My Lonely Road

The End of the Road

2008-01-01T18:42:00.000+08:00

It has been a good run, my friends but I think I've finally reached the end of the road. No, this is not another dramatic metaphor for my despair or whatever -- no, I mean to say that this is the last entry I'm going to make for this blog. I'm saying goodbye to My Lonely Road.

It has been a good 4 years running this thing yet I'm sad to say that I haven't been faithful to this place for the past year -- things happen and writing about my feelings so publicly just... didn't have a place here anymore. This place reminded me of so many painful and bitter memories and though I thought these were the things that I should hold on to, they tore me apart instead. It took a lot of things to snap me out of it but I guess that one night in Kublai's just made everything crystal clear. The proverbial slap to the face as Migs put it.

If we look at it simply, I made this place because I didn't want to forget anything. It was during one conversation over the phone with Sophia that I was inclined to do so -- life was one big drama and it was worth keeping track of... and so I did. I made this blog out of spite. Such strong feelings of guilt, regret and anger gave birth to http://spectralkid.blogspot.com and what I wrote showed it. This was all gearing towards a grand culmination of something I was looking for to make it all better -- some sort of relief from all the pain endured.

For 4 years, that was what it was all about. Through all the faces this place took, the words and feelings behind them were the same. Hatred towards this one person... regret over this event... the futility of letting go of my past because I was afraid to face the present -- those things. It was a high I couldn't feel anywhere else yet as I discovered something... and met new friends... the world didn't seem so lonely anymore and as soon as I realized that, I couldn't write anymore because believe it or not, it just didn't hurt anymore.

My bitterness consumed me until there wasn't anything left to consume. I just couldn't be angry anymore because I grew tired of it, things had to change so I'm starting with closing this place down. I can't live in anger -- because I cannot hate the people whom I should love. I think I really loved her... so I have to inevitably let her go... and to let her go means to move on.

With the start of the new year and spending time with my family, I realized that I wasn't alone in the world. There are people who look up to me and WILL look up to me one day -- my cousin has kids now and I met them for the first time yesterday. I'm practically an uncle! So I do not want my nephews or nieces to think that the world is a harsh place all the time.

No, that wouldn't be fair.

I want them to see the world as I saw it once when everything was right and WILL be right. They will not hear me bitch about regrets and vindiction... I will not be the one responsible for that but in case they ever have to face the cruelties of this life... well, they know who they can come to. They have this place to console them and possibly scare them out of it haha.

We will always have our problems and our past to haunt us... but then again, we shouldn't hold on to it longer than it should else it becomes a monster that eats everything we are and who we can be. It almost cost me everything I worked hard to become, especially to the people who I care for. So this is it, I'm afraid -- the end of the line.

My one regret is perhaps never being able to say that everything is cool between me and Joey. I have been angry for the longest time with her for the wrong reasons and I'm sorry, I really am. I just really hated getting hurt that much... no one should have the ability to do that, no one. But in the end, when you really love someone, you give them that power over you and I did, a long time ago. So let me say this, the best way I know how.

Joey, I'm sorry for whatever it is I did that made things go wrong. We used to be friends and what I felt from being friends with you just made the world a little bit better somehow, maybe that's why I fell in love with you and if that's a crime, I'm sorry. All I really wanted was to have someone to see that I was worth something and I saw that in you -- you, among everyone else I have met. But I could never understand why you chose to turn away. Maybe it was better for you, but it just destroyed me. We just couldn't be that close anymore and now that I look back to it, 4 or 5 years have passed since... I hardly know you anymore and I'm sure you hardly know me. I lost a friend that day and I never let myself forget it... because how can I forget about you, really? You were my dearest friend and I would have done anything to stay friends... even if it meant not being there for you anymore...

I hope you're happy where you are... I'm just learning how to... I hope one day you can teach me how...

Friends, it's been great but it's high time to let go. Goodbye

Brief Lives

2007-11-27T01:27:00.000+08:00

I certainly know a lot of things I don't know about and I certainly don't know a lot of thing I know about as well.

Example:

I know how a day is 24 hours yet it doesn't seem like a day would have passed by if you counted all 24 hours in it -- actually, you'd have a headache from the lack of sleep and you'd be hungry cuz by the late hours, you'd have digested everything you've had in the day. A day is from sunrise to sunset but if you watch the sky from sunrise to sunset, you don't say a day has went by (some people might) but most of the time, you never call it a day until you fall asleep.

On the other hand, I don't know anything about change, being unpredictable and all -- but I do know change will always happen and is constantly happening. I know it's something I can't escape from and I know it far too intimately to discard it. I know change because for my whole life, it has always been there. I know it, like I know I have a shadow -- it's always at the back of your mind.

I bring these to mind because I stumbled into something as I was looking for something to read. In one of my comic books, I had written a note to myself telling me about who I am. Strange? That's exactly what I thought when I found it. It didn't take more than a few sentences and it wasn't really fancy with words -- it was blunt, straightforward and concise, it went straight to the point -- THIS is who I am.

I tried to remember the time I wrote this and I traced it back to going to that Neil Gaiman seminar in the Music Museum. I was kind of bummed for not having to ask my question to the man himself yet this was probably the one time I felt most alive. I felt alive because I knew that that was who I am -- that I loved writing and stories for than anything in the world. I never wanted to forget that tingling feeling of opening a new book or comic, neither the consuming passion whenever my fingers get typing. I wanted to preserve it, keep it locked up inside me so I will never have to doubt myself ever again. And I did, in a way, in that note I wrote to myself.

It said never to forget who I am at that moment and to keep living for the sake of that moment. No person was the cause of that, certainly no friend, loved one or relative was involved in this -- it was all for me. It didn't matter if I felt alone, I knew that I had something to live for despite my loneliness -- I never wanted to forget that. I do not need anyone to keep living because I know who I am.

Who I am is something I know and don't know at the same time but it doesn't matter because the fact of the matter is, all in all, it doesn't matter to anyone. Who in the world cares who the damn you are? People would only relate to you if they see you as something you are (or aren't). Who you are, matters only to you -- ONLY you. Knowing this makes me strong; it makes for the cold calculations I take in every aspect of my life. I am not lost anymore, I am found. I do not need to feel the need to be sad or angry anymore -- it's pointless and I'm tired. The people that hurt me can get bent.

Life is too short; Life is too brief.

It shouldn't be this hard... no, not anymore.

i hope i never have to live a life again.

2007-11-12T21:41:00.000+08:00

anger is something i have accustomed myself with. i haven't been happy in a long time partly because i feel a lot of rage and anger build up inside me, making it impossible for me to believe in anything that might relieve me of it. happiness is but an ideal ive given up on... with finality.

i hope never to be happy again.

life can take it's best shots at me and il take em. yeah, il take em because that's the only way. there is no gold at the end of the rainbow neither a cloud with a silver lining. I do not want to believe in that anymore... it's misleading and stupid just like me and everyone else. it's all stupid, i hate it. i hate having to live a life of disappointments. i have more time asking myself why i was born in the first place... born to a place where all i get is hurt. i hereby make no reference to anything ive learned from teachers, professors or friends -- ive known this for a long time; life is full of pain.

i feel so much pain right now... because of a lot of things and it feels like i have no one to turn to anymore. i feel lonely yet it's a loneliness that doesn't feel right anymore -- it's an agonizing feeling of being abandoned, thrown away and ultimately, defeated. I feel defeated even before i get started in this world, what happens when i really do step into the real world then? being angry at the world is childish and being angry at myself just makes it worse... so what have i left to do... but to embrace my despair with arms wide open, crying all the while because i couldn't do a damn thing to stop it.

accept it.

it stabs at me every time i wake up and it hurts every time i go to sleep. what relief do i have of the constant pain in my chest? im slowly drowning in a vast empty ocean where no one can hear you scream. i dont even know why i bother to try to be happy, il just accept it and maybe i can stop getting hurt. you can't hurt a broken person. you can't break a broken heart anymore. it won't hurt if you have no where left to stab me.

it won't matter if i don't matter.

that i guess is the end of this pathetic sentence. just grow up, get a life and try to die with whatever dignity you have left. you have no one to blame but yourself and by your hands, you shape your life into what you want it to be while hopeful to most, it's a painful and defeating mantra for those who have accepted their hapless fates.

i hope i never have to live a life again.

Three Honest Questions

2007-10-29T05:54:00.000+08:00

A new day looms over the horizon as I once again scratch off the 20th year of my still-existing life. It was a good 20 years of joy, sorrow, pain, torment, happiness, ecstasy, regret, hope, despair and all sorts of emotions mashed into a blender to produce the smoothie I call, my life. There were a lot of lessons to be learned and remembered; even more mistakes to regret and hold on to. All these build character... as a wise man once said.

On a trip to Tagaytay, my friends obliged me to spill my guts -- first they asked who I loved.

I know who I love, it's a very clear fact but I don't say it out loud. Doing so will just drive people to criticize what you're doing. Admittedly, I do love someone but knowing that I do, means that I have to let her go and that hurts... I made it a point not to let myself be involved with someone who doesn't want me around as someone more. Amidst all the bitterness, my friends managed to dig up that shred of hope I hang on to too tightly. All those jeerings and assumptions they make made me think about it and now it hurts (again) yet they celebrate the fact that it does. That just meant I wasn't numb anymore -- I was feeling again and not for a non-existent being, I had feelings for someone again. Though I can't seem to come face to face with it, at least I know it's there somehow, deep in my heart, a small spark of flaming passion that's still too weak to provide warmth around it.

I somehow remember how it went:
Carlos: "So meron tinunguan yung mga pang-aasar namin sa iyo? Masakit magmahal noh?"
Marty: "Yeah, it sucks"
*high fives for everyone*

Second, they asked why -- why was I so bitter?

I can point out the living human reason why I'm bitter but I'm not fooling everyone. I brought this upon myself. Rage consumes... it's like a festering disease that eats at you alive and for me, I let it consume me to my core.

I can attest that what happened before was unfair beyond comprehension. Played for a fool and left for dead was what it felt at the time. Along with that, I lost a lot of things I can never get back -- it was like having a thief that steals one thing at a time until you realize there's nothing left anymore. For some time, it had felt that way. I let the memory consume me -- I let it settle into my heart because... because it felt like the only thing I can rely on.

I can rely on people to hurt me. I can count on people to disappoint. I can believe in despair and I can let regrets pave the road of my life. All of these made sense in world where someone has lost so much but really, how far can rage and bitterness carry you? It can only lead you to a false sense of security that doing this will make the hurt less painful but as any caring human being can attest (and believe me, I've met some) clinging on to this will make you miss out on the better things of life. Caging yourself, hurting yourself, mutilating yourself will not make the anger go away -- it just makes you remember them even more.

Can I actually forgive her? Maybe not... too much damage has been done and too many things have been lost but those are all my fault. My pride tells me I'm right, that I am the one supposed to do the forgiving but it feels stupid to forgive someone who is clearly over the whole incident. Instead, let that be a weight on her conscience. Nothing will bring it back. She was right, things have changed but only because we let it -- we didn't even try to be friends again. She moved on while I hung on... to memories, regrets and the pain that she left me.

Nice: "Mafoforgive mo ba siya if ever magkita uli kayo?"
Marty: "I have no idea... I'd be too angry to think straight"
Carlos: "May balak ka bang kausapin siya?"
Marty: "Yeah, I do. But I'm afraid"
Carlos: "Of what?"
Marty: "Letting go of the only thing that made me, me"

Third question -- Is it doing you any better that you can love again?

Do I feel loved, is the real question here. Indeed, I can love someone with all my heart -- I can give up a lot of things for the one who I entrust my heart to but if it can't be reciprocated, then I'm just a fool chasing Dead Stars. I can never truly love someone who can't love me back -- that's just pain waiting to happen.

I used to believe it was okay but that only led to me getting hurt. You hear me? IT HURTS and I will no longer hide behind the notion that I should do what I can for who I love, they ought to do the same to be worthy of it. That's how it is, isn't it? If love is one-sided, then it isn't love at all. How can I ever love someone like that? That's what keeps me from giving up everything for anyone because I know, no one like that exists in my life so far.

So no, it doesn't do me any better because I can't feel love yet. I have yet to feel the warmth and happiness it promises. Indeed, all I'm receiving is shock therapy -- try to love or go back to being angry. That's the deal. Even if I say I love someone... doesn't mean I get love in return -- it's just something you can look forward to, like a light at the end of a tunnel.

Marty: "I know that I can never be that person and that's what hurts the most"

Gathering My Good Graces

2007-09-26T21:51:00.001+08:00

It feels as if the wind has been knocked out of me
so for now, I'm sorry but I'll have to take some time away from writing here...
As much as it pains me, I have to sort out something else
So for now, I'm putting things on hold.

Not going to stop writing though.
Just not here, right now.
I'm needed elsewhere.

So later

Goodbyes

2007-09-15T21:01:00.001+08:00

Goodbyes come as a simple packet of sweet words, bound together by the harsh acknowledgement of one's detachment from said significant others. They hurt especially so -accordingly- to the said significant other's attachment to said subject giving the goodbye... it isn't exponential, nor arithmetic, it's just a hurt that you can somehow anticipate yet can never really prepare for, as much as you steel yourself. But let us try...

I say my goodbyes as a last attempt to erase you from memory. There will be a time when what I'm going to say will be most appropriate... as I will say that you have been so significant in my life that it tears me apart to say farewell. Why? Because perhaps I have grown far too fond of you and the fact that we will part ways and forget about each other makes it even more unbearable. I am sure of one thing in this world and that is, no good thing lasts forever -- our union is no different, it will fade in time and as much as you cheerily say I'm an idiot for saying that it won't last, I've experienced far too many goodbyes to make me doubt my judgment.

So let me just say my farewells and leave it at that. I do not want to cling to a false hope of our union lasting for more than it can possibly can... it will just hurt more when reality comes in and hacks that dream away. I will always have the lonely road ahead of me as it calls me eternally, in search of something always fleeting -- always out of sight and you, well, you will have a happy life ahead of you as you will probably find joy in the arms of another person who will love you possibly more than I can ever do. Let's leave it at that then.

Don't let the tears in my eyes fool you, this is what... I... want. Yes, indeed. This is the right thing to do. It's better to just leave everything and keep a happy memory of our times together rather than have it last longer with pain waiting at the end of the road. Worry not however for I will never forget you... I'm not running away because I want to forget you, no, far from it. I'm running away because in the root of it all, I cannot bear the fact of not being with you. Strange? Not really, I'm just going to run as far as I can to make it more bearable. This is what's best... yes.

Crap, apparently I am not as prepared as I thought... My words are shaky, my resolve is unsure and it's hurting more than I had anticipated. I'm not ready to say goodbye yet so I'll cut this short... til another day when I will be. Let's leave it at that.

She...

2007-09-04T00:14:00.000+08:00

I hear her voice everyday, at every moment in time.

Her voice wakes me from my sleep each day -- during hours unknown to normal people and at these times, we talk and chat about what's going to happen to me in the following hours I will live my life.

She'd tell me that it's going to be another one of those days; those days that will seem to drag on forever. She's usually right about those things as I begin my day with the same routine. Sure, school's bearable, life's bearable and even the people around me are bearable but if it's going to be like this everyday, I think I'm going to snap in which case, she'd just smile at me and say something like, "keep your chin up" or "it's going to get better" just to make me feel better. Fact is, skeptic as I am, I believe her and I don't know for what reason... I just do.

I could never explain why but I always want her to keep smiling. Somehow, it makes everything better if she's just her cheery old self, saying everything is "just peachy" even though everything is turning to crap. I'd usually call it blind, stupid optimism for most people but not her -no- it's something I have grown fond of... even loved over the years since we've encountered each other. Maybe I'm living my life just to preserve that cheery attitude of hers; God knows, it works to my benefit also since it makes life, at the most, tolerable and keeps me away from bad thoughts whenever they arise.

On lonely days, she just keeps quiet. She'd just be there beside me without saying a word because she knows how I like the few rare moments that I have time to myself. Yet she stays with me because she also knows that leaving me alone makes everything hurt more than it should. So she stays quiet until I'm ready to call it a day... until I stand and walk away... or run to somewhere far and even then, she'd be waiting for me the next morning when I would greet another day.

Finally, on bad days, she'd just sit with me and talk about whatever things. She'd talk to me about how rainbows were cool and how cool the breeze is just after the rain. She'd laugh about the funny sound the tricycle motors make when they're driving off and she'd feel sad for the male mantis and spiders who get eaten after getting some. Why? because she knows I'm just making a big deal out of things that aren't really important. These things... they pass and they heal over time; it's just that on some days, they come back to just make your day that much shittier. She knows that and so she tells me of everyday things that doesn't seem to matter but are just fun to think about... definitely better than thinking about bad things.

I do not have anything in particular to say, I just wanted to talk about the girl who just makes my day. For better or worse, whether the day be warm or cold, I know she's always going to be there... at my side, whispering in my ear about how I should smile a lot more because it makes other people smile also... she's funny that way -- and right about what she says.

Limits

2007-08-29T00:15:00.000+08:00

Ever had those days when you feel that you're falling into this hole filled with sharp, point spikes on the sides? You fall for a vastly infinite time while the spikes are just poking you slowly from time to time as you plummet into an abyss, eventually though, you die a miserable death from the cuts you sustain.

THAT is how it feels everyday.

I wake up and get ready for school wherein I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go through crap again. What crap you ask? The same crap I've faced ever since I stepped foot on Atenean soil kind of crap. Let me give a very, very good example.

We, being the elite core of idiots taking ECE, have a circuit to be done. Ours by some unfortunate stroke of luck, idiocy or God, doesn't work. As I have spent days trying to figure out how the blasted thing works, it still doesn't work. During these span of days, I have neither eaten, slept nor done any happy things that would have normally kept Suicidal-Tendencies-Marty out of the way.

*Happy things include spending 5 hours every weekend doing absolutely nothing but contemplate my disdain for being in a course that doesn't provide any growth in me to becoming a better person.*

It is then ironic to find myself faced with a damned piece of circuitry once again that makes me want to give headbutts to anything I find that can knock me unconscious. First case? Ping Pong last year which literally tested my bowels for a grade I know I won't deserve. This weekend, I have lost much of whatever hope I had left for an easier way out of things and thus, I have resided to open that dreaded box of wires I have left from the Ping Pong fiasco. Oh yes, the red, blue, purple, black, yellow, white wires from yesteryears have finally been exhumed out of their entombed hibernation as I now find myself desperate in bringing this circuit to life. I kept every wire from that incident and perhaps kept them as a reminder of that grueling week where I bled, cried and had a renewed affirmation of a greater power -- possibly, the devil; in having me go through hell with the blasted thing.

And yet, I still maintain some sort of sanity as I find solace in the cute little displays of affection my puppy gives me. Yes, a rolling furball of fluff seems to make the day a little bit better and having something get bored as much as you do when doing the circuit justifies what you're doing as completely stupid. I mean, if an, otherwise, hyperactive puppy falls asleep from just watching you wire a circuit, I think that constitutes as boring of the highest degree -_-

But it's not just this particular activity that causes me grief -- it's the whole semester. With a complete lineup of boring classes this sem, I have failed to see why I stay in this course at all. As Marc said one or two years ago, maybe it's just boring because we haven't taken the real majors of our course yet. Hello real majors, you are no different from previous deadbeat sems -- it's just that you have a lot more balls to give everyone the proverbial slap to the face.

I would continue this rant but I believe you have heard all of this before so I'll stop here. A few words though, if you're going to do something wrong, do it right. I heard that saying in Friends and I think it applies here in my case. Heck if I'm in the wrong course, might as well try to make the best of it. Tch, circuits -- they're almost as bad as, well, you

Because I'm A Fan of Her Work

2007-08-20T22:49:00.001+08:00

Marx, Karl (1818-1883) "Go on, get out. Last words are for fools who haven't said enough.""

It's funny how death makes everything... simpler in a way; as each individual is subject to the inevitable demise -- the great blender of our ends combined -- one somehow just finds themselves kneeling or cowering before its wake. Humbling isn't it?

I find it so because in the end, everyone dies and everyone after that will have the same fate. They will be mourned, remembered and their stories will be passed on until a future comes where you just... won't be mentioned anymore and only then will your demise come full circle.

An autopsy is a lot like that. I've watched enough CSI shows, Autopsy reports and Late Night documentaries to give me a general idea of how it goes and one thing I found interesting is that, the dead person in question is not treated as a person per se but as a dead body. That way, the process of figuring out what actually killed him/her is less prone to bias or guilt as well as eases one's anxiety of cutting a human being apart.

A human being is basically just a ticking clockwork of meatbags strung together. What makes it special is this unexplainable thing we'd call a mind. Now, a mind is different from a brain; you can see brain but you can't see a mind -- a mind is weird that way. You know everyone human has one, even the insane have some sort of mind hence the term 'out of their minds'. But when you die, suddenly, the mind isn't there anymore. You aren't thinking or feeling anything at all cuz well, you're dead so what's left? Well, the meatbag is left -- those fatty bits for the coroner to take a look at and once all questions are answered, you're basically wormfood.

It's kind of sad to think of the people passing by you as ticking clockworks but the fact is, they are until you actually make the effort to make someone out of somebody. In this way, you have given a face, a name and a mindful to the machination -- frankly speaking, you gave it life. Think about it, we don't really give a mindful to the strangers around us and yet they affect us in so many ways -- the people who clean up after us for example.

Things like that makes death seem like a quaint little soiree we all agreed to go to on a Friday night. Everyone will somehow, someday end up there and on that day, we're all pretty much strangers to everyone else.

It would be funny then to entertain the idea of doing your own autopsy because at the very end of the sentence, you'd have to say that you were just like everyone else because in death, you have lost your face and while some would commend, mourn and remember you, they will come to the same fate one day and memories of you would have been taken to the grave. We're all pretty much that ticking clockwork of human organs as I've described some lines before and yes, we're all going to end up as wormfood anyways but then you have to look at the bright side -- knowing this, would I settle for a life of being a faceless machination or perhaps change things so that I can rightfully say, when the time comes, that I have lived a life?

To each his own I guess. We choose how we are to be remembered; which is why great men and women in history never truly die as their accounts and stories live on in the succeeding generations as an aforementioned reminder that, indeed, life doesn't have to end in one's last breath. Death can do that sometimes, it's just a matter of perspective.

On quiet days, you can hear her voice louder than the raindrops and she'd make it all worthwhile as she'd talk to you about the simple pleasures of just living a life; like a rainbow after the rain or the smell of hotdogs on a bun -- with everything on it, if I may add cuz those are the best kind. Makes your life feel more than just a heap of whipstitched organs doesn't it?

ELECTRIC EYE

2007-08-13T00:24:00.001+08:00

"PROTECTED. DETECTIVE. ELECTRIC EYE"

Ah what a week, I'll tell ya. It's been a hell of a ride. Lemme just talk about my new addiction, Guitarhero. Now it's not as if I'm an avid fan of 80's rock, everyone who knows me has to know by now that I'm a sucker for 80's rock and metal but add in the fact that I can actually play guitar to the tune of these classics well... it's like Christmas on August.

When I play that game, all my problems just melt away.

Aside from that, my music database has grown from these new songs I'm playing to as well as Konde giving me some from his own collection. Life feels good again as I have new songs to wallow into. As long as I've got good tunes and a full tank of gas, I'm pretty content haha.

This week's gonna be all about theology as the week presents itself with a triple threat of theological terror -- an exam, an orals and a paper, now that's a trinity if I ever saw one. All I got to say is, BRING IT ON. Lab? BRING IT ON. I'll have 2 3-day weekends to rest after this so I'm banking on a Tagaytay trip with the gang.

My cousin also came by for a visit today! He gave me this weird dreamcatcher thingy for a necklace. If you should know, I love dreamcatchers -- I really do believe they catch bad dreams and trust me, I have a lot of nightmares haha so having one around makes me feel safer somewhat. It's just that it's kinda big to hang around my neck so I dunno, maybe I'll just hold on to it like a knick-knack of sorts. We also caught up on what's happening with our lives but he had to leave pretty early -- hope I can still catch up with him before Wednesday.

In any case, this is just a short update. I will give more detailed info on my stellar Saturday tomorrow! or some time during the week cuz of all the crap I have to do. Later.

Heaven's Night

2007-07-24T23:32:00.000+08:00

"Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth." -Ayn Rand

Music plays over an old jukebox, singing a song about heaven on earth. The wind raps on the window lightly as the first drops of rain start to come down from the brewing skies outside. I have a cup of coffee on my one hand and take my first sip -- it was hot but just enough not to scald my tongue. The coffee tasted bitter and left a bad, lingering taste in my mouth.

She's late but I can wait for 10 more minutes. I've always been waiting... for her I mean, it's kind of a routine. I usually gather my thoughts in anticipation of her arrival -- I'd think of the first day we met, the first time I asked her out and sometimes grimly, how it's all going to end eventually. But all those thoughts vanish once she steps through those doors and flash me that smile of hers -- that smile that just, simply, made my day worthwhile.

Time suddenly goes by slowly as the tune starts to pick up. Raindrops begin to patter harder down on the windows and I wonder if she'll be late... again. I reckon she would be, she always was. The raindrops eerily follow the tune playing in the jukebox as it continued its melodramatic tone. I start to wonder, as I look outside, if she'll ever be on time. It's me who's always early and waiting -- never the other way around. If I added up all the times I've waited, it would have been equivalent to a sizable number of weeks or even months. I then wonder if I have been wasting my time. Sure, she's the love of my life but is that really enough for love to happen? I don't know...

On one hand, the chivalrous thing to do is wait patiently. She will come if I wait long enough and maybe one day, the waiting will be all worthwhile when things finally come to place. But how is that a promise? That hope I cling to may disappear so suddenly; in a blink of an eye and I will then find myself at a loss of a sizable number of weeks or months from waiting. The other option is just to get up and leave. I mean, just run while it's early. I'd have lost nothing of particular interest and I wouldn't have to face disappointment things falling apart.

Maybe I just shouldn't think about these things. Just let things happen for the meantime, have fun, drink my coffee and all that. It's not like I'm in a rush anyways and besides, I... kinda like the way things are for now. I don't know why but at these quiet times, my mind gets clouded with ideas of such things but I guess it's because it's coming to a time where I do have to think about it. Know what I mean?

*Sigh* Ten minutes shouldn't be long now...

If I can wait ten minutes for a smile to make my day, then I sure can wait for a longer time for love to come my way. Count on it.

Generic Blog Updates

2007-07-22T22:29:00.000+08:00

Things that I hope will happen in a few years:
1. Snow in the Philippines
2. Study Writing and Create a Story
3. Be Mentored in Comic Book Writing
4. Work Part-Time in a Bookstore (hahaha)
5. Find a copy of the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
6. Learn to Disco
7. Bar Scene >:)
8. Travel the World
9. Maging Ninong ng mga kaibigan ko (get busy, guys hehe)
10. Websling

Things I hope will not happen soon:
1. Lightning hitting my head
2. Rise of the Mole People
3. 2nd Ice Age
4. The Rapture
5. Marriage and Commitment
6. Fantastic Four 3 and Ghost Rider 2 (movies to haha)
7. Real Life
8. My Children
9. Losing You
10. Mr. No Sunshine

Currently Listening to: Snow Angel by Kotoko
Currently Reading: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
Currently Feeling: (as Aldrin put it) Marty-ish
Currently Writing: SH Survivor c/o Berk
Currently Wearing: My Black Jacket
Currently Watching: Some Concert on TV
Currently Thinking of: Well... I won't say out loud :P
Currently Hating: EngPs172

Nothing much happening these days...

2007-07-19T00:29:00.001+08:00

You went by me in a second, like a fleeting dream
and it took that one second to remember how long it has been

I miss you, Beautiful

20 Things I Want To Say But Probably Never Will

2007-07-14T01:08:00.000+08:00

A trend from various friends and affiliates :)

1. I wish you never happened in my life. I've met total strangers who have more character and class than you. People who actually treat me as a human being.

2. What the fuck are you teaching me? How is this significant in my pursuit of happiness? Your boring lectures will not ease the pain I'm going through.

3. Good God, you're not me. Bakit ka nagmamarunong?

4. You, by far, have been one of the most inconsiderate people I've ever met in my lifetime. How dare you say that after I stood up for you when no one else did. I am not your keeper and most certainly don't want to be.

5. Apparently, they let cold-hearted bitches in the Ateneo

6. Why can't something fall on your head right now?

7. SHUT UP, SHUT UP, I HATE HEARING YOUR VOICE

8. You know how I feel about you so I don't have to say anything. I'll always be here when you need me to be. Promise.

9. Love me

10. That lightning bolt looks awfully good... better, when it's hitting your head.

11. Out with it, woman! Do you like me?!

12. My friend, stop dragging me into your problems. You have body parts like everyone else, you can talk like everyone else so why is it so hard for you to relate to another human being? I'm sick and tired of hearing you rant about no one liking you and really, that's because you don't like yourself. Have a backbone, man. I'd hate to be the only one attending your funeral.

13. tsk, bakit ko pa ikaw nakita ngayon? Hindi ka na lang sana nasagasaan.

14. *crosses fingers* Class over, class over. Life over, Life over.

