the long run, I feel so exhausted to sleep deeply and pretend not to be bothered or hurt or even notice but deep inside, I am all opposite. I don’t want to take those antidotes again. Never again… for in the long run, one look and one smile from him shall put me to a deep sleep again.

Christmas Vacation Plans

2009-12-20T05:09:00.000-08:00

A week before Christmas day, I retire from my studies. Finally, the anticipated vacation is here.

This is my first and last vacation for this year. Last summer, I spent my everyday in school while last semester break, I spent it hanging like a spider in its web with books and scratch papers. Those were not vacations for something is not a vacation if it lies amidst school works. Truly, to finally realize that I’ll spend the following weeks doing only what I want and what I am not required to do makes me want to jump for joy. Hurray!

The last week of classes this 2009 really sucked all of my enthusiasm towards studies. There were exams here and there and so many activities that waits to be failed. I felt that I crossed my limits, trying to do what I cannot for the sake of staying on my course and graduating on time, and trying to put my feet on the ground when I feel like breaking into millions of pieces just to disappear and lose all the pressure. That week was crucial in a sense that everything must fall into proper places or I will again face the consequence of failing and repeating a subject. Now that the mentioned crucial week is done and vacation is sipping in, I can only cross my fingers and hope that my best was good enough to pass those examinations and not be too pressured next year. That won’t be a good start. For now, I will sleep late and wake up late and stay as idle as I can and refill my enthusiasm meter.

This vacation, I am also planning to write again, or to try writing again. I’ve read so many books this 2009 (and thanks to the people who gave me some) and unfortunately, I was not able to come up with a very satisfying post that shall reflect all of those books I’ve read. Truly, skills rust when you don’t use them or you take them for granted. Maybe it’s also one effect of Mathematics, that when you start liking Math and you start feeling that attraction towards numbers, you feel like words are too incomplete and cannot contain exact meanings, like they are all approximation. Math and English are two opposite fields that they really repel. This hiatus, I wish to regain all those precision in words. I am not anticipating to have oh-so-good posts but just to have posts again. I wish to express myself through writing again for it has really influenced the past years of my life, catching all those wanted and unwanted thoughts for future inspection. And so I am beginning right now and hopefully, I shall continue tomorrow.

New Moon, No Moon

2009-11-22T06:17:00.000-08:00

I woke up last night from a beautiful dream. At first, I didn’t know what was it so I stood up and left my chilling pillow under the sheet and prepared a cup of hot milk to help me think. Instantly, after I had a sip, I realized that the moon was present in my dream. So that may be the reason why I termed it beautiful. After another warm sip, I realized that the very reason why it was beautiful is also the reason why it was just a dream. It was fully there … that’s it.

I hurried to bed as the realization came crashing over me. It was way too much for a night, way too much to allow me sleep again. So before it was too late, I lie down again, erasing all traces of hurt and expectations, thinking nothing but to be able to sleep again and not suffer a night under the waves of emotions, to dream again, to just forget everything. I should have known that I am good at it. Not at all.

As the moon reaches its shiniest, I stared at it with such painful realizations. It has always been my dream while I sleep and even when I am awake. I always wanted to fly up there and live in there, pulled by its gravity just like the tides of the earth, though it’s too much to imagine and too much to wish. The moon has always been far from my reach, just right for my stare. It has always been high up there with the millions of stars illuminating the dark sky. It has always been there allowing me to see through the night. The moon has always been beautiful and magnificent in all of its ways, standing-out and amazing. I follow its gravity more than how I do with that of the earth. However, once in my life, I watched the moon flew right in front of me. Indeed, it was a dream-come-true. Indeed, it was the happiest thing that ever happened to my life and I can still remember everything on that silent night when it came down. I thought that that was just easy. I thought that I can be with that moon as often as I want. I thought I can stare at it as long as I can but I am just under that same sky where everyone sees the same moon, and so I can’t call that moon as my own even though it flew down for me. Also, there were times when the moon is sometimes missing. Sometimes, it’s new moon and the sky is too dark that shadows are the only things that I can see. I’ll run and hide and try to fly, only to find out that there is no sign of the moon no matter how hard I try to search, only little stars which are randomly scattered to make an impression that there is still light. I’ll wait and pray and hope that the moon will soon shine and drive all my darkness away, then my prayer will be half-answered, because the moon will be half-there. Only half-there.

There was nothing special last night without that full moon. I wasn’t certain what to hope to feel that night, but I felt empty. I was empty of any hope and enthusiasm. I was empty of mirth and satisfaction. I was exactly opposite as my dream. I realized that I too, at times like this, is just half there, and the other half is staying on her dreams, playing on her fool’s paradise of make-believe.

A Student's Real World

2009-11-14T05:47:00.000-08:00

I woke up at five that Tuesday morning with the realization that that day was the first day of classes. It didn’t make me rush since I am not yet late. I said a little prayer and get up and felt the shivering morning under my skin. Whew. I hate to break the calmness of the morning. Turning the faucet on, worsen the cold, for the water was cold as ice and it runs while killing all the living flames inside my body until I, too, am as cold as ice. It felt like ten minutes passed and still, I made no progress at all. I guess, I wasn’t just excited for my first day.

As a child, I have always been eager for school. I was always attentive, always excited and never lazy for it. It was something I anticipate each day. I was after finishing everything my school requires me to do and eventually, on enjoying while learning with my friends and classmates. I might even say that a part of my childhood was stolen from me by my academics. At some point while I was still very young, I felt deprived about playing outside just because I have an exam tomorrow and because I study in a private school so I shouldn’t waste my tuition fee. As I grew older, I learned to feel less deprived and more privileged. Maybe, a part of the reason behind that was because I also lost that age where playing outside was both natural and a need. I was done with that stage.

I started feeling exhausted when I was in high school. The anticipation towards exam was not anymore that high. Nervousness and crammings started to penetrate my system, too. It was fun and hassle-free at some point but whole day classes usually leave me with nothing but worn-out energy. Nevertheless, it was enough that achievements and recognitions were the fruit of every labor. In life, I must say with the little experience I have, that when the people who matters see all your efforts, it makes you re-directed, that no matter how exhausted you are, it refills all your wasted energy and makes it overflowing again. It was like that in high school – difficult but still tolerable.

Now that I am in college, that tolerable part during high school is gone and nowhere to be found. The only consolation I have is the hope that someday and somehow, all these sleepless nights and difficult mornings will bear something I desire, something I deserve. I really cannot wait to get over this particular stage where I feel so burdened. I know, I don’t have really high grades but I realized that after all, success is really a measure for one’s self and not a measure given by others. I know that overall, I am giving everything I have and I can though it’s not enough for most of the times. For me, it has always been a price to be educated. For me, it has always been a special privilege but also a great sacrifice. Like studying for tomorrow’s lesson but also losing a part of my childhood along the way that I can never retrieve. It’s a matter of seeing things in a perspective that will do you good, that will leave you at your best.

I rode the bus that shall bring me a jeepney away from my university. An hour of a very sleepy travel plus the realization that I have to try my best to endure Math and Physics again. A cup of brewed coffee for survival and to avoid yawns is what this present student life requires. Less of facebook. Less of blogspot. Less of those mouth-watering novels that is not connected with academics. More of scratch paper and photocopied readings. The joy of a suspended class and the sorrow of failing a final exam all come with it. The grief of failing one of your goals and the bliss of achieving the rest of those is what this student's real world is all about.

Little Miss School Girl

2009-11-06T23:19:00.000-08:00

It was just yesterday when I graduated from high school and now, I am about to face the fact that I am on my second year in college, second semester, bound to take three Math subjects, two language courses and one Physics. Argh. When did everything change? It still horrifies me to think that everything seems changing in an overnight.

I feel so threatened to start the second semester with this kind of mood, for once it has started, there will be no more way to stop it. It will run as fast as it can and I will be left there, standing, too feeble to catch up, too slow to catch it. The next thing I’ll figure out is that I can’t log in online and I can’t spoil myself to novels even though it’s Friday night and tomorrow is a weekend, for I still have to solve several Math problems that will drive me crazy and I still have to review for Monday’s exam which I don’t have any idea on. I guess, I still haven’t completely adjusted to the life I am living today, as a college student. I am still used to the pressure-less, easy-going life in high school. Or maybe I am just tired, even though the semester is not yet starting. I still want to sleep late and wake up late. I still want to spend the whole day reading novels and being absorbed to the story they call fiction. For I know that I will miss having no academic obligations at all. It’s funny that the vacation seems so short as a weekend is but a semester seems long as an entire year.

Now, since I don’t have any choice but to make the most out of those two days left. I will try my best to be composed as possibly can. I’ll try to be ready as much as possible for the wave of stress, for the tsunami of pressure and for the ocean of worries there is to come. I know that I need not to worry too much for at the end of the day, everything will soon be alright. That is a natural tendency. But I just can’t help doing so whenever it crosses my mind that the proportion of the things I was able to do and those that I was not, lies larger on those failures I made. Sometimes, it makes me sad to realize that I sacrificed so many things that will surely make my day for fulfilling my responsibilities but then again, I still wasn’t able to accomplish all those responsibilities I took time to prioritize. It’s like I gained nothing but more disappointments oozing all around my veins, and will linger there to haunt me forever.

I don’t have any resolutions for this coming semester. I don’t have any “I’ll try to be better this sem!” or “I will try to shoot for higher grades!”. It’s not like I don’t have plans or I don’t have any goals to pursue. It’s more of I am constantly aiming for those, although I also constantly fail. There was never a sem that I didn’t do my best. There was never a sem that I asked Fate to do all those that I cannot. I constantly strived… and that is what I will continue to do, although I am tired, although I am lazily returning to school on Tuesday.

Back to school, back to pressure. Back to Math books and goodbye to novels.

A Lesson From Nature

2009-10-27T06:43:00.000-07:00

It all seemed to be a typical Tuesday afternoon at first, but as soon as I realized that there isn’t any scheduled homework to do or lesson to understand, I realized that this is no typical Tuesday.

Tuesday, for Rhaingel the student, marks the official start of the week. During this day, I usually see myself getting ready for a busy week. Now is different. Since it is my vacation, I decided to do something different: to try to understand the pleasure my mom sees on gardening.

We don’t have a huge backyard to plant on. My mom keeps her plants in pots and puts them on our balcony for everyone to see. At first, I don’t know what drives her to water those plants regularly and even bought more for her to take care. I thought that the stress my sister and I are giving her is still tolerable for her so she resulted to buying potted plants and flowers. Eventually, those flowers bloomed and the plants got healthier… and my mom is happier more than ever.

I first volunteered to water her plants one afternoon, just last week. It was also the week when my mom is busy with her works and other stuff that concerns our family. So I thought that it was the perfect timing and somehow, it was. Days passed by and I became more idle and everyone just seemed to be busier. So chores are on me. I continued watering the plants but because the past days are very boring that they drive me really insane, I decided to do additional work and try to apply what I learned in my Home Economics classes. I tried to find the shovel and rake but the rake won’t show up. So I just used the shovel to “play” on the soil – to bury the withered leaves I just finished picking up and allow the plant to finally breathe on its roots. I got so many scratches, particularly on the thorny stems of the flowers, but I felt that I am part of the nature and the nature is a part of me, a very special one.

I found peace - or should I say, simplicity, the one which I always take for granted thinking that life in the city with the street lights and air pollution makes me grow. Then I saw the flowers budding, starting to bloom, and beginning to wave hello to the world which is often too complicated for such a delicate petal. After I saw how magically the elements of the earth nourishes something magnificent, I forgot all the scratches from those thorns, for they are nothing compared to the beauty of this planet. How I wish that my mom saw all her hard work for those plants. It will surely make her happy.

A part of me wishes that it’s vacation forever. I am thankful and privileged for the knowledge that I do receive everyday but at some point, it changes me into someone sophisticated, someone who is not originally me. I guess a vacation doesn’t just mean a rest from school works but can also mean a rest from that someone you are pushed to be and allows you to see the beauty of that someone you used to be, originally and without all the pressure and chaos that shapes a person, eventually.

Hiatus

2009-10-23T03:56:00.000-07:00

Three days of my almost three-week vacation just slipped by so easily, so swiftly, like sand on a child’s little hands. It still feels like I will be having an examination soon and I am just playing around so as to avoid too much pressure. It doesn’t feel like a normal vacation yet but I am so glad that my body is getting familiar to the new tentative schedule I have for myself – sleeping, eating, playing badminton and reading pocketbooks I received during my birthday.

The first three days was spent under pillows, rendering me a longer time to get some sleep and vivid dreams. Oh, how buoyant it is to finally have the rest and refuge that was not given to me for so long! No words can describe how perfect it is to wake up late with the sun already silhouetting the tallest of houses on our place, while I silently smile with the thought of my last dream. During mornings, on the other hand, the most productive thing that I am able to do is to read some novels which magnificence was always deprived of me during school days. Indeed, I am so excited to jail myself in between those words I really found interesting and most of the time, inspiring. Sometimes, beautiful stories can wait but an examination tomorrow causes all the hurry. It’s inevitable to sacrifice some of passion for a better future. Now, I am putting all those passion on the top of my list to accomplish.

This semester break, so far, is the most exciting one in a sense that I feel bored but still able to do what pleases me and what pleases the others too (i.e., watering my mother’s plants or enhancing photographs of others who already lost their voices in begging me please). How I wish that this won’t end yet... for I am glad that I am pleasing as many people as I want. It is such an uplifting feeling to try to be a blessing to others and to help them as much as I can. Unlike the other semester breaks I had, this one is not depressing and not wasted. I see each day as a unique and special one that is vital to redirect me for the upcoming semester, which seems like a very challenging one.

Perhaps, you can also ask why I don’t have so many posts this October when all the while, I am on a leave or a vacation. The truth is, I stopped pressuring myself to make blog posts for the sake of a large collection of writings. Now, I write because I need to unleash those thoughts that continuously burn my soul and not because I need to meet my quota of twenty posts per month. Sometimes I lose quality for the sake of quantity, like the more I write, the less I am able to express, that’s why I decided to write whenever I feel like spontaneous but not force those words to come out. Writing has never been my world, but it has always been my other world, the world which saves me often from the brink of despair.

Excitement fills all the minutes of my everyday. I am thrilled to think what will happen tomorrow or even later! The vacation package seemed to contain so many surprises which I cannot get enough of. Of course, I do expect some low points too, but that will just balance everything. I realized that the real essence of vacation is not to provide rest but to break all those boring routines in one’s life. I more than blessed and glad to finally have one after some exhausting time which felt like forever.

Oh, So Right

2009-10-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

It was when I was heading home thru an hour drive that I realized that the semester is officially over. Final exams are finally done and I have nothing to pass and nothing to worry about. It was when it started raining hard and the lightning struck when I thought that as soon as I step my foot on our home, I’ll be minding nothing but eating, playing and reading novels each day. Oh, so right… the feeling of an accomplished semester, the feeling of finally unburdening my shoulders and breathing light.

Aside from the fact that I am now in my second year in college, this semester differs in a way that this provided me with a satisfied feeling after. I’m not anymore bitter and regretful after almost six months of learning. I am happy and crossing my fingers that I did not fail a subject or two, but if in case I did, I see no point in sour-graping over something I thought was best.

This semester, I learned to fight the monster inside of me. I learned to trust myself at times and believe in what I can possibly do. I somehow learn to prioritize and try not to do things which can cause my regrets later on. I learned that feeling too inferior will result to nothing but negative results. This semester, I learned to give my best shot even at helpless situations with the undying hope for miracles and acknowledgement of efforts, to drain myself with man-made mortality because I am still a student and a student is supposed to study and give everything in her academics. A student is not supposed to be comfortable all the time. If that is the case, the price of being educated is not worth it, after all.

However, though I learned a lot in the first semester experience, the pressure feels like it was doubled, or even worse. Drowning myself from all the major subjects I was taking, there were times when I forget why I was doing it. Like, nothing has its reason and everything is senseless. Maybe it was the exhaustion that paralyzes even my optimism but whatever it is, it surely made me tempted to rest and stop pushing, to forget everything and just focus in sleeping. Cramming during Monday nights also seemed to be unbearable now. There were times when the pressure overwhelms my ego that it simply surrenders. Being in second year college is like crossing one fourth of the desert when your camel died. It’s very wasting to go back where you came but really difficult to reach the end of the desert. But like a wasteland, amidst the hopelessness and fatigue, somewhere lays an oasis which can give you the re-direction or the lift that you have been waiting forever. Thank you for the person who never gets tired of my tiredness and complaints. How he encourages me can be compared to a cool water enlivening the dead cells of a thirst body, and even more than that. If I am considering this semester a satisfying one, it is because I found my own brand of oasis and I got up to my feet again, convinced that five semesters to go and I’ll be what I want myself to be.

I call this thing, semester break, and so does everyone. After weeks of completing my sleeps again and finding the joy of slaking around, I’ll get back for the second semester, but that is still too far from now to look ahead and anticipate. Now, I am doing things which I can’t manage to do because of exams and graded recitations. Back to the blog-o-sphere, I guess. More words, less numbers :)

Forgetting to Forget

2009-10-16T22:20:00.000-07:00

I already forgot the taste of nostalgia
and the satisfaction of being his Bella
I already forgot how the pain usually feels
When I remember all our vows, all our deals

I can’t hear now his sweet cold voice
And how it unbalances me and ruins my poise
I can’t see now his charming little eyes
And how instantly it became my vice

Not anymore do I respond to his name
Not anymore do I play my part on his game
I do know by now what’s over is over
I do know by now that we can’t be together

Farewell to a second chance, farewell to him
My hate and pain already reached my brim
Though I can’t stand his million dollar smile
Can’t swim with his other girls, on his river Nile

But though I know what’s right and wrong
And even convinced everyone that I’ve moved on
Still I die everyday to the gloom and unbelief
That after everything, man, I still love him so deep

I never loved him less but loved him even more
During the time that we closed each other’s door
“Stop hoping, stop waiting”, that’s what my ego said
But my heart answered, “You really want me dead?”

What You Missed II

2009-10-16T05:12:00.000-07:00

Waking up with the headache last night was unbearable. It was October 3, Sunday, and I just rose from a real shattering migraine. I drink nothing but water and juice yet I managed to remain awake for the last 30 hours. So this must be it: sleepless days and nights.

I was about to explode literally when I remember where all these aches came from. Last night was the continuation of my party, opening gifts and trying to express my gratitude to all who greeted me and all who came, and the night before yesterday’s was my birthday, my 18th birthday.

It’s well-known that the age 18 signifies a special leap for a girl, or should I say a lady, or a woman. When I think about that age and I realize that I already am 18, I shiver inside. I am not YET used to it. It feels like the 10-year old me is still trapped on a body of a lady, obliged to act accordingly so as not to disappoint anybody. Whenever they talk about me and even add that I am a full-pledged 18-year old lady, I laugh silently because deep down inside me, I know and I feel that I am still around 15. To old for playful mistakes but too young not to repeat those mistakes again. Whenever they say that I am hardworking enough to study in a university like UP, I smile to the thought that I am more responsible to harvest my Farmville’s artichokes on time and not to let them wither. It’s not like I am 17 yesterday and when I woke up, everything’s changed. I realized that to be who I am today was indeed a long journey so the real comparison is today and ages ago. I lied when I invited everyone to join me as I kiss my childhood goodbye... because the truth is, I'll never say goodbye to my childhood.

Though I am shamelessly admitting that I am still irresponsible by heart and by nature, I am glad that through 18 years of painstakingly enduring everything I have to offer, my family is still there, willing to join me in the next 180 years of my life. I am thankful that they are still proud of me after 18 years of achievements and mess. Though people may really come and go, family is not one of those people. Once a family, always a family and I can attest to that fact that even though I really am a pain in the ass most of the times and I surely kill all the nerves on my mom’s head, after five minutes or so, we’re back to being the same happy family, like nothing happened but all lessons learned.

Anyway, the first week of my being 18 was spent in between Physics books and notes and calculators. Finally, it is not something I am irritated to do but something I’ll be proud of because even though I had a party to celebrate on, the first week of my new age was spent maturely, though uniquely. I am proud to say that after the first semester of my second year in college, I am finally enjoying learning, like it is not something I am obliged to do but something I am luckily offered. Pressure from all the professors and very intelligent classmates is still there. Cramming is also present but if I learned something very important, it is to fight inferiority and focus on self-satisfaction rather than social comparison. Right now, I am satisfied with the goals I have for myself and doing everything to be really committed to these goals. Finally, I am growing up with respect to this aspect, though I still get bored at special times (At least not very often now).