15. I'm so much better than you right now, I find it hilarious. You like kissing the ground, you bastard? Say my name, you piece of compost. Beg and grovel. You are nothing compared to me. Nothing.

16. Thank You

17. I Love You

18. THINK WITH THE HEAD ON THE END OF YOUR NECK, NOT WITH THE ONE IN BETWEEN YOUR LEGS

19. Why couldn't I have fallen in love with you first?

20. I know, deep in my heart, that it's going to be you and me. No matter how dark it gets, you will always be the light that shines my way; the moon in my darkest night. God bless the two of us.

Of Love Talks and Car Talks

2007-07-08T20:41:00.000+08:00

Tick... Tock... Time is running out

This week has been awfully... spontaneous. On Monday, some of us went to SM North Edsa to do some shopping for which I cannot go further in elaborating :P There were talks in Tokyo Tokyo that got the brain churning.

Why is it that we're having love talks lately? Is Neslie right in saying that we've come to that age when all we can talk about are relationships and love? On one hand, a friend of mine told me that I'm a coward in denial of his feelings. I refute that I'm being realistic haha. Besides, genuine feelings of love shouldn't have to be said... that's just a formality. In the long run, it's really the actions you take in which case, I have no idea what I'm doing, I just do what I do because that's how I feel hahaha. Gets niyo ba??? Stop talking to me about my feelings!

Other side of spectrum, if you love someone why do you have to look anywhere else? Ah yes, the question of where to draw the line in "cheating." Hoho hot topic recently or maybe, you just want the attention (that's kinda low, man). My opinion? You're a free man until you have a title in your commitment. Any questions of cheating beyond that is up to your conscience. So girls, as much as it might sound insensitive, you have no influence over a guy's choice to meet other people until you land him haha or if in fact, he loves you immensely. (Oh yeah, goes for guys also but it's just that guys do most of the cheating these days :P)

Then there was the hypothetical question of what will happen when I find the girl who I can commit to haha. Apparently, my friends said that I'd probably be really serious about it. Etel also said that whoever I end up will be really lucky to have me. All I can reply was "you have got to be kidding me." Carlos' reply was funnier. He said I'd end up with a girl who is perpetually happy in that when I feel angsty, she'd invite me to play Guitar Freaks to cheer me up haha. Once he started babbling about the time when I get married, I shut him up right there.

After such Tokyo Tokyo talks, we resume normalcy. The next day was greeted with the placement office exam thing. It's that time of the year again when I'm reminded that I'm not meant to be in this course. The results were the same, I'm spontaneous, creative, artistic, social and bad at math haha BUT I can be a model if I want to. Ask the test :)

The night of that same day, I got to talk with Aldrin about a lot of stuff. Most of which, I'd rather keep between ourselves haha. Sorry Mark you won't get anything out of here. It's a good thing we didn't go in-depth with love talks again. I don't want to talk about my feelings anymore than the next person. Don't make a big deal out of that anymore, man. I assure you, everything will be fine.

Then we go to just yesterday. At the end of the day, the magic boys went to Trinoma in the hopes of signing up for the Release tournament of 10th ed. Barbero ang nagsabi na meron sa Trinoma haha. What happened was Anjoy and Mark rode in my car then nagchismisan haha. We talked about most ECE topics, old ones and new ones brewing under the radar. We also realized that Mark was a chismis junkie and I was his dealer... what? I resent that remark. Our batch is so interesting, so many issues going on... especially this sem but I digress, I can't put anything up here. It's not in my place to say such things so... publicly, especially when I don't know all the details :) so Mark, I repeat, you won't get anything out of here. If anyone asks, WE KNOW NOTHING.

Okay, that's it. Simple things from the past 3 days... Love talks, Gossip and Indecipherable Babble. Two more days til the end of the week. No emo today sorry haha.

To the One Who Holds the Key to My Heart

2007-07-07T07:19:00.001+08:00

Too bad things didn't turn out the way I wanted it to be. It would have been so much easier to fall in love without getting hurt all the damn time but like a friend of mine said, love and pain go hand in hand -- they are inseparable.

Hey ****, I wonder what you're doing right now. I often wonder if what I haven't said changed things between us after all these months. I mean, we've known each other for a long time but you've always been beyond reach -- far from it even.

In fact sometimes, I wonder if you're even real. Honestly, often times I feel like I'm talking to a wall and it makes me feel really stupid to have even tried. Yet, amidst all that one reply seems to make me skyrocket to a kind of happiness I don't feel so often. And I think I'm hanging on to that for far too long... because it's starting to hurt. It would have been so much simpler if you said you hated me or didn't like me or that I'm an idiot rather than having to say we're okay because I'm not. I tried and I'm not okay.

There used to be a time when I could talk to you. Yeah, I don't know if you remember those times anymore but they happened and those times meant a lot to me. I didn't have to feel nervous or anxious about giving you a call or anything because you'd be there and you always gave me the time of day. I was happy with that at least since I somehow got the feeling that I did something right this time but now... it seems like it's all just going wrong.

Things change I admit. My voice falls on deaf ears now and I don't know whether or not I should keep hanging on to what joy I felt when you were around. Do I mean nothing to you now? God, I knew I shouldn't have done anything that would show my feelings. I didn't even have to say anything, you just somehow picked it up. ****, you shot me down before I even had a chance.

Did that change things? Even if you said, we'll still be friends like we always have been, I can't see that. You have your own world and I, mine -- I might not be a part of that world of yours but mine, mine revolves around you. "Like we've always have been"? I dunno, it sure doesn't feel the way it did. If not, it's like you aren't even here anymore. I don't know anymore, I'm confused -- what do you mean?

In any case, I won't be able to get any answers now. I try to keep our friendship alive but it can't live with a one-sided conversation. This isn't my feelings for you talking, this is my properly sane judgment. I really wanted us to work, even if we are going to be just friends but then again, if you want to keep this distance between us, it can't be helped.

Hey beautiful, I really wish we can talk about this...
cuz it's too painful talking to a brick wall time after time.

2007-07-01T01:10:00.001+08:00

Life is never always filled with butterflies, you taught me that
You were harsh yet realistic, optimistic at the same time
Why is that? How can you smile when you know it's going to hurt?

I could never understand that thing about you until I learned firsthand,
how it felt to be crushed under the weight of pain and sorrow.
That day you said goodbye, that moment where everything went black.
That instance the stars didn't shine anymore.

What can possibly come out of the pain you left me, I wonder.
I cry out in my dreams, searching for an answer
but no one replies save you, your voice is the one thing I hear.
And it's wretched, absolutely wicked as if to
taunt me
mock me
pity me
Never to console, to ease, to humor or entertain.
It was always about pain.

Has it always been painful? The way things were?
Yes, definitely. It had always hurt whenever I remember you
and even more so when I say to myself, I'm moving on.
And though you haunt me every single day,
I try to keep smiling for the sake of the people who actually care.
In that resolve, I have found my cure against your curse.

You never cared.
It never meant anything to you.
Everything that went on, you admonished, to never have happened.
You'd rather say I didn't exist to keep yourself happy
and I let that slide, thinking that it was for the best
for both of us to have never met at all when we did.

I permitted myself to get lost and blame myself,
never once thinking that it was you who didn't want to be friends anymore
I tried my best to be friends again, to sacrifice my own feelings even
just for the sake of our friendship
but it wasn't enough was it?
Apparently, our friendship wasn't worth saving
even though I...
Loved you
I thought that would make it stronger but it just tore it apart
You ended it, not me. You didn't want to be friends anymore
You didn't want me to have ever happened in your life.

That is the most painful thing anyone has ever said to me,
and I will never forget that.
I thought you were my friend and I loved you as one
but to have you say that to me...
destroyed everything I have ever lived up for

So move on with your happy life.
Move on towards the future you so hope to achieve
I, on the other hand, will never forget the pain that you have left.
I will curse you over and over, hoping that you WILL feel the same pain
because I have had enough of hypocrisy and broken promises.
"Friends" is a word that you so conveniently throw
at anyone who gives you a second look.

Never again, bitch
Never again

Life is never always filled with butterflies,
and that's because of people like you.

The ? of Suicide

2007-06-27T20:56:00.000+08:00

I just want to take a pause from everything that's going on and go back to basics; to the places where it all started from.

Where else does power lie but in the responsibility one undertakes?

I have always had one creed in life; one thing to believe in and that was shattered a long time ago. What now then? I guess... for me... it's all about starting over. Back to basics like I said. So, where did it all start? Oh yes, him, on the left.

If life was anything, I'd describe it as the decision of suicide. I'm serious. I've flipped the argument over and under since a long time ago and my perspective hasn't changed. Why so grim? Because I do not find a lot of things... important in life. Heck, I don't feel important and the thing is time will go on without me. When I cash in, it wouldn't matter in the end of things. Maybe you'd matter for the moment but after that, you're pretty much wormfood. So... the question of suicide... why keep on going?

I used to think that the answer was easy: because I have to live for someone. Eventually though, those aspirations have been shattered over and over in the course of 5(?) years. As each attempt to find a meaningful relationship turns into a hapless quest, I soon realized that these people just wouldn't give a damn if I sacrificed much of my time and effort for them. It goes along the lines of being an option while treating everyone as a priority kind of thing. In the midst of this, I have become far from being strong and instead have grown weak and needy of human contact -- it's just disappointment wherever I go but as some of my friends comment, that goes with the package. It's kinda sad to think that everyone's a walking disappointment and I'm sorry if my glass is half-empty but that's just the way it is. In the end, living for someone does not give me an answer to the question of suicide. I can dedicate myself to people I care about but I shouldn't expect anything more from them... not anymore at least.

Second, I thought that I should live for myself; dedicate a life in the pursuit of happiness so to speak. This answer hit the dead end right after it got to the floor unfortunately as I realized that I do not know anymore what makes me happy. I mean, building up an impenetrable logical wall kinda saps all the emotions out of you. When that's gone and you want to give emotions a try, you end up not knowing where to start. So scratch that, my pursuit of happiness is not the answer... heck, if I was happy would I even ask that question in the first place? -_-

Third is to just run away from the question. I've tried that and it worked for a while until it caught up to me. And by caught up, I mean hit me straight on with the force of an 18-wheeler truck on full speed. This, my friends, have caused some very uncomfortable sleeping patterns and headaches. I can not run away from the question in my given state... I have nothing else to think about! My whole world, my whole universe, revolves around that one question and it jabs at my side every time I'm alone. Why should I keep living if there is nothing to live for? I think I hear it now. So yeah, can't run away.

Next and probably the most simple answer would be, live just because you can. I actually came upon this answer when I was reading Death: The High Cost of Living. I don't know why I feel better whenever I read it, it just makes me think that my life, well, might not be important but at least, I can make it what I want it to be. I ought to have fun when I can, get angry when I can, cry when I can, etc etc but I shouldn't throw life away just because I was starting to find it "inconvenient." A life can always mean more given the circumstance and maybe that's why I still go out with my friends, allow myself to love and even appreciate a cool sunny afternoon once in a while. It's all because it's ultimately up to me to give meaning to it -- I might not know what I'm heading towards to with this lifetime of mine right now but I might as well enjoy the trip and try not to careen off the road and burn in a blazing pile. That's just bad publicity.

This answer perhaps is the most wishy-washy of them all -- it has no clear guidelines or standards, just a different way of asking the problem. Instead of asking why should I keep on living, it asks instead, why not keep on living? It's amazing how everything falls into place once you turn the question around -- the answers seem easier and sometimes, you can find waaaaay better answers as well. Right now though, these answers don't really matter because I feel like life just shat all over me. In these times, a person, no matter how logical and rational he can be, comes to the point of giving up everything he has lived up for -- if indeed, he lived up to anything at all. That's me, ladies and gentlemen -- I am that person and right now, I do not want any answers to uplift me to a new-found epiphany of self-worth just yet.

No

I want to feel like I have been ran over by a freight train and hopefully from there, start over. Back to basics like I said and ask the question of suicide. It's not an option I'm willing to take... but it most certainly is an option I'm willing to entertain...

Tch. Bad night. Gonna look for some medications now. Later.

Mr. No-Sunshine

2007-06-25T20:06:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was a pretty okay day if you can call it that. It started with a 730 class of TCOM that went hand in hand with our first quiz. Piece of cake, I was listening. It was particularly less stressful since I didn't have to drive to school that day -- my car was having problems so my dad drove me to school. I actually got some extra Z's in the car so I'm kinda happy for that.

The rest of the day was rather dismal. I was just hanging around Faura, watching and playing Magic all day. I did go to Manang's to eat with Jaco, John, Etel and Roma also -- even though I wasn't that hungry. Later on, it was time for our first electronics lab class. Mark was my partner and he was 30 min late for one thing. The other thing was... an issue between the guys about losing an opportunity haha. Dude, if you see it, go for it. We'll understand haha. Overall, it was just a good 2 hours of pushing buttons.

Our next class had a very turbulent change as we were notified that we had a change of teachers. A sir ice would be teaching our other tcom subject and based from what I heard from the introductory lecture, I'm really not sure what we're going to be doing. He basically gave us the wheel and called our subject an easy A. Sure hope so, cuz I'm not in the mood to put any effort to a lot of things right now.

My father fetched me again from school after classes was over. I made a quick stop at CD-R king to get some CDs to start burning our give-away cds. Toujin recweek starts today after all. After that, we also went to Gateway to get an adapter for my mp3 player. Happy to say, it works now so I can start using it again. That way, I don't have to listen to the noise around me.

I listened to one song all the way home. One song because I didn't want to hear anything else. I just wanted that one song to sap everything from me. I fell asleep on the way home with the song playing over and over in my ear and perhaps in that moment, I was able to see things a little more clearly: pain puts everything in perspective -- love doesn't. Love however makes everything worthwhile. So... you have to feel a little pain when you love somebody, just to put everything in perspective and make it worthwhile at the same time.

Hahaha I can't believe I'm starting to use the words 'love' and 'somebody' at the same sentence. I might actually be getting better -_-

A Most Difficult Weekend

2007-06-24T19:29:00.000+08:00

I think I came down with something this weekend... I don't know what but it was rather unpleasant. One could blame the questionable food I have eaten in Robinson Galleria's foodcourt last Friday or it could have been the excruciating headache I had the time I got home from my trip. Amidst this, the weekend was a test of wills for yours truly.

Neslie visited my house at around 730am on Friday. We did nothing productive but watch an episode of Hustle, getting him hooked to the series. Aside from that, we just talked about the stuff we both have been missing. The 1st sem HAS been awfully demanding for us so we don't really hang out that much anymore. It was a good thing that he visited, he even got to see the near-complete roofdeck. We have been planning to have a really good symposium some time but it never pushes through -- I really need it. But I guess I can't expect it to push through with the now-snowballing schedules. He left at around 11am.

I fell asleep a few hours later and I felt my stomach churning. It ached a great deal as I felt it contract tighter in my abdomen. I wanted to vomit and as I begin to gag, I realized that my stomach was empty yet something was making its way up. It couldn't be anything good so I quickly gulped down a glass of water and tried to relieve myself of the pain. The taste of your own bile is wretched as I can testify. What's worse is this kept happening throughout the week. I feel like I wanna cough up my guts or something every 5 seconds -- I wouldn't be surprised if I one day cough up an organ. What's more is that it is painful... excruciatingly painful -- you run out of breath after cough your guts out and it hurts so much right after. I don't know what's wrong with me, it feels like I'm being ripped apart.

Saturday as especially trying as I struggled without anything to distract myself. My internet was down and my brother was away (much to my relief). I had the whole room to myself and it was a very, very quiet place. I started to hear my inside voices burbling up once I was alone in the house. I fought every impulse to text her (from Neslie's advice). Texting her would be weak and needy -- I don't need that right now, I have to surpass my vulnerability which, in effect, had me throwing my cellphone to the wall and calling it a day.

Exasperated, I began watching House Season 3 straight while shuffling my cards over and over. It was a good 3 hours of constantly shuffling my deck, my fingers ached but at least they were busy. I wouldn't text her, I wouldn't be needy... I wouldn't be disappointed. It was at this time that I realized that I might be going insane or in more polite terms, need help. I have figured out that I ran on some sort of twisted logic that made me feel like God amidst my shortcomings. The fact is, there ARE people who care for me once I give them a chance to and I shouldn't stay locked in my room fighting myself. For now though, I wanted to do so and I did some really quiet meditating while trying to work through the pain I was feeling from yesterday.

I... do not... want to make these people worry anymore so I want to get better. I have to, I realized that.

Feeling like crap goes with the withdrawal I guess. I'm allowing myself to feel pain again, to get angry again, to get sad again then maybe, maybe, I can start to feel happy after all that. I don't know, I hope so. In any case, I'm in pain -- bottomline. It all hurts, it hurts so much. I just want to throw up everything inside me because it's too painful to keep it all in.

Goddammit, I need some medication. Argh, shoot me please.

Welcome to the Dark Side

2007-06-14T23:21:00.000+08:00

Once a upon a time, my dear HS English teacher from Senior year asked us to write something. It wasn't an essay or reflection paper that we, as Xaverians, were used to (frankly, those kinds of papers ran on autopilot) -- no, for this particular writing exercise, we were to write our own eulogy if we were to die 10 years from where we stood.

Berk, of course, had the best eulogy to offer and our teacher had him read it in class and when he was done reading his piece, I felt it -- a cold chilling touch from a distant grave that tugged at me, making me realize that we are truly alone. Death for me, was never a loud bang at the end of a barrel -- it had always felt like drowning in an invisible ocean.

As much as you struggle, it just pulls you down further and amidst your struggles, there is nothing but the vast eternity of falling into an abyss. No one can hear your screams. You shout at the top of your lungs, a defiant bellow so loud that it threatens to rip your soul apart and it all falls on deaf ears. It drains you of your lasting breath and it tightens around your neck like a black vise until you give up and accept your demise. No one is there to hear you... no one is there, period -- just your endless screams echoing in a void.

Then, you wake up and realize you're still alive.

Your breathe is still short as air rushes in your lungs. You feel your pulse racing as you remember that you're safe and sound while a cold sweat trickles down your brow. I wanted to scream then and cry agonizingly because I woke up. I woke up to the real world, to a life full of a very real pain. And then I say "enough" and try to go back to sleep. I'm angry all of a sudden, angry more than I have ever been and I don't know why.

Maybe because I feel cheated somehow or maybe this life is just too long. I don't know. There are too many things going around my head, changing every second, tearing me apart and the fact is, I miss having someone there to hold on. It always feels more certain to look forward to tomorrow when you have someone there to smile back at you and for a brief time, I thought I had that until I realized that I was chasing dead stars. And the realization of that feels more like death than anything else.

The cold truth is that I'm the only one caring too much. A friend told me that I'm very unfair, unfair because I will not give a chance for anyone to help me. That I run away before anyone even comes in contact. I run away from what I want, so to speak. It all catches up eventually, I'm afraid and on days like these, it bears down on me more heavily than usual. At these times, I wish I could let the night swallow me whole as I drop down into an empty abyss but that is just a dream I have every so often... and as far as I'm concerned, dreams don't come true anymore.

I will have to come to terms with what has been eating me eventually and I AM going to hurt some people's feelings but I owe myself that much at least. People WILL not like me for what I'm going to do once that day comes but if they are what they say they are, then maybe it won't be as bad as I think it would be.

That being said, I welcome back an old acquaintance of mine... I've kept him locked up for so long that I have forgotten what he had taught me all these times I would feel like dying. Yes, I shall not deny the path I took back then because I have realized that to stare my demons in the face means not only to find redemption in doing good but also, to embrace the darkness, our regrets, our mistakes, our deaths -- because in our most wretched times, admit it, we find the fortitude to do things we wouldn't normally do. I have denied this part of myself for so long that I am making the same mistakes, going down the same path again and never realizing that I am dying again.

"Grow some, Marty. No one's coming to help you"

Yeah, he's right. I shouldn't depend on people to help me, it's ultimately up to them. I cannot ask anyone to die with me, try as hard as I might and yet, that notion also gives me comfort because it makes letting go of the painful things much easier. So much easier.

I hate you for everything you have ever done. How dare you call yourself my friend, that was lie. I wasn't even worth this much and you kept me on. I swear, I'll see everything you have done for me burn. The feeling is now, officially, mutual. I never want to be in association to any of your kind any longer. You have earned, at least, THAT much from me.

I'm so done with people walking all over me. I'm done running. Fuck if I care about them now, they can eat my dust -- I'm walking. Good night.

Ride the Lightning 2007

2007-06-12T16:13:00.001+08:00

Today marks the last day of summer as tomorrow brings the dawn of a new headache that I'd like to call, First Semester-- Senior edition.

As of today, I have done nothing productive. I woke up at 10am, played SRW and Fallout 2 until 12 noon and ate lunch.

Absolutely nothing productive and I like it.

Maybe around 6, I'll start cleaning up the room. God knows, there are a lot of stuff that needs a cleaning here. I don't want to be keeping any old papers that harbor bad memories of summer. No way! Off to the burner they go hahaha. I say, screw recycling these things, I'd rather see them burn. My impulse to clean the room can be mostly blamed by the fact that a lot of moving around is happening. Yes, like I said, my room is being fixed and if it's not the rain leaking into the room, the various plywood coming in and out of here or the massive overhaul every other day, the mess is due to me and brother in summer mode. I mean, DVDs, cards and clothes are scattered all over the place. I actually found an old necklace of mine in the mess haha -- Ima keepin dis one.

Next, it's always life's perrogative to never make it easy for me. Take my love life for example, that's not going anywhere anytime soon and I'm pretty sure I've gone into a whole new level of bitterness and sarcasm. Good to be back to normal. I'm catching up on some debts with some people as well as chasing after DC's 52 series (which I reserved in CATS a week ago). Insomnia didn't really go away yet haha but I did manage to bond closer with some friends due to it (you know who you are). Things begin to move in slow motion when you're lacking sleep, I notice.

Aside from that, the ECCE dept has done it again giving me a 6 hour break (labs non-inclusive) every MW-fucking-F. What to do with the time? Magic maybe.... or Basketball... or go to gym for real this time. I dunno. A lot of things sound good but it all depends on how heavy these days are. The fun part about the sched however is that I pretty much have the same people with me in my majors -- this means, the AXIS is there as well as Boy Band and various... other... inspirations hihi. But (and this is a big butt) after what had transpired during the summer, it's not going to be the same. I mean, it's already awkward and I really just want to get it over with and start shooting everyone, you know, just to make things normal again. People involved are all in one class with yours truly included -- my luck eh? I'm at the front seat of the action.

In other news, the summer was fun because I went back to HS Marty trips. That's right, all-nighters, overnights and gimiks to who-knows-where everyday! Having a car is so imba hahaha. I have effectively gone around Marikina, Katipunan, QC, Fairview, Makati, Greenhills etc in over a week. We've gotten lost and stranded in places without money haha but it was all good. I really have to learn how to commute this year, when that happens the possibilities are endless! Going out a lot also gave me a lot of perspective. I missed this kind of life. Apparently, my problems only build up when I stay at home and think about em which is why I have to get out. Yes, loneliness at home... no girlfriend... no one to love and love me back... they all just bubble away on the road. I love it. There will be a time for that... I'm sure. For now, live life. Love can wait.

I'd also like to mention that we have 4 new puppies to play with. We named them after fruits haha -- Apple, Banana, Chico and Durian. They are all so adorably cute that it brightens up my day just to see them. Amidst the ruckus in the house and the changes happening (externally and internally) on the things around me... having 4 puppies to get through does the thing haha. I mean, it's not as bad when I think about it. I'm still in ECE, I'm still single, I still have (most) of my friends intact and it's senior year for everyone (save us). It should be the time of our lives but why do I somehow feel like I'm not ready for what's coming. Ah well, my fruits and I will get past the pain haha.

Songs have been downloaded again. After the tragic loss of drive D at the start of summer, my brother and I sought to regain our music files and with DSL powering the search, we were unmatched. It's funny how much my taste in music has changed. I mean, I still love rock at heart but I find myself compelled to get some senti songs as well. Times have changed indeed -_-. I've also downloaded some good J-Music along the way haha. Tune the Rainbow from RahXePhon just brings tears to my eyes and The Real Folk Blues from Cowboy Bebop just gets me in the mood for anything. By Migs' suggestion, I also got 3EB and getting Lynn her bday present back then reminded me that I didn't have Aerosmith tracks of my own. Chester's regained interest in Linkin Park also coaxed me to look for the new album as well as old favorites I found scouting around forums (like 3 Days Grace, Fuel, Saliva, 12 Stones, Oasis)-- old favorites never really die.

Is that everything? I think so. I hope so, it'd be tragic to leave out anything before I start getting busy again. Ah well... what will the following months hold... will I make or break? Sink or Swim? Flip or Flop? The analogies just goes on but one thing I'm sure of, things are changing -- better or worse. Things are looking pretty crazy this coming year.

Just gotta Ride the Lightning

Transit

2007-06-06T22:25:00.000+08:00

How long can you keep on running?

You hide between places, my friend -- in places no one would ever think to look for you and for what reason? Are you perhaps afraid of the things that are impending? Will staying in-between really prevent the inevitable finish? You stay up at night hoping tomorrow never comes because tomorrow brings with it a further realization of a future that is uncertain.

Between starts and ends is the place where I want to be. To tether between the extremes, to find the balance amidst chaos and order and to be perpetually torn between two sides is what I have discovered, is my comfort. Maybe this way, I don't have to face what lies ahead or what was left behind. Maybe this way, I wouldn't be scared or get hurt anymore. Maybe in this way, I don't have to grow up and take responsibility.

So you're running away again. Why am I not surprised? You realize that you can possibly miss out on the thing that will make you whole again. Everyone's telling you that. Wake up and kiss the concrete, you can't run away forever.

But I can try. If there's anything I have grown used to, it's making things not matter... even myself. If they don't matter, they don't hurt. If they don't matter, there would be no disappointment. If they don't matter, everything's just... peachy. Don't you think so? I mean, we've been wrong a lot of times and that's because we jump the gun and follow our feelings all the damn time. It hurts being wrong, especially if it's something you want to believe in.

But doesn't it hurt more to stay like this? There is a difference in the kind of pain you are feeling. You are afraid of the pain that will last for a day, a week, a month or at most, a year yet you embrace a wound that bleeds quietly. You are dying, my friend and you're too deluded to even realize it.

It hurts being wrong? Sure it does, are you stupid? Who wants to be proven wrong? In the end, only God knows what's really right -- we're all pretty much in the dark here but that shouldn't stop you from facing what's coming. You can't run away forever. You can try but it all just snowballs. Your scars are there for a reason, they remind you of what not to do the next time -- you got me? Scars aren't meant to become wounds again.

But they do, they do. The past haunts the presents -- everything is relative, can't you see? It doesn't matter in the long run because there is an inevitable. So why not enjoy the time before the end? Why not stay in limbo until the it all comes apart? I shouldn't be particularly attached to anything or anyone because nothing ever lasts in this world of ours. I'm just being practical. At least, save myself from the pain and misery by just forgetting about things and not thinking about anything. Complete Abandon.

Then you are right back where you started from 8 harsh years ago. Nothing really changed then, Marty -- running away means you just went back down that dark road of yours. You would have then discarded everything you've ever built yourself on, you have then discarded the care and concern your friends have given you and furthermore, you throw away what love you have to offer and for what? To find a little slice of comfort... a little taste of relief... to die a slow death. You wasted them all for nothing save your demise.

Demise is inevitable. I'm just trying to enjoy the moment as it lasts.

Not like this you're not.

Chairs

2007-06-03T00:45:00.000+08:00

This picture is funny. I like it, so I'll make a post about it which will turn into something deep and dramatic in the long run.

A lot of times, we wish this sign to be true. I could conveniently place this chair at the site of a fight or at a scene of a heartbreak and in a brief moment, rid myself of whatever crappy feeling I may have burbling inside me -- like nothing ever happened. Lots of times, and I mean lots of times, I close my eyes, grit my teeth and wish this chair pops up. It would be kind of funny but that's what I thought about when I saw this picture. (On a sidenote, before I write a post, I type a topic into google's image search and get my header pictures from whatever pops up -- in this post, I was looking for "nothing")

This chair could save a lot of people a lot of trouble by just being there. I mean, misdirection is kind of an okay thing. You can divert traffic from whatever mess you're keeping on the side, just put up a sign -- no one will notice. If only baggage came with such a tag, I'd have a lot less things to keep me awake. And yet, denial can also be the thing that will ultimately come back to bite us. I mean, if this chair was used to cover up something that must be known, wouldn't it hinder us from answers instead? It's sort of like that little white lie we tell ourselves after we do something really bad. You know the one, the thing we tell ourselves to make something smaller than it really is... famous lines include, "it ain't so bad", "it's not a big deal", "that dress doesn't make you look fat" or "t'is but a flesh wound" to name a few.

Sometimes, I really think that everything is just one big conspiracy. I mean, doesn't it feel like life has it all planned out to make things worse for you? Knocks you right back down, so to speak. Then again, life wouldn't be as interesting and exciting without the little stumbles on the way right? I mean, live in adversity and all that -- it's how people become people, ya know. The big guy up there must be having a lot of laughs watching us struggle but I'd also like to believe He has a LOT more fun when he sees us rise above it. I mean, to look at it dead in the eye and admit to ourselves that things did happen, it's the stuff people are made out of.

Tch. Over the past week, my friends just told me "that's reality" over and over whenever I talk to them about baggage. Heck I know that, I accepted reality a long time ago (hence the bitterness) but I don't know why it's so wrong to dream, to hope or what people aptly call umasa. They say it like it's a bad thing to expect something and be disappointed -- I mean, putting faith in people is what I believe in, disappointment is just God's way of saying, no one's perfect. It's just that sometimes, I forget s'all. Spare me I'm only human.

Reality can bite my ass for all I care. I live to dream and to dream is to have faith in something possibly greater than anything life can possibly throw at us. Life is too great to forfeit it to reality's rules. So believe me, I'm going to keep living like that, keeping my spirits up amidst adversity because I will not have this chair situate itself in my life. Something WILL happen, better or worse, it's going to make my life worthwhile.

2007-05-31T08:17:00.001+08:00

The rain reminds me of many things. It reminds me of the wounds I thought were healed as well as the time that had gone by since that day. I often wonder why things turned out the way it did but I can't dwell too much on that, now that I have supposedly moved on. It's just that, during these rainy days in May, I mourn over something that have long since died.

I find myself running a lot whenever I face my past and in a way, I let it control me. Pain, bitterness and regret clouded my mind of what could have potentially saved me and the longer I dwelt on them, the more the old wounds started to reopen, taking over my thoughts again.

I then realize that I have not settled scores with my demons. I realize that the past still hurts and I am still the whining little baby asking for mommy to make it go away. I haven't really grown up, I just found myself another explanation to make it seem smaller than it actually is.

If I had actually grown up, I'd have realized that there ARE going to be people that will hurt, betray and put you down. If I had grown up, I wouldn't expect anyone to get me out of my own problems --I'd have to face it on my own. If I had grown up, I'd have realized that I can't run forever. Finally, if I had grown up, I'd have known that everything catches up eventually.

I guess I forgot what life was supposed to be about. I might not know what it is exactly, but I know that it's not meant to be lived with despair and abandon. It comes from a cold and harsh acceptance of "What Is." I mean, the ground seems closer when you're on your knees, right? Tori Amos said that in Death and the High Cost of Living and I guess, it's the most appropriate quote I've got to spare for now. The faster I accept the shitty things I go through in life, the faster I can accept it and be happy. The longer I stay in that rainy day five years ago, the harder it is for me to look forward into a better future.

I don't know when I can find the strength to carry my burden alone but it doesn't necessarily have to be a burden anymore once I get it off the ground. I might even one day wear it proudly, so as to say that I have overcame. I can't keep crying in the darkness and wait for people to get me out of it, I have to own up to my own responsibilities, first and foremost, to myself who I have carelessly forgotten to care about. I owe myself that at least. I can't make promises I can't keep nor would begin making them now, but I will not -I will not- run away from myself any longer. If I do, I will punish myself even more. If that is the way to learn the world's lesson of reality, then so be it -- embrace thy pain and let it define you.

I'm so tired of running. I want it to end, without me being a casualty.

Thanks for knocking some sense into me, labs. I really appreciate the wake-up call

No Title in Particular

2007-05-28T06:25:00.000+08:00

Summer officially begins again today as I now ready the last of my papers to be submitted today. The succeeding weeks promises to be filled with gimiks and I honestly can't wait to get it all started.

I'd like to say that I've calmed myself down from the drama of last week. Everything then was like a spiraling torrent that tore me apart and I've encountered thoughts that I didn't want to have to remember. In any case, I'd like to thank some of my friends for listening to my plights (like Aldrin and Jaco) and I'd like for them to know that I really appreciate it that they listened amidst our busy schedules.

In the end of things, I realize that life is never to be defined by clear definition. It is never black or white and never kind. As much as one person dreams for things to go right, it doesn't always end up that way, yet no matter how much disappointment hurts, it's never in our perrogative to give up. Someone out there tests us everyday, kicks us when we're down and laughs at us when we cry but we have to remember that life will have its ups and downs. No matter what, life has a way of coming back to full circle.

I want to believe that.

If it was meant to be, then who am I to complain? I can't control what life throws at me, I just hope I have a good arm to catch it with and throw it right back. The truth is, to live in conflict is the only way I know how to live. Conflict makes me feel alive... not joy, success or love... the internal and external forces that threaten to tear me apart are that of which keeps me alive. Ironic? Maybe... but I've learned a lot of things these past few years but none more so than the realization that without conflict, I am not driven to rise above it.

I find no other thing to live for aside from the challenge that life presents... the challenge to be defined, to be content, to be loved... I hope to find that place or that time in my life that I will come to terms with my demons but for now, let the demons of my past haunt me every night. Let them wreak havoc on my heart and have them taunt me whenever I fall in love... life will come full circle and then I'll find peace to calm my storm. I hope...

Deny the Heart

2007-05-22T06:22:00.001+08:00

Sometimes, we think that falling in love can be so easy; that it's as easy as phone calls, text messages, walks in the rain and kind words. Most people can affirm to these things... but not me, I do not see it that way... not anymore.

Falling in love is the hardest thing for me to do.

Most people will scratch their heads, point to me and call me overdramatic -- telling me that I'm denying myself of my happiness if I keep shoving away the people who I might have feelings for. They never understand how hard it is for me to admit my feelings... they never understand how much it hurts to have your true feelings hurt by the people you trust the most. As they say, Love takes hostages and no matter how I see it, people will be people -- you can't always get what you want out of them. You just hope that if you try hard enough, they'll love you back.

I get so scared when these feelings come up. They tend to wrap around my head and the awful memories of yesteryears surface again. So I try to lock them up and think about something else. Deny the heart and trust the mind. It's a painful exercise but it makes things easier. It's better than the alternative which is admitting my feelings and having them hurt.

Deep down, I wish that I find someone who I know will not hurt my feelings but I guess that's too much to ask for... especially out of people. The general populace of this world, for me, are walking disappointments, myself included. Whatever hope I cling to falls apart so why keep hoping? I'm coming to the end of my rope... I am about to call it quits. I do not want to spend my nights staying up late trying to figure out what my heart wants because it's just too painful to entertain. I cannot continue like this.

A Silent Song that Sings

2007-05-05T18:10:00.000+08:00

Wide awake, I stare upwards at my ceiling as my mind begins to drift into emptiness. Everything starts to dim and flicker like a dying flame. From the corners of my eyes, darkness was creeping into my vision as the ceiling I was staring at begins to crumble to reveal the night sky littered with an endless array of stars.

I begin to remember then of some sort of a lifetime. I'm then walking in a sea of people, my hands tucked into my pockets. The air was heavy, I couldn't breathe. There were just too many people... too close, too close. They pushed me around. They shoved. They yelled. They were making so much noise, each of them -- noise. I close my eyes and pressed my hands to my ears to block out the noise everyone was making. I get lost in the crowd as they kept pushing me to wherever and everywhere. An elbow hits the small of my back and pain shoots up my spine. I scream in agony thereby opening my eyes... finding myself in a very familiar place.

The music played in the background. People were swooning, they were running to the front of the stage. I look around and remember the place, it was the high school gym -- Variety Show 2004. It was as dim as I remember it... the air was heavy with the smell of people... I remember the shaky feeling I had in my legs and stomach from the music blasting from the speakers on stage and... and me staring into her. Everything ran in slow motion in that instant. People ran towards the stage but I just stood still, staring at the girl who I thought I would never see again. The girl I never wanted to see again.

In those few seconds our eyes met, I did not feel the warmth I once felt. What I felt was a painful sadness wrapping around my heart, choking me out of breath. It felt like years has passed by since we met in this place... and for me to turn out this way, well, I couldn't believe it. I never realized how deep a wound she left me and it was just at that moment that the wound bled. I really wanted everything to be okay again. I wanted to be happy and I wanted her to be there in my life even if it was just as a friend... I have a lot to regret about but I didn't want you to be one of them but when I remember that night that was so vivid, I realize just how much things have changed and you taught me that night what it felt like to be truly alone.

A song plays in the background but I couldn't hear it as you said goodbye. I was destroyed that day and for years now, I am constantly being tested to keep it all together. For the first time, I gave up on someone who I wanted so hard to believe in. I believed in our friendship so much but I guess we didn't think the same way... It hurt like I would never have ever imagined.

I should have ran away at that instant but I stubbornly approached you. Everything was different then. We were so close, we could trust each other but that time, you hardly wanted to tell me anything even to set things right, to set ME right. I didn't deserve did I? I didn't deserve to be your friend any longer because I said what I felt? You destroyed what little hope I hung on to... and maybe I could never forgive myself for letting that happen.

You left and the lights dimmed as the concert finally ends. The music comes back to my ears, only to hear the words, "Goodbye." I drop to my knees then and cried, I was defeated -- completely devastated. It got dimmer and dimmer until eventually, the dark consumes everything in sight including myself.

A light flickers and I realize that I was still awake. My eyes were wet with tears and I found every breath a task. I didn't want to get up, I just wanted to lay in my bed staring up at the ceiling. I softly hum myself a song -- the song I couldn't hear that night you left. I make up some words, make myself a melody and every night awake I hum myself a tune. The words and melody may change every night but one thing stays the same... the song always ended with "Goodbye" and maybe that makes it all the easier.

The Dark Knight Returns

2007-04-21T23:11:00.000+08:00

Let me ask you, what makes a man powerful?

Is it the amount of time spent in a gym... or the perfect genetic combination... or perhaps freakishly good luck? There are many measures to a person's power... by strength, wealth, fame or influence to name a few but for a man to stand before gods, that can one possibly show for? All people are mortal, they live and they die -- from dust to dust, all of them powerless in the end.

I learned what true power was when I read about the bat himself. Originally, he was just a man... a very pained and broken man, whose parents were lost when he was young -- very aware of his mortality amidst the myriad of gods he stood along and against with. Yet, Batman stood equal or even above these gods despite that and I've often wondered why... until I delved more into who was the man behind the mask.

There was one thing Batman had that nobody else had and that was answers. Batman always trusted his mind above everything else, even to the point of discarding his emotions for logic's sake -- that's what I know anyways. That's the thing I admire the most out of him. He shut off a lot of things that would make him happy for the sake of a higher power. A billionaire, he was a billionaire but instead of living a ludicrous life of luxury, he secluded himself from society to become something more than human -- as with the movie, "To become more than a man... a symbol." With these things in mind, Frank Miller made Batman immortal not for just you or me, but for everyone who will ever come across the Dark Knight himself. That is power, my friends -- true power.

But Batman is not a perfect person... far from it. He has learned the harsh lesson of loss in a very early stage in his life and he carries this burden to advocating justice throughout the rest of his years. The guilt over the loss of his parents haunts him and gives him reason to live the way he does... that is the most human side of Batman for even if he stands before you a symbol, behind it all, he's just as human as you or me... vulnerable to the pangs of reality. That's why I guess he retains his life of seclusion. This kind of life has warped him and consumed him... retribution is what drives him now -- he has made this his life and to turn to a life of luxury, of comfort, of happiness will rid him of that purpose. In the end, Batman will never let go of his burden because that burden defines and gives him meaning.

I can't help but feel a great deal of admiration for the bat. He's like the coolest hero ever and he's human! HUMAN! He goes through shit like any other person out there but with a kickass superhero twist. The truth is, I kind of understand how it feels like to carry your sins like Batman does. It keeps you grounded and focused on something... whether it be retribution or redemption. There is something in people like us that want to seclude ourselves from being human, I don't know what to call it -- I think hubris is the word or maybe it's a word that hasn't been invented yet but the point is, this thing can bring out the best from the worst of things and has the power to turn men into gods.

I can only hope that one day, I will find that in myself. That power to become someone more than a mortal... while at the same time, to always remember that I am still.... human

Insert Warning Here

2007-04-19T18:27:00.000+08:00

I stay awake thinking about you. It's so hard to let you go.

I'm in pain.

Too many things remind me of a happier time and the truth is, I'm tired of playing games. If you don't like me, I wish you said it straight to my face so then, I'll burn down all remembrances (if there were any) and maybe move on.

But I can't.

Instead, I wait. I wait for you to look my way, to reach out to me, to hear me... I wish it wasn't like this but I'm finding it hard to deny my feelings towards you and that gives me all the more pain... because you just don't give me the time of day. I'm being tested I know but why is it so cruel? What did I do to deserve this aside from coming to terms with my true emotions? Time and time again I find that the truth is something not a lot of people want to hear and even more strange is how much I'm willing to put up with that crap to have myself broken again. Life's not fair... you're not fair... nothing is.

Just... just... leave me alone...

2007-04-09T00:40:00.000+08:00

A Beautiful Song for a Beautiful Girl

Endless Story
~ by Yuna Ito (translated in English)~

If you haven't changed your mind
Then I want you by my side Tonight

I'm so tired of always having to bluff
Everytime I think about you baby, I feel so young
If I could just tell you I miss you
It's so hard to say I�m sorry

You see, I want to sing this song, not for just anyone
but just for you
An ENDLESS STORY that keeps on shining
Always, I wanna show you, forever and ever

Memories of our time together
this way, they don't go away

Once I knew that the warmth between us had disappeared,
gentle tears started to spread over my chest
This is not where it ends, I'm missing you
please don't let go of my hand

You see, I wish I could sing this song, just for you
just one more time
An ENDLESS STORY of undying love
tell me why, please tell me, forever and ever

You see, I want to sing this song, not for just anyone
but just for you
An ENDLESS STORY that keeps on shining
Always, I wanna show you, forever and ever

You see, I wish I could sing this song, just for you
just one more time
An ENDLESS STORY of undying love
tell me why, please tell me, forever and ever

Whenever I Close My Eyes

2007-04-08T07:32:00.000+08:00

Hey Beautiful...

I sometimes wonder, in my fond musings, what love feels like. It is in my common belief that only fools, idiots, the weak, the vulnerable and the lonely are those who succumb to this foolhardy emotion -- ironically, they fit my description and the general populace of this earth. They stumble and laugh at sweet no-meanings, giggle at nothings and make sense out of things that doesn't need sense to understand at all. So I wonder, why? Is logic thrown out the window when love comes by or does your mind go into overdrive as it pieces together signs, signals and actions you and said interest emanate?

I have no idea. I gave up finding equations to put it in a box, what I do instead is to run away from it when it gets too close. Reality has taught me that love is never enough. There are beautiful people meant for beautiful lives together but the feeling runs out and they part ways. Case in point? Celebrities -- such beautiful people, at the pinnacle of their lives but their relationships last for just a few years. I've known people who tell me time and time again that they've met Mr. Right or Ms. Perfect but I gave it no more than 6 months until they start bawling to me about "so much time wasted on what's-his/her-name" in which they did, in record time.

I can't understand it so I run. I save myself the trouble and run then when I find time to catch my breath, I say to myself that it was the right thing to do -- stop it before it even gets started because one thing was for sure about love, it won't happen if you kept your distance and stick a pole at it to keep it away. Yet, at each instance I run, my heart gets heavy, not from running away but from what I realize to have lost. Have I lost anything from what wasn't gained in the first place? In logic, I didn't... but in love, everything.

I got one text message that told me about it. Why cry for something that wasn't gained in the first place? Why cry for love when it wasn't even felt... when it doesn't even happen in the first place? I used to think that it made sense... that, in some respect, love is something gained and lost like some sort of bargaining chip you hand out to people you want to give it to but I was wrong. Love doesn't make sense, it laughs at it -- that's why rejection hurts so much. You do everything right; you make all the right moves, say all the right words and your heart puts you in the perfect -perfect- place and it seems like you are ready to let it consume you until your said interest rejects you. It doesn't make sense to feel everything to be right yet in the end, turning out to be just plain wrong.

The only solace I have is that it will all pass one day. In five years when I have a job, matters of the heart will feel so insignificant and love will find no place in me -- no place to hurt or taunt me. I'm afraid of it, I truly am since it's human nature to fear what we don't understand, it's just that in my case... I might be afraid of being loved. I'm afraid I can't take care of what was entrusted to me and I'm afraid of hurting other people so until I grow up, I'm afraid I'll have to keep running... down my lonely road.

I have to admit, there came a point when I went against the things I have just said. I let love (if you called it that at the time) cloud my judgment and I swooned for sweet nothings and no-meanings like every other person. I also admit that it was bittersweet that the very thought of her made me have sound sleep for days. I liked her but maybe that was what was so wrong about it because I knew deep down, that she didn't feel the same. Whenever I closed my eyes, reason would wrestle with emotion and always, ALWAYS, emotion would win but such a small battle couldn't win the war. Your heart is in the right place... but that doesn't mean that you'll get what you want... it never does. Love is never enough.

Running makes everything easier. Denial makes everything easier. Distance makes everything easier but none of these things make things better. Not one and this keeps me up at night.

I really wish we had the time and the place... but intentions are never enough. I'm afraid, I miss you.

Uncontrollable

2007-03-27T17:58:00.000+08:00

Today, I want to take a pause from everything that is happening. Two more days until everything is over. I'm getting through pretty fine but I have hit a few snags today. I don't want to think about it right now because my mind has entertained other things.

Lately, I have been feeling rather weak. As much as people can see me as calm and collected over the course of the week, inside I'm practically screaming my head off. Now, more than ever I just want to hold on to something, anything to keep me from falling apart. When the mind gets weak, I tend to lose control over what I'm doing or feeling and that's why perhaps, I can write so much better under these circumstances -- highly satiated with medications and coffee, eyes straining, heart aching and teetering between fainting and consciousness. Amidst it all, I can find only a small fragment of warmth to hang on to and that is the thought that I am doing this for someone or something I will one day be worthy of.

It means that at every point, I am looking out into a window, looking for something that will never come and yet I prepare for it because there is always hope. But then the question falls on why a person, a rather logical man at that, put his faith on something as flimsy and as unsure a concept as hope?

Hope is a trick of the mind. It's the ultimate man-made placebo. It turns cowards into heroes and it's practically free of charge. Whenever I stack things together and count my odds, the scale always tips to wherever I put my hopes in. I find it strange that something I do not have a hold over can be so strong a force but then, isn't everything uncontrollable always as strong? Dreams, despair and even love are but a few forces; each of them strong enough to move mountains, each of them with their own price and poison. How then can I dismiss such power within my grasp?

As bound by rational thought as I am, there are just too many questions I cannot answer. If I spent any time finding answers to questions like "Why?" I would go insane. Truly, that's the fate of people who can't give it a rest. Me? I take my vices. Play some cards, some games, drink my coffee, take my drugs and doze off -- it keeps the mind from thinking about questions where there aren't any answers in. Otherwise, rely on the uncontrollable, on the potential of things -- that's what Hope is, one big potential. It's like that little black box you keep around when you don't know where to put something in.

I do not know the reason why I do the things I do. I don't know why I'm in ECE, or what I hope to achieve, or anything else in this life for that matter. I don't have any answers, I just have a lot of questions and a handful of good hunches -- true answers are beyond me, true answers just lead to more questions. Anyone with an answer as to the reason why they're alive in this world immediately merits my skepticism -- tell me then, your meaning in this world. Will your meaning transcend throughout the boundaries of time or will it only last until circumstances end your life quickly as you come into your self-proclaimed epiphany? If you are so sure of an answer, then you're either full of crap or a god. For these things, I leave it to the uncontrollable, to the flimsy, the abstract, the deceptive, the undefinable -- to the complete absurdity. It keeps me satisfied at least.

So I do then, the things I do not for a reason but for a purpose. Reason is bound by the mind; in equations of circumstance, cause and effect and rules and regulations. Purpose, on the other hand, is something searched for without the constricting limitations of the mind... purpose can come from the heart; its fantasies, its romances and its vices. To say I live for a reason is to say I live because of, to live for a purpose is to say I live to/for. One will always have answers and one will always find questions and for me, the search is always the best choice of the two because in the searching comes the experience... the journey is what makes the person, not the destination.

Let me just hang on what little hope I have left then. It keeps me warm and it keeps me sane. It drives the little demons away and provides me safe comfort from anything (or anyone). And in itself, I find the greatest potential... to move towards directions that I hope could give me purpose. Until then, I wait and prepare, looking out the window until the day comes when I would find that which I'm living for... never having to question why... but instead, why not?

Crisis Update II

2007-03-27T01:15:00.000+08:00

Let's go... it's down to 3 more days.

Monday:
I went to school really early today to get my history handouts xerox'd and ready for tomorrow's test. I had to wear smart casual today so it was really uncomfortable wearing a polo, pants and shoes with your hair gel'd. I hung around in the lab for most of the time, playing magic or otherwise.

By around 1pm, we went to have Maam Obien to check our circuit. Well, that was done over and quickly without a hitch. Around 2:30, it was defense time and we presented our project for ELC 111. Maam Arsol told us that the concept was good, in fact, great but it lacked the hardware implications. A pretty tall order for a project meant to be a software application. A minor setback I hope. Well, we have until tomorrow anyways.

I went home today just as my brother brought some friends over. Gah. I locked myself in my parent's room and hit the books hard. I had to read 6 chapters of history as well as study up for my philo orals for tomorrow. I decided to just leave philo until tomorrow and focus on finishing history. After taking a really early dinner, I fell asleep while reading. I abruptly woke myself up again and continued reading. Once my brother's friends were gone, I took the PC and studied there. A lot of my classmates were just as swamped as I was so I can only hope that they make it through (special mention kay Aldrin: take care of that fever, man at kay Lynn: wag ka papuyat).

I finished reading my history around midnight when I remembered that it was Anjoy's Birthday! While some people would wish for World Peace or ending World Hunger on a shooting star on their bday, Anjoy hopes to get 10 booster boxes haha. Peace lang, dude. World Peace can wait -- Getting through finals is something we should be wishing for hehe.

Tomorrow dawns on an even tougher day as my History Finals and Philo orals takes the plate. Aside from that, the ELC 111 lab project is to be completed tomorrow for our sake. If everything is done tomorrow, it officially ends the "hard" part of this hellish week. It'll all be smooth sailing from that point on... I hope.

Once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANJOY!!!!

And for Hell Week, KEEP IT COMING

Crisis Update

2007-03-25T04:59:00.000+08:00

The countdown is down to 4, practically halfway down the road from finishing the Hell Sem. Updates? Here we go.

Day 2: Frustrations of the Final Friday

The past Friday provided a much needed relief. Our 111 circuit actually worked this time. It's able to count now and set/reset when it needed to be. Only problem is... someone had swiped our PLDs so we can't complete it. Now, we have to look for replacements as we only borrowed them from people. I know, it sucks and it might get just as dicey if we can't replace them. I've already found 1 replacement which leaves 3 more to be found. Goddamn it.

The 111 bonus test was kind of easy... if I studied for it. Seems like I was too preoccupied to even give it a moment's attention. In any case, multiple choice with more than one answer is already too much to think about. I just relied on the good old shotgun method to answer it. Jerome also gave us the block diagram for our defense which leaves the ASM charts and written report to worry about. Have to wear smart casual on Monday to boot, means I have to wear pants and look nice. Ugh, formalities.

All was not wasted however as I got to spend the last hours of school time with Aldrin and Sandra, talking about various things -- gossip mostly hehe. And driving Sandra to Music Museum was fun also except finding out a section of Ortigas was closed. I did however get to take a detour to Xavier, bringing back memories. haha Bonding time mostly, I really enjoyed it

Day 3: Saturday Kick-backs
Saturday was easy. I woke up with a headache, took a bath and went to school. Studied for the EngPs retest and hoped for the best. After which, went to the ELC 107 defense. I don't know if we did well but I sure wasn't prepared. It was all spontaneous. Mark and Rich went home with me and did their circuit. It worked, congrats!

Wasted a lot of time playing fighting games but we did the ASM chart. Just the written report and the defense to go. Collapsed around dinner time and I didn't wake up until today: Crisis Countdown 4, Sunday. I'm going to bank a lot on today. It's 5:30, I feel numb and my head's heavy. Bring it on.

Countdown to Crisis: Hell Week Edition

2007-03-22T19:43:00.000+08:00

The comic book cover over here says it all: Welcome to Infinite Crisis - Hell Week edition care of yours truly, Marty the ECE student.

As of 7am this morning, with a chat with one Lorlynn Mateo, I have started my crisis countdown. I have stated in said conversation, a list of things to be done by and exactly 7 days. That's right, everything that needs to be done will and should be done in exactly a week from when the countdown started. So let's begin. Match-ups please.

Day 1: Thursday -- Crisis Begins

Today, the Electromag menace rears its ugly head once again as I am given the news that the 3rd exam might possibly be, counted by percent not by letter marks. In simple terms, my pre-conceived C has turned into a D. I had thought that I could breathe easy but now it seems that I have to take a retest on Saturday to make up for lost points. Aside from that, two papers to write and a finals to "look forward to." Motherfucker, I thought I was already safe from it. Damn, what a prelude.

The 6 hour break was spent between playing Magic and building the 111 circuit. The 107 project was done but our prof didn't show up to check it so... damn. As for the 111 circuit, the circuit is pretty easy to build but the design is getting really tasking. If those damn PLDs can even hold up to par to what they're supposed to do then we'd have no problem but since they can't, we have to learn to use another device, a ROM. Damn, as if my head is aching from using Shift Registers already. (Pardon the technical terms, just part of the course) I hope everything turns out better tomorrow when we check the circuit again. Please God, I need to set at least THIS at ease.

Now, as the hours tick down to the final hours of the first day of Crisis, I have day 2 to worry about. Day 2 contains an ELC 111 test and a thermodynamics final exam as well as finishing touches on both 111 projects. Aside from that, I have to study for the Saturday retest and get my hands on a copy of notes for the history finals as well as reschedule our project defense on Monday. Crisis alright.

Bring it on.

Sweet Summer Day

2007-03-20T07:36:00.000+08:00

Just a handful of days until sweet, sweet summer vacation starts. Even if summer is just a meager one or two weeks, I'm excited going into it as a kid waiting for the toy store to open. Summer, baby!

Yet there are things standing between me and Summer. For instance, 3 projects and 5 more tests impede my path as well as the last minute touches on whatever requirement we're supposed to submit before the sem ends. T'is a great tragedy that so many things seem to shove me out of much desired vacation but like love, it WILL find way and if it can't, it will MAKE a way. I have this whole week to anticipate and size up the obstacles, I gotta keep my head above these things or else...

My PC got a spankin' new motherboard and processor in the midst of this month. Our old motherboard finally burned itself out after 6 years of service. I salute thee old MSI board -- you have served me well.

300 is arguably the best movie I've seen this year (Pirates 3 and Spiderman 3 is not out yet; funny, movies are full of 3's as of late). As I'd call it, the perfect guy flick -- violence and sex, what else do you need? If it isn't the hot dancing oracle with rather "excited perks", I'd raise my glass to the sheer awesomeness of the fight scenes -- passionate, powerful and stylish to boot, Lord of the Rings? What was that? It's like it never existed compared to 300. I thought rampaging hordes of orcs and Nazghuls were cool until I saw 300 barenaked men thwart an army of Persians.

Magic is sweeping the Faura area as new players come in almost everyday. I'm kinda glad I was a part of it when it all started. I remember, it was just me, Marko and Jason who started playing in Faura and soon other people started starting a whole avalanche of card playing enthusiasts which seems to snowball as the days go by. I admit, it does eat up the time (and your money) but you get to have fun, met a lot of new people there haha. I guess I needed to take my mind of something... else I'll be thinking about it more and making some stupid mistakes again. Don't ask people, you know what it is.

I can taste Summer's o so sweet breast as 2 meager weeks stand between us. Lotsa things to do, almost no time to update but here it is, at least. Just to show that I'm not dead yet.

Self-Destruct Please

2007-03-11T19:59:00.000+08:00

It's another one of those days. It's one of those days when you wake up groggily to find that the TV is open and Chris Rock is yammering on and on with his rants. His endless rants somehow nudges you out of bed and your eyes find its focus as you see your brother crashed into the bed beside yours. He sleeps humbly as you groan about your premature awakening then your mind puts the pieces together. He left the goddamn TV open.

It was insensitive and stupid of him to leave it open. I have been suffering from lack of sleep and rest for over 2 weeks and the one weekend I have to rest, he ruins.

Aside from that, everything else doesn't give me a break. I'm running low in my electromag class plus have 3 more projects to finish. My friday nights are now curfewed to 12 and my parents seem to make a big fuss about me wearing shorts all the time. What the fuck is right. But I didn't want to deal with whatever they had to say so I just put on some good pants and get the "Sunday Family Time" over with before I have Monday to jump into.

Yesterday, I had my pc fixed but was given a ticket for illegal parking. I don't want to get into the details but I'd want to say it was unfair since the guy in the shop said it was okay. I guess this sem won't let up until it's all over. Can't wait... I made plans.

I want to self-destruct. Boys and girls, it's been fun but there's only so much a mind can handle. I wanna kill my inhibitions for once and just let loose. It'll do me a lot of good. As much as I want to have someone there to help me get through this (a thought I had entertained all day), I decided that I shouldn't because in the end, I have to deal with days like these for the rest of my life and there won't always be someone there to lean on. Bet on it. It's a lonely road out there and I'm preparing for my trip.