What You Missed I

2009-10-13T07:30:00.000-07:00

After almost a month of my un-blogging, I don’t know where to start. I missed writing about the latest so that left me with topics highlighted on my history. First, the Ondoy-typhoon which left every Filipino scared and concerned about what's next. Second, my 18th birthday and lastly, the last week of my first semester in my second year in college.

So many things happened since then. There are so many changes which made me quite doubtful, so many surprises that caught me off my guard and so many projections that I cannot wait to experience.

Though the anticipation of the future happenings leaves me restless and nothing but excited, this space in the net should contain a chronicle about what happened while I chose to remain silent in the blog-o-sphere. Not that I have nothing sensible to say. It’s just that some things cannot be contained on a word or two and some feelings cannot be inscribed in black or blue. I tried to write a poem that somehow summarizes everything I missed but then, for the longest run, words failed to satisfy me.

It was Friday night, the 25th of September when I heard the weather forecaster informing us that we shall have a rainy weekend. It was okay for me then since I only have plans of staying at home the whole weekend and reviewing for an upcoming Physics exam. I woke up the next day, feeling like the night did not pass at all. It was dark and cold and dull outside. It was raining so hard that I can hardly hear my beating heart. There were flashes of lights that tear the calmness of the gray sky. It was frightening to wake up at 10 in the morning and witness everything while you were expecting a somewhat bright and shiny morning. I immediately turned on the television and saw how the typhoon washed Marikina City while I was sleeping and dreaming. Kind of unfair. Is that what the forecaster termed as "a rainy weekend"?

Unlike other typhoons, Ondoy lasted quite long. It was Monday and classes were suspended. I saw it as an additional time to review and rest and a longer time to hug my pillow tight. Meanwhile, the typhoon also implies that my party, scheduled that Friday, October 2, will be a swimming party. Argh. A flood-swimming party. Because of the typhoon, people will have some valid excuses why they would not attend my 18th birthday. Saddening, that is, but considering safety, a Friday night swimming party is not so appropriate amidst some storm if you don’t want to cough and sniff while swimming.

As a Filipino student who is fortunate enough not to lose anything while the storm is ongoing, I can only hope and pray that the victims will soon find refuge and move on with their life with a fresh start no matter how history felt to them. Oh, the horror, to see the people crying because of losing and to see them swimming, holding on for their dear lives. The typhoon is not only a signal of a class suspended. It also tells me that there are people grieving and losing everything they once had, that not everyone is as fortunate as I am. It’s scary how everything changed in an overnight, how perfectly fine you are in the morning reading some novels or singing in the shower and after a life-changing-minute, everything’s lost and nothing appears as how it first appeared.

Currently, Philippines is trying to recover from the wrath of nature. Everything happens for a reason, after all, so maybe, there is a hidden lesson behind all of these – lessons which are still vague but will reveal itself in the perfect time. For now, prayers for a better situation is the least that I can offer.

Runaway

2009-09-25T04:01:00.000-07:00

Say it's true, there's nothing like me and you

I'm not alone, tell me you feel it tooAnd I would run away
I would run away, yeah, yeah
I would run away
I would run away with you'

Cause I am falling in love with you

No never, I'm never gonna stop
Falling in love with you

Close the door, lay down upon the floor

And by candlelight,

make love to me through the night

'Cause I have run away... I have run away with you.

Runaway by the Corrs; Photos from weheartit.com

Finally

2009-09-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

Finally, I’ll be turning eighteen in about two weeks.

By the word 'finally', I am referring to the people who are already very excited while I was still eight. I was the first-born of the family, the first daughter and the first grandchild. There is no way you can blame these people for feeling so excited.

Now that I am almost two weeks from finally bidding my pediatrician goodbye, I realized that everything is not how I first saw the world.

Back to the days when I was still elementary, I thought that nothing is going to be hard except for daily quizzes and spelling every Wednesday. It was my only world and I guess, the only pressure I can tolerate at a very young age. When I was in high school, nothing is worse than Monday morning cramming when last night’s party was still in my head. Now that I am in college, Math exams are the worst. Especially when your professor is not the generous and passionate kind. There are still cramming. There are still daily quizzes which occasionally knocks me off but unlike elementary and high school, I am just a step away from bathing into the real world. Now, it feels like every exams count, like failing one would eventually imply that a company will reject me and won’t employ me in any way. I haven’t felt any pressure like that before. I guess, the pressure increases as the aging thing goes on.

Besides college, I struggle inside to the thought that I can now get a driver’s license, buy liquor and cigarettes on the restricted part of the grocery (not that I have plans), vote for government officials, work legally, and do the stuff that are only for eighteen years old and above. I really cannot wait to avail the privileges that are equipped with being eighteen.

Though, I am nervous.

I won’t have any valid reasons now for acting childishly when all the while, I still feel young inside, like I can tumble on the field and dance as I get up like I don’t care for anything else in the world. Poor young Rhaingel, she’s stuck in a body of an eighteen-year old! She doesn’t have any choice except to act her age.

Two weeks and I’ll still be me. Though maybe, I should consider growing up. In fact, I should start growing up because tonight I’m still a child but tomorrow, I’ll be some lost stranger in the real world. Scary but real and inevitable.

I guess I am also excited about turning eighteen but horrified to turn nineteen, especially twenty. Twenty sounds a serious thing already and though I am constantly preparing myself emotionally and mentally for that, I am still fifteen at heart, still loves blogging, still hates studying, still like ice cream and still believes in Santa Claus.

Aging. Maybe it won’t hurt at all. Maybe it isn’t a big leap after all that will be very remarkable, but I hope that the eighteen-experience will be great for the seventeen was utterly the best so far. Seventeen going eighteen… can’t help but be excited.

Almost There, Almost Done

2009-09-18T20:42:00.000-07:00

It was last Thursday night when I came to realize things. It was almost twelve o' clock in the clock and I haven’t abandoned my Math exercises, too scared to fail. Tomorrow is the fourth long exam and I need to get a good grade so I won’t have a cardiac arrest while taking the finals. I need to pass this so that the pressure won’t be that large that I can’t anymore contain it.

Every optimization problem seems to sink me in the bed where I am sitting. Sweet temptation. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to finally lie down and be contented for this day and just hope that tomorrow is not a day that I will regret forever. I know that I’ll eventually get through. I just hope that I will get through with no havoc done.

From the five-hour sleep, I woke. From the supposed-to-be-an-hour-travel-elongated-by-two-hour-traffic, I survived, and a chapter quiz in my Statistics 101 is what awaits me. I knew it. I was not surprised that there is a quiz, but though I am completely aware, I didn’t even hold a Stat book to review or scan. Worse is I knew it was coming but I cannot convince myself to listen to the professor. Sometimes, I know the right thing to do yet I’m still choosing the wrong one, which seems interesting and convenient all this time. The exam wasn’t a terrible one, after all. It was considerate enough for my professor to allow us to open our course notes so it was not very regretful that I didn’t even scan. It was so kind of him, in fairness, to think that Stat is not our only subject at school but the exam and adrenaline rush was enough to wash all the Calculus I studied last night.

I am a Math major, for the nth time and Calculus is the art of my soul. It was a nightmare before but is now a part of my student life. Calculus is my favorite subject. It challenges my ego. It humbles me down and convinces me to strive for more… and more and more… It tells me not to be contented about my scores because I can do better, that’s why it’s very important for me to get a good score now. I’ve been studying a week before the exams so I got no excuse for failing this time.

Fortunately, it was the kind of exam my professor didn’t pour all of his hate on. It was ‘answerable’ and by that, I am grateful and contented. (Did I tell you that he sometimes makes exams that will make your nose bleed?) Surely, my exam won’t be perfect but I am crossing my fingers that somehow, it’s better than my last two long exams (okay, never mind the last two exams. This isn’t about them).

The worst isn’t over yet. Since we are fast approaching October and weeks seem to go on overnight, the first semester of my second year in college is almost over. It means several things: First, I am now closer to graduation and closer to the real world. I really cannot wait. Second, it’s almost goodbye to my perfect schedule this sem. Another uncertain schedule is coming and it who knows, it might be the worst schedule everyone thinks of. Third, if the semester is ending, finals are unavoidable. Darn. Final examinations which are cover-to-cover and are scheduled day-after-day. Sleepless nights are coming. Lastly, I think I’ll be appreciating sem break now since I am yearning for long hours of sleep.

Parting Time

2009-09-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

I remember the days When you're here with me

Those laughter and tears we shared for years

Mem'ries that we had for so long it's me and you

Now you're gone away, you left me all alone

Go on, do what you want but please don't leave me

You'll break my heart

Hey, what should I do Babe, I'm missin' you

Please don't disappear

these are the words that you should hear

Time and time again I wish that you were here

I don't wanna lose you girl I need you back to me

I don't wanna lose you Baby can't you see

Oh, I need you You've been a part of me

I wish someday you'll be back home

Please come home...

Parting Time by Rockstar

Photos from weheartit.com

Everywhere

2009-09-06T06:55:00.000-07:00

…Then it occurred to me that I am seeing his face everywhere, very clearly, very magically yet entertaining.

He is in the clouds, his beauty surpasses the shining sun, and his smiles seem to chase all the storms away from what he defines as paradise. He is in the side of the road where I am walking, watching my every step, watching me drifting and slowly notice him. He is in my Math notes, distracting me from nauseating numbers and differential equations and inspiring me at the same time to catch up on him. He is on the water I am drinking, tickling my lips and quenching my needs. He is in my dreams, drowning me, pulling me and giving my life a new meaning and making everything appears like there is really some sense. He is between the stars and the full moon, surpassing both of them with the brightness in his eyes and the gravity of his irresistible smiles.

He is there with the fresh air I breathed this morning, providing me with a redirection, a fresh start, a peace in the inner restless me. He is with the running river flowing through the sea, providing life not only to me but to everyone close to his soul, enlivening them, flowing through the clogged veins of yesterday. He is in the most sparkling mist of the breaking dawn, signaling that the night is over and that brightness will soon sink in. He is with the fire between the charcoal and wood, providing heat and life to me who is frozen and cold before he came and touched my life. He is in the soil that continuously nourishes and supplies life to my withering leaves and stems and rotten fruit, allowing me to be radiant and shiny and full of life.

He is with the twisted g-clef of every music composition which came from my heart. He is in every song, in every line, in every falsetto of the depths of my desire. He is in between my fingers kissing the piano’s keyboard, trying to create a masterpiece out of depression and love. He is in my silence, the true music’s face and the emphasis in every living masterpiece. He is in my broken note which made the maestro raise his left eyebrow uncomfortably. He is in those silenced screams and hushed melodies, witnessing how bitter life sometimes treats me.

He is on my wounded heart, kissing every scratch, healing all the aches and changing the situation so I would hurt less. He is on my fiery soul, never leaving me alone when everyone seems to do so. He is there on my shoulders, comforting me when I have lost and failed, telling me it’s okay even though I don’t feel like it is. He is in my loud laughter, capturing another momentous minute of my life and holding the pieces back so I will have something to reminisce later on. He is there on my piercing tears, letting all the pieces flow so I would have nothing to hold back and hang around when I feel all alone. He is there at my shadows while I stand courageously at the light. He remains hidden and unnoticed in the dark shadows and later on, I’ll miss him though I feel his presence and I’ll miss him more because I see him in everything that exists and in everything that does not. He is there at my back when I was trying to stand for myself. He was waiting for the perfect moment so that he’ll carry me around and he’ll stand up for the both of us. He is there with my every breath, my every blink, my every pulse. He is in me and I am in him and we belong to each other.

Twilight Saga

2009-08-31T05:40:00.000-07:00

Now I know the reason behind the Twilight Saga fanatics. They really are reasonable and rational in all of their ways.

It wasn’t long since I started to read the first among Stephenie Meyer’s obra maetras: Twilight. As far as my memory helps me, it was June when I started going over the pages and let the venom spread through my veins, unstoppable and irresistible. It wasn’t that very addicting at first. After finishing the first book and feeling satisfied, I was eager to know what happened next so I allowed myself to be changed more after New Moon. Swear, the break-up with Edward was something that made me miserable, too and at some point, made me cry if it happened to me, too. The new friendship with Jacob made me sensed the upcoming love triangle and I was just excited to hear all about the jealousies and choices that will be made. It was surely a good twist of the story. With every character perfect in my mind and because of my intense curiosity and cravings for the next part of the story, I took another step towards Eclipse and felt a slight hatred for Bella because she loved two people – well, not people – at the same time. It wasn’t fair, I thought, and she doesn’t deserve Edward. Though at the end, she chose Edward over her best friend, I wanted her to finish whatever special feelings she had for Jacob Black. Also, I was more than curious for her soon transformation. I wasn’t going to let the enthusiasm fade so after turning the last page of Eclipse, I was beginning the first of Breaking Dawn. I can’t and won’t put the book down.

Just last week, when exams were everywhere, I found my refuge in Breaking Dawn. I was there in the beautiful wedding, heard the bride’s and groom’s “I do’s”, I was also a part of their honeymoon, a part of Bella’s need to protect her ‘child’ and also a part of Edward’s and Jacob’s necessitate to see the girl they love living. I, too, was a witness to Bella’s transformation and new life and to the other new life that charmed everyone else, Renesmee. Reading about her made me feel her little hand holding my face.

This isn’t a review about the four books and doesn’t contain any spoiler that will surely bore you while reading the books. This is a thumbs-up for Meyer because surely, he made another world apart from us. There aren’t any doubts now for those perfect vampires and trustworthy werewolves. The imagination has come to life and I might say that Meyer crossed the line between fiction and non-fiction, easily convincing everyone that life isn’t just about humans but the super naturals, too. Most of all, Meyer had given every reader a taste of forever and how sweet that is. I, myself, am a witness to the last jeopardy the vampire clans faced. It was almost heart-breaking to witness how Edward and Bella’s irrevocable love might come to an end, after all, how all of the sacrifices might appear worth it but still ended. For a reader, (though I knew that Meyer must be dead by now if it wasn’t a happily ever after story), I will never stand to read that the two are destroyed even though un-separated.

Too bad there isn’t a fifth book. I’ll be glad to read about the Voulturi’s official end of supremacy. Yet very and already overly satisfied with the saga.

I Really Should Have...

2009-08-28T20:20:00.001-07:00

Sure, didn’t see that one coming.

The moral of my story speaks loudly to me: Never assume a “Yes” just because there’s no “No” and the never-ending life’s theme: Expectations hurt.

I should have known.

During this short-lived week, I was eager for the weekend. I was happily crossing days out from my calendar, jumping from 30 days to go until 2 days left. Swear, this weekend was the one I think about when there’s nothing to deal with. Surely, this gave birth to many daydreams which are still clear up to now. This was the weekend that gave me so many vivid dreams and a hoping heart. All the dreams left me with intense anticipation as I woke up and eventually, more intense disappointments, too, as the real weekend sinks in. All dreams were vague but clear, colorful and dull, bright and dark, in a sense that everything contradicts its little silly self. I was happy in my dreams and satisfaction seemed to soothe my skin. It is what I wanted. That was all I wished for.

I should have known.

As I opened my eyes to start this day, leaving the last dream that has something to do with all the expectations, I shivered and wanted to cry. The satisfaction was running away, like I was chasing light and like I was holding water and there is nothing more to do. Tomorrow will be the day and I am going to that crowded place alone.

I should have known.

I have so many issues with my dreams but the usual ones would leave me expecting for nothing. I should have known or at least, saw that one coming. Since it was shouting loud to me, I should also be speaking what it says for the nth time: Dreams are just dreams, always. May it be the dream which I saw myself playing with my dad or the past dream that we were biking again, or my present imaginings that we will have a happy time together on Sunday, the “dreams-are-just-dreams, always” still applies and I shouldn’t be stuck ever again on that muddy, sticky, overly gross wishing well. I should have known that the higher I fly with my impossible dreams, the more hurtful it will be if I fell down or was let down.

I now know, but the fact about expectations will most likely to be forgotten again as soon as eveything’s fine. I am a fool and I expect a lot. Right, right, I’ll do something about it.

I should have known.

Mom, I Love You

2009-08-20T03:11:00.000-07:00

Maybe it was because tomorrow is mom’s birthday that I am making a post about her, but then even if the situation isn’t like this, I know deep in my heart that I am dying to tell the world that she is my mom and if I will be given a chance to live in another life and be able to choose my parents, it will still be them.

I cannot tell you every little detail which made me lucky to have a mother like mine because this blog and these words will never be sufficient, but I can tell you some things that might provide you with the picture.

My mom is a different mother. She isn’t the classical one who protects their daughter from all the jeopardy of the world. She isn’t the one who stays at home and serves three meals to her family. She has always been a career woman whom I really love and admire. Despite her duty as a nurse, she never failed a duty to be the personal nurse of the family. She is always the first to hear our first coughs, always first to feel the heat of our fever and always first to notice when depression strikes in. My mom gave me the opportunity to experience everything. Because of her, I can truly say that I have no regrets since I was able to try everything I am curious about. When I was young, she stood from far away, watching me play and bruise my knees. She was just watching when I fell, when I cried and when I eventually got the courage to stand up again. She never told me never to play again whenever I go home with overflowing sweat and dirty wounds. For her, it was always part of growing up and now that I have the enough mind to appreciate everything, I can only cry, not because the wounds and bruises still hurt but because I realized that she was selfless enough to let me grow and learn.

When I first started going to school, my nursery classmates cried when their momma left them during classes. I did not shed even a single tear for that. I know that my mom will be waiting for me and will treat me to Jolibee as soon as I finished my classes. I know that that is what I needed to do. When I first started going to college, I cried when my mom left me on my dormitory. I just know that there will be no signs of her during the nights that I need her encouarges the most and that she is not anymore there to take care of me as her young baby. I was independent. No Jolibee treats and no mommy waiting for me outside of my classroom. For me, it was the real world and I was too afraid that I resulted to crying and wishing that I may still safely stay on my mom’s womb. Rationally, I cannot live without my mom. During my first cry to the world, she was already there. She was there when I have to share my victories with someone and more importantly, she was there when I have to share my defeats with a person who will still be proud of me no matter what. She was there when I broke my heart, not telling me “I told you so” but hugging all the pieces together so I won’t break down. She was still there when I told her, “Mom, you’re wrong” and was waiting patiently after I realized that I really was the wrong one.

For all the disappointments and failed expectations that I caused her, she was still there, loving me unconditionally because I am her daughter and she is a mother, my mother. Simple as that. I wonder if I already gave her the idea how much I really appreciate every little thing she did. I wonder if she knows how happy I am to have an ice cream cone or a popcorn which she personally brought for me. Most especially, I wonder if my gratitude will be enough for the two lives she have given me - my life and hers, too. Nevertheless, I can still thank her now and do everything to be a blessing to her, too.

Mom, I love you, even though I usually fail you, even though I am stubborn at times. Mom, I need you, even though I lock the door of my room when I am mad at your decisions or I don't text when it's already late and you don't know where am I. Mom, I am thankful for having you as my mother, even though I sometimes appear unappreciative or insensitive. When you cry, I cry more.

The Desert's Call to the Rain

2009-08-10T04:51:00.000-07:00

Oh, rain, how long shall you keep me waiting?
For your sweet kiss on my face so soothing
Will you wait for more corpses, dead of thirst?
Will you still wait for the volcano to burst?
So many arid nights I waited and wanted you
The sun has sucked up all that’s blue
And what’s left is only dullness and gray
Come back to me, I hope and pray
And never shall I wait too long again
When you come back, forever has begun
And the little angel will cover the sun
The snow so unique and pure will come down.

I watch the sky change to all its hue
Still, rain, no signs of you
What took you so long to finally be back to me?
Was it the wonder hill or the beautiful valley?
What blinded you and caused you not to see?
That I was waiting for you patiently and faithfully.
What made you deaf and caused you not to hear?
All my bittersweet whispers and messages for my dear.
What made you numb and caused you not to feel?
The nostalgia of missing our love - definitely real.
What made you endure doing nothing for us?
When I was here, remembering all the past.

Oh rain, during the day, I can’t help but weep
To listen to your promises which are all deep
But empty, verily, verily, verily, so empty,
Guiding me nowhere, leading me blindly
And when I see the clouds rolling by above
And the flocks and herds and the lonely dove
I know that I should only keep my hopes alive
For you are coming back, like a bee in its hive
Only I have to patiently wait for your coming
Not be tempted by the lake and river, oh darling.
You’ll come back after some exhausting travel
Finding me still here, not able to say farewell.

What's Up for Next Week

2009-08-10T02:05:00.000-07:00

August 10, 2009 – the last day of the weekend before non-stop deal with numbers and symbols again. This time, I’ll admit that I am grabbing the weekend close to me so that it will last longer than how it usually does. I feel a sort of uninspired and tired to go to school and fight my sleepy head and try to absorb everything that I need to learn so that I’ll be able to retrieve a thing during the exams. I admit, I am still losing my self here. I still have a little enthusiasm to get me through but I hope that that enthusiasm will leave me smiling after a storm of Math experience washed me out to the extent of my limits.

It’s exactly a week before I take a deadly exam in Math 109, which is a subject about proving and techniques in doing so. I call it deadly because I’ve seen how the professor gives an exam. She is mercy-less and more than challenging. Her quiz was something I didn’t expected and is hard enough to fit for an exam. The exams she does will really knock you off and will tell you what you don’t know. It’s also a good way to enforce humility and limitations. A week after that exam, Physics 71 will give me the thrill. Honestly, I am excited for this second long exam. Maybe because, I am studying Physics more now than how I did for the last months. I am seeing Physics now as something useful and not something which bores me a lot, though it still does at times. However, though I am seeing the little beauty of Physics, there is still the un-assurance of passing my second exam. I am still not confident enough although I am taking some time to study it. In that same week, it is Statistics 101’s turn too. My professor is cool but gives difficult and long exams, too, the kind which will give you the thrill of not finishing what you’re answering. He is also a fast teacher – the kind which needs fast-learners too in order to maximize learning.

Now, given the things that I will do for the next two weeks, I am finding it hard to look forward those. I am sitting comfortably on my chair now, faced with words, faced with photographs, listening to music, doing whatever I want and pressure-less. It’s difficult to step out of my comfort zone and be ready that failure may soon step in. Right now, I feel like a caterpillar that is afraid to undergo metamorphosis. Any courageous step might break my pieces all together.

Yet I have no choice for the world will continue spinning and the clock will continue ticking and later on, Mr. Moon will wave goodbye and it’s already Tuesday and classes are on. I only have to choose between being ready and playing on a fool’s paradise of make-believe that there aren’t any upcoming exams and everything will flow as I want them to be. Never let any fright master you, I should have known.

Good thing that my difficulties are a lot smaller than my God. Whatever it is that is happening, it is bound to make me more knowledgeable and eventually better. He won’t give something I cannot handle and besides, this is God’s battle between Math for I am fully dependent on his power and authority. I reside in Him and He resides in me. Nothing is too hard for Him, not a deadly Math 109 exams or a long Stat 101 exams or a confusing Physics 71 exams. Chicken. These exams are not even painful. It cannot hurt an ego.

Off I go tomorrow with the confidence that God will enlighten my mind and will prepare me for whatever that’s coming – even failure, for in every failure, we people grow. Goodbye, weekend! Until next week!

The Ulimate Birthday Wish

2009-08-07T23:59:00.000-07:00

I thought about what I really want for my birthday. I know that it’s too far from now. I know that it’s still months from now but as a little child, my mom would say that the eighteenth birthday of a lady is supposed to be the most memorable. I am not looking forward to a big party which has dances, gowns and champagnes, but I am looking forward the privilege of asking my parents for a gift. After seventeen years, I haven’t asked them anything on my birthday. Now will be the only time.

First, I thought about my hobbies and my obsessions. I thought about asking them for an i-phone or an i-pod touch. I lingered on that wish until I realized that I want something handy or some things which I can just bring to school on ordinary days. I thought about a simple i-pod nano. Being still undecided, I thought about asking for a professional digital camera but upon realizing that I am no professional, I thought about a simple digital camera will do. Second, I thought about impossible gifts. A condominium unit, for instance, or a model car or a photo studio. Again, as I realized and distinguished reality from ambitions, I stopped asking them for one and decided to be really serious in my studies and just purchase one after finally calling myself successful.

Today, as I woke up from the week’s exhaustion, I saw a package in front of me. “To Cris Anne”, it says and it was wrapped in a gold paper with a black ribbon. The box was something of regular size but hindered my vision because it was too close when I woke up and as I opened it, I can’t believe it my very eyes. It was a digital camera, from someone anonymous. There are no traces of the one who gave it so I am not sure who that person is and I also have no clue about who might possibly give it to me. Only few people know what I want for my birthday. It’s still too big for a token of someone who cares. Until now, I can’t believe I already woke up. Everything still feels like a dream in the blue, a bubble to be pricked. My mom said, it was transported by LBC, some agency responsible for delivering packages but they are to keep the identity of the one who gave it. I am sure that it didn’t come from my parents since they will wait until October if ever they are planning to give me a present. August is still far from October. They can’t give me that thing this early. I am not in the mood for a logical thinking about who had given me that present. That person decided to be anonymous so I shouldn’t try figuring out that person’s identity but whoever he/she may be, may God bless him/her because that person made me really pleasurably surprised and very happy.

After a “dream come true”, I realized that it isn’t really the gift I wanted for my birthday. What I am dying to achieve day after day is to bring my mother back to the Church. I want her to be spiritually active again and to be fully dependent to our Creator. That is my ultimate birthday wish and I know that I’ll be happy to see it and very contented. No pictures from a digital camera and no music from an i-pod can bring me the satisfaction of seeing my mom singing songs of worship and praise and watching God work on her life. It’s not that I didn’t like the digital camera. Of course, I so much do, but I am also acknowledging the fact that really, the best things in life aren’t really things.

If ever that mystery person came from blog-o-sphere, I am expressing my deepest gratitude to you. I am so overwhelmed. May God bless you more and someday, I’ll bring back the joy you had given me. Thanks!

From Confusion to Confidence

2009-08-06T07:07:00.000-07:00

Separating myself from the Calculus and Physics thing, I came to reflect about the message in today’s scripture. From confusion to confidence, the bible speaks about ways to cope up with confusion and negative emotions, because we, people are mostly open to happy feelings but close our doors as soon as we feel that something is wrong. We do defense mechanisms to pretend that we are okay and we don’t like others to see that we are not having a good time.

Personally, being immature and everything, I suppress emotions when they seem to distract me from my usual activities. It’s difficult to deal with word problems when I have a broken heart. I flee from those sorts of things. I escape the suffocating heat of melancholy. When sadness seems to walk in the way, I keep myself busy so that I won’t have any time to linger on the bitterness. I’ll just concentrate on meeting deadlines and appearing to be the best that I can be, fooling no one but me. I admit, I am guilty in just trying to forget all negative emotions so when the same thing happen, I don’t know what to do because I didn’t face it during the first time. It’s true that the deeper you try to bury a certain emotion, the more it revenges against you. When we try to bury a feeling, we don’t actually bury it dead; instead, we bury a living feeling. Newton’s third law says that for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. That is also applicable to suppressing one’s feelings. The more we hide it, the more it tries to catch everyone’s attention. There is no other way except to face everything that is coming and be courageous. After all, the Lord will never ever leave us and won’t forsake us so there’s nothing to worry and nothing to be frightened of.

I also remember Morrie Schwartz saying that we should expose ourselves to every kind of feeling, embrace it and overcome it. Truly, we don’t get anything from hiding except for the piles of emotions bugging us during sleepless nights. On the other hand, if we will decide to turn our face to every trial sent by the Lord to strengthen us, we will sleep with a very light heart and worry-free mind and a wishful prayer asking God to mold us through these things. True, we will cry and grieve for a while because of facing a problem which may appear to be really difficult but in the long run, it is still better than constant hurting. True, it takes a little courage and some turns to admit that we are driving to the opposite direction but acknowledging this and doing appropriate actions will lead us to somewhere, apparently closer to our target place. This is a lot better than driving in the opposite direction and moving only farther and farther.

This is the lesson for today, more important than angular acceleration or elliptical hyperboloid. This is the lesson I still haven’t mastered and still needs a lot of practice and courage. This is the lesson which I still take for granted sometimes though I am already aware of. I am not an expert on this field but somehow, I do hope that I’ll hop on this post when I am trying to forget and escape everything. I also hope that somehow, this post may speak to you during the times that we are trying to keep ourselves busy to suppress unwanted emotions.

Have a great weekend, bloggers! May God bless you all! J

A Homecoming

2009-08-04T21:23:00.000-07:00

It has been two years, since I graduated from high school and I wasn't able to absorb it until last Monday. I was overwhelmed with college that it didn’t allow me to have a thinking moment about what is actually over. I just lived and went on with the raging flow of time.

My current university includes Monday as a weekend (by that, I am so thankful) and because there is no classes, a high school friend, younger than me by a year and is still my schoolmate now that we’re college, asked my help for a Math topic. She is having some difficulties with a subject in which I am through. I said yes because I feel the need to share what I know, no matter how small it is. I feel the need to share my blessings to others who need it. In that case, it was the bit of education that I have and a year experience in my current university. Sometimes, Math topics go well with advices and a spoonful of encouragements. We decided to meet at our high school which isn’t that far away from home. The goal was to teach her and to visit my Alma Mater.

Monday came and everything planned go well (hmm... except for maybe, the twist of being late and the pressure that it contains). I saw my past teachers, my past room, my past table, my past school. It makes me really nostalgic to say the word ‘past’. It is as if it’s not yet over. It is as if I still belong to it. It feels like two years made me a different person and it made LAMS a different school. Yes, the foods in the canteen are still the same, only they are now selling it for a higher price. Yes, the paint in those familiar walls are still the same, only it doesn’t contain the fingerprints of my naughty classmates, trying to embark their “I was once here” legacy. I felt like I was in the place I already memorize but something is different and I can’t say it exactly.

If there is something really memorable about my high school, it will be the friends and teachers I had in there. The friends who used to be them and the ‘me’ who I used to be and the teachers who seem not to change at all. Now that I can pinpoint a lot of natural and acceptable changes in each of every one of us in the batch, only that school remains and contains all the laughing and crying memories of our years together. That school didn’t teach me enough information for me to be really proud of it until college. That school was not able to produce a student who can stand out everyone else in the university, but surely, that school honed me to be the person I am today who enjoyed so many memories in her life. I still owe them a lot. That institution holds a special part in the steps in achieving my dreams and plans I laid out myself.

It’s good to be back home once in a while and reminisce the past.

On Peace and Democracy: Tita Cory

2009-08-03T05:36:00.000-07:00

One of the things that make Philippines stand out is the People Power Revolution. It was a manifestation of their nationalism, faith and their love for peace and democracy. It was one-of-a-kind and very distinct, something that tastes like Pinoys. I don’t think the same peaceful thing can still happen but I do hope so. The EDSA I (People Power Revolution) is something you can easily google and search on the Internet so I won’t be dealing much about it. I am after the death of the public figure during that revolution, the death of the bringer of the peace, the death of the mother of the Philippines, the death of Mrs. Corazon Aquino. People Power won't be the same without her and the Philippines won't be the same, either.

I wasn’t born during the time that Mrs. Aquino was the president of this country yet History books tell me that she is indeed someone worth remembering. History and experience are two different things and are really far from each other. I am sad that I only had a taste of the first one. Unfortunately, I only knew her as the wife of Ninoy Aquino (also a symbol of nationalism and democracy), the mother of Kris Aquino and the first Filipina president. My college experience tells me that Corazon Aquino is elite, a Cojuanco whose family is having a somehow political dynasty on lands. She was just Corazon Cojuanco-Aquino who was the next after Marcos and allowed Chinese Mestizos to bud their business here. After all, she was one of them.

Now that everything is sinking in and it is really clear that she’s dead, I know that I have a large misconception about her. She was and will always be Tita Cory who is well-loved by those prisoners of the Marcos era. She is the reason why they are enjoying their new life now. She will always be the mother of Philippine’s democracy and the one who had given Filipinos their hope when everything seemed abstract and endless. She will always be Cory Aquino – the ideal mother of everyone, and I was blinded with these things until I saw the Philippines grieving.

As a president, Corazon Aquino has always been admired and loved. She is a real emblem of humility. She is unlike so many presidents who is despised my many and who is commented negatively. As a president and a person, she has always been selfless and never greedy. I wasn’t living during those times but Filipinos won’t cry for her death if she was selfish and arrogant. I wish that I can live a life a bit similar to hers. I wish that I can be as selfless as her and never prioritize my own desires over the good of the majority. How I wish that I can also inspire others by my natural works, and not trying do so. She is indeed admirable in all of her ways.

I do believe that if ever Cory is seeing the unified Philippines now, she will be happy that even at her death, the messy political issues are silenced and people are focusing on the good acts she did. Busy people paused and reminisced and admired. I know that somewhere, she is praying for the Philippines, as she always does when she was still alive. I know that somewhere, she is happy for her children and their accomplishments and the rest of the Filipinos who love their own country. I know that somewhere, she's proud.

My prayers for Tita Cory are all sincere. May she really find peace and pride upon looking back on the things she did and how she made a difference on so many lives. She was and is really someone. She is an example to follow and look up to and is a hero in her own ways.

Farewell, Tita Cory! May you open more eyes!

A Different Phase

2009-08-02T06:43:00.000-07:00

This blog resembles its author so much. It’s sometimes melancholic and always happy indeed. It’s seldom silent and often very talkative. It’s sometimes sweet but usually bitter about Math and Physics. Just like me, this blog changes a lot – from short stories to personal experiences to rational lessons to countdowns and lists of wishful things to poetry – name it all. However, as much as I talked about almost everything in here for more than a year, I have been reserving sensitive topics like religion, faith and politics only to myself. It’s not that I don’t want to talk about those things. Sure, I am game to everything, game to talk or debate on anything. It is also not because I have nothing good to say about these things. Sure, I have some, but it’s because those topics are very serious which might allow me to create a poll in here or a large discussion. I don’t want to emphasize differences here so I just allowed a little number of post for those topics. I want nothing but to make a mark of my existence through this blog, something peaceful but not too memorable, something true but not really exact and straightforward. Now, I am trying to move out of my comfort zone, trying to try out something new and hopefully still entertaining but true. It’s time to say more about the inner me, giving in to topics like religion and faith, trying to draw attention not to me but to God, His words and His works.

This is the little bit of thing that I have. I have a small free spot on the net, known by some people, read by a number of internet-surfers who appreciate words and efforts combined. I have a bit of time for reading and for writing and a bit of education to write in a universal language which most people understand. Though I constantly find myself crying with Nicholas Spark’s novels or life testimonies of other people who had an encounter with God, I can say that I have a bit of strength to tell people what I believe in and be proud of it. As they say that a little bit of everything can produce a great miracle, I am giving all this a-little-bit’s, hoping that lines in here will be transformed from “I hate this day!” into “The Lord is Good and so is this day!” unintentionally but whole-heartedly.

I am perfectly aware that I may lose my few readers because of this transformation, yet I trust God that He’ll use this blog as much as He uses those other sites which are really inspiring. In the end, everything will turn out right, I believe and I have enough faith to take in the risk of being unheard again and the risk of starting from scratch once more. That’s not easy but surely worth everything that I am planning.

However, despite of the changes I am planning to make, I am still pushing into poetry, heartaches, brain-farts and brain-arts. That crazy me is still somewhere in between those curiosity towards life. This is still my blog and is still my life. I just felt the need to warn my readers that there will be a few changes aiming to make everything better and transformed (Transformed- yeah, I think that’s the word I have been chasing around since yesterday.) so that they won’t be alarmed in any way that Rhaingel, the author of this blog, is missing and some alien-predator took in her place and hacked her site. That seems interesting, though.

Thanks, readers! Thanks for never getting tired of bearing with me!

A Student Life

2009-07-31T09:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am guilty of taking this blog for granted and choosing Physics over this blog. Sorry. Now that it’s just two hours and a half from the first of August, I feel sort of unsatisfied for coming up with just seven posts. (Oh man! That’s not even half of my target posts for this month, which happens to be twenty.) So I decided that maybe, I should just update people about what has been and why I was not around lately. I know that I am not making twenty posts but I am intending that the post I make now will contain what I was busy at for the past few weeks.

Calculus is tough as it has always been for me. These days, it has tortured me the way that encourages me to just stop trying to analyze things. It has discouraged me to love numbers and Math and realize that it’s worth all the sacrifices. Physics has discouraged me more. It has given me an atmosphere of idleness and senselessness, the kind of feeling that says nothing is going right. Both the subjects seemed to sucked up all of the energy and inspiration I used to contain in me at the start of the day. Both leave me tired and withered and sleepy, never allowing me to have ample energy to write and talk and babble around or not giving me any happy thing to write about. Calculus, Physics and my fear of failing are the culprit of my un-blogging. Blame them.

Despite of my hate on the subjects I mentioned, I think, I should make it clear that I don’t hate my professors or I don’t like what I’m doing. Somehow, these things seem to be the real norm since these happen everyday. It has been usual that I’ll go to school and fight all the temptations of daydreaming while absorbing everything that comes out of my professor’s intelligent mouth. I have no choice and I don’t want to fail again. I know that at my young age, paying for a mortgaged house or whacking my boss are not yet included among the list of my things to do. I’m not yet there and it’s not yet me. God said that there is a perfect time for everything. I should wait patiently and do what I am ought to do. In that case, I should just study and it’s not clear why I am finding that so difficult though it seems very simple. I must admit that sometimes, fulfillment comes when I reap fruits of labors – labors which are challenging enough to give me doubts about what I can and what I cannot do.

Now, my clock ticked, telling me that it’s time to get some sleep and be ready for tomorrow. This weekend isn’t that equipped and ‘fat’. Maybe I have some time to relax and unwind a little, just to give me a fresh start of the week and the month. I am almost halfway my 1st semester and am glad that I can still go to school smiling and I can still leave the university with hopes while crossing-fingers. It never crossed my mind to just stay at home and think nothing about academics. Good thing that Math and Physics still left me with a bit of hope and a large inspiration. I am not quitting, not in any way I know and not in any way I intent. I also have time to update my accounts online, including this supposed-to-be-daily-chronicle which was abandoned, in some ways so I am making up to it (in some ways, too). I am also doing the things which I don’t usually do during schooldays – namely, badminton and gluing myself with photographs.

Have a great and productive weekend blog-o-sphere!

When I Think About Him

2009-07-31T05:53:00.000-07:00

When I think about the one I love
My dearest friend, my angel from up above
How he holds me and never lets me go
How he embraces me like there’s no tomorrow
How he says he loves me and looks at my eyes
How he exposes me to everything that’s nice

When I think about the one I love
How he saved me from the brink of despair
How he made me happy like no one ever dare
How he’d given me everything: trust, love and care
How he says that all his love belongs to me
And that no harm can be done by any party

When I think about the one I love
How he seems like an eagle but also like a dove
How he makes me happy to the uttermost
How this seems to be deeper than any coast
How he pulled me away from the agony
And later on called me as his own honey

Every little thing that I think about him
Makes me want to cry and scream
“I love you and I will always do;
You will be my only and very last boo
From this day on, now and forever
In everything, we shall be together.

When I think about the one I love
I stop and stare and surrender myself
I’ve fallen too much and I can’t help
But love even more than anyone has ever did
And fight for him and give the highest bid
The one I love is indeed everything I need.

Inexplicable

2009-07-17T21:13:00.001-07:00

Shaking my head, shaking the after-math
Heading that direction, heading that path
Towards that paradise nobody knows
Towards the place where flower grows

Run to the meadow of the orchard-white
Feeling infinite and glad, feeling so light
Run to the breeze of the garden blooming
Stretching my wings, I’m finally soaring

Flying to the place where time isn’t an issue
Flying and tumbling to the same sky-blue
As the wind carries my life’s entire burden
Making me forget everything in this garden

Watching the sky transform its color
From blue to pink, to yellow, to purple
As the sun waves a little sweet goodbye
As the moon peeks slowly, saying “hi”

And as he illuminates everything in the place
I fly to heaven and touch God’s face
Passing the stars and the dark blue galaxy
That boundless place approaching infinity

I’ll be hearing the world sleeping and snoring
On their earthly bed, breaking and dreaming
Thinking nothing ‘bout that soul-and-body scars,
Who paid for birth, for salvation, death and wars.

On halfway of my journey, the sun shone
Giving me heat, my skin and my bone
The moment I knew it, I was back on the garden
No one knew I was out, no one knows heaven

And as I open my eyes to at last, wake up
I know that what happened isn’t a bluff
For in every single night that I rest and sleep
I travel to that mysterious garden, oh deep!