A variety of substance abuse entertained me today. I had thought about alcohol, drugs and (haha) religion until finally settling on good ol' aspirins. I could use some right now-- maybe later. Anti-depressants might work also but I wonder where I can score those without a prescription. Coffee's there but staying awake with your brain working is the exact opposite of what I'm shooting for. Finally, good old sleeping your life away -- always a winner... until you wake up again.

My head feels heavy and light at the same time. I feel weaker than usual -- uninspired to even greet the day. One thing clouds my mind, my judgment and my actions -- that is, when will it all end. I wish I had someone to tell all these things to, I wish I had. I wish I could lower my pride to at least to one person without having them hurt and betray me in the end. I wish I could trust a constant and finally, I wish wishes come true because it seems like a world not worth living if a dream can't come true. What would the world be then but a festering pit of dashed hopes, broken ambitions and despair. That is a world not worth living in.

I'm officially out of it.

Way Too Early

2007-02-18T06:54:00.000+08:00

Today is Sunday, I counted, as I woke up groggily from my bed. The air was especially cold in the room as I realized that I wasn't my jacket any longer from whence I took a snooze. No wonder I woke up at 3am -_-

I cursed when I saw that it was still 3:45am. That meant I fell asleep somewhere around 9 or 10 the prior night... I couldn't remember... I slept the day away. Making best of the time, I went to my pc and tried to find something to do. I opened warcraft 3 and played a dota game when my pc abruptly froze. When it did, I had to do some extra troubleshooting to get it working again. Annoying I know but it can't be helped, I had nothing better to do anyways. I then realized that I couldn't feel anything on my fingers or toes as the cold air of the AC mercilessly bit at them so I covered myself in my blanket as I worked. Once it finally worked, I sat down and tried to see if the pc worked. The screen lit up and it was loading much to my relief. Checking the clock, it was just a quarter from 4am, sunshine was just starting to shine into my room.

As I braced myself from the cold in front of my pc, I felt a wave of nostalgia wash over me. It has been years since this last happened -- I remember waking up in the wee hours of the every morning, unable to get back to sleep. The combination of restless dreams and biting cold was enough of a wake up call for me and even if my mind was an utter blank, the instinct was to open the pc and try to write about what just happened. Truly, this doesn't make sense but it's a sort of habit that's hard to drop. I recall that I'd write long essays about what I was thinking, get groggy, read what I wrote, decide that it's utter crap, erase it and then go back to sleep saying to myself that I'll finish it in the morning when my mind's working. I never did finish anything in the morning because I could never figure out what I was writing about in the first place.

I guess I do that because I really don't have anyone to talk to at 3am in the morning. I wish I did but I don't... so there. I don't even know what I'm talking about -- I just narrated what happened from 3am. I spent the idle time catching up on Nana and later, couldn't put myself to stop watching until I realized that the room was spinning. I realized that my throat was dry so i drank some water and from that, my stomach churned -- I was hungry, so I finished off the last of the sour cream and onions Pringles that was lying around. Watching Nana until 7am got me to where I am now, writing about it.

I have no explanations for this entry except that I found the picture I found pretty and that I haven't written anything narrative in a long time. I even missed writing the Battle Royale I started -- that will have to end soon (Soon, my fans, very soon). I checked a friend's blog today and found out she was having cat problems haha. Entertaining. On a sidenote, my grandmother effectively paid off any debt I have with my parents due to the things getting lost fiasco. Luck strikes again! But I'm not going to rub it in on the rents any time soon. As far as they are concerned, I still screwed up and as far as I'm concerned, I still screwed up.

I think I want to change some pictures in this blog of mine... any suggestions? Goddamn, it's too early -_-

The Rents

2007-02-16T23:22:00.000+08:00

The shit officially hit the fan today as I found myself in the most unfortunate of circumstances. Things just keep slipping from my mind and I seem to misplace a lot of my things as the day goes on -- now, I'm missing two of my books and my mp3 player... still going to look for them though but I really doubt I can...

Aside from that, I get fined while parking in Ateneo past 6 which is weird cuz I remember that it was only in the cornfields that you weren't allowed to park past 6... apparently, that extended all over to north carpark. Lucky me.

On the final note, I had to face the music and tell the rents about it and like any parent, they used the parent card as I was lectured about how irresponsible I am. I'm not going to lie about it -- I was irresponsible in losing these things and I accept whatever punishment they were giving me which is basically, me having to fix my own mess. I guess I'll have to lay low for a while and stop talking to them until they feel better. I guess it all just piled up on this particular day so I wanted to get it over with and tell them everything that went wrong and face the music. Parents will be parents after all.

I can't believe I have to fix such a big mess tomorrow-- it's going to hurt my wallet at the least. But I'm more afraid about what's happening to me. I"m such a mess, I can't focus at all. I just didn't notice it pile up over the week until it finally catches up to me and it's usually a bad sign when I have no choice but to tell the rents about it. I really need to center or else I'm going to fall apart. I actually feel like I can focus again after what happened yesterday. I said what I had to say, didn't regret a thing, saved a friendship and managed to make a joke about it in the end. Maybe I can get it all together again but still, I have to face the music for losing focus in the first place.

I guess maybe that's the one thing my parents will never understand -- that I have my own reasons for slipping up. Parents will be parents as they dismiss everything you say as something that doesn't matter compared to what they went through and they can be really dense in hearing what you have to say. I know -- my parents are like that. My parents will never understand me, I have learned to accept that. I will always be their son but I will never be Marty in their eyes-- it's a curse and blessing at the same time. I guess I just have to take the obligations I have to do, swallow my pride when I'm scolded and take the punishment like a man but I can never do or feel anything more than the responsibilities they invoke on me.

An example? They think that my comic books, which are one of the most important things in the world for me, are a waste of money. What's more, they say these things without even reading through one. I hate it when they do that because it's like they don't respect the things I find precious in my life. Honestly, I learned a lot more life lessons reading those than spending time with my parents so what gives them the right to say it was a waste of money? Most of the time, I think they don't even know what they're talking about because they're so intent on making their point.

I often wonder what they value more... my character or my results because they seem to just leave me alone as long as my results are satisfactory. Even though they say that they value my character more, actions say otherwise. They never really pay attention to my "character" until I do something wrong in which case, it's time to use the parent card again as they lecture me about why it's important to be a good person in a bad world. Why does it seem that they only notice me when I do something wrong? Because they're parents that's what -- I came to terms with that a long time ago.

Just let them think I'm a screw-up, I don't really give a damn. I'll take it until they leave me alone about it. They don't know me well enough to really understand me and give me the comfort I need whenever I come home -- it's no big deal, it's always been like this since I started having a mind of my own. My solace is in other places... it's just never at home.

Mary Jane

2007-02-03T19:13:00.000+08:00

Today, I finally got my hands on Ultimate Spiderman 6. I liked the way the story picks up right after 5 when the break up happened. It feels odd that I could somehow empathize on what was happening though my personal experience didn't get that far.

I was rejected before anything even happened

Instead of wondering what I did wrong, I instead spent the days trying to get over it all. I already know what I did wrong: I believed in the wrong person, I'm just trying to gather whatever pride I have left to get back on my feet. I talked to some friends about the whole thing and they told me that I should just take it as a sign that I was meant for someone better than her. I hope they're right...

In 5 years, not 50, not 500, FIVE years, you'll forget about these things. Oh the drama. You just make a big deal out of it because you don't have anything to compare it to. When real life hits you, then you'll see the big picture.

I think that was the quote but I'm not sure, sounds like it though. I got that from Ultimate Spiderman 6. Eddie Brock (otherwise known as Venom) said that. I guess that's the whole thing in a nutshell. I started this whole blog because of Sophia -- somehow because all of this drama I've hyped up since the day. But now, reading back, I guess it was all drama and looking back from where I am now, it all seems so small. I really hope I get over this... I'm done hoping... Even though the label between our relationship is friends, I feel it to be more one-sided than anything because it was me making all the effort to keep in touch. I'm so sick of it.

In time, I'll soon think of this thing as mindless rants when now it seems like to be the only thing that matters in the world -- she is, she was, she did and after 5 years, she won't. Bet on it.

Whoever said comic books were for kids?

A Little Pain ~Nana

2007-01-30T07:20:00.000+08:00

I miss the way that I wake up every morning with you on my mind. The world seems simpler and happier that way; as each day greets me with a loving embrace and I think to myself how lucky I am to share this day with you- somewhere, someplace. The thought of you kept me confident of the day ahead - love makes you stronger in ways you never thought it could and for me, it gave me strength to face anything life can possibly throw at me. I don't feel lonely when I think of you. I always somehow feel warm when you're on my mind and I always have a smile on my face whenever I whisk away to sleep.

It's hard to keep believing in that now and as painful as it is, I'm finding it really hard to be alone again. What made it hard was the fact that maybe for the first time, I wanted to feel something for someone again and for one selfish moment, wanted to feel special as well. I thought I was but I guess that's not the case because I was after all, since the day, "just a friend".

I should be happy since I am a friend of yours and was fortunate enough to have met you in my lifetime but why does the word friend hurt so much the way it does? Isn't a friend a good thing? I've had so many people use the word friend to lead me astray. They'd say one thing and mean another and they treat me like a child, saying "I said that not to hurt your feelings" and for what? Because I was a good guy and they would never think of hurting a good guy... then tell me, how does a good guy learn? I guess some people would rather let someone believe in a lie rather than give them the truth as what a so-called friend would do. If it meant that I have no chance with you, so be it but before any of these emotions rose, you were always there as my friend -- a friend I can hold on to, a friend I found strength in, a friend to greet the day with me.

Now, the day seems sadder and the wind is slightly colder. All the while, I kept wondering if I would ever find a better answer for my questions in life, by myself. I don't want to be left behind anymore than I already am or even, I don't want to stagnate in this circumstance any longer. I want things to keep changing, to keep moving -- to have the world throw everything it can possibly throw at me because amidst the whirling dervish, I will find a life worth living if not with you, then for myself.

Despite all that, the truth remains. I still miss you. I always have because you just weren't there

Picking Up Guns

2007-01-16T22:24:00.000+08:00

I just finished reading Infinite Crisis a few days ago and I must say it's definitely worth every buck spent -- mainly for the one reason that for the first time, I saw Batman pick up a gun and actually threatened to use it.

I've come across those times as well -- a certain time when I am so tempted to pick up a gun and simply point and shoot at the things that I find wrong in the world. I guess for this time, I am not angry at myself anymore but instead, angry at something else which is why the end of the barrel isn't pointed at my own cranium anymore but instead, on the person right next to me.

I have been sick recently. Staying up late brought back my headaches and out of my total abandon, I have forgotten to take care of my health; often skipping meals because I just wasn't in the mood hence my ulcer. It's one of those times when you want to desperately hold on to something to make you feel better but then you find the only thing you're holding is either a knife or a gun that's looking mighty friendly.

I mean, you try to keep it all together day by day and try to go to sleep in one piece without being another car accident on the way home.

Then you come to a point where someone pushes your buttons just the right way -- the precise way-- to unravel everything you've tried to bottle up. Next thing you know, he's on the ground lifeless, you're on top of him with bloodied fists and you find your throat sore because for some reason, you've been screaming. The really creepy thing? You feel a WHOLE LOT better. That's how the day feels like now. I guess maybe the one thing I held on to was the only thing keeping me together, focused, inspired and now that that dream is slowly being dismantled as each day passes, everything slowly crumbles back into the way they were.

I can only cross my fingers and hope everything gets better because I'm so tired of waking up without a reason. I wish I mattered enough to make me believe in myself.

Later

Ulti

2007-01-03T23:31:00.000+08:00

Ultimate Spiderman is so cool.

I am up to book 5 already and it left me hanging in a bad way. DAMMIT. MJ and Peter broke up by the end of book 5 so I was completely stunned when I got to the final pages. Growing up knowing the spiderman story by heart then having that suddenly happen really catches you off guard but then again, if you read it, you'll see a more human side to the story - something that was (in my opinion) missing in the older stories.

I mean, you never see the good guys break up with their girlfriends or how they get bullied in school - you never see them cry or get fed up living with the burden of responsibility, but they do and that's why I'm particularly attached to the Spiderman stories. I don't know if you've read any of the stories, you'd probably just know everything from the movie or the short version but for me, everyone goes through the same things. We all lose people we love at a point in our lives and we each have to sacrifice the things we want for ourselves for the benefit of something far greater than ourselves. Power and Responsibility - the overused cliche. It happens to everyone right? That's the painful thing about the whole thing - you can not always get what you want.

Despite that, you just have to try and work with the broken pieces you have. The thing about working with broken pieces is, you get cut using them - that's why the whole is better than the piece but that's not happening any time soon so we all just have to try to keep it all together. Things will either make you or break you but it's all the same, we all go through the same thing like what my cousin passed down to me, "maybe the biggest problem with depression is that we walk around thinking were the only one whose suffering from it" - there's an arrogance to that but isn't it true in fact that in the misfortunes of a circumstance, we tend to hide it or keep it bottled inside, afraid of letting other people find out for the sake of saving face. When we talk to a friend, we confide our weaknesses - hoping to find strength amidst the pain but what hurts is the disappointment we feel when we find out that we are actually alone when our so-called friends do not care or worse, betray us.

Still... we search for that strength we cannot find within ourselves in the people around us. Or sometimes, we find our strength in the things that are greater than ourselves: in beliefs, faith, philosophies and ideals. There is hope there, as well as salvation and redemption. Power and Responsibility, it's not a one way street. Life throws you lemons, make lemonade as the saying goes. It's really easy to say but it takes something more than human to make it work.

"So, I'm just -- going to live my life that way and everything else is noise."

Wrath?

2006-12-30T23:56:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was the planned year ender thing that Berk and I were planning. Yes... the last outing for the year before 200-fucking-7 comes running us over. As usual, I was planning the thing and as usual, I expected the few to go to it because let's face it... I've quit expecting something out of anyone - this would be my New Year's resolution as well.

In any case, those who didn't go missed out on a cool trip; Driving down to Makati, Rubber Penises, Best Friend talks, House of the Dead 4, Boxing, Chilis, Poker, Smash and the combined craziness that is us to name a few. Yes, truly it was a grand day as was evident by the damage done on Richmond's tender thighs and my sore shoulders. It was in fact, a great plan after all and it took no more than 3 people. Take that. At least I can count on the few when I need to.

I can't remember the last time I talked with Richmond about my problems but we did when I dropped Stanley and Berk off Virramall to have them buy a controller. I told him about what happened over the past weeks and the way I've been really bummed out about it - about how it sucks to have to go through "that" all over again when I thought I'd move on from that. Especially about what I really felt about the whole thing, that is angry. I could feel it swelling when I told him about it because I've kept it bottled for so long that it really made me sick. Well, talking about it with Richmond kinda made me feel better. At least I told someone about it already, I didn't have to go into details because he knew - in some way, he always does.

Gave me some good piece of advice though, "You should try being an asshole sometimes, it'll do you a lot of good" or something like that. Haha, I guess I should try being one - heaven knows, I've not been completely honest to myself these couple of weeks and what's more honest to being me than be a little bit of an asshole?

I've also learned that when people get hurt, it's a lot easier to get angry rather than feel sad. I know because I'd rather be angry than see myself as a puddle of self-pity -- isn't that the case with everyone in fact? For now, I think I want to be left alone. Not kidding this time, I just want to shut things out completely until I'm sure I can walk on my own two feet. Neither love nor regret has anything to do with it... I just don't want any of either - I'm spent and I'm tired. Exhausted to function at all...

*sigh* back to normal eh...

Catalogues

2006-12-24T18:09:00.000+08:00

Have you ever experienced searching for something that was in the wrong category?

I've been looking for pictures to post with my entries as of late if you noticed and if I may say, some of these pictures were not easy to find. Some of them were recycled; taken from old documents I keep in my backup drive. Some are pictures I just happen to find in my folders; care of my brother. Some were clipped out of videos, screenshots and images. And finally, there are those you search for.

I have been recently searching for various pictures for this blog of mine in google, yahoo and deviantart. I could actually draw one but I'm really not in the mood to, I've been out of it since vacation started. It's as if all I want to do all day is sleep, sulk and sleep some more. But anyways, back to pictures. I discovered I've been looking for pictures in the wrong categories all this time. Like, I was looking through deviantart and kept on looking through the horror/maccabre section (since I liked the drawings there) hoping to find a picture to capture what I wanted to write about. I didn't find it there but instead found it in the People section. Eh, go figure. Or how about typing something in the google search bar and you get pornographic material? It's kind of embarrassing especially when your brother just happens to be sitting right beside you while your browsing. Next thing you know, he's shouting around you're looking for porn. Hrmm...

Anyways...

This ought to have some deep and serious meaning else it wouldn't be in THIS blog now would it? Because that's what this place is all about, trying to make sense out of everything. Frankly though, I can't... because I think I'm looking in the wrong place also. I was talking to my cousin just a while ago and he told me something rather... insightful:

"u hide behind ur intelligence.. ure afraid to take things seriously... because if u take things seriously, they matter to u... and if they matter... u get hurt easily... mato [my nickname]... ure not tough... at least, not enough... ure still vulnerable... and if u stay that way... ul be miserable all throughout ur life..."

My cousin knows what he's talking about. I do hide behind my intelligence as I try to always make sense of things, to dissect them to the fundamentals and observe from a distance. I figured that by distancing myself, I could rid myself of any pain I might endure. I guess in a way, I don't treat life as life but treat it as an equation - trying to find an answer given all its variables. It's in the wrong category

I do overthink things because I want to make it small. I want it to be a subject I can control and be held within my fingertips. But... why is it the things that matter that hurt the most? I guess that's why I'd rather make things not matter, so they don't hurt at all but it isn't healthy anymore. I'm growing more and more ill by the day and the migraines are getting worse -- it won't be long now I think. Now that I feel lost and alone more than ever, I just want to call it quits and wither away but that won't be doing justice to me or to anyone who thinks I matter, if any. What am I supposed to do then when I can't rely on intelligence or reason to make sense of things? What other category is there? Faith? I do not know, someone tell me cuz I ran out of answers.

What happens then when I finally ran out of answers or lose the strength to find them... Nothing, I don't know anymore. I just might be at the end of my rope and desperately, I just want to let go. It's all wrong, nothing is right. Everything's in the wrong category, I can't make sense of things because it's all so fuckin' wrong now. So much pain, so much confusion, so much disbelief - I feel like I'm falling apart. God, my head hurts.

Give me a catalogue for this life pls

Butter Pecan

2006-12-19T18:47:00.000+08:00

Do you like Butter Pecan ice cream? I don't particularly. I'd go with pistacchio in a second instead or even cookies and cream which is like a little slice of heaven. I'd even take a double dutch or a rocky road, strawberry or plain old vanilla but taking butter pecan will never have crossed my mind.

Now what brought this to mind? Did I suddenly have a craving for ice cream that I decided to write about it? Not really. I got back Identity Crisis a little while ago and read the start of it. There was an interesting story that revolved around Butter Pecan that I found really sweet and endearing, something that doesn't often happen.

It starts with two superheroes (Firehawk and Elongated Man) on a stakeout, waiting for something to turn up. To pass the time, Firehawk (Lorraine) asks her partner Elongated Man (Ralph) about how did he meet his wife. Of course, Ralph was a bit apprehensive of answering the question as he asked why is it always the girls who ask that sort of question. It was a sort of witty retort to divert the question but he answered it anyway saying that, "We saw each other across a crowded room," a typical cliche'd start of a love story haha but that wasn't meant to be a joke because as he followed up, "the one thing I don't joke about is Sue"

They met when he crashed a debutante party one night. It was really a chance encounter but the thing that really made it special was that, they met when Central City was the Flash's town. You know the Flash, fastest man alive right? He's pretty famous. Almost everyone knew who the Flash was, comic book world or real world. Heck, who knows Elongated man anyways? I sure didn't until I read this comic... but moving on, It was the Flash's town and our guy, Ralph was still a no-name superhero back in this day. I loved it when he described the feeling as, "trying to compete with Sinatra" because it was true, everyone in the party took notice of Flash since he was the man. No one noticed Mr. No-Name Ralph that is.... except Sue.

I guess that's how they fell in love. The succeeding panels showed how Sue met all the other heroes; the strongest, bravest, and the one with the best looks in the bunch, "c'mon, she's looked directly into superman's melt-your-heart baby blues, and she still chose me" as he said with a sheepish smile. How about that? Isn't that sweet? I really love the words Meltzer used for this scene because I was completely floored when I read this but then why did I start this whole thing about Butter Pecan ice cream? Well... that's because I remember this line Ralph said when he and Sue first met.

"That's why ice cream stores don't just sell Chocolate and Vanilla. Every once in a while, someone walks in and orders Butter Pecan."

Aww, I found this really sweet. I guess it really does take someone special to take notice of a Mr. Nobody. Imagine that, Sue still chose Ralph though he might not be the strongest, bravest or best-looking out of all of them, she still chose Ralph - Butter Pecan.

I wonder if I'll ever encounter such a person in my life. I'm more of pistacchio myself, a little green as well as nutty haha but you get the point, no one really orders butter pecan or pistacchio on the first chance - it takes someone special to do that. Me? I guess I'm not very good in searching for these things or finding that special someone, I think it's probably one of the things I'm bad at. In any case, I really loved the message of this story; it's sweet and endearing like I said. I just hope someone walks in my life and orders say, pistacchio in a sugar cone but that's probably hoping for a lot.

*Sigh* almost everyone wants Chocolate nowadays -_-

The Road Has Never Been So Lonely

2006-12-17T18:23:00.000+08:00

Ah, the Lonely Road:

I found no point in holding on to the past when you have a whole future ahead but now that I find myself standing still, I look back and regret that I have never done so. Thinking again though, life's just beginning for me and it's never too late to start.
Never too late for me anyways...

Now I remember, they call this town Riverwalk. This place can be described as one of those sleepy towns you sometimes dream of. You know the dream, some quiet misty town where there's always this sense of lingering mystery about it. This is that place for real.

This place scared me as a kid. The house we moved in gave me the creeps. My mother can attest that I didn't get one wink of sleep for two weeks when we had just moved in and when I did get some sleep, I am always awakened abruptly after a few hours of slumber. I guess because I've always felt that something was wrong about this place. I never really knew what but I always had that feeling that I wanted to get out of here. Most kids had a boogeyman to blame or the monster underneath their bed but for me, there never were any monsters. It has always been this place.

It's different now. I've grown up and like all monsters, they are locked up in your closet. I gave up trying to figure this place out and I made a life here instead. You grow up and move on but I've always had one problem, I hated taking risks. If you just look at the word, it's not even a nice word to write. It's all got these jaggy letters on it and when you say it, it feels like a hiss more than a word. Risk involves two things, succeeding and failing and I was never a fan for both. Success is overrated and failure just isn't pretty. You'll know what I mean. Read on, I've got a lot to say.

But I remember what Clair once said to me, "The biggest risk might be not taking one at all". What was it then, six years ago? It was when we went to the carnival and I was deathly afraid to ride the roller coaster. I was so afraid that I started to cry and was about to make a scene. But Clair pulled me aside and told me that. I didn't understand her at first and honestly, she didn't either. She just knew it's the right thing to say even if she didn't get it herself. That's the kind of quirk she had, she just knows what to say and now that I think about it, she did have a point because when I rode the coaster, it was great - probably one of the most exhilarating times in my life even.

Now, I'm still afraid to ride the roller coaster and every time I'm asked to ride it, I have to gather all my splattered guts just to get enough balls to get on one. That's risk, splattered guts and balls you need to swallow. You might be able to swallow it or vomit it out but you just know it doesn't taste good either way. I guess what Clair did was put a little sugar on it to make it not taste so bad. It's kind of like what my mom does with slicing onions. She slices them really, really small so you won't notice it when she adds it to the spaghetti and meatballs.

By the way, I don't like onions either.

Back to The Old Self

2006-12-13T23:09:00.000+08:00

How delectably devious...

I'm feeling rather... uninspired.. as of late due to some events that transpired a few days ago. I knew what was to be said anyways since the very beginning of that "romance," I was just a tad bit too love-stricken to actually think the whole situation through. Pretty does that to me. I am glad however that things ended up the way it did. I still kept a friend (at least to my knowledge from her words) and perhaps I can now move on. Now that it's off my chest, I feel like a new man - or rather, I feel like my old self again; detached, unopposed and truly preoccupied with the complexities of my so-called circumstance called a life.

After things went down, I found it rather strange that I wasn't as hurt as I thought I would be. Sure, there was the day of complete dismal silence but one day to mourn really isn't a big deal for me anymore. On one hand, I think it's because it's always in the back of my mind that it wouldn't work out. I'm always second best to a busy schedule and if things progressed in such a way as friends become more than friends do, it'd end up in a disaster. I guess it's just fine for the both of us to stay as friends. I'm not saying I'm hopeful things change, but it's something that I hope is never off the table. Call me crazy if I believe that. For now I guess all I can do is be a good friend and move on to other things because I admit, I haven't been myself when I started having these disturbing feelings and I use the term disturbing lightly.

Not a tear was shed, not a word of contempt - I am neither really happy nor really sad about it because nothing was ever truly lost. However, I am kind of disappointed when it was all over. I wish she had the time to give me an opportunity to at least, let her know me and vice versa. We could have become better friends or dare I say, be more than that, if that was the case... but alas, I am shut out of that part of her... haha, I never stood a chance. I guess that's the only thing making me annoyed, the fact that I'm always shut out. If that wasn't the case, maybe things would be different... but I can't mutter in the what-if's anymore, I can only look to what's ahead. Call me when I have a chance

I mean, I really think I didn't mess this up as much as I did the last time. I sometimes wonder what's wrong with me when I like someone, cuz it's like I become more... vulnerable. I hate it when that happens because all those years of building up defenses are thrown away and like Rose Walker stated, "One stupid person, not any different from any other stupid person, walks into your life and your life isn't yours anymore." How true. I kinda like being sarcastic, bitter and complicated and being under the spell of someone just screws all that up anyways. Now that I'm out of it, I can be back to my normal self and not feel the weight of any imminent heartbreak coming my way because things like this just proves to me that I was right

I was right that "opening myself up" to people is a big mistake. Truly, the person whose my affection belong to can only reject it. I'm just about fed up. People would only like to hear what they want to hear, not that which is true - this is probably the only generalization about people I believe in. I'd rather be sarcastic and bitter rather than be lied to. I have something called a heart too so I don't need anymore sympathy if it's just for pity's (or comfort's) sake, I have myself for that. Call a spade a spade. I'm too broken to even believe in myself much less other people. Any hope of being put back together is a dream, just like believing that I can ever be part of anyone's life as someone more than a friend. Tsk, heartbroken again. So stupid, so really stupid. Why did it have to happen... I just wanted to like someone... I didn't really want her to like me back, just acknowledge my existence as someone special.

Tch. Annoying. I'm going to sleep.

Hearts and the Idiot

2006-12-10T21:39:00.000+08:00

" Sorrow is what I hate but it's grown my sensations
Regrets taught me how to make any hard decisions
Peace is always by my side but I've never felt it once
Love is not the word only for the sweet romance"

I mean the clouds were talking about it all day, weren't day? About how topsy-turvy, wishy-washy and ball-busting the world has become. Mr. Nobody said the world was a drooling idiot and I have to agree... It is a big fat idiot after all with cold spots on its extremities and pimples we'd like to call land masses on its face and I happen to be walking on this drooling idiot along with everyone else. Would that necessarily mean everyone here is an idiot too? Maybe... I happen to consider myself a very big idiot but that's just admitting what's really true. I know some people who will never admit to themselves to being idiots, they're too idiotic to see that.

But for those who are idiotic enough to listen to another idiot in this idiotic world (yes, ive written the word idiot 11 times now, I'm aware), I'd like to exclaim how I feel like I've been swimming for 5 straight hours. You know the feeling right? After 5 hours of swimming, your legs are kinda weak, your vision gets kinda blurry, your eyes start to water and you're too tired to pick yourself up. That's what I'm feeling but honestly, I haven't been swimming for 5 hours, it's just that it feels that way s'all.

Probably another analogy for the feeling I'm having is to have to sit through a math class on a perfect summer afternoon. It's excruciatingly painful, simple right? It feels as though you're world is being torn apart into

P

I

E

C

E

S

Yes, math class does that to me. Sitting inside a rinky-dinky classroom while looking outside the window, is simply unbearable. I could just stand up and leave probably, but that won't get me anywhere in my so-called future would it? Haha the idiot has rules! or are they really rules? I've always been under the impression that the world hates me because I think of it as idiotic. Who'd have thought that the world didn't want to be called an idiot? but I don't want to blame it, it's just there not doing anything - spinning on its axis, rotating around some star since the dawn of time - I'd go crazy and take it out on people too if I was the one in its place. Wow, something in common, mutual bitterness - I think I'm in love.

I want to know a lot of things, really but more than anything, I want to know about myself. I want to know why I'm such an idiot. I want to know why I have things called feelings or why they have to be hurt. I want to know the line between friends and lovers, when to cross that line. I myself can never put myself under a microscope, if I could, maybe I could make wiser decisions, decisions that won't ultimately bite me in the ass. But as my friend Chester pointed out, if I got what I wanted everytime, I wouldn't be living a life. Even so, I do want some things to go right sometimes - I think I am due some good days or blessings - just that, well, I don't so I'm angry, pissed and, most of all, hurt.