Who can tell me that everything is a dream?
When that paradise is full of real beam
Who can tell me that everything is untrue?
When those images take me away from the blue

That "Huh?" Post

2009-07-13T23:36:00.001-07:00

What else is there to blog about except busy days and those in-betweens, those hanging questions and sweet imaginings, those untitled moments that always seem to take me away? Really, life has been very busy for me and you might consider it busy to the point that I have been spending three fourths of my day trying to value learning and still finds that three-fourths not enough. I need to learn more. If I have a choice and if I had been a real superhuman in any case, I must have spent every waking hour of my life trying to be satisfied with my abilities so I won’t ask for more. I won’t persevere more and overwork myself. I have been also guilty in 'abandoning' the cyber world, trying to give my attention to and only to academics and stuffs that has something to do with it. Now, as it has always been, the case of being guilty towards something always has its consequences. I feel the need to admit that the more days that I was busy, the more the words seem to hinder themselves. I am not finding this post easy to type and words don't flow smoothly like they usually do. Every phrase is crafted carefully not to expose immaturity. Writing is difficult for me now. Sure, there were moments during classes when I run from the real world and indulge myself to the love of words instead of the love for numbers... and yes, it feels different. It feels alive, invigorating, like a fire, like a meteor, like a resting place of sangfroid and harmony, like the escape I longed for so long but like all flames, it will lose its flick little by little, allowing me to realize that between these yawning gaps are my responsibilities as a student. EWW. The next thing I knew is that a whole sheet of paper is full of doodles, full of phrases which come easier when writing than saying out loud, phrases which came directly from my heart. As much as I hate to say that these responsibilities are what 'stops' me from my usual blog-hopping and 'blog-making', I know that these are what I am supposed to do and these are what I need to do in order to not spend another summer in between books and numbers again. It's not that I didn't like the summer. It's just that I could have full-time worked instead or slept really long or took enough time to rest and be ready, physically and emotionally, for this semester.

Studying for almost two months, I feel already exhausted, yet still breathing, still looking forward the weekdays rather than the weekends. Something is magical in the way the sun shines, knowing that we are all under that same blue sky. Something is driving me crazier each day. Somehow, it keeps me hanging there. Those things are making me still saying “yes” to everything that is coming. Weeks are sucking all of me, leaving me nothing - withered, sleepless, restless and always chaotic. Days seem to challenge me, trying to figure out if ever I’ll give in to the sweet temptation of sleeping instead of analyzing vectors… and those temptations are the most difficult to fight with, since they know my body’s desire and my mind’s silent wishes. Hours seem to pass by so swiftly during the time that I needed it to prolong for longer resting time. The more I need to rest, the less available the time is and that primary thought exhausts me. Minutes seem to be as fast as seconds and I found myself running for them, chasing bubbles, chasing the river, chasing light. Chasing something I know not. Chasing nothing. Darn. I need to hug myself for the pieces to be fit perfectly, for them not to fall and though I might hug me tight, I’m still left unsure about what to do next. Exactly, delicious ambiguity. I didn’t know that drowning myself to academics will lead me to face something that feels like uncertain, something that feels like earthquake… and I am scared.

The Failed Wish

2009-07-10T09:16:00.000-07:00

Strolling down the road I stopped and checked
Something hindered in my walking, my trek
It was a crystal-like lamp, deep purple in color
Shining, sparkling, something you’ll die for

Touching every little inch of the lamp
Like teenage Bella feeling his vamp
The dust and glitters popped out from it
A magical genie came out for me to meet

He said, “Hey lady, what is your wish?”
I thought Alladin was unreal; I was astonished
But not to waste the one and only wish I have
I closed my eyes and thought of what I love

My current craving is to have my family intact
To be committed to each other, maintain a pact
To not hinder their growth and help them instead
To share and listen to stories in lunch or in bed

To be happy because of everyone in the family
To be happy for everyone in the family
To stay at home as often as possible
To be already home as early as possible

And then I considered saying this aloud to the genie
The kind genie who gave me this rare opportunity
And as I open my mouth to wish and speak
Some of his glitters went to my eyes and seek

I blink and blink and blink and blink
The genie goes shrink, shrink and shrink
Until he is not anymore there to listen
To my only wish directed to heaven

Alas! It was better not to blink anymore
For the pain took me, went inside my core
Sure, Alladin was a beautiful invention
I sat there then with extreme desperation

The genie came... and broke me

Into millions of pieces - broken lady

How I wish that I never had that chance

I should have known this in advance.

SIGH

Zell @ 18

2009-07-05T05:28:00.000-07:00

Today is the season for break-up. I don’t know if there exists such concrete time but if in case it’s the first time you heard about this, maybe, I was the one who discovered it. So can you give me a round of applause now? Thanks!

Yesterday was cool in a sense that I constantly found myself laughing around at jokes from my friends. It’s like witnessing a stand-up comedian perform his/her tricks and it didn’t fail. It was my friend’s eighteenth birthday. She wore a sparkling blue gown and required us to wear a semi-formal attire for (hmm) inconvenience and for more funny moments. You know, those you-seem-to-fit-in-a-coffin looks or you-are-KIND-OF-overdressed statements. So as my old (I actually mean, past) classmates gathered, drank, and ate and partied, some were left to share stories and update each other about how life has been going for all of us. I heard that the relationships formed while we were still in high school are no longer going strong. In fact, those relationships are now nowhere to be found. Like I’ve said, it’s break-up time and the ones involved are my friends. I don’t have any idea how break-up feels like and I really don’t want to feel that. Well, who does, anyway? It’s enough that I had an idea from Isabella Marie Swan’s misery in New Moon. Actually, it’s already too much. I just feel like disappointed for these people who vowed forever and didn’t make it. I feel sorry for all the words and deeds before. It makes me nostalgic. I know that we were different ‘kids’ back then. We are still unsure about our priorities and plans for the future. I know that we were still very immature and that makes things and situations altered but what about promises? What about the quality time they spent for each other which are really unforgettable in their own kind? Are all of these things heading towards the garbage can? I hope not. Though they might say that there is still friendship, it’s not the same anymore because something already happened and something is already changed. It won’t be very much effective. What's done is done. No more turning back and wishing that it never did happen.

I am disappointed because first, I wanted them to be together forever. So, okay. I am over the fact that not all fairy tales end well. Maybe it was destiny’s mischievous game again and things happen for reasons, sure. Second disappointment is that I was looking up to those relationships. It was something admirable that fought against all odds and the kind of relationship that I see as ideal because they already endured a lot of challenges and still loving each other. It was tried and tested and seemed to know by now the dos and don’ts in a relationship. It was almost perfect and I cannot point out where everything started going wrong.

Despite the sad news I heard about that break-up thingy, my friend’s debut was still a wonderful bash. It was both elegant and party-full. It was F-U-N and I am really happy for that friend of mine because she is and was happy. I can tell it instantly. I can still imagine her in her gown and I know that she still imagines herself too. It will only happen once in her life and I am glad that I have been part of that too (Thanks too to CHGA because he agreed that I can go there :D) Her birthday was a perfect time for get-together despite of horrible exams for next week. Everyone is busy but took a time to detach. It was like an exception that says, “For once, quit those things and lose control”.

It was that Day

2009-07-03T20:38:00.000-07:00

It was that day when he wore that white clean shirt that made me thought about those broad shoulders and pure face. There’s something in that perfect and comfortable arms which never failed to make me feel light and safe. I know back then that nothing will ever feel like that. I knew that it was one of the few things that remind me of heaven – of being so high above everyone else and the things that usually feel like dreaming away from nightmares and other stuff that creates fear and anxiety. Back then, I knew, deep within me, that I found life and spontaneity and it will kill me to lose everything I felt lately. I felt existence and it was so heavy and was so weightless both at the same time that I can fly yet I can feel myself for the first time. I can finally feel my beating heart and my brain is working rationally for the first time. I felt electricity and how it feels to run in my veins so smoothly. I felt bliss and how simple you can get it just from glimpsing at the way he moves or hold his pen or listens to the professor or simply sitting and smiling from time to time. I’ll give up this blog for those. I’ll give up my “car dream” just to witness those.

It was the day when he wore his blue shirt that made me vowed that I’ll do everything to deserve him – his goodness, his excellence, his perfect-ness. I knew back then that he deserves not just me but everything I am, everything I was and everything I am not. It was a goal set for a lifetime and though I often tell him I love him, it’s not because I need to let him know but because I just simply do and the feeling whenever I say it is increasing at infinity’s power. It was amazing and until I met him, I almost thought it was impossible. I thought that dreams stay only on that world where imaginations are the only things that exist. I know now that he is true and what we have is real though my ego convinces me that it was too good. He is tangible and is my favorite person in the world and that includes the imaginary ones.

It was the day when he was not around and wearing a colorless shirt that made me close my eyes and see him in my wildest dream – in the innermost part of my heart, in the core of my being. It was that day when I promised myself that when the right day came, I won’t let him go far away from me, not even an inch away and then we will, at last, be inseparable – both literally and emotionally. It was that day when I shut up and heard his perfect voice played in my head. It was musical and irresistible and the most assuring sound I ever perceived. I heard the sound when he’s sweet, worried, mad, teasing or sincere. It almost felt real and very comforting that he is so close though yet so far. It was the day when I pretend sleeping and felt his arms wrapped around me – so warm and so gentle, then I can no longer sleep just because reality is a lot better than my dreams. It was then that I whispered “I love you” and though he might not heard, I felt certain. I felt absolute and I included my love for him as the second thing that is constant and doesn’t change. I felt unvarying and I knew it for sure that nothing’s going to change, that everything will just miraculously keep on getting stronger… and I found myself singing with happy love songs, smiling genuinely, worry-free and only him in my mind. I wondered curiously is there exist a feeling better than what I’m celebrating and I knew that there’s none and it’s the best that I can have for the rest of my life.

The Sad Clown

2009-07-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

It was the nighttime of the season between summer and raining. It was like the wind is just waiting for the perfect timing to blow and cradle the leaves with its sweet caress. This day is just fine. Exams were excellent since I just wished for a passing grade. So far, it was very fulfilling and makes me remember about the verse from the bible which says there is a time for planting and there’s a time for pulling what you’ve planted. Everything makes perfect sense now.

Anyway, the reason why I said “This day is just fine” and not “This day is really great” instead is that I feel like I failed in one of my goals. It is a very natural thing for a person to do everything just to see the people they love happy. Really, it is the greatest and lightest feeling in the world but also the most hurtful when you try to achieve it but eventually fail. All the helpless feeling oozes within my body, screaming “You failed this time” and because of my natural tendency to do everything to keep him happy, I’ll try again, only to realize that I just failed harder.

I am a happy-go-lucky person. I don’t worry too much about things. I am happy and funny (hopefully… somehow). I am filled with humor and comical ideas that serve as a witty skill to lift someone up whenever they need to be. Despite this truth, I don’t deny that I, too, am a sad clown. I joke around whenever I feel like breaking into pieces. I try to make everyone laugh, thinking about the hardest punch line when I feel like my tears will betray me, exposing my hidden melancholy to the chaotic world. That’s what I do – also the best that I can do, perhaps - I make my whole world positive when I’m the opposite. It’s not about pretending or fooling everyone. It’s about hoping that somehow, the laughter I bring to others is contagious enough to intoxicate me away from those things that leave me bothered.

It’s sad that this skill fails when I needed it the most and I cannot afford to fail one more time. It’s like the person I love the most is sad and though I am not literally committed to keeping him happy all the time, I feel the need to make him laugh and put him in lighter spirits. It’s impossible to just sit there and watch him drowning in his loneliness. It’s impossible for me to not at least try to change everything. I cannot do that. I love him too much that I want him to be genuinely happy always. Doing everything, seeing that nothing is changed and realizing that he doesn’t deserve to suffer from all these, I can only break down and cry. I’m worthless. I’m just a drop and he is an ocean. My skills are rusty and aren’t effective. How I wish that I am better at this.

Maybe the drama ends here. Maybe yes, maybe no but I hope not. I have clear intentions of not making this worse. Later, when I close my eyes to sleep, everything will slip and I’ll wake up with nothing to bother me… to bother him. I really just have to let this out because for justice, my blog should contain how worthless I am – that I can only make him happy and yet I wasn’t successful in making that possible, and that I can make other people who don’t matter that much laughing and happy and in high spirits but with respect to him, I can do nothing enough.

And that hurts.

--July 2, 2009

9: 54 PM

On Dreams and Quitting

2009-06-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

I roughly have an hour to make a post. It’s not that it’s quite short since there are times when ideas flow fluidly and the next thing I knew is I’m hitting that button that says, “Publish now”. Right now, I don’t have sufficient things to talk about. Yes, I spent four days studying in school and there are unforgettable moments but then I’ll bore my readers if I pick that topic.

Let me choose this one: I was on my normal Internet browsing. I opened the accounts I have on line namely- Blogspot, Yahoo Mail and Friendster and checked if there are urgent messages. I honestly cannot spoil myself in talking or chatting to people unlimitedly if I don’t want to fail my exams for this upcoming week. While checking my own site and the others, too, I felt kind of irritated. Yeah, kind of, then I realized that people are really different and so as their ambitions. It occurred to me because I read a bulletin of a schoolmate saying that she wants to transfer school because she finds our current university full of pressure. She says that she cannot cope up and she really finds it academically difficult to study there. I was sort of disappointed, mainly because she thought about quitting just because it’s difficult and I reflected my first year in college. I’ll lie if I’ll say that it was much too easy for me. It was really difficult- physically, emotionally and academically. There were even times when I felt alone, empty, you know, no one to talk to but never did I thought about quitting this thing and transferring to another school just because it’s easier to cope up there. There were times when I’ll solve and overwork myself and lie awake at night, sobbing myself to sleep. It was a big leap for me and yes, I felt out of place, too, like I don’t belong with those really intelligent people. I felt left behind.

Right now, I don’t feel that intense kind of knowledge inferiority anymore. It’s just enough to push me into solving everyday and taking extra effort to achieve higher grades. Honestly, whenever I can’t get the lesson right away, I feel like I don’t belong to where I was sitting and to where I was studying but that pain drives me to proving that I have a right to be there, too. After all, anything is possible, right? Why quit your dream when you are faced with challenges? Indeed, there is no easy way to get there. There are no shortcuts or hidden path so perseverance is a must. I don’t know when or where or what particular instant started easing that knowledge inferiority from me. All I know is that everything ends up well. I might as well wait for that end and hey, God doesn’t work or think like how I do so maybe, these academic challenges are just there so that achieving that dream will be really worth it in the end.

Right, it isn’t my business if she finds the pressure too much to handle. It isn’t my business, either, if she feels like quitting and transferring is the key to achieving your dream. I just hope that somehow, she’ll come across this post and realize that everyone experienced that but not everyone gave up. It’s actually a choice whether to persevere or not, to waste one’s opportunity or make the most out of it. I just hope that she’ll remember the speech we usually deliver back in high school that nothing in this world is actually easy and the degree of difficulty of something is based on the satisfaction you’ll get after achieving it.

Bittersweet Bubble

2009-06-25T01:31:00.000-07:00

From a colored dreamful night, I drifted and eventually woke up. ‘twas dreamy and cloudy and very floral in scent. I cannot remember the dream exactly but the breathless feeling I had after opening my eyes tells me that it almost caught me off guard. The wind blows the curtain so swiftly yet so gently, forceful but with grace, almost dancing. The wind is like a ballerina, performing her sweet sonata. It was five thirty in the morning and the sun should already be in the horizon but it seems like he gave it a miss and perhaps still dreaming. Suddenly, I am envious of him. The sound of the rain falling on the rooftop isn’t musical in quality this time. It gives me the feeling of nostalgia and the sense of un-belongingness to the world. Little by little, as each drop collapses its grip from the clouds, I move inch by inch to prepare for this day as the aroma of coffee and bread penetrates my skull, tempting me for a sip, enticing me of its distinct flavor yet never fully waking me up. Ironic.

I bathed with bittersweet laziness. I was trapped to where I stood that the chillness of the water made it impossible for me to move and made me neglect time and energy and other factors that constantly remind me of being alive. I felt like a fly on the sticky spider’s web, waiting for his appetite. I wanted to perspire and go back to the reality and finally wake up but with the weather? Nearly impossible! I can’t even feel the heat from the core. It made me doubtful about existing.

I clothed myself with love. “This day is going to be great,” I said and my ego screamed, “Well I hope it is”. It was too loud that it made me deaf to hear my convictions that this day will really be great. Apparently, I found my Communication 3 subject senseless because I cannot even sway myself. Endless walks, grumbling stomach, idle hours, numbers, theories, vectors, angles, projectile… I returned to bed with those thoughts, never wanting to dream about them and wishing to be detached from the burden in my veins. Ah, that song - the one played by the angel in my dream or perhaps just residing in my ears – that sweet lullaby is irresistible. How can someone as feeble as me fight reality? How can I move freely from this prison of illusions and wishes? How can I move out from the conspiracy of the story which we later called Life? How is it probable to wake up from a very comfortable state of being?

…and there, floating, the bubble of my dream. “Prick me now,” it says or else, I’ll be trapped forever. That was quite a warning. Every bit of my unsinkable spirit was there – all my deepest hopes and even my secret desires are at hand. Though these seem achievable, they are still intangible. How can I ever prick it out? How can I watch it all sinking when it had given me so much… so much that it drowned me out. Alas, the bubble was growing smaller, rippling itself, chased by a shot of my fear. Alas, why did it ever have to be pricked out during the time that I am having the happiest moment of playing with it?

The clock went hysterically irritating again. I guess it’s over. I guess that sweet dose of mind's eye is already enough for another month or so and that I am faced with my Math again. This time, no more excuses, just purely focused.

Drizzle on Me

2009-06-19T23:32:00.000-07:00

My Mister Rain, when will you come again?
To drop and fall directly from heaven
To give a cold bath to those who weep
To give me a chance for a coffee sip

Oh Mister Rain, I’m gloomy without you
The sun’s cruel, piercing me through
The flowers are almost withered and dry
The birds don’t anymore chirp and fly

Rain, Rain, Oh Mister Rain of heaven

You pour like crystals which sizes are even

Can't help but feel blessed, away from distress

I'm loving these silver drops helpless and selfless

Mister Rain, Mister Rain, where are you now?
To bring back earth’s glory is your undying vow
To make the waves of the sea crashing
To make playing children laughing

Oh Mister Rain this poem is to let you know
I envy them – them who play in the snow
All I am asking is just a chilly drizzle
To make the wind blow and silently whistle

“When, oh when?” is my question Mister Rain
Will the blood of the Earth run in my vein?
A downpour, yes, Mister Rain, just a downpour
Will cheer up and emphasize the flower’s contour

Mister Rain, I call you with this poem
Sink directly in front of our home
Water my mom’s plants on the pots
In the still lake, ripple and make dots

Make the clouds dusky and heavy
Provide time people to lie down comfortably
Pour everything, everything, and make me sing
While a kiss in the rain will make a bell ring.

First Week of sCOOL!

2009-06-19T23:18:00.000-07:00

Today is the start of my three-day weekend. Well, I am happy and lazy for it. Party happy because this means that I can wake up at twelve and can read some chapters of the novels I am depriving myself whenever schooldays. I am happy because this also means that I can spoil myself to television and internet… but the same, I am also partly lazy because this means that as much as I want to have fun, I should also be responsible – responsible enough to know that next week is bound to be more challenging and I have to chase the pressure. I can’t let it all sink to me and drown me eventually. What I’m referring to is Math – I know that I won’t pass the subject if I won’t double my efforts. It’s vital and knowing the history of my professor, I should really do everything. Let me give you an idea about how I see this semester.

First, Math 109. It is actually about the techniques of proving some theories of Math using some symbolic language. So far, so good because it resembles the Philosophy class I used to love. My professor is a woman in her thirties (I hope I’m right) and looking at her, she somehow resembles my mom. Though the subject was so-far-so-good, there is a bit of uncomfortable-ness while I find myself stuck in her class. Sometimes, I daydream and stare blankly at the window, asking myself about certain philosophies I usually believe in. From time to time, I check my watch and can’t help but hope that it’s already time because I am excited for my next class which happens to be:

Math 64, Calculus II. So far, the topics we are concerned with are about integration and I am more enthusiastic in that subject than in any other subjects I am enrolled in. In fact, after arriving home, that’s the first thing I check and the first thing I study. I think, the addiction first occurred to me because the professor was a terror one in his own kind. He enters the room, doesn’t greet and doesn’t smile. He proceeds directly to the board, write some examples and ask the students to answer it. Others say that his exams are out-of-this-world, that you’ll have a nosebleed answering those and I suppose that that’s the reason why he’s famous. I find him challenging. In fact, very challenging and the satisfaction oozes all around my body whenever I get the answers to his questions correctly. Now, I don't see Calculus like it's something that adds burden to my life. It's something that increases my patience :D

Physics 71. Physics. So far, this subject gets in my nerves though I see its connection to my Calculus class. First, the professor requires me to bring two notebooks (should be red and green) apart from my lecture notebook and that reminds me of being in high school again. It adds weight in my shoulders. Second, she isn’t sure about what she’s saying and teaching. Our class includes more than a hundred students and you have to be really sure about what you say because they are keenly listening. I constantly become disappointed because there is a time when I know she was wrong and she knows that too and everyone’s blood suddenly rushed and they were arguing and I just thought that learning is better if the one teaching you knows her materials well and she is sure about what she says and she can prove it.

Anyway, even though I do like the professors I have or I don’t, I got no choice but concentrate on the education I have luckily having rather than the educator. I still have the capability to open a book and learn from myself so that I won’t be disappointed anymore. I decided that maybe I shouldn’t box a person – to judge her/him and dislike her/him right away. This will destroy me and worsen my personality.

Now a Proud Sophomore

2009-06-15T03:04:00.000-07:00

Today marks the last day of my short vacation. Oops. I honestly believed that it wasn’t short but they say that it is. I mean, there were extremely boring days that I cannot believe that it was just an hour since I last took a look on the clock so I suppose that it’s not short since it made me, at some point, bored. There were times when all I can ever say is “I hope I’ll get back to school soon” then follow it with such a helpless sigh.

Since I’ll be getting up early tomorrow (and I wish not to be late, really) and have no time to log on the web early in the morning, maybe I’ll grab this moment to write that I had a really fun vacation. For my entire college life so far, this vacation allowed me to think and be re-directed as I’ve mentioned many times in my blog. Now that I am back to school tomorrow, I’ll admit that I am neither excited nor lazy for it. I am not jumping while writing this with the anticipation that tomorrow will be cool or tomorrow will really be fun or at least different from my usual slacking around. On the other hand, I am also not lazy for school tomorrow. I don’t have wishes like “I hope that vacation will be extended” or “I hope that it will rain tomorrow - rain so hard that classes will be suspended”. I think, this feeling is associated with being ready for the things which are unavoidable and are required for my age. I know that being back to school means a lot of things: being busy with the struggle to pass every subject, being sleepless, being pre-occupied, being stressed-out and stressing myself even more, being with classmates and friends who are really fun to be with and making the most of the moments spend with him/them, meeting different kinds of professors from all walks of life, name it all! I know that being a student is an occupation that requires a lot of patience and hopes that these are all for the better because if it’s not, we might as well join dreamless teenagers who sings “Whatever will be, will be” at the topmost of their voices. I am just midway between excited and lazy, just right, just enough not to ruin everything.

Since my bags are all packed and I do believe that I’ve done everything to make an advance study, all that’s left for me to do today is enjoy the weather today and times like this because tomorrow might be slightly different. I am expecting a few changes in my usual lethargic schedule. Maybe I’ll be dealing with Physics during the time that I am supposed to watch the television. Maybe I’ll be trying to prove some theories when I am supposed to chat and never care about anything else. Maybe I’ll be solving when it’s time for me to read posts from blog-o-sphere… and don’t get me wrong. I don’t have any hard feelings towards those. I know that there is a time for study and time for recreational activities. I know now how to separate them (Well, I do hope that I know by now) and I guess, this summer semester taught me to act accordingly and responsibly. After all, I am already seventeen, too young to know what’s going to happen but old enough to know what to do in whatever happens. I should be thinking about my future and those people who had their fingers crossed whenever I have an exam. Regarding regular posting, maybe I’ll write during travels, a poem or a limerick or an essay. Maybe I’ll write during yawning gaps and doodling moments or when I am not that sleepy while I am on that long, clear and traffic-less expressway (and they are not paying me for these adjectives). I don’t want to completely abandon writing for it teleports me to a different world just when I need to, just when I feel like everything’s unfair just because numbers were invented and was introduced to me. Perhaps, you can still expect a post or two per week telling no one about how my week went, its ups and downs and its ups again (hopefully). Writing, for the longest run, saved me from my insanity.

I was Humbled Down

2009-06-14T06:42:00.000-07:00

The best part of this day is seeing things slapping you in the way you wished it should. Even as a young child, I see goals as things to accomplish and whatever it takes, I should see a checkmark on or before that goal. My mom would usually admire my determination towards things and even said that I usually get what I want. When I was a child, my main goal was to study in the University of the Philippines. While growing and realizing other things, my main goal was to finish a course, preferably related to Math and sail forth to the real world of working and being addicted to coffee (just kidding about the coffee). Because of achieving the goals I laid out for myself, I gained confidence that I can do anything if I will just persevere and learn to prioritize. Seeing a checkmark populating in my book called “aspirations” made me confident that I need no help.

Despite the spiritual wisdom I get from reading the bible, I found it quite difficult to believe that it’s not me who accomplishes these aims. I mean, if I aspire to pass a particular subject and I did all the hard work and sacrifices to accomplish this, doesn’t it mean that I can accept all the credits? That was my logic back then and maybe, pride is also present so I cannot change that logic. I just couldn’t, though I am aware that there’s God and He is Almighty. Though I don’t admit it and deny that kind of arrogance and self-importance, that was how I believe things. I know that God is there and I have faith in him but I have a greater faith in myself. If something wrong happened, I would prefer to believe that it’s my fault and that I wasn’t able to do my best, rather than that was God’s plan. Anything is possible with him, yes, but anything is also possible if I will persevere continuously for it. Now, I was slapped hard for all these things I usually believed in. Believe me, I am ashamed and so sorry for letting these achievements sink into me when all the while, I am nothing without God, but I am more than proud now that I was humbled down. Thank you so much for touching my heart today! I know that it’s not everyday that I realize something that I badly need in my life.

Job 38: 1 – 42 showed all my limitations. It’s true that I may know some things about finding derivatives but I don’t know the Earth’s exact measure and I cannot find and provide food for the lions. I may know how to solve Trigonometric integrals but I don’t know the rain’s father and who gives birth to the morning dew. Sure, I know how to compute the area between two curves and may do it with different methods but His ways are not my ways as His thoughts are not my thoughts. I may know if a certain vehicle will hit the sleeping cat, provided that I know the distance between them, the speed of the car before the breaks were applied and the time when the breaks were applied but He already know what’s going to happen even before the cat was born. I don’t know how the Orion was formed but He does because He was the one who created it. Thank you for making me realize my limitations, I should have seen it while dealing with Math and seeing the horizon. Thank you for making me realize that what I know about life and certain wisdom from all of my experiences is nothing compared to what I still don’t know about life and what I still need to figure out.

I really couldn’t have done everything without Him who made it possible. Thanks for slapping me so hard that I saw what I don’t know and for facing me into the questions which answers will never be figured out by me, no matter how hard I try. If ever I’ll achieve some of the plans I laid out for myself, I know now, whole-heartedly that the glory is for me… but the greater glory is for God.

Timeless Love

2009-06-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

If baby, someday, they’ll come and ask me
How come we don’t have any monthsary?
And add that we don’t have any celebration,
I’ll tell them that in our love, there’s no deduction.

I’ll look at the calendar and throw it away
No century, decade, year, month, week and no day
Can tell me exactly how long I’ve been loving
Someone like you, with such an intense feeling.

The date cannot be one, two or three
For everyday comes our infinite glee
It really can’t be four, five, six or seven
Because all the days with you are heaven

Eight, nine, ten or eleven isn’t enough
If you say it is, well, I’ll give you a laugh
Not twelve, thirteen, fourteen or fifteen
Contains what in his eyes I have seen

Sixteen, seventeen or eighteen are not that date
Because everyday, you bet, we really celebrate
It’s not nineteen, twenty nor twenty-one
Because the bliss of holding him is never gone

It’s also not twenty-two, twenty-three or twenty-four
Everyday is new and refreshing; always an open door
It can’t be twenty-five, twenty-six or twenty-eight
Because our love is timeless, never had a date

And never was it twenty-nine, thirty or thirty-one
For my darling, my dearest, my honey and only one
As much as there’s no date when our love has started,
Never will we from each other’s arms be departed

And if they ask me another question
How long has been your love in ignition?
I’ll ask them back, no more and no less
How can you measure something endless?

Long Distance

2009-06-12T05:30:00.000-07:00

Your sweet hello’s gives me the last song syndrome
Keeping every sound from your lips in my ear’s dome
When you ask sincerely how my day has been
Unspoken words say it’s more than how it’s goin’
For the very moment I hear you speak,
Everything glows; everything is romantic
Grasping for words, I can only say “I’m okay”
In my heart, it shouts, “I’ll love you everyday!”
Your uplifting laughter lingers on my hearing
Providing definition for my entire being
It’s indescribable and beyond definition
When I try to fathom, it leads to an ignition
Your breath when you say “I miss you”
Is my dream, my star, too good to be true
It leaves me breathless, unable to say anything
Speechless, realizing you’re my everything.
The passion in your voice keeps me alive
To keep you forever is my constant strive
Though there were times when your voice seems sad
And when I look at the heavens, I cannot be glad
For part of your soul is living inside your voice
I know I need to do everything to save it from the noise. Your sweet and touching words tickle all of me
The shivers continue and give me the glee
It leaves me at ease and even wondering
If there exists a greater and more intense feeling
But as I shook my head and realize there’s none
All the heartaches of yesterday are simply gone
And as I say that I love you more than you’ll ever know
Tears of happiness from eyes constantly flow
Because these words of truth cannot be told exactly
Not in a message or a phone call directly
And as you thank me for that conversation
While it’s me who should do the appreciation
I can’t help but imagine how lucky I am
To finally find my mister, my man
And when you say, “Goodbye, honey”
I became partly sad and partly happy
For I know that after that beep that says it’s over
There is the wish that says “I hope it’s forever”
For when I talk to you, I’m more than comfortable
My heart swells with joy with your every call
But everything will be okay then
As soon as I hear your “hello” again.

Independence Day

2009-06-11T06:11:00.000-07:00

June 11, 2009
Dear Friend,

Tomorrow is the celebration of Independence Day of the Philippines. This commemoration is already ongoing even before I was born, meaning, this is older than I am. Nevertheless, my Philippine History subject tells me that this “independence” is from the colonizers or influencers if you prefer to have it as a term. College History, tells me that it is from the Spaniards, Americans, Japanese and from the Muslim rebels. I won’t argue much about the independence stuff for there are still millions of Filipinos believing that we still don’t have it. They suppose that we are still not completely free and I consider this to have something associated with being a protectorate of other powerful country or maybe connected with the administrators and leaders whom they love to disgust.

I’m not a person who can be a Filipina emblem. I am not like the brave Gabriela Silang who fought hard for freedom, neither am I like my other schoolmates who are so attached politically to the point that they absent on some of our classes to join street demonstrations or boycotts. I don’t go to streets and fight for truth or justice. There is something in me that says it’s enough to know and I am not that able physically and emotionally to go out and scream and fight. Maybe I am also not convinced to do that, still don’t have sufficient reasons to risk everything I already am. For me, it has always been enough to know what they are fighting for and whom they are fighting… and I admit, sometimes, I feel that it’s a shame for me to know what’s going on and what’s wrong but seemed to be just contented to watch it all failing, to watch the corrupt and abusive on their thrones and stare helplessly at those eyes of the people who define the word ‘poverty’. Philippines’ government is neither a monarchy nor dictatorial. It’s democratic- the kind which power lies on the people and I believe when Dr. Rizal once said that we should all take part in making our country a better place because this is our own country. No one will care for it but Filipinos. I don’t have the ideas to change the world and I am aware that those things don’t happen in a snap. I know that the Philippines still need a lot of years to actually recover and move on from all the crisis it faced recently and those years may mean even more than my lifetime but I do believe in collective action, too, to voice out one’s principles and points of view, to let them know that we are all aware of their abuse and greed and to care for this country and fellow Filipinos. Though uncertain, I think, it may give the guilt to those who are doing wrong. I hope that it does.

This isn’t a post to tell people to go to streets and start rallying because most of them don’t know the issue, anyway, and to fight for something you know not is like catching a black ant on the dark even you are not sure that there exist one. This is a post allowing people to know that I also know but had chosen the safe way, as you might say, which is writing and voicing out to this little spot on the web. Maybe I should focus first in changing how I used to be, greedy and self-centered, before I concentrate on a bigger world.

Love always,
Rhaingel

Egotism

2009-06-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

I creep; I crawl and beg for a touch
Of your delicate petals, I come to vouch
No rain will ever drift me away
No waves, no breeze will ever make me sway.
For here I lie awake beside your roots,
Oh dear flower, no lightning can scare me to death
No thunder can ever make me scream
But this love for you as it moves inch by inch,
Grows deeper and deeper, even more profound
Than your roots can ever reach.
Virtues and faith are what you teach,
Dearest, of concerns and kindness, you really are rich!

Of all the flowers here, you are entirely different

You alone I crave and dream and follow where you went.
And though the bees might steal you from me
What can I do aside from wishing for your safety?
As much as I wish that you are mine and mine alone
Of all my greed, you might have drown
And if someday you realize that it is Ms. Butterfly
Who won over me and really did the best to try,
You can just tell me you’re sorry and pull my roots off
For there is no sense in loving if it was never mine
Nor there is a sense in breathing in strife
If she, from the start, has started your life.
There is no sense in giving you refuge
If her assurance and protection is nothing but huge.
And hence if everything is nothing but a dried leave,
You might as well get rid off me and let me be heave
Let the storm destroy me and let me destroy the storm
Let me be battered, warped and be deformed.
And for a while, ask me if I am happy
While I am drowning in all your bees’ honey,
And for a while catch me staring at your petal
Being smelled by others, for me it’s fatal.
If you know, dear flower, that it will never be me,
Allow that playing child to rest his foot on me
And nothing will ever disturb you again,
No more rhymes or poems or verses then
No more hopeless romantic,
No more wicked sick.

Delicious Ambiguity

2009-06-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

Up the heavens and down on earth, I sat tranquilly in between: a place where I can reach for flying birds and can look down on colorful roofs. Our balcony is not a place where I usually stay, especially when the rain is too strong or the sun is too harsh. After all, I don’t want to end up all wet either by the rain or by body’s heat. An extreme weather doesn’t make our balcony a refuge all the time but now, the air is refreshing from the rain a while ago and the sun is about to set. The temperature was just right to drive mosquitoes away and not need any fan or abaniko in Filipino. Nothing’s noisy and there isn’t any sound except tiny footsteps of the children playing hide and seek in front of our house. Everything seems melodious, musical in quality and hey, almost made me sing. The sky is rainbow-colored and clouds serve as mirrors which duplicate colors and emphasize them. As the sky meets the horizon in a very lovely manner like stuffs from movies, the color becomes gradually deeper, darker, almost close to black who lines that boundary between earth and heaven, gives it separation hour and puts an end to an intriguing affair of what’s up and what’s around. It’s already twilight; almost the end of the day and the Master gets His paint ready for another masterpiece which surpasses beauty and splendor. By now, I can imagine the night stalker getting ready to prey on some other heroes and creeps who are afraid as he moves inch by inch closer and closer. By now, I can imagine that after I finish this thing, it’s already an official nighttime and that stars will be out, illuminating the gray surroundings but that sweet dose of imagination is reserved strictly later. It seems like the only thing left to do in moments like this is sit back and relax and read poetry or some other romantic novels by the great Nicholas Sparks while your body feels like it’s being washed out by the gentle waves of the sea and the gentler breeze of the blue. Maybe this moment is perfect if equipped with a hot tea, not coffee, not soda and not milk. Tea, preferably organic and herbal, and therefore healthy: clear and translucent and with a string lingering on the brink of the cup.

It occurred to me that if I am reading this post and I don’t know the writer’s history or things about her, I’ll assume that she is on her late eighties whose hobby is knitting or watering the plants, perfectly contented and glad about how life turned out for her, her ever loving husband and for her dearest sons and daughters, ready for reminiscing and story-telling for the young people and too tired for adventures but no, I am just seventeen and most of my life is still unfolding, still a profound secret to me but who cares? I love secrets and surprises, anyway!

Right now, I feel like tomorrow is still dependent on the dice I am rolling later. I maybe certain that it’ll rain. I maybe certain that I’ll read a poem or two but I am not sure whether tomorrow is going to be great or not. I can only hope that everything is going to turn out well. This is it- delicious ambiguity, like a story whose end will never be certain and will never be told.

Good night. Like expected, I’ll be done by nighttime and I was.

Random Catastrophe

2009-06-06T05:34:00.000-07:00

As the rain poured endlessly on the still wet surroundings, I found myself stuck inside our house. With the gray clouds stretching over the almost-dusk sky, the chilling weather won’t allow me to go somewhere else especially on a destination quite far from home. I thought that this day will just be devoted to Math since I heard and it was confirmed that our vacation is extended for another week. I thought that that span of time will allow me to make five advanced lessons on Calculus and feel Physics after skipping it for a year. Maybe that extension wasn’t that bad after all if it’s for the best.

As I was going on with numbers, I became bored. It’s not that I lost my enthusiasm again. I’d rather believe that I still got this awe with words and haven’t overcome it so that beats numbers for a little while. Maybe that’s the reason why I settled for another novel this day (it’s The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks). I am appreciating words and statements more than how I did lately and now, I am more open to poetry and great people like Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare. I look up to them because they usually know how to express all their love and feelings. I wonder if they also felt that words are never enough. It feels good to really appreciate what I’m reading and not do it simply because of boredom or just to avoid slacking around.

After acquiring tired eyes, I went to our balcony, which brink seems to catch all of these teardrops from heaven. From up above, the ripples caused by every rainfall appear like iris of a little child trying to figure out what’s out there in the dark. It’s increasing in size, little by little, until that moment when the water can no longer accommodate its glowing and it’s gone. The frost was refreshing and I can smell winter though I haven’t even experienced one. Maybe it smells this way. Though the feeling was really revitalizing than you can ever imagine, a doze of unhappiness crept in my veins. My mom’s plants all appeared like falling shoulders because of too much rain. The leaves are yellowish and are very pale and there isn’t a spot of a flower or a fruit. If it’s a person, she should be on the Intensive Care Unit, malnourished and starving of sunlight. I know that my mom will be disappointed to see these little natures we allowed our home to have destructed by the regular drizzle. After all the effort she made to finally make them grow and bloom, this is not how she wanted this to see. If she has nothing to do, she usually looks at these plants and takes a feel of its thorns and its flowers. She does it always. She weeds it regularly and gets excited whenever there is something on bloom. I usually wonder if that is also the way she felt when she knew that she was pregnant for her first-born.

Anyway, for the rest of the day, I’ll be answering e-mails. I am really sorry I took for granted some of the messages I received for the past months. Now that I am reading messages again, I know I’ve missed it and maybe, it isn’t too late to do a bit of catching up and sharing. I feel excited, like I am on a reunion or something and I am glad because people seem to be the same as I first knew them and their enthusiasm and points of view on things are highly contagious, even more phenomenal than the swine flu.

Smitten

2009-06-05T03:55:00.000-07:00

In visions of a gloomy afternoon,
Your face shines bright, like stars of the moon.
The touch of your face remains in my palm
Oh beloved, it really feels so calm
To finally feel a tangible you
That sometimes seems a dream in the blue.

A capsule of day-dream once in a while
Of him standing there and me under the veil
Everything is white and all are in bloom
Flowers falling like tears not of gloom.
With eyes so well-defined and romantic lips
With your sweetness, how can I ever resist?

Nothing shines brighter than the spark of your kiss
Pure and genuine, I never had such bliss
Call me happy or perhaps half-crazy
I’ll stand and show you what’s written in destiny
Oh mister, this love had grown so much
My darling, my fear of losing you had grown larger

No person deserves an angel like you
No princess deserves a dance or two
No other name deserves your last
Neither your love, care nor trust
Once in a blue moon the opportunity is
I creep, I beg, let me have it forever, please.

Out of This World

2009-06-02T03:44:00.000-07:00

LOL. I was browsing the Internet for some Physics e-book when I hopped on this one. This is my definition of an out-of-this-world survey and it made me laugh out loud. I wasn’t expecting such questions. Feel free to grab this anytime you like. :)

1. What it your crush told you that he/she loves you and then there came a dragon in front of you, what is your favorite food?
Haha. I fell out of my chair. Well, for the question, it’s pizza.

2. If you are with your crush and then there came an earthquake, what will you say to those who hate Manny Pacquiao?
Got nothing to say. Well, it’s their opinion. I might as well respect it.