In the end though, I cannot do anything about it. I will remain the idiot, trying to learn from my mistakes in the hopes to make things better and I will still remain on this drooling idiot of a world that messes it all up.

I do appreciate that you value our friendship, I guess I really need to know that to move on.

Final thoughts? I wish I was a fireball. How's that?

Cold Christmas

2006-12-06T00:05:00.000+08:00

"It's like, they say that but only to make me feel better, they don't really do it; They tell you that they'll be there for you and that no one has to go through it alone and yet when the whole talk is over, it's the same, I get lost somewhere... alone;
What was all that bullshit for then?"

What can you tell me about that line up there?

Today, when I went downstairs, my dad shouted at me for no apparent reason. Apparently, my brother forgot to have something xerox'd and by weird parental reasoning, I was also to blame. Apparently, I had a car I didn't use to xerox the damn thing. Apparently, I was to blame because I didn't do anything about something I didn't know. Apparently, I have to do it when it was my dad who told my brother that he would drive him around. I can go on and on with the apparents but just seeing the word parents is eating at my nerves. Tell me though, do I deserve that? Maybe. Who knows? I sure don't. Shit happens all the time. And taking a line from Ben, "It happens to the best of us"

From a conversation with a friend yesterday, I have been thinking again. Waiting for my brother in the car as well as driving around San Juan for an hour gave me enough time to think about what the hell was going on. Recently, to the tell the truth, I've not been feeling so well. I've been sleeping later and been waking up abruptly, unable to get a good night's rest, for at least 4 days now.

Recent events brought back some very familiar feelings. By this I mean, a certain someone who just happened to have captivated my heart. But it's not a happy kind of feeling but a shock worth reflecting on. It was whether or not, we saw each other as friends. Talking with another friend yesterday allowed me to reflect on this question I was faced with and while I replied to this certain someone that we were, it kinda nagged on me about how we were friends. Why was she special out of everyone? Why do I feel that I'm letting her walk all over me? It's kind of unfair, in my opinion but maybe I'm also being selfish.

It's like, I try everything I could to be with her, make her happy yet it seems that there's a certain wall I couldn't overcome. This wall seems to be evident in the one question-one answer format of our conversations and even if I find some of them endearing, I have to be honest - there are too many "Sorry, I can't" messages to make me doubt about our standing as friends. Don't get me wrong, we are friends but I feel like I'm treated more like an acquaintance. It makes me doubtful about the whole thing. I feel it's one-sided more than anything. If there's anything she'd do for me, any little thing at all, like a simple "hi" then maybe I can set my mind at ease about the whole thing.

But there isn't

It feels hopeless trying to reach you. As much as I want you to know me and as much as I want to know about you, there's still that wall you always put up. I can see you through it yet you don't see me... what am I to you then? a friend, is that what you call it? Maybe I'm being unfair to you, as well as myself about this whole thing if I let things continue the way they are. So maybe that's enough reason for me to be brave for what I have decided to do; that is, tell you about it. I swear on the next time we meet that I'll throw the question back to you. Hopefully, the answer would put my mind at ease and if not, then maybe I was wrong to say that "of course, we are friends" because I should at least know what we are basing our friendship on.

I don't like being treated as a joke when I'm dead serious and one thing I never joke about are my friends. I've had enough people treat my problems with such patronizing bullshit. I've had people who I open up to and think that I'm joking. And finally, I've had people making promises they couldn't keep. I do not want you to be in that list of people because frankly, I like you too much. I'm happier when I meet you or even by the rare instance that I hear from you and maybe because of that, I'm too afraid to stand up for what I want to believe in the most, our friendship. If I question our friendship, it may rob me of my happiness... but I think it's all for the best... like I said, it wouldn't be fair for you or for me if we're just kidding ourselves right?

I hope you think about it as well... because one way or another, I'm gonna have a very cold christmas without you.

The Calm Before the Storm???

2006-12-01T00:28:00.000+08:00

Okay, I think officially making a big deal out of this. Just gotta let it out.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

What was that about?!?!?!

A Long Drive to Nowhere But You

2006-11-24T22:47:00.000+08:00

Home for me is driving on the road it seems. It's probably only in this time that I have a clear head of things. The air seems lighter compared to outside and in this short time, I could relax. At night, the streetlights calm me as I make my lonely drive home. It's kind of magical to see each light pass me by, like a flicker of an instance that leads me where I ought to go, my house -- where I am supposed to be.

Yet at the back of my mind, I have a small wish that I clasp as firmly as I held on the steering wheel - that is, to drive into a nowhere place. A place other than a place.

I sometimes wish that I will come to a place where the street lights are gone from the path. Then, I won't have to drive towards anywhere but just wander around driving, alone in the dark. There is often peace in the long drive, a peace I couldn't find anywhere else. My eyes don't have to focus on anything and I can just take a deep breath and step harder on the gas. As the speed takes up, I let momentum take over as it shoves me back on my seat... the joy of letting it all go in a thrilling velocity...

I notice that things pass by faster on the road. Street lights, buildings, cars, -people- all seem like a blur as you pass them by. For me, it's kind of easier that way. When things pass you by as fast as they do on the road, they never get a chance to come near you... they don't get a chance to tap at your window, they don't get a chance to wave, they don't get a chance to know you. You don't get to make mistakes, you don't get a chance to be disappointed and you don't get a chance to get hurt. Take one look off the road and you're a dead man. Take one look towards someone outside and you will crash into your demise. Such a simple analogy, really.

But why do the rules say otherwise? They make stoplights to stop you and then you can't help but look outside. And the rules say no man is an island, no person can stand alone. That it takes two sets of wings to fly. It nags on me endlessly. Loneliness, it's not so bad but why does it hurt when it shouldn't. Why is there pain when nothing is there to inflict it? It hurts to be alone, even when you do the things you love to do. I don't know why, it puzzles me.

I guess that's why they put breaks on cars, it keeps you from going too fast. Too fast, that you'll miss everything in life worth looking at, worth touching, worth being. It pays to stop once in a while and it pays to have someone wave at you from outside the window, but for me, I guess it isn't enough to have to do things from inside a window looking out or conversely, to have people outside looking in. Know what I mean?

I'm always searching for something (or someone) which I am sure that I have lost on the way. Call it happiness if you will, but I think happiness just comes with finding that thing I'm missing. And rather than go back to try to find it again, I step on the gas and speed as far away from the past as I could possibly can, with no one to stop me, no one to oppose, no one to be attached to, and for what? Maybe to find what was lost in the road ahead of me, never having to face the past that has already been broken... never to be forgiven for what I've done. That for me, perhaps, is the peace I seek. It may not be the kind of peace described in bibles or movies, but it's my peace.

After all, there are people who seek chaos in search of peace in themselves. I just happen to be one who sees it in a lonely drive home.

Midnight Migraines

2006-11-22T00:12:00.000+08:00

I admit that perhaps this is a bad move on my part, to remember things I should have put behind me. Yet, here I am, unable to sleep, thinking about thoughts I shouldn't be thinking at all.

I cannot find words to explain the heavy feeling I'm experiencing nor could I compose any creative prose to give it form. Frankly, I've had a migraine since last thursday and I just want to crawl under my blanket and die. I couldn't write anything since my head started aching, so I went back to drawing for a while and realized that I still remembered how, much to my happiness.

But drawing, like writing, can only take so much time. There's only so much time I can put in my work until I take a breath and realize, that I'm still here, in this world, breathing. I don't know why I write or draw for that matter. I don't see improvements at all whenever I take a pen and start drawing the same old characters, nor do I see any change in what I write. I've been writing the same old things here in this blog for two years - the same hatred, angst, sadness and melancholy of living day by day in this big circumstance I call a life. What for? A friend of mine told me, I'm always looking for something whenever I write. He sees it in how I write these things I call an entry. They always seem open-ended, in a question, never really having any periods at the end - unfinished or, in a term I personally would like to describe, broken.

It seems that every time I press the publish post button for my blog, I take a small pause and review what I had just done. I have just let a multitude of who-knows-who's look into a small portion of my life and aside from that, maybe I have desperately knocked on their doors and asked for help. Why would I write about sadness if it wasn't for pity? Or happiness if not to gloat about it? I wasn't always like this I'm afraid. I had happier days when I didn't need (yes need) to write or draw to keep my sanity and maybe those days are gone now (like the hopes of expecting a reply from you, my dear).

Even as I try to desperately go back to a time when everything was bliss, there is just no rewind button anywhere in my life's VCR. It seems to just be at this constant fastforward, making my head spin and giving me this aching migraine to deal with. It's my greatest regret that I can never go back and fix the things I did wrong, I could have saved myself then if I did. I wouldn't have been broken and I wouldn't have to ask myself the same old question of "what am I doing to deserve this?" The proverbial question of justice, call it what you like.

Mark told me about an irony, my irony. I will only be able to achieve what I want when I'm depressed, hence I can never be happy lest I sacrifice what I want. An example would be taking an ELC test; I could only pass it when I'm depressed or writing for that matter, I can only seem to write my best under a certain degree of disappointment or sadness. AC backed this up also when he said something like, "masaya ka kung malungkot ka" I know, I found it funny the first time I heard it too but thinking about it again, it kind of made sense. What is happy anyway? Happy was 5 years ago when I was still friends with **** when I felt complete and loved but I can't go back to 5 years ago so I sought a different kind of happiness which seemed to me, like poor substitutes to the original... but happiness nonetheless.

I guess that's where the sadness is, how happiness now seems so temporary compared to back then. As much as I desperately claw into that locked section I call a past, the door won't open because simply, life moves on and doesn't give a damn about little ol' you. So what do you do when you're broken? You wander around trying to find a means to get fixed again. You look for the same feeling, the same person, the same instance to somehow get back that feeling of happiness in your life - the complete one. It's sad for me because whenever I try to find it, it eludes me at every turn and what's more, it rubs it on my face. Sometimes, I'd rather not feel anything or rather, I'm tired of chasing stars. I just want to draw, write or sleep until the day is over, day by day until I finally kick the bucket. I find that easier and less painful, rather than get hurt over and over again in search of something that can possibly... not be there after all.

So I wonder now, as I observe that an hour has passed, whether there is something to look forward to for broken people like me. I wonder if I can ever trust someone as much as I did, or love someone as much as I did before. I wonder whether or not I will ever get better in drawing or write about happier things, like how beautiful rainbows are without it turning into a metaphor about disillusion after the gloom of a rainy day. And finally, I wonder when I will find my happiness - find my peace, so I can finally put these thoughts to rest.

My head still aches from my migraine

. : Legendary Luck : .

2006-11-08T23:33:00.000+08:00

I remember when they first pointed to me and called me a person of legendary luck. Myles held that finger and everyone else ushered in agreement when he told me, "Boo, legendary luck." as we played our game of monopoly for the nth time. The title has stuck and I've worn it proudly since that day - Legendary Luck.

I've lived my life in accordance to this title, dodging and getting through whatever life throws at me. Be it grades, games or problems, I've always somehow managed to get through without hitch. Sometimes barely, surviving by the skin of my chinny chin chin... or sometimes dodged it altogether. I'd then make it a point to say something funny when the whole ordeal was done. Somethine sarcastic and funny to make it seem like no big deal. I guess that's why some people would call me an asshole or to put it in better terms, a lucky sonuvabitch. I can't remember how many times Myles, Stan and Glenn said, "Boo Marty" to me whenever I pull another one out of the bag. I guess that's why there would be always be the people who hate me because it seems like I can just make a joke out of anything just because I can.

It was just recently that someone pointed out just how lucky I was. A conversation turned emo pointed out that "I had a better life" which is why I can make it better out of this life. I remember how Glenn used to say that to me over and over, implied and explicitly. And I got so angry whenever he said it. I never knew the reason why I got so angry whenever he pointed how better I was. Glenn was somewhat better than me in a lot of things but he'd say it still that I was better... better liked... just plain better and it irritated me because it was as if he was rubbing it in my face. Now pointed with the same statement, it brought back those countless times of arguing with Glenn. Always judging me to be a better man when he knew nothing about what kind of life I lived...

Do you know how hard it is to make a joke after everything's over? To make up something funny when you just made it out something really unpleasant? Amidst all that you went through, you have to find that one funny thing - that one bright side - to make yourself, as well as others, feel better because frankly, I don't see why someone has to go through something unpleasant if you can't get anything out of it that makes you a better person. Being better has nothing to do with this however and that's what he failed to understand.

Better. Was I? Was anybody? I think no one is better but that's of course just one man's opinion. I think people just get lucky most of the time. We're born into a life under a circumstance, a luckier life or have better luck with friends and all that but it doesn't mean that one life is better. I don't want to believe that I am better than anybody, you know why? Because I can't think of one reason to deserve being above another person. There is not one thing in my mind that makes me believe that I deserve to be called 'better', man. I'm alive for a reason, given life for a reason but this reason doesn't make me better. In fact, it makes no one better.

When someone is born, they will inevitably die so it's all the same for everyone but what's between life and death, ah that's a brainteaser ain't it? All I see between those two points are circumstances. That's in fact, what makes it funny; that each person goes through these circumstances in their own way. I can just make a joke about it and not care because it's just a matter of a great cosmic dice roll. Sure, you can make your life turn around countless times but it doesn't always guarantee success. More often than not, there's going to be someone or something to sweep you off you feet and make you fall flat on your butt. The only thing you can really do is improve the odds - try the best you can and hope for the best. It's like jumping into water, just hold your breath and hope instincts take over - learn how to swim if it makes you survive better, but it doesn't mean you'll always survive when you do. That doesn't make anyone better, it just makes people luckier. That's why I hate it when people run their mouths about being better than anyone else or saying that they're worse than someone, they're not - they just got a crap roll.

If you believe that you're predestined to be better or be worse than someone, then what's the point in living when you're not going anywhere? It's as if to say you're born to lose in this game. Does being better mean you're born to win? Hahaha don't make me laugh, no one wins in life, you always have to pay something to gain something or to better clarify, you pay something and HOPE to gain something. Life's a messy dealer that way, don't you think? But you don't want to play at Death's table, he/she ALWAYS wins there.

I'm glad enough to live (thank God for small miracles) but I know it's not for free. I got lucky sure, but that doesn't mean I don't have to pay my dues. After all, I have to improve the odds to keep my winnings. I think no one really knows how life works, no science to this gamble - not one scientist or philosopher knows - so why bother. It's too big for a small human being to understand, why fight it? Like I said, just hold your breath and hope for the best. No one is better than anybody else... it's just a circumstance.

Legendary luck? Haha, I guess so. It's just that I know how to play my cards right and maybe, a little blessing now and then makes the deal a little sweeter and with playing with life as the dealer, you'd hope to improve the odds at any chance you take. When you get lucky, thank god for small miracles

Death in Real Places

2006-11-06T21:43:00.000+08:00

Whilst reading on Silent Hill, I found a very interesting insight about hospitals. It was that though hospitals were places for saving lives, it was more of a venue for death. Personally, stepping into a hospital creeps the hell out of me. I remember one time while sitting outside an office and they wheel in this guy in a stretcher and I mean, really serious wheeling in. Gave me serious chills.

Some people don't notice it too much. They reel people into the hospitals with the hopes of saving someone but then again, it doesn't really bother you that you just might have wheeled your loved one to their final resting place. I find the thought really unsettling. Imagine yourself lying in a bed or in a room where someone already died in. I think my dad had that premonition once.

I got this unsettling call from my mom when I called to check on my dad two years ago when he was hospitalized for liver problems. He told that my dad couldn't sleep that night cuz he had a "visitor" that night. He just described it to be all in black and came right up from the floor. That scared the hell out of him too so much so that it stopped him from drinking indefinitely (something I'm happy about). The point however is that, it was then that the idea of death creeping about hospital halls came to my mind as something real and not fiction. Sure, I've played Silent Hill games where the hospital was more of a place of death than life and I have read books saying the same thing but when it hit home, I guess that's when the fear really started creeping in.

I really hated visiting people in a hospital. They all look so weak and frail, like there was something malignant hanging above their heads and they hook you up to machines just to keep you alive. Have you ever gotten sick days where your mind wanders and it eventually gets to the point where you start thinking, "God, I'm going to die"? Perhaps feeling sick and weak does that to some people and basically in a hospital, you have a place full of sick people who just might be thinking that... more often than not, their wish gets granted.

I think it's like that time we went to visit my grandfather's grave this All-Soul's day. It was this huge tomb thingy my father's side of the family kept for a long time where I found out something gruesome. My dad kept telling me that it was okay to fold these papers at one side of the tomb but not the other one. He said that because my grandfather was at one side of the tomb and naturally, oh-so-inquisitive me asks what the other side was for and he said, it was for my grandmother... went her time came. I almost jumped when I heard. I was there, folding papers, at the place where my grandmother supposedly would be laid to rest. Right then, I just wanted to get out and start running. It was right there, staring at me. Some time in the future, someone deceased will be right there where I was and how can I bear that thought in my head...

I don't know what death really is. It can be a person, a feeling, a condition, a state or something you can hold in the palm of your hands but then again, thinking about it, maybe it can be a place. I find it somehow unsettling that death can be a place where you're destined to end up in -- in a hospital, in a home or even the grave...

Scary thought

Paying the Reaper

2006-10-31T21:09:00.000+08:00

Where do I start this post with, I wonder... I left writing at this blog since my birthday so that would leave me posting... two weeks late. Oh my god. I guess I have to pay the reaper for this one.

Can I honestly start highlighting events over the past week? I think so haha. I had my birthday blowout on the saturday right after classes were over and to my surprise, most everyone i invited came haha (except you Myles, patalo ka haha) Gerome, James and Lester came! We shared some laughs as we always do and really just took some time off talking about serious stuff I have grown accustomed to. I'm so happy Gerome, James and Lester came because it's been almost a year since we met. After James pulled a disappearing act over a year ago, it was a relief to hear from him and to actually come haha.

So happy that after all these years, nothing really changed. No matter how crappy college life can get, I guess I can still count on some friends haha. I swear they'd scald me if they hear me talking all sentimental, just the kind of friends I grew up with.

I'm spending most of my time drowning in games or writing the ECE Battle Royale I've been planning for so long. It's so nice that everyone who's read it liked it (even if they are featured dying in a gruesome way). I remember one time when I was just getting started that I had to think what I was writing for and back then, it was merely a way of getting attention. Later on though, I learned to love writing in a way that it embodies a part of me and maybe perhaps it's because of the encouragement I got.

Just live, that's what James used to say and I couldn't agree more. Regrets and mistakes should not be forgotten but they shouldn't hold you back either. Reading what I've written over the years made me realize that I was writing for fun now... not relief. I'm so happy whenever someone tells me that they like what I'm writing and that it inspires them to start -- weird, I never would have thought that I'd arrive at this point but I did and for that, I'm eternally grateful.

Paid? Later then. I have some writing to get to

2nd Decade

2006-10-19T05:27:00.000+08:00

The sun is now rising on the 2nd decade of my life as I write now and I reckon it's time to give thanks to those due. After all, when someone does something nice to you, you ought to say thank you right?

To God: Thank you for picking me up when I couldn't stand, for being there to listen when no one would. I guess I owe a lot to you big G, what would my life be if you didn't come around?

To my family: I know I've not been the most perfect son or brother but I'd like to thank my parents for bringing me into this world, giving me 2nd chances and ultimately, teaching me lessons that help me along the path called life.

To college friends: Though I've only met you guys for only a short time in my life, I can't ignore the fact that the latter part of my years was spent with much enjoyment of your friendship. Thanks for all the laughs, tears and hugs. Know that I really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

To HS friends: For the gang, I thank you for the stories we shared. All the misadventures, capers, escapades -- all of them made my life as it is now. I would not be this person if it wasn't for you guys and though I have been quite unbearable at times cuz of my 'emo', I really appreciate it that you guys would listen and help. How could I have lived without you guys?

To My Mary Jane: You turned my life around. After I went through the pitfalls of love lost and written frustrations, you were there with your smile and comforting words. I honestly don't know what would happen if ever I didn't meet you when I did. Know that you always have a special place in my heart and I'm just happy enough to call you a friend. You are the moon that shines my darkest night. Love ya, beautiful

To Richmond and Martin: For the best damn friends a guy can ask for. I met you guys when we were just 10, imagine that! and now, we're all turning 20. GS, HS, college, we still remained friends, that's saying something. My life is what it is now because I grew up with you guys and you guys taught me what a friend ought to be. When I have problems, it's you guys who gives the first buzz and you never leave me hanging. The good times, you were always there to share them with me and though our lives may be going on different paths, at least we always have that one day a year when we meet, share stories and realize that our friendship is still strong. You guys are the best.

To ****: What can I say to you? You probably rocked the foundation of my life the most. From meeting you, I've learned how much life is worth living for despite its imperfections. I learned to make things matter when they did, to say thank you when it was due, to look at the stars and see them for how beautiful they are. You made life a whole lot more living for and for that, I thank you.

Now for my last words as I say goodbye to 19 years and say hello to the 20th:
BRING IT ON

Spiderman Cries at the Grave

2006-10-16T00:34:00.000+08:00

First, I'd like to thank those who have consoled me from my previous post. I really appreciate all of your sympathies for such an... unfortunate circumstance on my part. I'm very glad that you cared.

On to business then. The semester is now about to end and it comes to the time where I review what had happened over the sem. I am also nearing my 200th post now, signalling 2 years of keeping this blog alive. I'm so happy that I kept this little piece of cyberspace kicking. In a way, at least I'd have documented the "better" part of my life.

This sem had been particularly... interesting. It started with a god-awful schedule where I became good friends with others who shared my plight yet one after another, things started to get better as my classes were moved to a better time. I will never forget when I got my first 100 in my ELC. That's saying something since no one ever gets that high in any test of Sir Monje's. There were other highlights too: like my Blind Date with Apol, my immersion in San Mateo, watching Sophia's movie (which I enjoyed immensely), Bbal with BJ and Rio, Terriyaki Boy with Mark and Anjoy, Lunch dates with Lynn, Movie making with Gali and Berk, Comics with Chester and how can I forget, the myriad of conversations I spent with each person. If I described them all, I'd run out of time and probably bore you so let's just keep it short and say, it was one heck of a sem.

Aside from that... one other big thing that happened to me by the end of the sem was my confession. I think I haven't cried like that in months. This semester, aside from time spent with friends, seemed to be a relief to the hardships of regret and guilt that I've carried over the years. I've learned to trust people better now and I've remet some friends that I now know I can count on. Old Sinner, the title Martin gave me -- meant one who stands up proud though punished by the darkness. I've learned to accept my mistakes now that I have learned much about redemption and I quote, "On the road to redemption, just because we are told not to forget, doesn't mean we have to go through things alone." Berk helped me make that quote for my Synthesis paper in Theo and now, I decided to keep it as my own. My heart feels lighter somehow now that I have sought absolution and perhaps been granted it when I had my confessions.

I am sorry for a lot of things, actually and maybe it's too late to be forgiven by the person I did wrong to but it's been years now and I guess maybe it's time I have to forgive myself first. I've made a mistake to one person, I don't intend to repeat it to any other. And if it ever comes to the opportunity when I can somehow seek your forgiveness then... maybe I'll get back some of the things I've lost. Nes gave me some friendly advice: he told me I think too much and I have to let things go. True, I do tend to hold on to things for too long but I'm willing to let them go... one day at a time.

I'd love to move on to another topic but I'm a little too tired to think of something to wonder about. After all, I just updated my blog to make sure people think I'm okay. That's the word, think I am cuz I never am, just okay enough. So until then, I'll be seeing you.

. : I'm So Sorry : .

2006-10-03T23:28:00.000+08:00

One thing I hate to do is to bring up some old skeletons from my closet and yet sometimes, these things are inevitable - which annoys me even more.

I didn't realize it until I heard it from my own mouth when I was talking to my blockmate Lynn about why I was the way I am. Actually I knew exactly what the reason was for everything, I just didn't want to tell anyone (even myself) and as stupid as it sounds, I had confided to Lynn just exactly what was bothering me, something I myself couldn't admit to.

I guess I've finally come to that time where I've finally gotten really stupid and let my guard down to people or I've grown enough balls to trust someone with what's bothering me. Was it perhaps because she asked? or was it more because I wanted to tell someone about what ate at me every night? I don't know but a question was asked about an old skeleton in my closet and like any good gravedigger, I told my story.

I had loved her when I knew nothing about what love is - that's the story. Anyone who'd know me well enough knew this person and everyone knew how it ended. I guess it was the first time I ever lost a friend because I was selfish. I loved her so much that I wanted her so much to love me back and for that reason, I said something stupid that I didn't mean: "I Love You." And yet, a few more years later, I'd still say she was the first person I ever loved because frankly even now, I never really forgot. I knew her in a time where things always seemed in turmoil and maybe that's how we became friends - close friends - and maybe perhaps this was why I liked her the way I did, I had someone to share the pain. I loved her, that is what's stubborn - I can't say I ever stopped loving her because even now, I still cherish everything she's done for me, it's just that things are different because I can never be part of her life any longer. That's the painful part about this whole affair: For her own happiness, I had to accept that I should never be a part of her life any longer.

I made a huge mistake about being selfish. So much so that I lost you, my dear friend. I wanted to be forgiven somehow but things have already been set. You said to me that it would be better if we just forgot about things but how can I deny you? You really think you didn't matter to me when it's actually you who changed me so much - you mattered so much and there isn't a damn thing I wouldn't do if only to be friends with you again. Not a damn thing but I guess for this particular sin of mine, there would be no absolution since you've already denied me.

Reading back on my past, I have always seen you in every word; how you denied me forgiveness for what I've done, how I paid dearly for my mistakes and how I changed into a self-punishing coward. Will there ever be forgiveness? I know I can never get it from you because in your world, I no longer exist. You made sure of that and along with that, you have denied the better part of our friendship. All that was ever left of our relation was the reminder of my mistake and the consequences of selfishness, and for you, I'll carry them until the day I die. Why? They will remind me not to make the same mistake with anyone I love or will love one day. To deny I ever loved you would mean that these mistakes, these changes in me were for nothing and I don't want that because I now see the things that matter most to me. That's because I lost one of the most important things that mattered, you.

I spent half my life betraying an ideal or a friend I believed in, the other half is spent trying to find the strength to say I'm sorry - this is from Kyle Richmond and nothing can hit the bullseye any closer. I'm sorry, **** I hope you know that I really mean this. I hope one day you can forgive me but if it never comes to that, then I guess that's okay too. As long as you're happy, I'll keep smiling even if I'm no longer part of your life. After all, you taught me life ain't always full of butterflies right? I'll pray for you tonight, just like every night - hoping that you'd always, always be happy where we stand.

Good Night

About YM and the Favor Pile

2006-10-02T23:14:00.000+08:00

I am feeling that my days are numbered haha.

Nearing the end of the sem, I have suddenly found myself drained of enthusiasm. The end of the sem pretty much means that I will say goodbye to my blockmates as each person goes off in their own endeavors for the break. I have to admit that I've met some great people this sem and it has definitely been fun.

Now on to the more serious stuff.

I have noticed something I find mildly amusing which is, (not to be sexist) girls often talk to me just when they need something. Now, before any of you decide to say 'oh my god, so not' I implore that you see things in my point of view. I read through my archives one day and came to this realization. Almost every one of my conversations with the opposite sex has something asking of me except maybe the few who actually WANT to have an intellectual conversation.

I would like to rant more about this. I can understand how sometimes they'd overlook me for being more than their therapist but really, I sometimes find it rather insulting. If not, the friendship looks awful one-sided don't you think? Whenever a girl messages me I often expect that I will be asked for a favor, which is actually true. They do, but it's something I don't really mind because for one thing, I don't really care if they just see me as a therapist -- I'm just there to help. It's just that sometimes, I get really insulted when the conversation is just solely based on a favor.

I especially loved the quote Sophia gave me one day when she told me, "If everyone would rather be the light to shine your brightest day, I'd rather be the moon to shine your darkest night." I guess for me, being part of the fun part of friends is not always going to happen but then when everything starts to crash down, I find myself in the middle of the crosshair for some reason. In my case, I accepted the fact that I will not be the guy they'd invite to birthday parties or gimiks or even just lunch but then again, I'd be one of the people they'd go to when something's wrong. Is that an honor to be considered as counsel? or am I treated like a genie that they can use at their beckon call?

Am I being used? I sure hope not because if that was ever the case, you should be ashamed of yourself -- you've just wasted my time and effort to make you feel better. One thing I can't stand is when a friend is distressed. It bugs the hell out of me, so much so that I want to make things better. People do abuse that fact and I know, don't think I don't because actions speak louder than words and what I see in people's actions, it's downright appalling. Can you imagine what I'm talking about? To have conversations where they just talk to you to ask something from you and when you're done, you're back in the reserves. That hurts.

So now that you have seen my side of the story, I do hope this somehow reaches you people. I have no qualms about people who do this because I accept the fact that to some people, I'm just a label not a person. After all, I said this was a rant right? If you do feel somehow surprised by what I said and actually found this to hit a certain bullseye (or tinamaan ka) then by God, you might have a conscience. That's actually good... you understand me better now.

Why did I write this unbelievably selfish entry? It's simple: it amuses me and perhaps, I've grown tired of playing therapist or tutor all the time. What kind of friend are you if that's all I am to you? Pretty selfish, I think. Shame on you then.

. : The Melancholy of Marty Peterson Tan : .

2006-09-20T18:29:00.000+08:00

Perhaps one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen was this starlit night when I went to Tagaytay with my parents. I never fancied staying inside the house whenever I went out of town, mainly because I loved watching the stars as I sat on a bench outside. It was one of those few times when you could actually see them as well as one of the few times my dad would get all chummy with me, asking "Saan diyan yung Orion?" and I, spending most of my free time watching stars, point out the three aligned stars and from there map out the rest of Orion.

That particular night was special though because I saw Draco as well as my sign, Libra. I remember what Draco looked like, it had this three stars assembled in a triangle then four other stars that made an arc from under it and Libra, well... it looked like a scale with one star on each limb of the scale. I start to wonder then about the scales. I looked it up and it says Librans often look for a balance in everything and my birthday happened to be really special, it was on the 19th of October so it was along the days where the Libran was well, truly Libran. So I was there watching the great scales up in the sky, thinking about the great balance of things in the universe when I realized, how small everything was.

Everything in perspective, things shouldn't matter. Every human is born, lives and later dies just as things are created, used and destroyed. What was scary was that all of those things I thought about that mattered so much, didn't matter at all in the bigger scheme of things. My grades didn't matter because it's just a number. Friends? Just people, they will live and die just like anyone. Me? I didn't matter, I'm teardrop in a giant ocean of humanity. Don't you ever wonder whether or not someone will invent the telephone for example even if Bell didn't exist? Or a World War 2 if Hitler didn't exist? You know, I really think the world will go on and really, everything's eventual. Things will happen as they are meant to happen. One person won't matter -- one life, one death won't stop the universe from working because it just doesn't matter.

I can see the end of things and have undone the strings of the whole tapestry of existence. Can I honestly say that there is something more to life then? No, I didn't. Life for me became eventual and merely based on circumstance. When you have deconstructed everything up until the very core of your belief, y0u end up doubting everything else if they mattered. By this time, I have grown bored of everything because the things I thought mattered were nothing at all when I thought about it. I wanted to be proven wrong and maybe perhaps that's why I wanted to change.

Change was perhaps the only thing that was constant. I decided that if I didn't change my outlook in life, I might end up something I would regret. I wanted things to matter to me -- people to matter to me so I did everything in my power to do this thing. I made the best of friends and pledged my unwielding oath to help them when they are in need because they, in my opinion, mattered. But it hurt especially much when I met people who betrayed that. There was one person who mattered to me so much and didn't feel the same way as well as another friend who I thought I mattered to but only... to an extent -- put it plainly, made me the scapegoat for his own problems.

I never wanted that. Why did these people do this to me when I saw them as something more important than even myself? You go and change, make things matter only to find these people who you wish you just didn't give your trust to. So it was at these times when the thought of nihilism came back, so strongly that they have created walls around me, making me feel alone in this world. The walls haven't come down as I still meet people who seem to see me as a label - I resent people like these because they're too one-sided and never really care for the whole. For short, users who see things at face value.

Now, can anyone tell me why should shake down these walls and let everyone come in? The irony is, these same people who tell me to snap out of this distrust happen to be the same people coming to me to tell about their problems. I find that really funny but I let things like this slide because I don't want to hold it against them. I accepted long ago that the moajority of people will overlook me but if I happen to meet the few who don't, that gives me enough reason to continue on. What makes them think being alone is bad anyway? I swear there are some people who say "ano ka ba? we care for you" and yada-yada-yada but in the end, it's always me alone on the long walk to somewhere. Happens a lot of times, enough for me to accept the reality of things: I don't matter to these people even if they say I do -- that hurts me the most, when they don't even know what they're doing... but... I can let it slide.

My melancholy is simple... I am tired and bored of seeing things not mattering. I do not want to accept that because to do so is to say I have nothing to live for. Honestly, life seems to be the same everyday I live it. I get hurt by people so I shut them out and keep walking alone into some place I can only hope to relieve myself of the pain I feel whenever I am betrayed. I just want someone to make me matter, you know. No jokes, no lies, no know-it-all speech. It's hard to find someone like that so I'll keep searching amongst this multitude, making people matter just so that, with what little hope, someone sees me to matter as well. Maybe then, I can take my eyes off the stars.

Journals - A Relapse

2006-09-16T00:10:00.001+08:00

From Shadowkeeper's Journals 4:

During a talk with a priest at my local school, I asked whether or not the number of friends were a measure of how great a person I am. The priest pondered upon my question deeply, raised his hand and put it on my shoulder and he said, “While it IS a good measure to who you are and what kind of person you are, one doesn’t need a lot of friends to get by. One loyal friend is better than a dozen liars.” How true.

I remember the times I used to write this. I loved each sentence and introduction from Journals because each word took a piece of my heart and placed it on paper to be examined. It allowed me to zoom out and see things in perspective -- perfect perspective. I was also very afraid of writing Journals. It was scary for me to write my thoughts about my life because I am always afraid of ending my sentences. Ever thought about that?

Right now, I am feeling like utter crap. I just unloaded a lot of nihilistic bullshit to a friend of mine, that frankly got him surprised. I probably failed my ELC test... and the thing was, I studied really hard and even gave up my time to teach my fellow classmates but as life goes, they got it, I didn't. That hurts, it showed me how much I never get anything back. My friend upon hearing this situation, told me I shouldn't really expect anything from my friends as that is tantamount to getting disappointment. Truly this was the case and yet on the other end of the spectrum, there's my other friend who tells me I shouldn't bear it all alone. I didn't know what to believe -- both seemed like bullshit at this point.

The first quote up there basically set it all in stone. One loyal friend is better than a dozen liars. A priest really told me this when I told him about my problem -- I think it was the first time I ever admitted to someone about it. There is something in me that causes me to get depressed and it usually involves people. As a countermeasure, I tend to avoid them and keep them at a certain distance because I know, and this is has been proven, that trusting someone is like handing them a knife for your heart. I'm sorry if you are so appalled to read this but I would like to be entitled to my opinion. I've met a lot of liars and users in my life's course. People who take and take, never giving. I really don't understand whether they know how a friend is, frankly because, I never give them a chance to.

I mean why should I? Risk getting hurt and betrayed or worse, putting my hope in them when I have so few of that left in me. Stupid. I've had enough of putting my hope in people to help me because I've met too many liars or maybe they just don't understand even when they say they do. That's the stupidest thing of all, to feel sympathy for a guy when you don't even know what's bothering him. Then you go say things like, "Okay lang yan" or "It's going to work out." Cliches every one of them, out of the mouths of know-it-alls. I'm taking an excerpt out of Isaac when I say, I'd rather be alone than be in a room full of assholes because that was the truth. So loneliness is the price to pay for a security? Yes, that was the case. My life turned into a lonely road then -- live detached, unopposed and ... much to my regret... filled with anger and sorrow.

Why? Because one person can only take so much. Let me take a line from Berk, "thats what you get when you try to take everything in" What I got was this heavy feeling in my heart everytime I wake up in the morning as well as this urge to vent my stress on something. That's what I get for keeping it all to myself. I was getting hurt by trying to avoid getting hurt, weird. I used to think I was strong enough to handle things especially when I deconstruct things to not matter but some things just do and they hurt -- hurts enough to make me shed a tear. So I end up telling someone about it and they give me the same cliches but then... there are those few, the handful few, who gives you just what you need and that gives me back some hope, hope to try living again the next day.

So I find myself in a dilemma. My life is a spin cycle of disappointment and hope whether they each take a turn at screwing me over. I don't want to think about it but I do, especially now when disappointment is printed all over my face. I want to cry but I can't. I want to talk to someone but no one's here right now. So I sit alone in my room and seek solace in the one thing I can turn to, writing because then, everything seems to be so simple as typing words and everything ends with a period. Though it's not always easy to end sentences, the decision is ultimately up to me, that gives me a little control at least.

In the end, I still feel like crap right now. Nothing has changed after writing about all this, just a clear reflection about how Marty is trying to desperately scream out loud how much life sucks. It does, it really does but life goes on. I don't plan on changing my ways any time soon because I have yet to be proven an opinion to believe in except maybe... that one loyal friend is better than a dozen liars.

I'd make that one for keeps, would you?

Old Sinners

2006-09-11T07:48:00.000+08:00

When I was in Promenade, Mc, Josh and Andrew were already there talking. I was saying to myself, okay this is a different crowd now and I was wondering if I have changed far down to the point where I can't relate anymore. Face it, people change over the years.

I was right though, I couldn't relate to most of what they were talking about. They all seem to be in one same circle where I felt I was outside of it looking in. They weren't doing it on purpose though, it's just how it is. Later on, others arrived - Rio, BJ, Bea, Martin and Eman to be exact. I tell you, it's like High School; always the outsider I am but this time, it felt different because I talked to everyone now about everything. I didn't care if it was out of topic, I just wanted to talk. I think I had to show them how much I've changed.

Okay, here's the thing. Late over the night, I asked the question 'Who changed the most' and Rio suggested we play everyone's judge - take turns, telling someone about how they changed. Yes... and I happened to be first. I already knew what everyone would say. They'd say I more talkative and extroverted... it was kinda obvious over the night but Martin told me something different... he said I was an old sinner.

What's that we asked and he replied that, an old sinner character is usually a person who has gone into the darkness and came back out. It's like saying that there was always a tinge of something 'else' by how I talk about things. Something was always brooding within my words -which he described to be maturity- . Because when someone has gone and seen the dark side of things and manage to still live with it - much less smile about it - it shows how much one has grown up. I didn't know how to process that but it had some truth about it.

I looked up on old sinners a bit more and I found something interesting to compliment what Martin said. Old sinners talk about their old sins as lessons to improve their lives. Sometimes, they don't fully forgive themselves of their past deeds, they'd rather carry it along all their lives to remind them of the lessons they've learned. And Martin was right when they said something was always brooding beneath their words because OS's would always share about the things they have experienced to those who have not been to there. Now, how the hell did Martin know that?

It's true that I often dabble on my regrets and it was true that I use them as anecdotes for my friends but how did Martin know that much? I want to believe that he just knows because we've been friends for a long time haha, and he'd know. That's just how it is. I spent some time thinking about it over the weekend and yeah, I guess I am an old sinner - now that I can describe it. I used to think I was just emo but I wasn't (thank god) . It's just who I am, I tend to carry my burden around with me and the thing was, I didn't intend of letting them go. The minute I do, everything I've learned up to this point will be for nothing because I believe that we have to learn from our mistakes and I'll be damned if I didn't learn from mine.

Who changed the most? Haha, Martin answered that too. Everyone did in their own ways. Everyone's good points just amplified themselves in college which is why we always refer to each other with 'back then... now you're..." Me? My past have always been troubling me and it never relented even now but that's thing... I should never forget. I didn't get a chance to help my friends back in HS because I was busy going through shit but now when everyone's going through what I went through, I guess... it gives me a chance to make things right for them at least.

haha ever the martyr?

Update from Friday

2006-09-11T07:37:00.000+08:00

Last friday was a very hectic day for me as the day started at 9:00am. It's never a good sign if I have to wake up at 9:00am for school but that's life right? We had an oral defense on our program for CE class which explains the early morning call.

When I arrived at the room, I saw Rainier there and he was having his advisement. We had to wait until 10:30 to start out oral defense but it went okay I guess. Our Electronics class also went on early as sir Monje told us to sit in the 11:30 class. Nothing big there. No engps class either so I suddenly found myself in a three hour break - really, really boring. Theo class was no different. I just had my translation work checked.

By the end of the day, I was thinking hard whether or not to attend the Anime club 2nd GA. I decided to because I really wanted to see the video we made. Haha, it was so much fun. I got to meet a lot of the people in the club as well as just let loose some long stored stress. Everyone loved the video cuz it was so funny and we actually found some members interested in joining the cosplay contest on November so that was awesome.

After the GA, I went walking around with Berk and revealed to him my mystic powers of telling time. It's nice to hang out with Berk because it's one of those times when I really don't have to think so heavily, not to mention, I was tired from the day and we still had a video shoot the next day.

I got a call later though and it was Joshua - he was inviting me to go to Promenade with some of the guys. I was kinda tired to go actually because of the day but I'm not the guy to call it a night just when it gets interesting so... I went.

The Day Goes On

2006-09-06T23:02:00.000+08:00

It seems like I can't focus lately. Even if there are a number of things that ought to be done, it feels like a routine. I wonder why?

I tend to tuck my hands in my pockets more often lately. If you haven't noticed, the weather just got a little loopier, know why? The later months are coming, the final trimester; October, November, December; which pretty much means that everything's starting to cool down. The wind just got little bit chillier and the rains have started coming down again. I hope it won't be another wet trimester, I kinda like it better when the weather's just all breezy and cloudy. Makes me appreciate walking around better.

I missed taking my lonely walks. It was something my friend taught me to clear my mind. I usually take a walk towards where the wind was blowing and let all my thoughts drift along the breeze. It's so relaxing. Your eyes kinda just settle down in a dimming afternoon and makes you kinda sleepy, at this time, I'd usually find a sidewalk or a bench to rest on. I'd stare up into the sky and watch it turn red as the sun starts to set and along with it, everything crappy that happened within the day. Problems seem too small compared to that. It's like, they're not worth worrying about as long as you spend your time like that.

So at the end of the day, I wonder why I worry too much about my problems - even more - other people's. Life goes on just as the day does. Sunrise to sunset and if you haven't noticed, they're both very beautiful. When you take the time to muse yourself over such a thing, you'll realize just how small everything is compared to such a sight.

Ever the romantic, aren't I?

A Comic Book Kind of Life

2006-09-04T08:21:00.000+08:00

This saturday, I spent Php 2500 -yes- on 2 comic books. The more expensive one costs Php 1800 and it was a hardbound copy of Marvel's Secret War. In it, was a tale of espionage as well as one of the best art conceptualizations I've laid my eyes on since Alex Ross' Kingdom Come. It had awesome features like interviews with Nick Fury (who I have grown to respect from this comic) as well as statistics of the characters involved. I have yet to finish the book because I have read the other one first and that, my dear readers, was Identity Crisis.

How did you grow up? I grew up on comic books, like many of the bards out there. I also grew up on Saturday morning cartoons like the majority of my generation yet the few of us who were also raised between the pages of 50 peso comic books, I deemed, were of a different loft from all the others. I have not met all of them but I have met some and they were very fast to become friends with. All I had to say was, I grew up on Spiderman and that was it. I based everything on those pages -- there wasn't any time for me to learn values on my own, as my parents were always busy, but at least I had an idea on the things I ought to do. Fight for what's right. Justice Prevails. Good guys always win. Three basic rules that every avid fan takes to heart every time they get up from bed. Yet these stories and tales back in the day hid something from us, its children, and that was how hard it was to believe in those three rules.

You never realize just how much was going on. You read dialogues and see punches flying but you never realize why. I never realized how hard it was for Spidey to clock his best friend for killing his first love. Neither was it hard for Cap to be a man out of time, where he was threatened to be nothing more than a glorified symbol. Neither did I realize that there would be no closure for Batman in his one man crusade against the people who killed his parents. They all just seemed to backgrounds back in the day. Something to push the heroes to heroism. A cool origin to get the readers interested. It never dawned on me... that they were only human dealing with very human situations.

It's very hard to deal with life as it is. I broke down some years back and didn't know what to do, that was until I read some comics about how things -indeed- change. That was the most revelating thing I have encountered in my life. The universe I grew up in, didn't betray me. It grew up with me. That's the amazing thing... I don't have to grow up alone. I am distressed between the rules of this life and the rules I believe in but you know, superheroes go through all that and they're just as distressed as I am. Life is unfair, Love is cruel and Good doesn't always win the battle - those were the things clashing my predisposition. These were things to be accepted and later, embraced because you won't get through without keeping these things in heart. Even my heroes have to bend to it, much less, I. That's where change comes in - where growing up comes in.

The more I see my heroes become human, the more I think I can stand on my own two feet. They were once gods, once symbols, once beings far bigger than any of us but now, I think I'm finally catching up and I come to the realization that, they were just people after all and that they just had the advantage of being timeless. All the battles they fought between pages as well as the drama they portray which seemed to me like some fairy tale when I was a kid, were just real life in drawing. Even if their story is repeated, the details are often lost until we look back 10 or so years later to see that this was their story you're living in.

So was this an epiphany? I don't think so. It's something I have repeated over and over and something I keep forgetting. I have had a lot of shit to get through and feeling needy happened to be one of them. To hell with that. I know deep down in my gut, that I can get through on my own two feet and for those times where they get too hard, I can always call the cavalry.

Demise

2006-09-02T18:47:00.000+08:00

Give me a song to play, my lovely lady! Let the good times roll by. Tomorrow is another day, just like any other. Monday, Tuesday, Friday, take your pick! I'll still be loving you, head over heels, kick in the nuts fantastic. Take my hand, lovely lady and I'll take you to Shangri-La, where everyday's a Saturday.

Running through the fields like the day won't end. Perpetual sundown on the horizon. Dandelions cloud the air in a glorious dance as I watch it all come down. The sky breaks and shatters into falling diamond rain, splinters of jeweled delight. Stars fall from the sky in burning light, igniting the sky like fireworks on Christmas - if you have seen them. Lovely lady, don't be scared. It's all for you. This is paradise, where everyday's a Saturday.

There are four letters in blue and three words in I love you. Seven letters in your name. Coincidence? Circumstance? It's all the same. Make this day great for it might be my last. Demise, that's 6 letters and one word. Put together the 2nd of the numbers, with your name, then the 6-lettered word -- that would be me. This place, where everyday's a Saturday.

With but a single wish, I hope to capture this place; into a snowglobe. That's right. You, lovely lady, and I forever in the place where everyday's a Saturday. Where the sunset is still, the sky's falling, stars flaring yet - yet - you by my side. Even if the world comes apart like some cheap whore's legs, at least I would have known I sang you a song.

I love you, my lovely lady.

Yes, there is meaning in madness

I Want the Universe

2006-08-26T00:15:00.000+08:00

I made a deal with you in my dream one rainy night in November. I was alone in my dream in some dark place I had never ventured until the day I read Earth X. You came into that little room of mine and never bothered to open the lights, you just sat back in the shadows and watched me contemplate the reality of the things I was starting to realize. You stood there and contemplated with me as I felt you right across me. Then you asked me, "What now?"

I sat there and thought, about sadness and despair, whether or not it was worth it to wake up from this dream. People seemed to be like nothing, just a mound of moving and talking flesh whose definition can only be determined by themselves. It was as if humans didn't have a purpose to begin with and we just made up our own to bear it all because after all, why bother living a life of no purpose and suffer for it? It's stupid, really stupid. This was the question of what I wanted and answer for and for the one time, I think I really knew the answer. I wanted out.

Out, defined is a means of escape. I want to just shut everyone out and keep dreaming of a possible better place to be in. Thinking too much about things just made me realize the gravity of my predicament; the futility of emotions and the pangs of failure and love. To wake up everyday, feeling so alone was not the life I wanted. Alone amongst people, that was loneliness because it's the kind of solitude you trap yourself in where no amount of human contact can ever reach you. It felt like drowning in water. Then, you told me of a way out but it would cost something precious... my hope

I was reluctant at first... but I pondered on the deal. You let me taste the pain of reality firsthand as you held my mouth and shoved a spoonful of it down my throat. It hurt and I wanted to throw up but you held my mouth shut and told me, "be a man and keep it down". I remember how bitter it was, how bitter life was going to become and I was scared. And I wanted to run. But into what? To a world where I can be lost forever? In a dream that isn't even real? Or perhaps it would be better if I found something else in this reality, perhaps something sweet amidst the bitterness. Happiness amongst sadness. Hope beneath pandora's box. So that is what you want then, my hope?

"Yes" you said. "I want that. You've lost some of it. I can feel it." It was true. I've lost some of it, or more accurately, the most of it. You wanted whatever hope I have left. Your argument started with saying, there IS no happiness to be found. What I'm going to go through is simply pain and suffering and nothing else. Hope and happiness are an illusion to keep me living and unfortunately, to make me feel the magnitude of failure and despair even greater. It's all a cruel joke, it's all a wild goose chase. It's all pointless. So why do you need my hope? Cuz it entertained you didn't it? You wanted to see people break and now you set your eyes on me. You're evil, you know that. I hate you but what you said, there's nothing funny about that because deep down, I know you're saying something of the truth.

"So, what's it gonna be?"

I don't know, honestly. Everything just happened so suddenly and I don't know what to do. I felt alone now more than I ever was because I wanted to get away from people as well as be proven that there was hope in them. It's confusing I know. I have to build walls around me to keep people from knowing that I think of them as insignificant and worthless but I didn't want to believe that so I entrusted people to my trouble, only to find myself betrayed. It hurts and that's when you -- oh so evil you -- laugh triumphantly at my failure. What was the escape you provided? What can you possibly offer to me to make it all go away? To make reality go away and provide me something else? Is it love? Hate? Delusion? Apathy?

"Death"

Death, was it. That was the only way, was it? The only way out. If I gave you what hope I have left, you would give me death. Tempting. Would that mean everything up til now was for nothing? It would, so my life would mean nothing? It did mean nothing. It's too small. My life is too small and there's only so much you can do. What would one death matter to the multitudes of the dying everyday. What would one life matter in the course of the universe. I'll just be another nameless then who failed to even make a notch in the lives of people I've met -- and loved. Death would be so easy, too easy - I'd be giving up everything if I took your hand, too easy. Then, a bright light blinked past the room like a flash of warmth in that cold dense room of ours and it made me realize this time that you were wrong - so dead wrong.

Amidst my darkness, there was still a flicker of light left. It will oppose you and the things you believe in. It was warm and accepting, unlike you who likes to hide in cold, dark corners. You took away that light with your forcefed take of reality but you can't take it all away unless I let you. For that one reason, I have decided -- no deal. Reality can be harsh and I might be due my failures but that was the thing everyone ought to face and if I do find the happiness I wanted, then what say you now?

So now, I offer a counter deal. I'll give my life another chance then you give me back my hope and the moment I accept that you were right all along - that everything is for nothing, that people are worthless, that life was all about suffering and loneliness - then you can have it all, everything, I will accept your way out. But I want it all first, my hope in people. I want it back.

"Earn it"

Fine, I answered. I'll earn back my trust in people for my own sake. For all the marbles then. I woke up after that and I saw the sun as it just started to rise. It was beautiful and I want to believe that there was something that beautiful somewhere in the world that was meant for me. I wanted to know what it was if only, to shove that into your throat.

Closure's Sake (?)

2006-08-21T21:59:00.000+08:00

Hello readers

It has been a long time since I've written anything new. Honestly, I've been preoccupied with a lot of things and writing seems so tedious. I've been sad for a couple of weeks now for reasons I can't explain. It started with this dilemma I had over friends -- same old story I'm afraid. I can't explain why I feel sad and alone so much when I have so many friends with me. It's so stupid.

I've had some heart-to-heart talks with some of my friends lately and maybe for that time, I relearned something about being a good friend. I've had a history of bad experiences as I retold my regrettable days back in High School to Joan one night. It still feels weird whenever she says, "di ko maimagine na ganun ka before," as if to say I have changed so much. I did after all but why does it still feel weird whenever I think about it?

I regret a lot of things, especially by the way I say goodbyes. I am never good with goodbyes. They often get weepy or half-hearted and overall, end up as just a big mess. Goodbyes are too final and blunt as if to say, this is the end of the line, show's over, lights out. I can never get used to the feeling of letting go of people, especially when they meant something. The great irony of it all is that even if I desperately try to hang on to people, I am somehow always the one saying goodbye. There are people I know who have not lost one friend then there's me who gets lonelier and lonelier after every year. It's unfair.

That was one of the reasons why I hated trusting people. When you trust someone, you give a part of yourself to them and you can only hope they take good care of it. When they leave you, they give it back as if to say, thanks anyways and leave it like that. You sit and wonder why they do that and you figure out that it was for closure's sake, that's how you end up as... closure's sake. When they do come back to visit, they change so much and it would seem like you hardly knew the person at all. It felt stupid therefore to trust people when they will all inevitably live lives of their own... but that's wrong, I know it's wrong -- I've been proven wrong.

No matter what happens, a true friend will always remain a friend. I'd hate myself if I ever thought for one second that I would be abandoned by the people I trust most after they have tried so hard to snap me out of it because then I would see no point in going on any longer. What I realized is when you give something to them, they give something to you as well and me? I'm not fond of letting those kinds of things go. Even if I hate trusting people, once I do trust someone, I treasure that til the day I die. Goodbyes seem easier then.

One thing I realized after all these events... with regards to Joan... I can never let go of the things that hurt. Whenever I am betrayed or feel alone, it just reminds me of the things I have to stand up for, trust and friendship. I can never be a good friend if I don't know how to have been a bad one, that's the truth. If I choose to let these things go so easily, then it would mean that everyone who I met and helped along the way had done squat.

In the end, it's always going to be a lonely road we take in this adventure called life. The answers we have are in us and it will always be up to us whether to discard or keep the experiences as well as the people we have met along the way. Inevitably, there are things we have to let go and say goodbye to. Goodbyes may be hard to say, as they get messy or drag on too long, but it's there, it's inevitable but goodbye is just a word you say to someone. The memories and experiences you have? Those are for keeps... if you choose them to be.

FOR GLENN!!!

Great

2006-08-13T18:20:00.000+08:00

Nothing, and I mean nothing, can match the feeling of finishing an ELC test on a friday night. There is the feeling of fear, anxiety, nausea and probably the eerie jitters prior to it and once it is done, everything else during the week becomes so small.

You know it feels great when you wake up the next morning to a weekend where you have absolutely nothing to do. The past few weeks have been hellacious to say the least. I can only hope my grades don't suffer because of the things I had to go through, only God knows. In any case, I FINALLY made enough money to buy me a brand new comic -- I'm thinking... Civil War, what do you think?

The past week for some reason, I decided to treat people to ice cream. I don't know, I just wanted to. Have you ever eaten ice cream with your friend/s on the sidewalk? That time's the best. I used to that back then in Xavier whenever I had to wait for me to get fetched which took about 2 hours of waiting. I'd walk around school and try to find a friend then ask if they'd be interested in eating ice cream. I like watching the sun go down while eating ice cream, it's so relaxing and being with a friend makes it all the better. Weird eh?

I also had lunch with Berk and Fuzzy one day. Fuzzy invited me and Berk to lunch for old time's sake and who am I to deny a lunch out to reminisce high school times. I really miss everyone back in 4G. Even if a handful of us are in the Ateneo, it doesn't compare to all of us being together back in the day. I didn't believe it then but now I do, that your high school friends are the ones you'll keep forever. It scares me to think that we're growing up so fast now. I mean, the things we talk about then and now are so different. I kinda hate it. You know, among college friends, I can not find one person who I can talk about stupid stuff with. It's sad, for me anyways, that I have to be completely submerged into maturity so bluntly. I mean, do I really have to grow up so fast?

I had a talk about this one time. My friend told me something about we weren't going to be friends anymore once we grow up. I replied with, "what are you talking about?" I don't want to think about losing my friends anymore than I already do. It hurts, you know.

I also had lots of interesting conversations for the week. Someone (who I shall remain confidential) asked me what my issues were and I replied simply, "I have distrust in people." Right then, we had a conversation about my more emo(?) HS life, something only a few people want to know about. It kinda felt strange to recall those thoughts of mine which I chose to bury but really when I talked about them, it's like it never really left. I guess when you come out of the crosshair, you get to keep the scars. I'm learning to live with it though, don't worry about me. If there's anything I hate, is to feel like a burden to someone else.

Everything else over the week was like biting your tongue right before you want to sneeze. It finally rested on Friday that the dreaded ELC test would take place. I have had a lot of things in the air over the week and it's all been hits, misses and flops. I really, really wasn't in the mood to take any sort of test especially since it came right after theo class which felt like such a bore. I didn't study as hard this exam, I just studied the day before. Then again, once this was over, I can relax for a while (until the next exam gets announced) and that's exactly what I needed, a brain drain. When the exam was over, I was off to 129 and went to my one vice, DOTA. Everything over the week, I released and they were gone. Live and let live, another week awaited me.

All in all, I've had one of those weeks where everything seemed to have gone wrong... for the best. I've had lots of conversations to keep my brain running as well as have enough heartaches to keep me writing for at least a month. Won't that be fun?

--> I hope you get well soon, I miss you
--> Also, a shoutout to my kids in San Mateo, "Kuya Marty misses you all!"

"It feels great to be proven wrong this time"

Give Me a Pill Please

2006-08-03T22:03:00.000+08:00

Give me a pill please; a pill to make me forget. Give me a pill please; a pill to make things go away. Give me a pill please; because I can't take it any longer. Finally, give me a pill please; cuz no one's listening.