3. You won a million dollar, what color would you like the rainbow be?
I want it the way it is now, but I like the colors to be really emphasized, like you’ll see that this part is blue, this one is yellow. I want it to appear like how it does on children’s book.

4. Suppose you were given a special power by a fairy, what was the name of your first pet?
Hmm.. It’s jasmine, a rabbit.

5. Suppose you’ll be inheriting a hundred hectares land, which do you prefer? Calamansi or soy sauce?
I like Calamansi better. It’s sour taste makes it very distinct and very familiar both at the same time.

6. If you’ll kill a person, where have you been last night?
I was just at home, like a true-blooded responsible teenager

7. If you found yourself on a forest full of dangerous animals, will you pulverize the sentinel?
(Okay. This applies to those who play the game) No. Sentinel is my most-of-the-time-home. I like it more than the Scourge.

8. In this global crisis, what is your favorite band?
Actually, I am not that into bands. I am more fond of individual singers.

9. If you happen to pass by your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend with his/her new love, what will you do to help those victims of certain calamities?
The bets way I can help is to pray for them and if there’s a chance, donate canned goods or any other food.

10. If you found your best friend pregnant then she asked you, KFC or McDo, what will you answer?
KFC. I love the mash potato there!

11. If the world will explode tomorrow, then you found out that the one you like likes you back, what is the name of your dentist?
Dra. Eunice.

12. Yes or no only. What do you feel right now?
Yes.

13. With our unstable government, do you think the raisin’s size will change?
Haha. No. It’s size is actually fine.

14. You were stranded in an elevator and you cannot ask help from anyone, what will you do to leave your house tomorrow?
I’ll ask mom for permission.

15. You suddenly remember your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend. Do you think your grade 1 teacher still remembers you?
No. I was passive that time.

16. Suppose your past love doesn’t talk to you anymore, do you think he/she knows the feeling to have sunburns?
Maybe.

17. You were caught by the police for a crime you did not do. What will you so that she/he will add you on friendster?
He is already my friend there.

18. Your family will go to an out-of-town trip while your friends decided to throw a party, which do you prioritize first, shirts or pants?
Shirts.

19. You broke your friend’s trust. What will you do to have the glow of the nature back?
I’ll do what a student should be doing.

20. If you put some water on beef and then put chicken cubes there, what will dominate, dunks or supras?
Wah! Got no idea there!

Sorry Cinderella

2009-05-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

May 30, 2009 – May 31, 2009

23:15
Forty-five minutes to go before everything turns into pumpkins again. There isn’t much left to do than wait desperately for that time then conclude that it’s gone, that it will never repeat itself. The fantasies are all gone. The assurance is also nowhere now. It’s very sarcastic that I did everything a while ago just to produce a post and now, everything is running smoothly and effortlessly. I’m overwhelmed. I’m drowning. Thoughts and ideas are everywhere. They are everything I see now and they are telling me to write them down before they, too, are gone. Forty-Forty-five minutes is too long for someone who is waiting and is too short for someone who is trying. five minutes is not forever and it’s not convincing me that it’s okay or it will be okay. Tears are the product of my desperation to make this last, to make tomorrow as sweet as yesterday and today, to make tomorrow full of spice… but tears are nothing and they won’t stop time.

23:45
Fifteen minutes. I wanted to not talk to you anymore, later than this time for this day. I wanted to sleep silently or weep silently and be not conscious of the time but I cannot. How can I deny myself with fifteen minutes of communication? How can I deprive myself to it when tomorrow, there will just be fragments? How can I miss such an opportunity? Yes. Yes. I was happy and contented before I turned into Cinderella but now that I know the big difference, I feel sorry for myself because I am scolding her that some good things doesn’t last. Tomorrow is going to be different for me but it will be usual for everyone. They won’t even have a clue that I’ve been to the party, that I met my prince charming there. They won’t know that I was the one who danced with the prince and wore a glass shoe. It’s just I who will know the dissimilarity between my usual life and my princess life. No one will even notice it.

I was half asleep and half awake. I don’t know if that’s really the case but I can see myself standing but I’m lying on my bed so I supposed that it was a dream. I can still hear the radio I left open and can still feel the ocean of sadness slowly dripping on my cheeks so I supposed that it was something real. My phone rang. No. It was just a text and then I turned to my side to read it and there was nothing. I supposed that it was really just a dream that resembles some elements of reality and then I supposed that the past two days was also just a dream that resembles some elements of reality and maybe, I shouldn’t feel bad upon waking up. I accidentally saw the time when I was checking for some message. It was 00:02. Time’s up, dear Cinderella. You’re waiting for nothing.

01:00
All I wanted to do was sleep and return to my dream and I can do it for the rest of my day. I know that when the sun finally shines or the people finally realize that today is the end of May, my realization will be today is the end of my dream and I’ll feel sorry again for Cinderella.

Senseless. Believe Me.

2009-05-30T06:21:00.000-07:00

Oops! Don’t say that you have not been warned. Okay? There are other better posts than this. You can shift your attention now to the right side of this page which says INSCRIPTIONS.

It has been two hours since I sat here, waiting for things, for brilliance, for thoughts. You know, just things to write in here. It has also been two hours of struggle to think if ever I’ll write or not. Yeah, to write or not to write, that is the question. For the sake of writing and being committed to my goals, I wanted to make a post. For the sake of obeying my desires to just rest and isolate myself from some pressure or chaos, I wanted to just lie down and wish that he’s fine and happy.

Amazing photographs and soulful music didn’t make it this time. Pretty pictures where I usually get inspiration were not able to mesmerize me. Nothing appeals to my senses. In addition to that, today has a weather I personally like and events are spontaneous and interesting but it just won’t come. It won’t go on smoothly, like when you’re putting some cream to your face and all of a sudden, you feel a pimple or a bump or an open pore. It’s not coming. I have to force it out in order to produce something… at least something for today.

It has been two hours since I’ve been trying to write and nothing is fashioned, honestly. When I have ideas, I write for minutes. The longest will be fifteen minutes but for this day, two hours… then nothing still. I tried. After some pointless paragraphs, I’ll close MS Word without saving what I’ve done. It’s pointless anyway. I don’t find it attractive. I don’t find any sense in it. I think, for two hours, I’ve done it a gazillion times already. There are unspoken words of un-satisfaction that this scribble doesn’t contain what I need it to contain, that this doesn’t speak of what I need the world to hear. For this day, what I was able to produce on paper is not enough. It’s not even half of what I define as enough. After two hours, I am thinking of going back to solving because I did realize that the primary agenda of my trying to write everyday is for improvement and if in some days, I am not open for any expansion, I’ll close the door and try to open it some other day in which I am willing and open-minded. I realized that it isn’t compulsory in any way. I shouldn’t make it necessary.

Now, my ego is telling me that I am such a stubborn baby. She said that I made a goal to write everyday so I shouldn’t be confused with the to-write-or-not-to-write stuff. After all, this senseless thing is posted to the sake of posting. Just that.

Shut up, ego! I did what you want… for the sake of doing.

Morning Sickness

2009-05-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

As I make my bed this morning, my eyes still trying to figure out where am I, my calendar told me that it’s May 28, year of the Lord. Everything's normal. As the aroma of coffee penetrates my room and every neuron in my brain, I tied the curtain with a purple ribbon I found on the side. It’s not everyday that I do that. I just felt a little warm so breeze from the trees will be very refreshing. The tied curtain allowed me to see what’s behind the windows. I stared at the house across ours and the street that separates the two. Memories came crashing by and I cannot help but go back to my innocence and think that this is just a dream contained in another dream. You know those sorts of things, right? You were sleeping and in your dream, you were also dreaming about something else. I felt that way a while ago and the struggle to wake up was difficult and drowning.

I stared at the street for a minute or two. There is where I usually played when I was younger. There is where I learned games like hide and seek, tumbang preso and habulan. I know every stone in that street, every bump and every playing card hidden underneath the plants and pots. There is where I got wounded and cried hard and cursed my playmates and promised never to play with them again until tomorrow and I forgot everything that happened.

My eyes switched to the house across ours. It is full of blooming flowers and I can see the rocking chair on the morning sunshine. There is where Mommy Odek usually sits and takes her naps during afternoons. There is where I ate a lot of jackfruit salad cooked by Mommy Odek and vomited everything as soon as I got home. There is where I played with dogs and chewed a lot of gums that made me go to the dentist the next day. There is where I learned how to play jack stone and how I practiced to catch the ball as soon as it bounced from the ground.

Now, my playmates are all gone and who replaced them are matured people whose main focus now is not to win the game but be successful in their own chosen fields. Yesterday, I saw them again and they were all crying for the burial of my Mommy Odek who had treated them as her own sons and daughters, too. These playmates are not crying because they lost in the game but because they lost someone who is very important in their lives, most especially in their childhoods. It’s so different to see them that way but more different to see Mommy Odek on her coffin. I still want her look when she naps on her rocking chair, very peaceful but you know that sooner, she'll wake up.

“Those realizations are already enough,” I said and I closed the windows again and let down the curtains. It’s better to feel warm throughout the day than feel the coldness within because of those realizations. Just like everyone said, someone dies only if she/he is forgotten and in that case, Mommy Odek will forever live. I have immortalized her in this blog and I am sure that other people closed to her will do the same in their own life’s chronicle. I am not the only one who saw that she is such a blessing and I am not the only one who learned a lot from her and is planning to live with the values she taught us.

The windows are now closed and the rain poured.

The Post-Summer Evaluation

2009-05-26T20:23:00.000-07:00

When summer was just ahead and the sun wasn’t as scorching as it is now, I made a list of things to accomplish for summer 2009. I said that the summer is such an enjoyable season and that I cannot afford to let it pass without enjoying every bit of it lying on my couch. (For review, click on THIS ). Everyday of my summer 2009, I was thinking about these things. Of course, it’s something for us if we set goals and accomplish them. That will make us believe more in ourselves. Now, it’s my time to evaluate myself and see if ever I set goals and committed myself to those or I just set empty words.

First, I said that I’ll finish four books. For this summer, I finished the following: Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Lies my Yaya Did Not Told Me, A Walk to Remember and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I am also currently reading The Time Traveler’s Wife and I am sure to finish it before the start of the first semester. Providing a little review, among the books I’ve read, A Walk to Remember was my favorite. Maybe because I am just too biased because I really look up to Nicholas Sparks and I love his works and his words. He is my favorite writer so far and I am an enthusiast for romance. To be perfectly fair, I love the others books, too and I learned so much on those. They were like tiny grains of virtues on my way and the only reasonable choice is to pick them up and live with them.

Second, I said that I’ll finish my novel. Argh. To be honest, I haven’t. I was writing a novel and spoilers are not allowed here. I promise myself to not let any information or detail out. I’ll just leave you with the truth that I haven’t finish it and the promise that my blog will contain the information about it as soon as it’s done. This is an unsettled business and the due date is forever.

Third, I said, I should get a minimum of six hours of sleep a day… and I made it! Cheers! I sleep for four hours every night and take a two-hour nap every afternoon and during travel so I made it! Though it sounds relaxing, I still feel un-relaxed about it. For me, it’s still not enough. Sleeping during travel gives me the migraine and the need for a brewed coffee. Sleeping during nighttime is still different and is a lot better than those naps.

Fourth, I said that I am going to pass Math and this morning, I saw my grades on my on line account and it was very fulfilling. I passed Math and got a reasonable grade. I don’t have any idea on how my grade will turn out so I was happy to finally see my professor’s idea about me and my performance. Now, I am settled for Math 64 and I finally got my passport to it. The journey for the passport was a rough one but the bottom line that I made it makes me ignore the journey.

Last but certainly not the least, I made a vow to write everyday and the truth is I did but some of my writings are not in this blog anymore. Maybe, the next month’s goal is to write everyday and put this writings not on draft but publish it on line. After all, my writings don’t improve at all if it’s just saved on MS Word in My Documents. I’d rather hear criticisms from people who know and are sharing the same passion with me.

Today's Jist

2009-05-26T08:07:00.000-07:00

May 26, 2009
Dear Friend,

Today was argh, exhausting but nevertheless, thoughts of him made me stay on my track. I woke up at eleven and I was determined to finish The Time Traveler’s Wife today. I know that I was just on page 132 a while ago but I really thought I can finish it this whole day if undisturbed. While I was on page 139, my mom told me to go to Quezon City and claim her mobile phone. It’s an hour and a half away from home and I really don’t want to go there now because I have a limited time to rest. My mom’s phone was broken and was sent to Sony Ericson’s shop for repair. I really was not on the mood to go out but my mom was too eager and I can understand her for it has been two month since she last held her cell phone. If I were in her case, I’ll be more than excited.

So I went to Quezon City alone. The travel gave me a very uncomfortable feeling that I wanted to take a bath again or I wanted to swim or I just wanted to lie down and rest. It was boring and quite lonely. Maybe because as I woke up, I prepared myself for reading and resting. I have two hundred and eighteen pages to go (and that is where I use my Math) and that errand was technically out of my schedule. As I entered the store, I got a number and hated the queue of people. The shop was too small and cannot accommodate all of their customers, very suffocating. They should be buying or renting a bigger place. I realized that I really was growing impatient so to save my self and the world from further damage, I left the store and went to Dairy Queen. I ordered Blizzard because I just notice that when I have an ice cream, I always feel happy and light, like I was away from the chaos of the world. If it’s a bad day, the ice cream does the cheering up process. Well, as I was saying, the Blizzard was served upside-down so I did not had it for free. I purchased it and then went back to the queue of people. Somehow, I felt lighter and hungrier. So after claiming the phone, I decided to buy some brownie then pizza then shake then soup then mash potato. In short, I pigged out and that’s a very happy way to cheer up. I also went to the bookstore and bought a planner for my upcoming academic year. Hey, did I already mention that I am excited? Anyway, after realizing that my stomach was oh-so-full and my feet are oh-so-tired, I decided to go home. After all, today is Mommy Odek’s last burial night and I hate to realize that tomorrow, there will be no trace of her but memories residing in our hearts. I know that she’s happy somewhere and her sons are also happy now. I mean, they have accepted what happened whole-heartedly but for me, deep inside, I am wishing for longer times spent with her. I get sad each time I open my closet and see the gowns she sewed for me and how the next gowns I am going to use are not anymore her masterpieces. I get sad each time I realize that she gives me food whenever I don’t like the food cooked by my own mom. I get sad each time I realize that she’s dead, that I can’t do anything about it except buy some Blizzard to make me feel lighter.

Dear friend, tomorrow is her funeral and she’ll be buried six feet underground and that’s final... not to mention that it's very far. I cannot dig her out and talk to her. Dear friend, I am not familiar with this very uncomfortable feeling. I don’t know what to say or do tomorrow. I don’t know how to sleep for this night.

Love always,
Rhaingel

Q&A

2009-05-25T07:26:00.000-07:00

Now that I don’t have any sensible topic to write on, I decided to push in some surveys again. It’s better to have some than none, after all, and who knows, you might be interested enough to grab this and answer these questions on your blog. Okay. I talked too much though I am not saying anything (and that doesn’t stop me from mentioning it). Let’s get it on!

What did you do last night?
Walked.

Do you chew on your straws?
Nope. What the hell?

Do you know that words of the song on your Friendster profile?
Yeah. Actually, I put it there because I like the words so much.

Are you stressed?
Nope. I am actually having the greatest and happiest time of my life. Everything is properly placed.

Besides this, what are you doing?
Chatting with CHGA :D

When was the last time something bothered you?
Last night? I think, my blog caught everything that bothered me.

Have you ever fallen asleep on the telephone?
I almost did. His voice was so sweet and very melodic and his words were all coming from his lips, which are lips of an angel, better than the gentlest lullubye. How can I help myself?

When was the last time you cried?
Yesterday. It was because of Mommy Odek’s death.

Have you ever told anyone you were okay when you really weren't?
Yes. I usually do it and few special people know the difference.

What's something you really want right now?
Teleport, time-traveling. Argh. I must have drowned in that book.

Today, would you rather go back a week or go forward a week?
Go back :D

Do you have any feelings for anyone right now?
Yes!

Are you a jealous person?
Argh. Yes…

Last Masterpiece

2009-05-24T08:37:00.000-07:00

May 24, 2009
Dear friend,

Today is quite depressing and I’ll tell you why as I go on. In our little barangay in Malolos City, almost all people know each other, knows their jobs, their history and a certain view of their attitudes. People in here are so in tack to each other that when you have a certain ailment or you just came from the hospital, they will crowd your room and will make you feel that you’re finally home. When you have a new baby, she will be confused about who her parents are because my neighbors will grab chances to hug your child and make her feel that she is a star of her own.

When I was a child, I remember my neighbors making fun of me and my innocence. They will make me dance and sing in front of many people and I thought that that was good. Among those people, I call my Mommy Odek as my favorite. I really liked her as a child because she makes me dance and sing and gives me a lot of round colorful chewing gums afterwards. I cannot remember much after that but she must be very special because I call her mommy.

As I grew older, Mommy Odek’s husband died and from then on, she just stays inside her house and devoted the rest of her life taking care of her sons who are way older than I am. I was seven at that time and when it’s Christmas or Halloween or my birthday, my Mommy Odek will cook spaghetti and fruit salad and give it to me. She knows exactly my favorite and will compare me to the prettiest actresses on Philippines’ show business. She knows what makes me flattered. As I again grew older, she sews my school uniform and my gowns for parties. These dresses were products of her hard work for she sews everything with her hand and no machine at all. Our relationship emerged from chewing gums to dresses, from my childhood to my puberty.

As I woke up this morning, trying to sleep as long as possible for the Santacruzan this night, I checked my gown. That was the first thing I did because Mommy Odek’s promise was this morning and I have to keep all the thrill of seeing it. It was very pretty and full of accents and I actually felt very excited to wear it. It was long and almost majestic, as perfect as I dreamt it to be. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” my mom interrupted and as I agreed, she said that it was Mommy Odek’s last masterpiece. She died this morning, at six thirty after attending mass. After the shocking news, I remembered everything- how she keeps the dog on the cage when I come to her house to play, how she joined me in various contests I’ve joined, how she treated me as her own daughter. All I can do was stare at the gown she made for me and imagine her putting every single bead in there. All I can do was wish that our time spent together was longer but her life’s goal was already done and her own sons are already stable with their life- have families and children already so more or less, she was contented when she left. I suppose, it wasn’t depressing after all because she was not in pain when she died. Her death was very peaceful and everyone is certain that she is in a better place now and is happy. Maybe, there wasn’t any better ending for her than that and I am happy to see her smiling face… only it was inside a coffin but prayers are effective and after more realizations, I know I’ll accept everything.

Love always,
Rhaingel

Bloggy Thank You

2009-05-23T07:19:00.001-07:00

Receiving something for a blog you are really fond of is an own encouragement of its sort. Let me speak formally. In my entire bloggy existence, there were about five awards given to this blog and up to now, I am thanking every blogger who gave me the pride and privilege. It is one of the reasons why this little page in the world wide web is still breathing. Now, another award was given to me by RENA and truly, I am more than grateful. This blog has been very crazy for the past few months. The mood is happy then will be switching to sad then angry. Really, this page, when you will follow and read every single post that I put, you’ll also be insane but still, I thank people like Rena who still appreciates works like mine. Thank you for all the support.

Now, I am passing the joy brought by this award to other bloggers. Drum rolls please. Surely, they won’t receive this award if they are not deserving for it so I carefully chose these people and to know why, why do you give their blogs a visit? I am assuring you that their posts are all worth-reading and very entertaining.

1. LIEZEL at einjheliz.blogspot.com - Liezel is actually an elementary and high school friend. We were schoolmates back then and I must say that she is really a thoughtful girl. I still keep her graduation letter to me when I was in my 6th grade.

2. PENSIVEMIND of hybridofsorts.blogspot.com - This is actually one of the new blogs I recently discovered and the posts here are both funny and well-written. Well, the writer is also a Filipino and knows how to punch lines which will surely bring some meaty laughter.

3. ASH at ash-grapplingwithlife.blogspot.com - If you would like to realize something about life, this blog is the place to go. This blog is very lovely physically and posts there are full of realizations that will enable readers to digest fully certain circumstances in their life.

4. BATANGNARS at pintangakingpuso.blogspot.com - This also one of the new blogs I am getting fond of. It's very entertaining and includes some random posts which can relieve stress of a reader. This blog is physically attractive and posts are really worth the read.