Marty (8/3/2006 11:06:40 PM): i think i dont have anyone to talk to now
Marty (8/3/2006 11:06:55 PM): and by talk. i mean, reciprocate
Marty (8/3/2006 11:07:06 PM): sometimes ppl say im weird by the things i say
Marty (8/3/2006 11:07:20 PM): cuz i am different, i dont conform
Marty (8/3/2006 11:08:15 PM): there are times where i have to go thru things alone
Marty (8/3/2006 11:08:22 PM): it's like
Marty (8/3/2006 11:08:32 PM): when ur sitting on a bench with ur friends
Marty (8/3/2006 11:08:43 PM): then they all leave in pairs or in groups
Marty (8/3/2006 11:08:51 PM): and u realize ur the only one left
Marty (8/3/2006 11:09:10 PM): and no one's there anymore cuz its just u who dont have classes
Marty (8/3/2006 11:12:50 PM): it's annoying
Marty (8/3/2006 11:12:54 PM): i get sick of it
Marty (8/3/2006 11:13:03 PM): yet at the same time, i kind of envy it
Marty (8/3/2006 11:13:07 PM): and it pisses me off more
Marty (8/3/2006 11:15:07 PM): cuz it shows how weak and needy i am

Marty (8/3/2006 10:54:28 PM): i know the feeling whenever u "lose" friends
Marty (8/3/2006 10:54:36 PM): ive lost enough of them, honestly
Marty (8/3/2006 10:54:51 PM): which is why i find it somewhat stupid to even try to make friends
Marty (8/3/2006 10:55:10 PM): cuz in the end, maybe all there is is yourself to lean on to
Marty (8/3/2006 10:55:24 PM): its a really, really grim thought

Marty (8/3/2006 10:56:24 PM): well i just need a better opinion
Marty (8/3/2006 10:56:55 PM): cuz sometimes, whenever i have something bothering me
Marty (8/3/2006 10:57:03 PM): it's like no one cares enough
Marty (8/3/2006 10:57:16 PM): like i often feel alone
Marty (8/3/2006 10:57:35 PM): even if ur around with friends
Marty (8/3/2006 10:57:52 PM): i always feel like i do not belong, cuz i have to be somewhere else
Marty (8/3/2006 10:58:25 PM): i dont know if u get it

Marty (8/3/2006 11:23:40 PM): me though, i just minimalize everything
Marty (8/3/2006 11:23:43 PM): until it doesnt matter
Marty (8/3/2006 11:26:41 PM): seems to make things easier
Marty (8/3/2006 11:26:52 PM): and at the very most, bearable

I really appreciate the people who listened yesterday. It's nice to know I'm wrong at times. Though I had a hard time talking about it, you guys did your best to actually help. You can't imagine how much that means to me. I might still have doubts about trusting people but at least... it's a start.

Sorry, it's just been a really emo week

Un-Distracted

2006-07-27T12:25:00.000+08:00

I have finally ran out of distractions to indulge myself into so now, I feel the ache in my heart again. Dammit all, Gerome was right. Tanginang buhay to haha.

I have recently talked with my friend Gerome who just happened to be online yesterday on YM. I really missed talking to him (him along with some other friends) because I, for one, can trust him about my problems... I don't know if it's that trait of his to bitch about life as well or that when he tells me it's going to be okay in the long run, even more, perhaps it's whenever he says putanginang buhay to with such feverish gusto that I can't help but laugh. The lighter side of life huh?

Now... I guess one more thing that sets Gerome from everyone else of my friends is the fact that I can talk about girls with him and perhaps, get some good insights (if that's what you'd call them). High School has always been that very colorful time when I would find myself failing again in yet another romance and where I'd always be witness to Gerome having a new interest every week. Where I failed, he succeeded -- it's a funny kind of friendship. He'd be the one saying stuff like I should find a girlfriend or go on dates and stuff like that but if I didn't feel like it, or felt too emo to, he backed off and tried later when my mood's all better. Not many of my friends can do that, maybe that's how we ended up as friends.

It was just around these past couple of years where we talked about those kinds of stuff openly. I don't know what brought it up but I guess it always starts with him always asking me, "So, meron ka na girl?" haha then I'd answer, "not at the moment" which got us both laughing. Then we'd go along with our talk about what "styles" can work in dating, flirting or whatever. High School lunchroom stuff... hilarious haha.

One turning point happened when he finally told me about his problem with a girl (cuz really, nice guys like us? girls are always the problem). It's the inevitable problem of liking someone who doesn't like you back, man I thought I'd never see the day where he has to go through what I'm going through haha. Has the distractions finally ran out?

What I probably realized is that I have already gone too far ahead. As our theo teacher said, we're aching for love so much yet it's always beyond our grasp because we are not ready for it which is why it's so sad for us - to that effect. Yeah, I've known that feeling. It's like, you are so willing to do so much, willing to give your love to the one person you think deserves it and yet on the other hand, its so scary because of the possibility that it won't be reciprocated. The thought of it is so painful but it is true. I, for one, want it so much because I am what you would call a hopeless romantic. Totally hopeless, as my friends would say haha. Hopeless to the point where it starts to hurt too much.

I found distractions often to be the best remedy for these thoughts. Believe me, if I didn't, I'd not be sleeping at all. Why am I wired like this?? I really hope I can just forget about the whole damn thing and get along with living with a little sanity. So let me write about it some more to keep myself distracted. Let me just flush out all these stupid questions in my head.

Why is it so easy for some people to like someone and have them like them back? Why is it so hard to tell someone you like them? Why is it so painful when they say "let's just be friends" knowing that you can still be friends? Why can something as beautiful as love hurt? Why is it we give a part of ourselves to another person without them asking? Why is it when they smile at you, your life isn't yours anymore? Why is it that you can think about all these ways to tell her how you feel yet you can't utter even one word? Why can't I utter a word whenever she twiddles her hair? Why am I always an option? Why isn't there a word for the feeling you get when you're happy and scared at the same time? When will it be my turn?

I often wonder to myself whether you are playing me for the fool I am or making me wait just a little longer. I can't figure you out yet I like that about you the most. I don't have to pretend to be anything around you which is why I am so afraid. You can probably hurt me the most.

Ok, I guess that's it. I quote again, Tanginang buhay to haha.

A Suicide Note by Sexton Furnival

2006-07-16T23:52:00.000+08:00

Just sharing... this was the introductory lines of Sexton Furnival from the comic Death: The High Cost of Living. I especially liked this piece because it reminds me of well... me.

"My name is Sexton Furnival, but I'm pretty much used to it by now, and this is the last thing I'm going to write. This is because there's no point to anything, and I've thought about this hard and long."

"Okay. I figure, I'm mature. I know my own mind. I'm sixteen -- almost sixteen and a half. And what have I got to show for it?"

"For a start, I don't have anybody I'm in love with"

"To be honest, I think love is complete bullshit. I don't think anyone ever loves anyone. I think the best people ever get is horny; horny and scared, so when they find someone who makes them horny, and they get too scared of the world outside, they stay together and they call it love."

"Second, I don't have anyone I hate"

"I mean, I know a hell of a lot of assholes. But that's all they are. Assholes"

"There's no one I know who's evil. I mean, in books and movies you get the bad guy, and you know immediately who the bad guy is because, well, he's bad. And you've got the good guy and it doesn't matter what he goes through, he knows who the bad guy is."

"And I don't even have a faithful sidekick"

"Well, you may not think this stuff is very interesting, or a reason to end it all, or anything, but you're wrong. Well, maybe not all wrong about it not being interesting, but you're wrong about it not being a good reason for checking out early."

"I mean, there's no point to anything. And if there's no point, you might as well be dead. It's not as if anybody's going to give two shits."

Ah nothing like buying a new comic to indulge in. My parents actually bought this one for me which was such a great surprise. Finally, I have a comic that features Death on it. It's such a cool read. Death is so pretty and she says things that make you just really like her -- it's kind of creepy. But I guess most of the people who read this blog don't know what I'm talking about because well, they don't read comic books. I find it such a shame that people don't read comic books as well as they read books or computer games...

I like the way Sexton wrote his suicide note. Not that I would like to write one of my own anytime soon but the point is, the things he said actually make a lot of sense -- for me anyways. It kinda reminds me of those lonely emo days of mine where I minimalize emotions and feelings into nothing. Love turns into nothing, so does hate and THAT made everything easier to deal with but the truth is, I scared myself by doing that. As Sexton stated... what then would life be worth without those things? Because at that instant, I have seen what it felt like not to live. If pain didn't exist - nor did love - life wouldn't be anything more than eating to stay alive and sleeping to rest. What would the point of living be then if there was nothing to look forward to, to move on from, or to repent for?

I can't give away the ending for this comic (because it's good enough to be a tease) but Sexton changes after meeting Death in her once-per-century affair. For the better at least, finding something about life that made it worthwhile -- The High Cost of Living as the title stated. It's always... something to look forward to.

Paradise?

2006-07-08T00:14:00.000+08:00

In our philo classes for the week, we have been posed with a question... does happiness and knowledge have anything to do with each other?

Ah, that question... it's the thing that started it all; all the writing... all the emo... all the questions that kept me awake ever since high school. It was when I asked myself the question am I truly happy that started it all and it all came rushing to me the moment I thought of asking it. Our class offered the 4 possible situations for this question...

1) happy by knowing the truth
2) unhappy knowing the truth
3) happy not knowing the truth
4) unhappy not knowing the truth

Our teacher also posed to us the question (in relation to the Truman show), "What was he looking for outside the world he was living in? was it happiness? the truth? or love?" It would be easy to say love since there was a love interest in the story as it would be easy to reason out that the truth was what he sought since he had lived his life as a lie all this time yet... I really believed he did what he did for happiness. My answer was puzzling to my classmates because I myself cannot explain it well - much more, in filipino.

My point was this... no one can be happy living a lie; by happy I mean, truly happy. Which led to him asking if I didn't believe the 3rd statement stated above. Yes, I didn't agree with it and it led to this long discussion about just simply that. Sir Aurelio told us something about what kaligayahan is - it's the kind of happiness that's self-sustaining where it isn't just a temporary high we experience but instead, a long lasting contentment with everything. I really believe in such a thing... I have to - which is why I can never accept a lie to make me happy.

There is a saying that ignorance is bliss but what does bliss exactly mean? All I know of bliss is that its temporary ecstasy and that it is nothing compared to what true happiness can bring. I want to believe in a paradise where I can no longer feel pain, regret or sadness but feel peace in my heart and mind. I know it sounds like some mystical voodoo crap but have you ever thought of how happy you really are? I mean, how significant is what you're doing to what you ultimately want? I think everyone does what they do just to attain that happiness - a notion sir also pointed out. Everyone hopes that in the thing he/she does, the end result would give us our paradise. Does knowing then, make all the difference? Once you know that the life you're living in is not all its cracked up to be, wouldn't it be better to escape to look for the thing you are actually looking for? Knowledge can do that, you have but to ask.

I guess that brought back the question "what was I looking for?" I know it's happiness, I figured that out long ago yet I couldn't find out where. The where has always eluded me. Can anyone really know where happiness lies? Even in our class, we couldn't answer that - that's how problematic it was for me. I have waited years for an answer only to know that it was an answer that no one can provide. I guess in the back of my mind, there was no answer because it seemed to good to be true. That's what paradise is, it's too good to be true.

Tell me now then... can you find real happiness by not knowing the truth? Can your paradise be attained by believing in something you only thought to be true? What kind of paradise then do you live in if you base the authenticity of your contentment on the fallacy of your reality? That's not true happiness - you're actually escaping it. So now when you finally realize you need to know the truth to find your piece of heaven... I leave you with the question I asked myself years ago, where do you start looking?

A Really Boring Entry

2006-06-29T22:22:00.000+08:00

I am especially loving philo class. It's the one class I actually get to think about the things I like to think; pretty much the thoughts I have back in high school whenever I go for one of my walks haha.

So today, was a pretty cool day. My morning class was EngMa and what do you know, I got to be called for board work this time. Bang Bang, got it -- score one for group 3 haha. Aside from that, my blockmate is having a period of mourning over a broken heart :( I just hope he can get over it. Man, what he told me totally bummed me out. Chin up, my friend. Part of growing up.

By the end of our first class, we suddenly found ourselves with 7 hours of idle time in each, the guys of ECE split into two parties. Half went to Tal's house while the rest went to mine haha. Man, it was chaotic here yet fun! It reminded me of the overnights I had back in HS but with... bigger people hehe. I'm starting to like my 3rd year; I'm making a lot of friends hehe.

It's kind of funny because now, it feels like I've found a group of people to hang around with everyday. It's sorta like that high school feeling of mine back then in 3rd year when I met Gerome and James. Everyday became a day to look forward to. Is the 3rd year always this lucky? Maybe... I've had much luck with 3rds. These people really take me out of my game honestly. It's like jumping into a pool of cold water - you get chills all over yet it feels oddly relaxing. I mean, people like Tal, Anjoy and Reinhard are like close friends of mine and yet at the first impression you'd think I'd never fit in with them. It's kinda weird. I can be a goof around them or act totally insane, lose my composure and all that yet it's always just good fun. I guess that just means I'm starting to feel comfortable in college. I guess maybe this is the fun in high school that was lost to me when I went to depression because of the whole broken heart incident.

In any case, I'm really thankful that this semester isn't turning out to be the crappy sem that I thought to be at the back of my mind. I'm learning a lot this sem. I really look forward to it.

This is What Happened in Philo

2006-06-28T22:25:00.001+08:00

My philo teacher said in our first class that nothing was as exciting, as well as terrifying, as a start. Starting something can mean a lot of things for a lot of different people but as he said, starting something has a certain duality in it (much like everything else in the world). Just as life begets death, a start would usually mean an end. Before anything could be started, something must come to an end. I was especially enticed by this thought.

It's like when I have to write something new. God knows how many times I tried to write a story only to have it discarded later on and while starting a new story can seem like absolute bliss, there is still the fact that I have to set aside my past work for the new one to grow. I had to leave characters, sets and plot but more importantly, the passion I had for that specific story. I also remember how Sir Mauchi said that before typing the first word of a blank page, everything was possible. It's like being in some primordial void where you are waiting for the first spark of something to embelish - for that moment, you feel like God. Yet, as word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph manifest into written word, the option or the flexibility of your creation seem to narrow into one path and this path, follows into an end of sorts.

It just shows how small everything can be. Given a path or a destiny, we will just have one course in life with no "drawing board" to go back to. It kinda sucks. I mean, wouldn't anyone want to go back in time, fully knowing the things he/she should avoid having done? Wouldn't you want to go back to being God? Personally, given the chance, I'd do it then again, wouldn't anyone? But when I think about it, if everyone would go back to re-do his mistakes... it wouldn't be a life at all. If we all just kept going further back what ending can we ever arrive in, moreover what new beginning can present itself when we find ourselves unable to move forward?

I guess in the greater scheme of everything, there is no such thing as turning back but instead there is a constant cycle of start and ends. We cannot go back and undo our mistakes - the only choice we have is to just move on. Tabularasa, as our philo class put it - to forget everything and start over. I guess for people to move forward one has to acknowledge to the self that they are going to start something as well as admit that it is also the end of what had previously been done.

We can start as a god yet as we go down the path of life -of experience- we realize that we are not gods at all, we're only human; as humans, we are allowed mistakes and we are always given the option to learn from them. Life's just that one path we take where we hopefully reach an end that makes it all worthwhile.

2006-06-28T22:25:00.000+08:00

High Cost of Living

2006-06-24T00:33:00.000+08:00

I don't really know what to write about these days but isn't that always the case?

Life puts a lot of things in your way. Some are like welcomed gifts yet some are like traffic along Katipunan at 7am in the morning - unbearable. I have always wondered if life had a pattern where we are all puppets of. As a quote in Sandman said, maybe we're just dancing to the music of our lives and what is music but a pattern of sounds?

I have these really big breaks between classes (most of which I have already resolved) and I usually spent the long hours just staring out into the sky. Back in High School this was my favorite hobby. My favorite spot would be this long stretch of road just outside gate 9. I'd sit on the sidewalk, get some sorbetes or something and look at the setting sun. I remembered how the sky turned from orange to blue as night came -- how absolutely beautiful it was. It was like, everything that happened in school didn't matter just because I got to do this thing that I loved.

I don't know if anyone has noticed at how beautiful the zen garden looks when a gust of falling leaves drop from the trees or how the butterflies dance with each other when it gets to around 11:00 in the morning. I guess some of these things are lost to people but really, these are the things I love taking note of. And I especially like it when the clouds fill up the sky, looking like it will rain but wouldn't actually. That's a good day for me. Even if my classes are going to be tiring, I have something to look forward to. I guess that's enough of a pattern for me.

Bad things happen for no reason but then again, there are good things too it's just that some come more simpler than others. The high cost of living... in my opinion... are the things you can't put a price on. Learn to live it.

Walking Numb

2006-06-20T20:47:00.000+08:00

I think I have totally forgotten what I was supposed to write down for the day because of the sheer mind-numbing breaks that I have to spend everyday. My brain gets toasted after 6 to 7 hours of nothing. I have tried to preoccupy myself with things like reading a book or trying to stretch conversations to hours on end and yet I feel a little bit of sanity leave me whenever I look at my watch to see that only 15 minutes have passed.

Anyways, the 5 hours today was spent first by going to 129. I didn't play dota, I just wanted to watch a friend of mine do. I was really sleepy because I had to wake up at 7:30. I tell you, it's like High School. All I have to do is to remember how I dealt with it, just that I had the comfort of my own classroom and classmates to work with it... how to deal now, well... is actually going to take a little more testicular fortitude. That's a good word to live by in my case this sem, FORTITUDE. I wonder if I have enough of it.

We had a funny thing to do today. Our blockmate Mel told us she knew how to read our love lives by using a deck of cards. One of my guy blockmates tried it and it was funny because the translation was that he had another man in his life hahaha. Calling it bullshit, he tried again and he got the same response, it was hilarious. Naturally, I was curious how well mine would go. The prediction came around something like, the girl I like is really close with someone -a guy- who was close to me, though I myself am close to the girl. Simply put, I have a fricking love triangle so... I don't really want to think about it... if it's meant to be, then it is. No use crying over something I can't do anything about. Only her happiness matters even if it doesnt involve me.

I made a somewhat interesting impression in Philo class today. I was one of the people who asked a question that couldn't be answered. We were asked to introduce ourselves as well say what question we wanted to ask... I asked if there really is paradise. I already knew that there was no answer and I wanted to know if the prof was one of those people who think they know everything then again, he just said that the question had no answer and moved on. So maybe it isn't going to be that bad, our prof's kinda sound on the subject. It's the question I ask myself ever since 3rd year High School when I first laid my eyes on Earth X. I pretty much came to a conclusion that paradise eludes us. It exists yet it eludes us countless of times.

I have my share of paradise lost but now, instead of bitching about it - I just want to look at the bright side. Paradise or something like it is always just around the corner, no one just bothers to look. That is what I'd like to believe. It gives me something to look forward to. The basic notion for me to stay happy is just distance and control. If you control something, it is something below you, something not worth worrying about and distance, the lesser involved, the lesser attached, the lesser disappointment I can encounter. Now, you can go ahead and say you're wrong and blah blah blah but judge not lest ye be judged. Someone might say that what I'm doing is wrong but then that someone has not even walked a step in my shoes. There will come a time when I can safely go out and immerse in humanity but for now, I have to deal with some issues with it.

I want to leave a cool proverb I read:
"Kill one man, you are a murderer; Kill a thousand, you are a king; Kill them all, you are a god."

I dunno, this kinda clicked when I read it.

Dream is Back

2006-06-13T02:11:00.000+08:00

It has finally come to the time where I can count the remaining days of summer with my two hands. It's coming to an end, I'm afraid and I'm going to miss it. I have often wondered how beautiful the day can be. A specific scene in Sandman reminded me of it; you know there is a divine creator just because of something majestic as a sunset, I agree.

I sometimes find myself daydreaming again. I want to know what's going to face me once summer ends. I know the coming semester will test me again. I've shed tears last year, I'm willing to shed blood this time. The difference between the present me and the past me is that I have found something that made everything bearable. I don't know if it's the time I've spent meeting new friends in college or the adventures I have gone through for the summer, or perhaps its the building anxiety that people get when they finally realize that everything is... actually do-able.

I'm done following the path of rage. I just don't have anything to be angry about anymore. I will always have my issues with the you-know-who's but what can I really do about it? It's not like I can actually do something to make things better. People are people and you can't change them as you like. Yeah, I still don't trust a lot of people but I'm giving it a shot. God only knows, I've left myself vulnerable a couple of times and when I couldn't take it anymore, there have been those who were willing to listen at least. I guess humanity's not all bad. Maybe there's hope for me yet. I dunno, I've spent a lot of time scrutinizing about how people never change and how pointless it was to be a "good" person but now maybe it's okay for me to believe in people again. I have my issues with people like I said... but it's not like I can change them so might as well change how I perceive them right?

I've been bitten by the bug again lately. The itch, as Berk and I aptly put it. I find myself staying up later during the night in order to write. I seemed to fall apart when I tried writing stories again because my mind was clouded with rage and despair but now, it's becoming clear again. I can write the way I used to and more. I admit that I began to entertain the notion that I can only write when I'm angry or depressed and that it was nothing more but once my dark clouds have cleared I see the basics again. I just want to.

There was this quote I heard in Sister Act that struck me. "If you wake up in the morning and the first thing you think about is writing. You're a writer. You don't need no proof or anything, it's just that. You're born to be a writer" Tch, that don't beat all. Maybe I can be a writer if I want to be or maybe not but that will not keep me from writing. My soul is in what I write so I have to give it my best. Be it out of rage, sadness or the thrill of it, it's something I've grown to love as well as need.

Summer ends in 6 days...

May

2006-05-29T23:20:00.000+08:00

I always thought that the days of Summer were filled with experiences and memories that last for a lifetime. I could always tell a story by starting my sentence with "During the summer of..." so I guess it's true. Changes happen fast within these two months of sun and right when school starts, I find myself winded or recovering from the events of summer. Is it the sun or the days that come with it?

This summer gave me a LOT of new memories. It's been the 9th straight year for me and my grade school friends; the best darn group of crazy people I have met. You know, I've met a lot of people over the years and spent a great number of time with each of them but for that one time a year, it seemed to make such a bigger deal. I guess maybe it's the 9 years of meeting each other at the same place and all. If I ever find myself lost, confused, depressed, sad, in despair or anything, I guess I'll always have something to look forward to.

Summer class may have just given me a place to belong after these first two years of ECE ambiguity. I've gotten to know a lot more of my coursemates and found a group of friends to belong in. It's starting to feel a bit more comfortable in this trying course. The classes were hard but then again, I look forward to the one and a half hour break where we just hang out and talk about anything funny. It feels better to be around school more.

I also went out with Sophia after 3 years of not meeting each other. Even though it's just lunch, it was such a big deal for me. I'm crazy about this girl yet I always seem to fall short of asking her out. But then again, I still took a shot and what do you know, I got a break haha. I was finally able to give her the bracelet I had bought in Boracay when the thought of her passed my mind. Man, I was all nerves that day. I think she's the first girl I've gone out with since... oops, something I shouldn't talk about. But in any case, I had a great time and I hope she had a great time too. I have to admit seeing her after so long made me feel... um, I don't think I can say it out here. Sorry hehe. Miss you, beautiful

Hay... should I talk about it more? I miss this feeling. I don't feel angry or sad anymore which makes it hard for me to write. What's happening to me... I don't understand. If I remember correctly, I was always angry about something but now, I don't feel the need to be. Tell you something though:

"Every time on the way home, I pass by that street and I remember how I have let things go so easily without trying; how I always choose to drive the opposite road, the road meant to be not the road I had wanted. Would you have given me a chance if I did or would I have to suffer the pain of heartbreak all over again?"

These words formed in my head on the way home, when I passed by the street she used to live in. God, get over it. I'm thinking too much again. If it's not meant to be, I'm not complaining.

Let me share a little about May. May is the month where it starts to rain, the month where the first showers begin. Our history teacher always said that the rain brought about the symbol of life or a new beginning yet I always thought of rain as the tears I couldn't cry. As May begins, I feel the heaviness in my heart again as I remember... my first heartbreak and how a dear friend and I had to part ways. I am reminded of dark afternoons on my windowsills, fighting the urge to cower before the sound of thunder just because I wanted to see the raindrops fall.

I like the way storms brew. The clouds start to darken little by little, hardly noticeable until its already there. Then the first trickle of raindrops begin to hit my arm, sending shivers and then a strong wind kicks in as the rain begins to drop heavily and covering everything in this white shine. You never notice it but things glow when hit by the rain. I love rain, it reminds me of so many things; good or bad but more than that, it reminds me that summer... has ended.

I wish I could live everyday like summer; feeling the tingle of adventure, the excitement of a date or even the lazy afternoons spent at home, love every minute of it. I wish I lived summer everyday.

I Have to Write Again

2006-05-19T07:34:00.000+08:00

Things are changing again, I'm afraid just like every summer I had encountered. Yet, this summer didn't turn out to be a bad one. I got to do everything I had hope for (Even go out with you, beautiful haha) . Maybe this was the best summer I've had since I started college because I met a lot of new friends as well as caught up with old ones.

The funny thing is, I write less often so maybe all that anger and rage has finally, slowly, seeped away... or maybe, I just don't have anything to write for anymore... I don't want to say that haha. I've just been having a slow day that's all. Things are definitely changing, that is always something to right about. There are people who believe in me, I should never forget. I have to start writing again. I have to. Even if I wrote out of spite back then, it shouldn't be the only thing to fuel me...

I realized that when I was talking to you, beautiful. You still believe in what I write. Thank you.

Dream of Doors

2006-05-05T21:31:00.000+08:00

What to write about...

I dreamt of a city once, it was colored dark blue and black. I was in a high rise building looking at the metropolis below, glimmering with yellow lights. I can only imagine how it would feel to jump off and let gravity take its toll. But as I leaned further and further, ready to fall, the fear of death as well as something else pull me back.

What happened instead was that as I fell on the floor after being pulled, I scurried back to my feet and turned around to see for myself, a door -- that was partially openeed as if to invite me to take a look. Naturally, I did and what awaited me was an even darker hallway which was lit by just 3 or so lights at each side. I felt afraid then because I've always hated unlit hallways. It's just one long path to dead ends and you never quite see what's at end until you do and when you walk down the hall, you never know when the doors to your side will suddenly open to drag you in.

Then you were there smiling at me, hands crossed behind you. You looked so beautiful, I wanted to run to you but I find myself unable to move. An odd feeling starts to sink into me; uncertainty, fear and anxiety? It felt like that but... didn't. I start to think that it was a dream then you came to me, whispered in my ear that, "Indeed, you're dreaming", then you smile again, made my heart melt and kissed me lightly on the cheek. I felt warm; warmer than I have ever felt. I feel the blood rush to my face as I begin to blush, and you just smiled at me.

I didn't know why I did, what I did then but I found the nearest door and went in. I left you in the hallway and hid myself. All I could think of was how to calm myself down again. I felt warm and uncomfortable, awfully so. I opened a window in the room to cool myself off; feel myself numbing again, blocking the feelings surging in my veins. As I sat in the room there alone, I twiddle my fingers and then find myself drawing doodles on the walls, only to find myself drawing doors; tens, hundreds and eventually thousands of doors in the room I was in.

Which to take? I didn't know. They were doodles on the walls after all. The pen runs out of ink and I sat back, exhausted unable to choose. They were just drawings but why did I have to choose then... Finally, I arrived at an answer....

I woke up

Astranged Complement

2006-05-04T23:29:00.000+08:00

Safe to say, everyone believes in my willpower huh?

... Interesting

Happy

2006-04-26T22:06:00.000+08:00

I first want to apologize to the people who I recklessly let loose my rage upon. That would be Myles and Glenn. Sorry guys, I know it goes against your -somewhat- disillusioned notion that "Marty is always happy" but really, if anyone, and I do mean anyone, really knew me as well... they'd say you are wrong. Dead wrong.

I am never happy at all.

When I come home, you know what greets me? Nothing and no one. I park the car in the driveway, get my keys from my wallet while the goddamn dog stares at me like an idiot. It's too hot and I can't open the AC because we're conserving money. I go to my room to find my brother, with the tv and computer open at the same time. I want to use the TV but I can't cuz he's watching FRIENDS for the nth time and I can't use the pc I JUST FIXED FOR TWO DAYS WITHOUT EVEN A THANK YOU. Pick one idiot.

Not being able to bear anymore arguments with the fucking imbecile, I decided to take some dvds and watch downstairs, that the genius sibling of mine used as a stand for the dvd. When I took it out, there were words which ended in me going downstairs. I watched my movies quietly downstairs as I tried as much as I can to relieve myself of the anger I was feeling. I have this anger everyday in my life and as much as possible, I try to keep it away from prying eyes then again, there are those days.

Parents come home which means, time to go to work. I can't watch my movie anymore since it has been abruptly cut by orders to help fix the table for dinner. I paused it. My brother doesn't come down to help. When he DOES come down it was already time to eat in which he snatches the remote away from me and switches to the TV. Fucker. I already fucking went down for him not to disturb me but he comes down and thinks he's so big. I swear, I'd want to punch him square in the face and bash his head into the TV and say, "GO EAT IT, PIG" in front of my parents but what would that lead me; one of those talks that it will always be my fault. My fault. My fault. My fault. My fault. I've grown tired of hearing that. Sick and tired. When will it ever become his own fault. Why am I the scapegoat. Why is it when he does the deed, WE get scolded and I end up fixing things while he goes off scott-free?