5. REXTER of keyofdest1ny.blogspot.com - Rex is actually a friend but don't get me wrong. He is in my list because he deserves to be and not just because he is a friend. His blog is actually about his deepest frustrations and wishes, his inner thoughts and mature realizations. I love to visit his page because at some point, I am envisioning myself in his shoes.

6. THE RAMBLER at noheasmith.blogspot.com - The Rambler's blog is full of (guess what) ramblings. Posts in here are surely well-written and she can amazingly put into words certain feelings and realizations. It is also very entertaining most especially when it includes responses from readers. It's very interactive and I love Think About It Thursdays! :D

7. D-ANJHEL at dharkanjhel.com - Actually, I just hopped into this blog a while ago and I really find those blogs which are informative and yet enjoying and not boring very amazing. This blog is one of those and I think, I'll be visiting it more often now.

8. FLOR at bestpinayblogever.blogspot.com - I am not yet graduate from college and these kind of blogs give me the idea of what's waiting for me after I leave the portals of my university. Flor's blog is full of chronicle of her life and surely entertaining. It is the kind of blog that can make you say, "Ah! Right!"

9. YEN at janyen.blogspot.com - Yen's blog is all about her life and it is really nice to hear how she tells stories of what's up and what's down. This person is older than me and whenever my immaturity is swallowing me, I just read her stories and somehow, I feel lighter.

10. SASHA at the-sweet-bonjour.blogspot.com - This blog is physically cute and I really envy her layout. It is very lovely, as lovely as her posts and it is good to know tha girls like her is blogging about everything. Her blog is surely worth the visit.

These are the bloggers I am giving the award to. I hope that you pay them some visit and eventually see the beauty that I am seeing in those pages.

Done It!

2009-05-23T03:45:00.000-07:00

Today marks the start of my official vacation. The exams were over and the only thrill left is waiting for our final grade, the fruit of our two-month labor. I have roughly two weeks to be idle, to just slack around and annoy my little sister and wake up late, pressure-less. I am also seeing this time to finish reading a novel or two and to prepare myself for the upcoming first semester. I have been wishing dearly for this day for almost a month and I am glad that though it took me so long to finally achieve a state of relaxation, it was worth all the wait and sacrifices. I was not the same person I am two months ago and I am glad that I was re-directed.

Perhaps you can consider this post as the body of my brief chronicle of how my summer 2009 was spent and perhaps, the conclusion is already implied. The best part of it was actually the idea that it gave me a concrete destination, something I am dying to achieve and reach. Whenever I am growing tired of all these studying stuff, my professor would usually say, “Hey. You have to move faster. The bank where you are going to work is already waiting for you,” and everything will be in flame and the next thing I knew, damn, I was working harder than ever. It seems that it was the best encouragement to attain perfect perseverance and patience towards things, most especially on sordid numbers. I have a dream even before I enter college and now, I realize that I am not that committed to it, that I am really easily distracted. Thanks to summer classes! It reminded me of those plans I have for myself and for the people whom I am closed with. Now, I am back to my track again, more directed and with higher dreams.

My summer wasn’t perfect, just like you and me and how everything seems to be. There were moments when I am PMS-ing and everything simply appeals to me as irritating. There were times when I don’t even appreciate that I am learning and what I really wanted was a vacation, nothing less. There were also days when my professor does her all in order to make us appreciate what’s on the board and instead of acknowledging her efforts, I will just doodle on my paper, thinking about what’s missing rather than what’s there. There were times when I hate everyone and I am blaming destiny for my summer spent in school but it was natural like when you heat water and leave it there, it will soon boil so you have to keep the temperature lower so that you won’t evaporate everything. There were starts when I hate mornings for it signals another tiring day away from my comfy bed and whenever that mood strikes, I’ll say, “the rude sun refused to give it a miss and so it’s morning again”. It surely wasn’t as easy as I make it sound at times. If not because of a constant inspiration, I will surely have many absences.

Now, it’s done and I really enjoyed how things turned out. It’s like watching colliding stars from afar and realizing that it’s now my turn to collide my own star with the moon and with all the celestial bodies waiting to be disturbed. I am looking forward to another expedition, preferably farther and with more jeopardy because I am certain that in that way, I’ll learn more and there will always be fragments of virtues and values along the way which are free to pick. Nothing beats learning from various experiences. I think, my summer was a tangible example.

You Must Be Really Special

2009-05-20T06:45:00.000-07:00

The struggle was nothing but hard yet all the same. I walk everyday and paint pictures of people in my mind, giving them natural hues and glowing rainbows. Revolving questions left unanswered and I found myself wasting time on primal existence and thinking about the horizon which appears to be a pancake to me, just to be distracted from what I am longing and looking for. I feel so thwarted for all these unspoken words still rattling my skull, no one to talk to, no one to give me the answers and no one to at least, listen. If you were just here… it'll be different... it'll be a lot... oh... but sigh, you’re not.

I cry when I remember the comfort I do have when I share a piece of me with you, may it be a story or a joke or truths of my life- my petty secrets or a part of my past, my realizations and my heartaches, and I laugh at the same time, remembering the punch line in the end of each of those moments. After that, my laughter will fade and it’ll be replaced by a smile because of the warmth of your hand that I constantly feel holding mine. Whenever I share with you, I don’t really feel that there is something subtracted from me. It was like I am gaining while I am sharing and that paradox gives me the tears of joy now and repeating questions, why oh why, is love intensified upon absence?

I look for you in every people in every place and still get unsatisfied. Your face I see on starry night, in the midst of happy circles, in my silent cries on my pillow and in an empty chair, I see you bright. I see you walking behind me and I’ll look, try to call you but in a blink, those images were all gone. I see you at fast passing vehicles and I wish dearly for the traffic but the travel was too smooth and thus traffic is impossible. I am begging the answer for all these sweet imaginations that an overdose of day-dreaming puts me in solitude of despair and longing and wishing time to just flutter by, that tomorrow may soon be over and then I’ll choke, realizing that tomorrow is still uncertain, you taught me that.

How do you keep me thinking about your face smiling each time I wake up and how do you make me hoping during my distress even without doing anything? How do I hear your gentle and joyous voice pop in my each and every nap? How do thoughts of you keep me working on a sleepy one o’ clock midnight when hopelessness keeps on oozing my body? How does your name resound in my ear whenever I am grasping for the right words to say and to write? Most especially, how does not hearing anything from you allow me to love you even more than how I am already doing?

Damn, you must be really handsome for never ever leaving my mind even for a second and I wasted some hours of my life again thinking about how effortlessly you can do all these. I know the answers and you know that, too. My struggle was non-sense and nothing gets better as each day goes by. You must be really dear to my heart for me getting quite sad because of missing you and wanting to do everything just to be that cheerful person whenever you’re around. Damn, I must have fallen with you that deep… even deeper than I could ever explain.

Cheers!

2009-05-19T05:29:00.000-07:00

Cheers! Summer spent is school is almost over. I have two days to review my notes and Friday will be the finals. It’s like I am on the part when the mother will have to make one hard push in order to deliver the baby out of her womb and give life to another miracle. I am almost there and I can see it coming yet I am also aware that I still have to make one big push. Well, I can get through. After all, I got my enthusiasm back.

I really cannot wait to make a brief account of my summer 2009. It’s not yet over but I am making the introduction now. It was very atypical, not spent in a vacation out-of-town, not tanned by the beach scorching sun and not slacking everyday. It was spent in between yawning gaps and Calculus textbooks. It was the kind of summer everyone will hate and get rid off… except for maybe, me. If ever I have to choose the meatiest semester of my so far, college life, it will be the summer semester. Very fast paced, very tiring yet very informative. It actually made me trust myself again and learn to fight verbal problems and be not intimidated easily. For me, it was something very important because when you don’t trust yourself, who else would? Now, when someone asks me to answer a particular question, I’ll love to try and not like before when I'll do everything to avoid it. Due to self-esteem, I’ll get an answer, maybe not always right but at least almost there. In between those grumbles that I hate numbers lies an image on what I really want to be three years from now. If not for this dream and if not for the people who serve as my inspiration, I’ll just sleep and sing Que Sera Sera or Come What May. It’s true that trigonometric functions are not very applicable in everyday life. They are very impractical to use and very unhealthy to think about but for the hardest way, it taught me to be really patient. It taught me that there is no easy way out of those angles, that the best way is to understand the concept and love what you are doing... When you love what you're doing, you'll never grow tired. Being bitter about those will reflect on the scores of my exams. Now, trigonometric functions and their inverses are my favorite topic. I spent couple of days answering exercises only about that and I get sad each time I get the wrong answer but stopping won’t put me somewhere else. It is right that the water dissolved the stone not by big waves crashing but by continuous dripping. After each and every mistake, I learn and eventually become wiser enough to say, “I’ve encounter this before and now, I finally know what to do!” Experience is the best teacher, a healthy reminder.

This isn’t about Math. This is also isn’t about summer. This is about how the subject gave me fresh outlook on things (and not to mention, how it able me to use a lot of metaphors). This isn’t about numbers, not also about variables and constants. This is about sacrifices and how in the end, they usually bloom into something so far from what you expected. This is how perseverance springs into satisfaction and how this satisfaction allows a person to crave for further enhancement. This is actually about life.

For the almost-done-summer-spent-in-school… for the love of Math and life… for the success of another learning process… for realizing my goals again and trying my best to be really committed to those… for the person whom I am doing this for… for my self-esteem… for my proud momma… for the three manila paper I used as scratch paper…for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a professor like Ma’am Ocampo and for every blessing that came in my life… cheers!

Presure-less Sunday

2009-05-17T06:22:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow will be a different day, I know. It is not the usual Monday when I wake up early to avoid the rush hour and everyone also does because we have an exam in this time of the week. At first, Monday exams were the worst part of being a student because it ruins our weekends. It makes us avoid staying up late at Sunday night and watching unlimited DVDs. After several weeks of getting used to it, Sunday has always been reserved for the preparation for the next day and we realized, little by little, that Monday is really the best part of the week where we can schedule the exam. At seven in the evening, we’ll all feel the pressure of cramming and the blame that we should have started reviewing earlier, but it was too late and what’s left to do is ask other classmates for the unsolved problems. It was always like that and Sunday is incomplete without all those pressure. Every week, though we know what’s going to happen, we don’t change those things, still giving in to the destiny we laid for ourselves.

Now, I am done to my last week of school and I am really happy. I am happy because finally, I can sleep at twelve and wake up at one or better, never wake up at all. I am happy because I can now read books which I took for granted because of natural logarithmic. I am happy, most especially, because I’ve accomplished something which I am totally proud of and that I never imagined myself being in love with Math and seeing its perks on my life.

Because this upcoming week will be our last, our professor put off our fifth long exam to Tuesday instead of Monday and I saw this as a prolonged time to review and answer exercises. My professor said, “I know that this lesson is difficult for you. It is difficult for the teacher too and there is no easy way out. What you are supposed to do is gain experience about this thing and progressively, you’ll find it easier.” I interpreted it as answering exercises. When you encounter the problem, it will really be difficult but with a second look, you’ll have an idea, more or less, on what to do. So I started preparing last Friday. At least, when I fail, I’ll say that I did everything and I doubled the effort. I remember CHGA saying, “…just like when you want to go to the center of the earth and you are on the last layer, thinking that soon, all of these will be over but you are also aware that the last layer is the thickest and hottest of all and it will be the biggest challenge of your journey to the center of the earth”. Now, I am seeing this week as the toughest. Long exam at Tuesday and finals at Friday. There isn’t much time to be idle since this is the last. Why not give everything? I mean, EVERYTHING.

When it was seven in the evening, a while ago, there were no messages which ask me about the answer or about my solutions. It felt unusual and the atypical thing tripled when I really had a hard time in answering the questions. I texted all of them, asking if they are already done with the said assignment and they all said, “No. I haven’t started it. The exam is still on Tuesday” and for me, it was clearly implied that they will start cramming tomorrow. Okay, hands-off to their decisions. Some people really work better under pressure and maybe, I am not one of those. I just thought that tomorrow will be a different Monday. There will be no celebrating classmates on arcades and restaurants because the exam is not yet over and as it was implied, they will start cramming tomorrow. I also thought that today is also a different Sunday, pressure-less and very idle.

A Student Still

2009-05-16T07:01:00.001-07:00

One of the reasons why I tried to log in the internet everyday is that someone asked for my help. It wasn’t a big thing for me. He was like an apprentice, doing things which I did while in high school and so my advices are somehow important. He was a freshman when I was a senior and now that I am incoming second year college, he is an incoming junior student and has matured a lot ever since. He is an undeniably great writer, someone whose words are full of points and sense and someone whose works will make you think about your own work and realize that you were still shallow at that age, still unable to produce what he can. His expertise is on individualism, politics and criticisms, someone who can write an editorial or news on a paper.

He asked me to be his teacher, to give him topics to write everyday and then check his work, give constructive criticisms and advices in order for him to be better. I knew his plans and when I was a junior high school, I also wanted to improve on the passion I chose. Writing, that is. I felt the privilege of being his teacher because it means that he is looking up to me and I thought that he is now willing to change some of his not-that-good-attitude (well, when I was the chief editor and he is a staff writer, it gives me the challenge to make him write because he doesn’t want to).

While thinking about the topics I can give him, I realized that he is already good with the serious stuff so I want him to have a taste of things like poetry, essays which purpose is to entertain and other topics which has a very light mood. I believe that to be an effective writer, one should really be versatile. Not because Nicholas Spark’s expertise is on romance doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know how to make people laugh or cry. Of course he does. That is the reason why his works are very effective, because there is drama, comedy and realizations there. My apprentice and I decided to have an appointment every two in the afternoon and mind you, it really is a challenge for me since I usually come home at 1:30 and I still have to eat lunch and sleep for my poor body. Sacrifices are important and I just thought that I’ll be very satisfied to read some of his works which are not that serious and will make me laugh. Those things will pay my sacrifice of delaying my sleep and lunch. Our first topic was about music. He plays the piano so well and loves the music so much but not how I do with CHGA. I thought that he can use that skill in order to express his inner self. I said, “Make a poetic essay that will describe music”. I was expecting something like “with every gentle finger kissing the keyboard” or something like, “It was melodic like little raindrops on the rooftop” but he was able to push in politics, individualism, society and other serious stuff to his essay. Argh! I thought that I should push him more but little by little. For our second topic, I said, “Make an essay which purpose is to entertain. It should be away from the serious stuff and will answer the question, if you will have a jeepney, what will you put to its headboard?” Then that was the end of it. I haven’t heard from him since Tuesday and from how I am seeing it, it means that he wants no appointment with me anymore. I think I pushed him in a snap. Maybe I was too harsh to pull him from his comfort zone. Maybe he wasn't ready.

Now, I am focusing on being both a teacher and a student for myself. Maybe, I don’t know yet how to teach someone and not yet on the place to be a teacher who can inspire others. I am not yet satisfied with my works and so to improve my works should be my present focus.

Coffee Vs. Traveling

2009-05-15T07:08:00.000-07:00

A rattled skull and a confused soul are the things which are usually left with me when I wonder about something, may it be something worth thinking as politics or as senseless as what chocolate am I going to eat for the day? Well, last night, I got so intrigued to know which of which is stronger, drowsiness due to a long travel and party last night or a powerful caffeine from coffee, creamer-free.

Coffee has never ever failed me. In fact, it was my savior from the shame of falling asleep while in the middle of my professor’s meaty discussion. A cup of it always makes me pushing, enthusiastic about the lessons and more enthusiastic for problems. I even thought about coffee as something stronger than energy drinks or sports drinks, only it doesn’t replenish the water in my body, doesn’t have electrolytes and most of all, doesn’t have any other color except all shades of brown and black. Anyway, about the electrolytes, I don’t lose any in just sitting there and absorbing everything my professor has to say. So nevertheless, coffee is still best for my summer spent in school.

As much as the coffee keeps me awake, a long travel keeps me asleep. Everyday, as soon as I enter the bus or any public transport vehicle, I always say that I am not going to sleep, that I am going to enjoy the travel and every little thing that I can see from the window. Later on, but not too late, I’ll feel my head increasing in weight that I cannot help but give in to the scream of my body to sleep and regenerate. Sounds okay but the problem is that even though I know that I am almost there (in the terminal where I am supposed to head off), I still see myself fighting over closing my eyes again and extending my sleep for another hour when the terminal is just a minute away. The problem with me is that when I am beginning to like something, I instantly want to indulge myself and never care about what’s up and the consequences eventually. Like in sleeping, just because I am starting to feel comfortable about it, I can hardly remind myself that there are certain limits in sleeping, especially when I do it on a bus.

This morning, I wanted to spend my traveling time memorizing some formulas for my Math class. I just thought that I need to do it soon, as soon as now or maybe later. I took a cup of coffee instead of milk this morning and it was effective when I was just on the way to the bust station. When I was finally on my way to my university, which is one hour away from home, I opened my notebook and started saying one over one plus x squared is tangent… no… sin… hyperbolic cosine…no! I closed my eyes and said that I’ll clear my mind first and return back to memorizing when I am not anymore confused. Besides, pushing myself to memorize something I really don’t feel will make me forget that thing after a minute or two. I need it to be natural and coming from the heart so that I won’t forget and if ever I do, I can always try to remember. If there’s one thing I learned from my good friends, it is to practice the pause whenever you feel like you don’t know where you’re heading anymore or you don’t know what to do. It is always effective, always gives a person a fresh view of the problem he/she has to solve. I felt somehow relieved and actually felt the pressure in my head, burden in my shoulder and pain in my back. I felt the exhaustion I had yester night and the future exhaustion that I’ll have after this day is all over.

Beep! Beep! Thank you to the reckless driver. If not because of his sudden turn right, the bus I am in won’t blow his horns and I must still be in my wildest dreams, undisturbed. The coffee was knocked out.

Fifteen Significant People ( 11 - 15 )

2009-05-12T00:37:00.001-07:00

I’m down to the last five significant people. Honestly, if I am to write all of the people who are significant for me and those people who made a difference in my life, this blog will never be an enough space. I chose these fifteen people because they are the first people I though of and the game was very limited. To repeat the rules, you have to write about fifteen anonymous people and from the definition of anonymous, these people should remain as a mystery to your readers. When someone asks you about the identity of those who are written, you are not allowed to reveal them.

11. To you who treats me as your teacher even though I honestly believe that sometimes, what you write about are far more better than what I produce on paper. You really have a sense, not like me who, most of the times, is very shallow. Having someone who respects my seniority and my achievement in the field is something that inspires me to continue writing and get better eventually so that I won’t be left by your abilities.

12. To you who also listens to me whenever I need a friend and though there really are a lot of differences in our priorities, most especially in our opinions, there still lingers the respect that we reserve for each other. Thank you for joining me in my bad hair days and extremely low-IQ days when we hate the professors, the subjects and the world. Thank you for all the sumptuous conversations that really help me a lot.

13. To the most inscrutable person I know, may you find the person who will completely understand you, your opinions and flaws and everything that you want to happen to the world. May you be successful in the near future so that you’ll have the enough courage to tell me that I was wrong in not loving you back. May destiny bring us back again someday and eventually laugh on our silly fights and the senseless things we are arguing now. I am sorry for everything.

14. To you have remained strong through the years by accepting all the emotional and physical challenges that came in your way. I know that you don’t understand me now and I don’t understand you either but someday, I know that I’ll be seeing your point. I just hope and pray that you focus on the positive side of things and see also the people who MADE you happy and not just those who are MAKING you one.

15. Last but not the least, I want to repeat person number 1. I know that you might say that I am breaking the rules, that I just wrote fourteen people because 1 and 15 are the same but hey, this is my blog and this is my life and I am the rules. To you, who have been my first… and will be my last, I love you more that words could ever say.

Now, I am passing the tag to the following: Lucas, Supergulaman, Flor, Rena, Ash, The Rambler, Rexter, Kalei, Brent, Von Hanyu, B Luis Grey, Abe Mulong Caracas, Kosa, Carms and Lingz. Have fun everyone! Keep the ball rolling.

Fifteen Significant People ( 6 - 10 )

2009-05-11T06:18:00.000-07:00

The continuation. Well, if you haven’t jumped in yet to what I am actually talking about, it’s about

THIS , wherein I have to write fifteen anonymous people and give a brief description about them or make a justification why they deserve a place in this list. Last time, I wrote the first five people. Now, I am writing the next five:

6. To you whom I really care for before and taught me so much about life, love and bitterness. I think, whatever happened in the past, it is a special way of being who I am today. Indeed, without those, I must be a whole lot different person, someone who gives up easily and someone who is too weak and feeble for challenges. Thank you, friend!

7. To you who had treated me as your own daughter, telling me my weak and strong points in order to be the best person that I can be. I think, the self-esteem and self-image I have now is largely because of you... because you believed in me and in my abilities more than anyone can do and with that, I am so grateful.

8. To you who made me realize that not all things are worth fighting for. I mean, there are things which are better left off that way and let destiny manipulate and play with it. Before you became my friend, I always lived by the saying, “What Rhaingel wants, Rhaingel gets” but you instilled on me that it’s not always the best thing to do. Sometimes, you just have to let things be and accept whatever it is that is written in scripted destiny.

9. To you who cried when I said, “Thank you for sharing your umbrella with me that morning when the sun was really rude”. I admit, I was also in the verge of tears when I was thanking you because I know that it was more than that. I know that what we had can be compared to what I have with my parents and as a child back then, you made me believe that I can be whatever I want to be and you also believed in me. Right now, whenever I feel like I am so far to my goals, I think about the day that you winked and told me that Math is just an easy subject and after that, I realized that it was. It is just a matter of how you want to look at things.

10. To you who made me realize that sometimes, efforts are still not enough, that though I do everything to achieve something, some things are not for me and so I have to watch all of my efforts going into nowhere. Hurtful, that is but still true. So, thank you for opening my eyes to the realities of life.

I am done to the first ten. Hmm... I will be posting the last five tomorrow and the people whom I am happy to pass on the tag. The exam a while ago was really draining. Not to exaggerate but it really was the longest and most difficult exam I ever took in my life (well except for life’s challenges). I don’t want to know the results tomorrow. It might ruin my week but looking positively at things, hey, I answered most of the problems! No. Nah! Some of those answers are invented. My head is battling with my ego. Thanks for bearing with me.

Fifteen Significant People (1-5)

2009-05-09T06:43:00.000-07:00

It’s been quite a while since I was last tagged by co-bloggers here. Now, I am playing some sort of nameless game but I found it really interesting. The rules are here: first, you have to write about fifteen people but don’t include their names. Just describe them. If it so happen that someone is curious and felt fishy about those anonymous people, leave them with that mystery. Next, you have to tag fifteen more people but don’t include the one who tagged you.

Let’s get the ball rolling!

1. To you whose soul is so inspiring, who have put so many smiles into my days and was able to turn my fears into a refuge. This first place is for you because you are the only one who occupies my mind and heart and it will always be you no matter what. You are really the first person I think about whenever they say the words: love, happy, and everything related to the blissful things. You are my yesterday, my today and will be my tomorrow. With that, I am more than certain. I love you so much!

2. To you whom I owe my life. You are not just the reason why I am here. You are the reason why I was able to do all the things that I did in order to make you proud and contented for having me. I cannot imagine my life without you and I am not sure how to do because for my life’s long run, you were always there, maybe not always at my side but always with me, pushing me to the top.

3. To you who doesn’t tell me that you love me but expresses it by teasing me or hiding my cell phone when I especialy need it or buying me sandwiches and junk foods. I am so happy to have you in my life and after I reach my success, I will make sure that life will treat you at its best. After achieving my dreams, I will make sure that your dreams will come true too.

4. To you whom I also owe my lie to. To you who is away by heart and by distance and this place belongs to you because even though I am mad and even though I can’t care more, I must admit that you are still part of the first few people I think about whenever I am asked and I am not sure why I do. Anyway, I hope that things and situations will get better for both of us. After all, I also won’t be here without you. I am admitting that.

5. To you who had given me so much more than what I asked and prayed for. To you who was never tired of listening over the past few years and remains the same though chances separated our ways. Thanks for never changing and for never getting tired to be more than just “being there”. I appreciate all the efforts.

This is my initial list of the fifteen people who made a difference in my life. The order is about the people I thought first. I’ll be back for the next ten. I just don’t want to try my best to limit the descriptions in order to have a shorter post. I also don’t want to make super long post. So the best way I saw in order to satisfy the conditions of this post, this game and the rules in my own blog, I decided to split the list of fifteen significant people. (after all, splitting is also what I usually do with integrals).

Postless Days

2009-05-09T06:07:00.000-07:00

Busy like hell for the past few days. Math sucking all of my time and energy. Got no time for a book or a post. In my little numbered world, man, I was lost. Too occupied to answer messages. Too tired, exhausted and restless. Sleep all night. Sleep all day. Sing cute little rain, rain, go away. Rain showering while summer. Everyone confused about the weather. Slippery roads and slippery mind, grasping for thoughts then they were all of a sudden, out of sight. Faster blinks, people stinks, hey, not everyone thinks.

Confused, frustrated and tired. Happy, enthusiastic and excited. The soul of a flower, never surrender, we are destined to be happy together forever. Monster kill, full of thrill, argh, this game gives me the chill. Nothing to do. Today is Saturday, a chunk of time to relax and play.

Too many questions clouding my mind, blotting like ink, not that kind. Shifting my attention to other things, trying so hard to create distraction. Hell, in this kind of activity, there is really no satisfaction. More than sleeping, eating and drinking. Less than caring, loving and hurting. More than life and life itself. More than help and help instead. Everything is in flood and flood is in everything and that seemed enough, more than enough, but uh… probably not. Hero’s welcome and hero’s fall. More than a love story and a pretty gown ball. Nothing to do and nothing to think about. No topic to discuss and no problems to solve yet to many integrals to set-up. Argh. Time is running, memories fading and disappointments growing. Questions again, still no answers, mischievous imagination works. Why is the question, because is the answer, leaving people unconvinced. Sorry is the line, soothe by it’s okay, then repeating mistakes all over again. Tiring experiences, don’t want to talk, don’t want to move, don’t want to hear explanations. Tiring experiences, don’t want to think, don’t want to see, don’t want to melt my heart again.

Dimming lights, fading eyesight, increasing questions. Senseless post, leaving people clueless, leaving the writer more perplexed. That’s more like it. Just writing, still thinking, still bugged. There is nothing to do but everything requires doing. Postless days, busy schedule, no connection at all. Pointless dramas, senseless excuses and broken vices. Failed wishes, impaired plans and foolish chance. Destiny speaks but death peeks and vengeance now seeks. Fallen angel, lots of gummy bear. End of the paragraph, end of the post, end of the brainfart.

Out of Place

2009-05-03T07:07:00.001-07:00

May 3, 2009
Dear Friend,

There were times when I am certain that there’s something wrong with me.

Today, every Filipino is in triumph because of Manny Pacquiao’s victory against Ricky Hatton. It was a good fight, something that really lifted Manny up. I won’t be dealing much about that because you can youtube it and judge it according to your own points of view and besides, I am trying to be not biased since I am also a Filipino. Well, as I was saying, while everyone is in triumph, I found myself alone. Not literally, but emotionally and being alone literally is a lot better than feeling thus figuratively.

As much as I am glad about the triumph, I am also proud so my feeling of being alone is not because I don’t care about Manny whose fight is a phenomenon in the Philippines. I got sad because while we were having our dinner a while ago, I felt out of place and awww… I felt out of place in my own family. That’s one thing. They were entertaining my stories but I felt that they were listening because I’ll get sad if they didn’t but if they have a choice, they won’t. I felt sad because I realized that they were listening because it was like an obligation for them. All of us have that kind of sensitivity that we’ll sense whenever people are uninterested on our stories and a while ago, my sensitivity reacted. I did not want to believe my instincts right away so I talked again, giving them more interesting stories then my sensitivity reacted again. I was sure.

I realized that maybe, I shouldn’t talk that much. Maybe it’s best to just write everything because people will always have a choice to read or not to and in that way, I won’t feel out of place. I know that it’s wrong to feel this way especially in my own family and I would like to think that there is just something wrong with me, that I am just upset about my exams tomorrow and bothered about unsolved problems. Maybe, I am feeling this way because I am now too much attached to Math and stuff and so I feel that people, especially my family, do not anymore understand my opinions and views on things.

Tomorrow is Monday and expectedly, I am going to see my classmates and friends. Maybe they’ll be interested about how my long weekend went and if they showed enthusiasm, I’ll share stories and be glad that there are still people who are excited to hear about me but if they don’t, maybe I’ll keep all these inside me, where it is safe and nurtured and show people that what I’m after are related rates and answers on optimization problems.

We are approaching lessons on integrals and I am preparing myself for draining days. I mean, more draining days.

Love always,
Rhaingel

First of March

2009-05-01T08:10:00.000-07:00

If someone says we need to talk, what runs through your mind?
Honestly, whenever this happens, I think about the wrong things I did. This sounds something serious, doesn’t it? So I get guilty and nervous.

Are you in a good mood now?
Yes. I spent the whole day doing chores for my mom like cooking for my younger sister, cleaning the house and watering the plants. After I finished the chores and rested for a while, I started reviewing for my exams on Monday and I realized that my weekend was elongated. Today is just Friday but because today is Labor Day and is a holiday, classes were suspended. That put me on the mood.

What made you sad today?
Nothing. I did not get sad.

Are you okay with making a fool of yourself?
Sometimes, it’s okay, especially when I am with my family or my real friends. They know me so well and whenever I make fool of myself, they laugh and I see them so happy and then, I get the satisfaction. Fun times are surely worth all the fooling-around-stuff.

5. Can you say that things are running smoothly for you?
No. There are times when I feel that today is the worst day of my life and tomorrow will be a lot worse. There were really sad times so I cannot say that things are really smooth for me but as I am watching my life from afar, I am so much happy with how it’s running.

6. Do you currently miss someone?
Yes, I do. I really do but this longing is very unlike that bittersweet I’ve experienced before. I am now realizing that I don’t actually care about the distance. All I care about is him and his condition. As for now, I am at ease with the thought that he is having enough rest and is fine. I just hope that he really is.

7. Are you better in Math or English?
LOL. I don’t know. LOL again… but I am liking Math better than how I like English. Now, I see Math as a very challenging subject but is connected with life so it matters. Aside from that, it improves the ability of a person to think rationally and creatively. (Since you cannot answer word problems if you don’t think creativity). English, on the other hand, is an expression of the soul. I write in that language. I admit, I am not that comfortable in it and there are still things which I cannot explain and express but I see English as something really interesting.

8. Who do you really want to see right now?
My dearest CHGA. If teleport is just possible…

9. In the past week, have you felt stupid?
Honestly, yes, but it was not something negative. There was just a word problem in Math which seemed very simple but I wasn’t able to answer correctly.

10. What did you do last night?
Answered e-mails, tried to write, played games, read books, searched for more books, slept, ate, dreamt.

Pandemonium

2009-04-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

…and oh, the dulcet surrounding and the gentle drizzle rippling the river, a serene curtain kissing my face hello and Mr. Monsoon whispering me messages from below. A bright and shiny day within my seam… away from despair, now I beam. Life is insane, life is divine. It makes me wonder how many of moments like this are lies… how many of feelings like this are just sweet dreams, waiting to be burst like spheres of bubbles of a playing child, like yawns of a sleepy fellow immune to caffeine, like dazzling fireworks and its perks.

Life is an illusion and soft as a marshmallow. It is colorful as a flower-shaped lollipop. Superheroes are true but fairies are not. Angels exists and so are beasts. The sun is rude and the moon is romantic and constellations are invented by the hopeless and quixotic. Snowflakes are unique like thumbprints and like people are but never will they be more fascinating than penguins and penguins will never be more fascinating than his soul, not even close to that. Words are not just expressions. They are formed on the mind, nurtured by the heart and spoken not by tongues but by eyes. They are absorbed by the ears, interpreted by the heart and reflected back by the eyes. Life is a song and very melodic… yet at times, becomes delightfully sarcastic. Tears may be happy and they may be sad, an indication that they may both be good and bad. Life is a dance but not a tango. It may be eaten while ripe or raw, like a mango.

Life itself is an inspiration. It is both a notebook and a pen. It is as experienced as a man on his death bed and as refreshed as a new born-baby. It may be a novel, a poem or an honest biography, telling you what happened, including history.

Life is about a child etching his name on the sand then washed by the angry waves. It is also about our ancestors who first lived their lives on caves. Life is all about me and you and his dog named Blue. It is about every person and every little thing that breathes… and every little thing that does not.

Life is about Math and also about English. It is also about Theology and Philosophy. Most of the times, it contradicts itself but life still remains as a theorem to be proven and a lemma to help you prove and the proof itself. Life is about Romeo and Juliet and about Jamie and Landon. It is also about Francis Magalona and Paris Hilton.

Life is Harry and will always be him. Death does not exist and so does a witch. Snow White is mortal and all she needed was a kiss. Happy endings are true and fairy tales are non-fiction. What remains a joke that fools humankind is the concept of nuclear fusion. Who I was, I am and will be are all written in scripted destiny. Chance is a lie and so is a bittersweet goodbye. Fate is a lazy goddess who is mad at Eros. She makes us misinterpret life and make it appear to be full of flaws. Life is not a rhyme but love is. Real expressions doesn’t sound good, full of fears, full of tears and no one actually hears.

Life is from heaven and so is he. Dealing with life makes me impaired, melancholic and misshapen… yet also makes my soul awaken. Life is love and love is life. Life is in each other's pocket from everything in some ways. Love is inseparable from him and every single way.

'Twas Better Not to Blink

2009-04-27T06:15:00.000-07:00

April 27, 2009
Dear Friend,

Today is weird. I feel like I want to do something but I don’t know what it is. You know the feeling when there are so many things you want to talk about and there are so many things that you are planning to do but then, when you start doing these things and when you start talking all about those, you’ll feel very tired and there’s dissatisfaction, like you suddenly figured out that that’s not what you really wanted to do.

Today is Monday, the start of my week and every Monday, I just feel energized. We had our second long examination in Math a while ago and everyone was frustrated. My professor is starting to evolve from an angel to a monster. She is giving us a lot difficult exams, something which requires the course and a comprehensive review. I was frustrated not because of my professor’s transformation. I think that we also need that difficulty in order for us to remain in our next Math course and not fail it again. I was frustrated because there were one or two questions in the exam wherein I thought about the answer when it was ten seconds left. Well, it was too bad for me but still, it was better than what I expected.

I was supposed to celebrate the end of the second part of Math discussions. There are just three to go so on Friday, I can say that I am already half-way from my official vacation. I went to the mall and walked my way there and I though that there isn’t much to do so I just went home but I wasn’t sleepy at all so I just played some computer games repeatedly, still unsatisfied and craving for something I know not. I felt sad… because I was uncomfortable in my own home and I hate that feeling when I cannot do something relaxing or productive. I can’t write my emotions out, I cannot talk to my mom, I can’t play with my sister, I am not happy hearing certain songs, I don’t feel happy upon killing all the monsters and I cannot solve exercises because the new topic will just be introduced tomorrow and I don’t have something to review. I wished that this is just a dream… a big dream, something to prepare me for the day and something to remind me to slay the usual, whatever happens. I went to my bed and started writing this. I told you, there really is nothing to do and if I don’t help myself, I’ll lose my enthusiasm this early. I felt Charlie’s blood of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” flowing in my veins. I wonder how people are feeling tonight and if someone can feel the same way I am feeling, that there are so many things to do that I want to but when I start doing them, I feel very uncomfortable. That’s irritating, a lot more irritating than PMS-ing.

How I really wish that this is just a dream within a dream, that nothing is like what they seem. I prefer to have a very difficult exam than have a less difficult one but me feeling this way. I prefer to have gloomy weathers and muddy slippers than me feeling this way. I prefer to be asleep for the whole day and skip my April 27, 2009 than me feeling this way for the day. Sigh. I hope and pray that this feeling may soon go away.

Love always,
Rhaingel

Better Questions

2009-04-26T07:04:00.001-07:00

As a promise, here are ew sets of questions. Feel free to grab them (wink).

1. Do you prefer warm or cold weather?
I prefer cold weather. That kind of weather is perfect for just staying home and staring outside the window, wondering how many other people are doing the same.

2. Last thing you bought?
A powercard.

3. Have you ever been in a hotel room lately?
No. The last time when I was in a hotel room was when I was still in grade four and my family had a Hong Kong summer vacation.

4. When was the last time you cried?
A while ago. I am not sad. I just watched the family of Francis Magalona (died about two months ago) singing his signature songs on television and everyone in the studio was singing with them. Nothing can drive people all together for support other than the Master Rapper.

5. Have you ever get drunk with your number one?
I haven’t got drunk, honestly.

6. What is your ideal partner?
My ideal partner is someone who knows what I need without me mentioning it and is sensitive enough for all of my needs. I prefer someone who can cheer me up and can give me a lot of endorphins and can also share serious talks with me. I want someone who is strong enough to live without me but chooses not to.

7. Do you want to tell someone something?
Yes. There are a lot of people whom I want to tell something to and I don’t know what’s stopping me from telling them. Maybe it’s the fear of possible consequences… but I hope that someday, I can tell them directly and situations may become lighter.

8. Have you ever told anyone you were okay when you really weren’t?
LOL. I did… so many times already, but special people can figure out that I am actually dishonest. Saying “I am okay” when I am actually not is the short cut to avoid people being sorry for you. Somehow, when I do this, I am holding back my pride. It is the safest way.

9. How old do you think you will be when you finally want to have kids?
I don’t have any idea yet. It’s so early to think about those things. I am just seventeen, still too young for raising kids of my own. For now, Math is enough. How I wish that it will always be enough.

10. Would you ever forgive someone if they cheated on you?
I guess so. After all, time heals all wounds, right? If ever someone cheated on me, I’ll be angry for some time then realize that they are not worthy of my attention, not even my anger so why bother. Eventually, I’ll learn to forgive but maybe I won’t forget.

11. When is the last time you talked to number 1 on your top friends?
Hmm… if chatting is considered as talking, it is just a while ago but if not, it was still last March.

12. Have you lost contact with someone you miss?
*sigh* No. I have contacts with him.

13. How are you feeling right now?
I am tired of Math. I spent the whole day solving for related rates and feeling bad about myself whenever I cannot solve for something. Argh! After this, I’ll be back to solving again those items which I set aside a while ago.

14. How do you want your next birthday?
I want it to be happy… happier than I already am, if that is still possible.

Savior Survey

2009-04-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

...and yes, oh yes, after eating my dinner, playing free cell, restarting my solitaire and chatting with some friends, I now face the fact that there is no way I can think of a very interesting topic. I bore myself upon trying to write one and if not because of my writing quota, I won’t be here to talk about things which happened today. Anyway, while browsing on friendster and checking some bulletins, looking for insecure ladies who keep on fighting there, I found some surveys and I decided to answer some and post my answers here. Some maybe interested (and if you are, feel free to grab this anytime).

1. If we were to look in your text inbox, what would we find?
Well, you’ll find nothing but messages, lots of messages. I am too lazy to erase them and so I just do whenever my memory card complains about insufficient memory.

2. What’s your status?
I am single… and yes, I am. Believe it or not.

3. If SINGLE, why?
Hmm… because that is better or if not better, at least, safer. I can imagine myself being in a relationship and I am afraid that I will turn into a venomous monster. I am really the jealous kind of girl and still too immature and once given the right to be jealous, I might abuse that right and that will bring my boyfriend and I into a lot difficult situation. Of course, I don't want him to suffer because of my insanity.

4. What can’t you wait for?
I cannot wait for Monday and after Monday came, I can’t wait for Friday. How ironice but for now, I am just waiting for Monday. I am excited each time I think about dealing with Math again on Monday. It’s not that I am addicted to the subject. It is just that when it’s Monday, everyone is busy and I try to camouflage with my surroundings in order to adjust. Whenever I am pre-occupied with something serious, Math perhaps, I distract myself from my drama and thus makes me avoid melancholic moments.

5. What do you do most of the time?
I usually write, not just in this blog but in every little thing I can write on. May it be on paper, back of the notebook, bus’ ticket, tissue paper, hi-tech gadgets, everything! I write when I feel like writing and I do it because of its therapeutic results.

6. How late did you stay up last night and why?
Last night, I actually slept early. By eleven, I was already in my dreams. I was able to sleep early because my body and mind are really exhausted. I wrote yesterday that I really was over-all exhausted and I guess, that reflected on the time in which my body recognized that it was time to sleep, that it was time to heal.

7. Where was your default picture taken?
It was taken on my dormitory and there isn’t much big deal about it.

8. Do long distance relationships work?
I hope so. I hope that lovers will just realize that they shouldn’t care about the distance. They should just be caring about each other.

Okay. Enough of those questions. I hope that you find them exciting in any way. I will be answering more tomorrow. Have a good night, everyone. I almost failed writing everyday. Thanks to this survey. It saved me from breaking the promises I made.