Tell me, when does it end being my fault

I already requested to have me move out of my room anyways. I WANT to get rid of him. I'll take my belongings and move rooms. Sure, he uses the pc but then again, he breaks it, I have to fix it. I spent two days fixing and for what? Asshole. He's growing up to be one of the people I grew up hating. If that's the case, I have to apologize but I'm not associating with my brother anymore. He's an inconsiderate, self-absorbed asshole who I myself am baffled to how I am related to him by blood.

Next. Rewind back to dinner and you find me and my parents eating. My brother went off on his fits again and decided to abstain from dinner. Just because he thinks he can cook automatically makes him exempted from eating and going upstairs to sulk. When I try to talk to my parents about my problem, you know what they said? "Pass the vegetables" Yeah, I'm completely ignored. I get no respect from my brother and my parents ignore me, peachy. Right then, I just wanted to throw my plate at the wall and say, "What's the fucking point?" but again, I just sat back and finished my dinner. What was I expecting anyway? It's always like this. I should get used to it.

Finally, I got the downstairs again. Everybody went up already and I didn't want to hang around these people at all. What would await me is my parents AND brother hogging up the room, leaving me with nothing. No thank you. Something keeps telling me that I need to get it in my head to just flat out throw away the hope I have for my family to see me as someone better than just their throwrag and you know what, I'm starting to believe that.

The number of times anyone has done something really nice to me, I can count on my one hand. What I get from my family is sustinence, I don't feel anything else. My friends... I don't know, most of what I hear from them is that, I am happy so they don't need to listen to my problem or they will beat me or want to take away my would-be happy demeanor by something. I end up being betrayed by those who I trust so what can I say. If that doesn't happen, my closest friends end up leaving so why should I trust anyone to hear me out when they either, betray or leave?

They call me evil... but what have I done but desperately cry for help.
They say it's my fault... but what have I done wrong.
They betray or leave... do I deserve it even if I try so much to absolve past sins.

They say that I'm always happy... do you know me at all?

Six Weird Habits

2006-04-20T16:02:00.000+08:00

Okay, I just found out what I have to do since Charmie tagged me for this so this is it. I, being tagged, have to post 6 weird habits on my blog and then list 6 other people I am to tag to have them do the same thing. Easy enough? Okay here goes

1) I need exactly 3 pillows to sleep soundly. One for my head, one to hug and one to cover my head because I developed a fear of my head being crushed by the ceiling when I sleep.

2) Whenever I play video games on a controller, I have to cover my thumb with my shirt. It used to only happen when I play fighting games but it kinda developed into a compulsion.

3) Sometimes when I can't sleep, I talk to myself to sleep. I find myself incredibly boring that I can talk myself to sleep. It's usually a way for me to suggest what I'm going to dream and later write about but it didn't work haha.

4) When I get stressed, I turn a lot more happier. People say that I become a lot more funnier and better to get along with. I also have bursts of philosophical epiphanies, moments of insanity and my inhibitions are lowered to a point where I let my guard down and make a fool of myself.

5) When I get nervous, I hum rap songs or I Believe I Can Fly or I Can Go The Distance

6) I do not like being touched. If anyone touches me, I feel uncomfortable; especially girls, I blush immediately. Even when family members hug me, I feel uncomfortable. I just don't like it okay?

Now for the 6 people...
1. Myles
2. Stanley
3. Roma
4. Lynn (who shares the same blog as Roma haha daya)
5. Marc
6. AC

Anywhere But Here

2006-04-19T09:41:00.000+08:00

For this entry, I would like to point out a very interesting yet intriguing episode from the Sandman. I also especially love this story. For those who are keen on Greek Mythology, this is Orpheus' story.

There was a young man to be wed one day. His name was Orpheus and he was a talented musician, as well as Dream's son from Calliope, the muse of music. It was Orpheus' wedding day as the story started and everything was being set. His bride-to-be Eurydice, was preparing for a big day when a tragedy occured. She was bitten by a poisonous snake and died.

Orpheus was ridden with despair as he saw his bride, his love being taken away by Death. Yet, as the romantic as he was, he didn't want to let it go. He did not attend her funeral because he chose not to let her go. Instead, he sought his father Dream for help...

"You should have gone to the funeral"

"Why?"

"To say goodbye"

"I have not yet said goodbye to Eurydice"

"You should. You are mortal, it is the mortal way. You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at the times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen lesss and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live."

Orpheus, stubborn as he was, didn't want to accept it and when Dream refused to help him get Eurydice back from the Underworld, he denounced his relationship with his Father.

So it was then Orpheus found a way to get Eurydice back. He sought his aunt Death for help. Death took pity on him and told him of the way. Orpheus then, ventured to the Underworld. There, he was met by the dead spirits and deseased peoples of the earth and it was there he came face to face with its ruler, Hades. He pleaded his case by singing his songs in which the cold heart of Hades waned. The deal was set, he would get his wife back but in one condition. No person gets out from the Underworld by the way they came in so Orpheus will have to walk out the other way. Eurydice would follow him but the moment he looks back, Eurydice will go back to Tartarus.

Hades' smirk as he made the deal followed Orpheus during his long, lonely walk. His thoughts bode him to look back to see if Hades indeed kept his word. He didn't want to be the butt of his joke so it was then that the moment he had set foot outside of the caves that he looked back, only to see that Eurydice was there after all but has not yet set foot outside and so, she was taken back. Orpheus was utterly destroyed.

In depression, Orpheus couldn't find anything else to do but play his lyre in such solemn tunes that it made everyone around him depressed. It was then the Manics of Dionysus found him, and they who have been possessed by drunken bliss, tore Orpheus limb from limb. Ending his mortal life.

Now here's the part that I loved.

Orpheus was half god so his life did not end as it did. His head remained and was found on the shoreline by his father Dream. Orpheus pleaded with Dream to end his life even calling him Father again but Dream didn't do anything to end his forsaken son's misery saying that the decision he chose was his own and he would have no part of it. He only came to say his goodbye to Orpheus because it was the proper thing to do. And as much as Orpheus pleaded, Dream didn't care. He walked away.

And he didn't look back.

G A M E

2006-04-16T18:53:00.000+08:00

I spend most of the day playing computer games at home, taking a break only to get a drink of water or get a bite to eat. I play my fighting games like Soul Calibur 3 and Guilty Gear XX until my fingers start to burn and the flesh starts to tear. That's how I got this callous on my thumb, I've played these games a lot.

I can bring out the worst of me by playing my games. I let it take control. For the moment, I won't be me as I take controller in hand. I like playing fighting games because I go on a trance. I beat the crap out of my enemies, as I imagined them to be. I slice them and cut them. I feel no remorse as I see their life inch to nothing. I leap in the air or crouch fast on the ground; anything to get the hit, to see them draw blood, to see them hurt. I can't contain my glee as can be seen my anxious tapping. My leg begins to tap as I anticipate victory, the climax of the final blow. When it has ended and my character does its pose, I breath a sigh of relief and let the feeling go.

I love the feeling of crushing my adversaries into a bloody pulp. For a minute, I have completely let go of my restraints and took vengeful anger on a simulated character; anger that has built over many years. I keep playing this game until I find no more strength to play. My fingers would ache sometimes even bleed, but my hunger is never quenched. As I rest from hours of play and feel the pain starting to sink in, I start to think whether or not it was worth it all.

You know what, it is

Nevermore

2006-04-13T19:22:00.000+08:00

Whenever I think about each day of my life that I wake up to, it feels like I have no reason to. I feel sad for no reason. I feel heavy like I don't want to get up. And whenever I try to get back to sleep, I can't seem to. Though I want to write to calm myself, I can't find words to explain this feeling.

So many goddamn things happened since the start of the year that I just want to crawl under a rock and pray for tomorrow to come, only to find that the tomorrow I had hoped for cannot even begin to make me feel any better. Old skeletons were brought up one by one by those people who I trusted the most. I feel betrayed yet I no longer feel sadness... instead, I feel rage.

I have had enough of the bullshit people put me through. When I think about it, I feel like I'm being used; used because I allow myself to be used. Thinking about it, most people start up a conversation with me by asking me for a favor. It's either I'm a fucking dictionary, a tutorial or some game guide. It's selfish yes but I have come to terms with this for a long time now. W0uldn't you feel angry if people only saw you as an oasis? Nothing more than a resource only worth asking when necessary. Fuck it. I try very hard to make new friends but it seems I'm nothing more than a joke to these people.

As much as my friends say I should talk more often, I'm more or less ignored after a few minutes of hi's and hello's so why give a damn to these people. They don't care about me so why the hell should I care about them. It's already hard to let out my problems to people without having them ignore what I'm trying to say. I'm just so pissed off. Frustrated. Like who cares anyway.

I'm Marty and I want to sign off.

Path of the Strong

2006-04-04T20:19:00.000+08:00

It was Charles Darwin who stated that it will be the strong who will remain. Evolution is centered around that notion. In a race for resources, it will always be the one with power who will succeed. I did not want to really believe that power was everything, if that was the case I'd be the first one out.

I was never a strong person to begin with. I was never good in sports, neither was I in academics or with people for that matter, everything was always short of what was expected. So I often wonder how I get through the things I do though inadequate at every turn. I believe that in every person's life, there is a point where one has to wonder if what he/she is doing is really enough to be strong. I do most of the time, I wonder if I am really... strong; by heart and mind.

My role models have always been victims of adversities. I am drawn to them because it seemed like I wanted to face adversities to know if I was really that strong. It isn't because I wanted to fail, but because I wanted to test my limits. I want to be believe that, don't you? It seems like a more optimistic way of looking at things. Then again, it calls for a lot of very hard decisions.

It wasn't long ago that Myles and I had a talk about "being strong". Looking at my friends, it seems the numbers has slowly been declining. People were leaving or just wasn't there anymore. Yet, the ones that remain have become like family to me. Interestingly enough, we had a pretty serious conversation that day and I learned a lot of things. Most of all, about dealing with people and about a certain book. I warn you, this may offend some people.

I have this weird characteristic of mine to fix people. It's like, I become friends with people who are not really that popular or strong, in hopes of seeing something there which is... great. I do not know what it is but I call it a martyr complex, I have to save people which is no wonder why in high school and grade school, my friends have always been the quiet introverts. Don't get me wrong, I've also met quite some extroverted friends but it was the introverts who I grew fondest with. Why? Because I had sympathy for them. I want to see them in their greatest. Aptly put while talking to Myles, I look for diamonds in the dirt. Dunno man, just my crowd.

Even then, I can't seem to become better at the things I do. Seems like, I've been the same person since high school. Sure, people can attest that change has had its way with me but deep down, nothing really changed. We talked a while about it. I have changed, it was just that there were some people who drag me down. I have been used to being the one who has to sacrifice for the group. Believe me, I have planned as much things to make breaks and weekends interesting for everyone and I have always lent an ear to anyone with problems then again, as much as I have trusted some people, they did not really change. I gave up trying to change people, I then just wanted to change myself but then again, these people so desperate for change, want to pull me down. Seems like I have a new thing to hate.

I don't really know what being strong is about but I may have found a useful quote to help. Leave the weak, to follow the path of the strong is already in itself a large step forward. I got that from the Slam Dunk manga Gali lent me. Even if some people scrutinize me for getting a quote from an anime, wouldn't you agree that this holds true? Hate to say this but I've grown sick and tired of being the martyr all the time. Maybe I'll become better if I leave behind the things that hold me down. Cold? Harsh? It's the same as letting go. You still want to become people's scapegoat then be my guest but I'm not going to let that happen anymore. I have my own life to worry about.

I'll always remember what he said in reply to diamonds. Sometimes, there aren't any diamonds at all, just dirt.

I'm Dreaming of Today's Tomorrow

2006-03-30T20:41:00.000+08:00

It's been a great five days so far as can be seen by my inability to get up from bed today. My bones are aching and my stomach seems to have a major hangover. Another Marty week? Hell yeah!

Friday - Saturday (Let me breeze through this)
1. Last ELC test of the year (Finally, Hell's over)
2. 129
3. XS (ah, it was nice to get back to the old school, so many memories. I sang the school song hehe still know it by heart)
4. Congo Grill (ate dinner for my brother's graduation)
5. House
6. 129
7. Timog (We had our first pustahan dota game, and we won! Our team has finally achieved a certain level of recognition)
8. Inuman (I don't really go to inumans but I was just crashing at Ben's for the night. I had my first Tequilla shot haha. People are so different when drunk. I don't think I'd ever want to be)
9. Tal's Place (since his place was closer, we decided to crash there after inuman. Arrived at 4am, ate this phallic looking burger sandwich at ministop, watched anime, slept for an hour)
10. Ben's Place (One hour later, got up, took a bath and headed for Ben's)
11. 129 (3rd time in the last 24 hours, readied ourselves for tourney. Got some extra Z's)
12. Sampaloc (Very far ride. Lost first round, curse continues. But then, we didn't practice so couldn't help it)
12. 129 (Wash away the loss by pawning noobs)
13. House (sleep til sunday)

Sunday
I rested on Sunday, got a PS2 so I got to play Alpha 3. YEHEY!

Monday
Basketball plan was cancelled. Kind of panicked cuz I couldn't cook. Was able to cook rice and nuke a chicken.

Tuesday
Bro wasn't at home. Scrapped Basketball and went to play Dota with Glenn, Stan and Myles instead. Strategized lineups at Wok This Way over sisig and sweet and sour fish. Poor noobs never saw it coming. Respect +50

Wednesday
BASKETBALL! After two years of no basketball, went to play. No more stamina so got tired by the 2nd hour. SHOT OVER STANLEY but he beat me, damn big man defense. Ate at Teriyaki Boy. My god, spent Php450 there but well worth it, I miss the TOFU. Talked about Basketball memories.

AND TODAY...
My cousin dropped by! Yehey! What a fun week. Will update when I have time again. Back to summer fun whoahow

All It Takes

2006-03-17T18:39:00.000+08:00

I know I shine, I shine like a star -- and I strike, as furious as the lightning

As finals week finally draws its final curtains on the suffering multitudes of the Ateneo, I -who now takes a few seconds of breath- realize that I can actually survive. Quickly reviewing the semester, the start was rocky, the middle was depressing and the end seemed to tie everything together then you sprinkle in the various ups, downs, cheers and tears THEN you have something to write about.

The days are getting longer now as I find myself sleeping more and more to the hymm of the midnight chime. Been a long since I had this feeling again. I always felt that the stillness of midnight was my sort of sanctuary from this fast-changing world. Admit it people, life's too fast for us to catch up with. It's always nice to smell the flowers, even if it is not the brightest day.

I decided to write something yesterday (funny how you get ideas in the bathroom). Nearing the end of the sem, I guess I decided it might be time to wrote something totally new instead of reviving characters over and over again. They have to be let go.

I had this chat with Berkeley and he said he'll revive Mirage, his story that started back in high school. Maybe that's why I wanted to write something new also. High School has been two years ago and a lot has happened, a lot to write about. I could never really write the things I did in HS, they were too flat and naive but I guess Berk could, his story started out pretty complete. Different for every person I guess.

I tried writing new stories every so often and they always fall flat on their face because I always had something to do. With one pc at home, I find it a hard to find time to write. I don't know what's with me, I can't write when it's morning or when I'm not talking to someone; in contrast to two years ago when I could write for hours on end. Have I lost my passion? Jesus, I hope not. I just lack inspiration s'all. I guess back in the day I was writing because it was fun and people liked it... but now it became sort of like an outlet for emotions making it rather erratic and indecisive. Never write out of rage, you'll get nowhere fast, I say.

In the end, when you write something, I guess you're doing it for yourself rather than other people. Back in the day, whenI wrote something I send it out to friends to have em read and compliment, like some sort self-gratifying act I've grown to enjoy. When everyone graduated, life turned serious and the fire was being put out. Everyone had their own business, they didn't have time for stories, they were growing up and where was I then? I was desperately trying to get back "my touch" because I believed I had lost it when no one was complimenting anymore. So then came the piles and piles of unfinished stories, all of which were attempts to have people give me a pat on the back. Maybe that's how this blog got started also, you think?

I never lost my touch, I just wrote for the wrong reasons. I still find it hard to stop open Word once in a while and type at least one sentence into a story. Shouldn't that mean something?

My story has to be written for my sake, not others. Only then can I be satisfied and finally see an ending to make it complete. I never took any workshops for writing, I just learned to love it; maybe that's enough then again maybe not, but I'm guessing for anyone who is really into writing stories, it comes to a point where we have to accept that not everyone has the time to appreciate your story but you. And maybe, that's all it takes.

Within a Short Interval

2006-03-14T21:40:00.000+08:00

(First of all, I sincerely apologize to my friends for being unbearable in ym. PLDT's not been kind)

Line open...

Man, I wish summer was here already. Aside from six straight days of driving, I have to deal with my ever dwindling health which is a result from my breaching stress levels. I swear if it wasn't for my blockmates suffering the same as I do, I'd just die haha. You can say I've become better friends with some of them because of our mutual predicament. The long hours into the night typing papers, editting videos and studying has finally gotten me by the balls. Carlos, Ray, Marc, Aldrin, been a great week eh? hahahaha

I miss my friends really. Everyone's been busy so they don't really give me the time of day but then again, you have those friends of yours who still talk to you even if they're busy. The funny thing is, they often disturb whatever the hell it is you were doing but what the hell, it's always a good chat right? Cheers goes to Berk, Charmie, AC, Myles and Ben for conversations in YM that kept me from going insane from writing papers and giving me the time for a chat hahaha.

Some of my links here died... yet some of them are back! I need more blogging friends. I look like a loser here, hehe konti kaibigan alat

People to pray for... I pray for myself, I hope to survive this sem. I also pray for the problems my friends are facing that they don't tell me about (labo). I pray for my blockmates, for them to keep their scholarships and not end up like silly ol me. I pray for the heartbroken ones, so that they move on, be better rather than bitter (lately everyone has a sad love story wth). Finally, I pray for Gerome and James who are in DLSU, tiis lang bros haha.

Songs? Latest is the album One Thing Remains by Default. Fell in love with every song (that's right, every song) -- theme? the pain of love lost haha. Bitter me? not at all, just missing the feeling. How long has it been since I felt that warm fuzzy feeling? Been long, been cold. Been listening to Fuel as well. Goo Goo Dolls. Graduated from angry metal music to sentimental / melancholic alternative rock. My, my, does time fly.

On TV, Fushigi Yuugi marathon every weekend. Love story again bleh, isn't Valentines over? Jerry Springer is on to guarantee dumbing effect on brain. Late night talk shows to keep things noisy, well, late at night. WWE to entertain me on weekend nights. Nothing really good unless you count HBO and Star Movies. Oh yeah, HOUSE is coming back. Something to look forward to in the summer. Movies? V for Vendetta starts showing now. No date (obvious?). Looking for people to go with me. Come on guys, it's V for fuckin Vendetta! A literary masterpiece

Writing? Nada, brain's on acad mode. Blogging to keep writing sharp

Graduates for this year -- My bro's going to High School! My cousin Iris, just passed Ateneo! Jao passed Ateneo too! All of us just graduated Hi165. I graduated from totally sad to totally sarcastic again. My brother has graduated from hip hop to j-pop. So many graduates my golly. Is everyone growing up?

Summer plans? Overnight most likely. Where? Berk's or my house. Basketball daw -- man, I suck now. Get thin again? -- Eat nothing, exercise, faint to go to sleep, wake up, repeat cycle. CUT HAIR. Cousin going to visit before holy week, need to show him around. APRIL 7, Martin's birthday -- have to ready stories. Buy comics? Dota with friends. PS2 party at Tal's. EK hopefully with block. Develop writing and drawing skills again. Go on a date? -- will probably not happen hahaha.

DSL still on the fritz... end transmission

Just One of Those Days

2006-03-09T06:43:00.000+08:00

I wish I could whisper everything I wanted you to know without the fear that you will walk away. Without the fear that you will run into darkness, never to be seen again. Do not leave me please because more than anything, anyone, I need you. Though I will never feel your touch again or hear your voice comfort me in the dark serene night, the memory that you have left will keep me warm through the coldness of my loneliness. I never knew hell could be so cold.

If I could have told you when I was a bit more certain, things might be different or maybe if I chose to deny my heart, I wouldn't have had to feel the pain I now have. The place where you resided in my heart is now an empty void that nobody can seem to fill. You were my heart, you kept the blood in me flowing, you kept me warm. You kept me alive. So how did it feel, when you turned and walked away from me? Can you understand the abandon I felt? How the world seemed pointless without you... how it didn't matter because you weren't with me anymore?

I walk down my lonely road once again, the wind was cold as the last remaining leaves start to fall all around me, like the way I am learning to let go of the love you have shown me. I will never learn to let you go but I can try, I can only hope to because I know it will not stop hurting until I do so. Do you remember when we walked down this road and I told you, I'm so happy you're here? I repeat the words over and over now, still hanging on to a small hope that you were still beside me or that I will see you ahead of me, waving and smiling that smile of yours that meant the world to me.

It shouldn't hurt like this. It hurts whenever a song plays. It hurts whenever I find myself with no one because it reminds me of how you never left me, how you would never leave. Words can only try to describe. No one to catch me when I fall, broken-hearted, afraid and alone, I only have that memory of you to keep me strong and even when I have let you go, to deny what happened between us is to deny the fact that I was once happy.

It only hurts when your eyes are open
Lies get tossed and truth is spoken
It only hurts when that door gets open
Dreams are lost and hearts are broken

Love

2006-03-07T01:15:00.000+08:00

It hurts the most when you see that no one is actually there

Fuel is My Addiction

2006-03-04T23:28:00.000+08:00

Take this

"Kid, people up here do not know what we do. They still think that they are living safe and secure lives."

"What is it that we do?" he asked, "Felnon keeps saying, we are protecting people here but from what? Richmond says we should protect them from themselves but, why would they want to harm each other in the first place?"

"You have a lot to learn, kid. People make mistakes, you know that right? And well, people can make really big mistakes often, caused from misunderstanding and pride, human fallacies, you see."

"So we are protecting people from their mistakes?"

"Well, kind of. They tend to go too far also and that"s where we come in. We do not let it get too far. People don't see when they do, kid. It's another flaw. We don't realize that we have gone too far until we do. Often, hurting other people in the way."

Ah, the old Dream Machine. Don't you love going back to old stories? I happen to do. I wrote this about a year back and I still remember how fresh the idea of this story went. People were stupid mistake making beings that didn't know when to stop.

The fun thing that I probed through with this idea that we never realize our mistakes until it was too late. The ultimate irony, I say. With a clear head and a working brain, we could very well avoid mistakes and it is often that very feeling that we feel whenever we have done something wrong. It's like taking a test. You answer some numbers and by the end, when you realize that you made a mistake and you say to yourself, "Heck, I knew the answer. How careless I was. Why didn't I think of that??"

I guess I think that's the great thing about being human after all. I used to hate people or humanity for that matter because we never seem to learn. We are so flawed. Everything seems imperfect, so incomplete. The only thing that you can expect to happen properly is that you will be born, live and ultimately die. Why hate such an essential thing?

Hahaha, mistakes, mistakes, mistakes. Everyone makes em, why fight it. All we can really hope is to learn from them and move on to better things. I made mistakes a lot of times but not usually committing one to myself, that's just stupid but hey, a person can change. We all hope to. The great thing about mistakes for me is that, I can write about them. Sure, I may be an object of ridicule or scrutiny but then again, it's not like I'm going to run any longer from them am I?

Let me rant a little bit more. Why is it when you say I love you to someone then that someone rejects you, the whole world changes? I was watching Curious Play (Fushigi Yuugi) in Animax just a while ago when this whole scene where the girl tells the guy she fell in love with him and the guy rejects her happens. Wow, story of my love life haha but really, I think it's a lot more common than I thought. Apparently, this void is created once the dreaded three words are uttered. Why? embarrassment I guess. We, and by we I mean the busted rejects, usually wonder what the awkward silence is all about and usually, it is labelled by a BIG MISTAKE on the part of the person saying he/she loves person 2. Honestly? I think it is never a big mistake to do so. The only mistake, I think, you can do in the situation is that you never get everything out in the open or in the case of person 2, didn't end things in a complete sentence.

The funnier thing is, when it's all over, you get that question again. "Now why did I do that? It sounded so stupid" like that test question I stated above. Bam! It's got you, your brain failed you again haha but it's not like you can do anything about it, it's done. We are so flawed and yet, so wonderfully inadequate to become perfect at the same time. Gotta love it

Issues

2006-02-27T17:19:00.000+08:00

It has been a somewhat good weekend. With the consolation of no classes today and last friday, it would seem like a perfect getaway from the hectic weeks of the impending finals on March but really, it was bittersweet.

Friday was a good day to start. When I heard class was suspended, Berk sent me a message if I wanted to go to his house. Seeing as I had nothing to do at home, I did. The night prior to friday, I had this long chat with Jeff where I talked about my issues. I didn't expect him to listen given the years apart since graduation day but then I guess it came as a bit of a surprise to see that some old ties still held. I didn't expect anyone to care whenever I talked about my problems, neither did I expect for someone to make me feel better but I guess I was wrong. I still have a few diamonds.

In any case, I went to Berk's for a break from this melancholic drama. I spent the day with him and his brother playing PS2 games. It was such a blast haha. Our weird vocabulary just learned at least five new phrases that day. We spent most of the day playing XMen Legends 2 which was a great beat em up game. We plowed through 7 hours at least. Eventually we took a break from the game and I decided to just stay over. My parents agreed, making this my first impromptu overnight haha. I really missed overnights away from home. I didn't really like staying at home for weeks now, it seemed like a vacation.

During our break from XMen Legends 2, we talked about, well... things that were going on lately. We talked about friends, school but there were was a lengthy topic about writing. It was then I decided to let Berk into my written journal about the creation of Kid Thunder because for one thing, I think he had been there since day one of creation and I felt he deserved to know, as a friend. I guess writing in that thing made me see things more clearly about why I am like this. Looking at our writings closely, I think we were actually writing about our lives. "I didn't think they were all outlets" he said. I think that's what it has always been, they were all outlets. We would talk for hours about what we wanted to write without us knowing that we may be just talking about something more. I always thought that everyone had a story, I just forgot that fact. In the end, I will always wish that we will make it as good storymakers because it's the one thing we can always be proud of.

I have not a lot of things to smile about but being true in my writing does. Not many would believe in me, but I have to believe in what I'm writing. I'm writing my life, I have to believe in that.

After I went home, life resumed. Staying at home got me antsy, I didnt want to stay long but with the commotion that is our country, I didn't really want to go out either. I spent most of the night chatting. Lester went online! We talked about random stuff again haha. It felt like a relief from dealing with issues. I have coined that term now: Issues -- problema ng buhay.

The main issue that seem to bubble out of every chat I have is friendship. Believe me, I have my own issue about the thing. Really, it's easy making friends but it's hard letting them go. Sometimes you get friends who care deeply for you yet there are times that you feel betrayed as well. In my opinion though, every friendship is worth saving BUT it takes two to save it. If one doesn't want to be friends anymore then by all means, learn to let it go. Personally, I am through being the good guy who tries to fix everything. I have to choose who to trust more carefully... and maybe I have.

jeff : marty...
jeff : its not too late to show ur weaknesses
jeff : i think its never too late
jeff : even though u luk tough before
jeff : but if its destroying u now
jeff : u should not care wats ur reputation before
jeff : u should be able to stand up and try to solve ur problems today...
Marty : that's actually gud advice haha

A good friend shows his strength as well as his weaknesses. Yes, he's right. But your weaknesses in the hands of the wrong person can really... with no other word to describe it... sucks.

"I have spent half my life betraying a friends or an ideal I believed in... the other half? Is spent trying to find the strength to say I'm sorry"

The Three

2006-02-20T23:24:00.000+08:00

I had betrayed a lot of things over my short lifetime. I have betrayed friends, families, ideals, morals, values and yet the greatest thing that I had betrayed is probably... myself.

I guess it was too much of me to ask myself to change. There are so many things unresolved. So many issues unanswered and yet here I was trying to run away from them. Maybe I was afraid or maybe I just wasn't man enough to face them but the simple fact was that I decided to erase everything who I was in order to save myself.

Ironic? Maybe but who am I to say?

I found my old sketchbooks and stories one day. It was such a blast from the past. Every drawing of mine then looked defined, whole, finished and every story I read, I knew the ending it was meant to have. My drawings, I touch the paper and I can still feel the hours that went by as I layered, sketched, erased that page over and over until I got the picture I held. I remember how proud I was to hold it up to the light, only to see that I had my proportions wrong; the head was too big, the arms were too long and the foot looked like mangled meat. It didn't matter, it was beautiful for me.

As years went by, my stories have become darker. Kid Thunder was replaced by Isaac Matthews and every time I wanted to bring Kid back, it seemed like he will never be the same Kid as he was when I created him. I wanted him as an escape from things, an outlet for my hunger for adventures and romance yet now, it seems he has become heavier, darker, burdened with things I myself do not understand. I made him a villain once and that may have sealed his fate. I made myself a villain, to the world, to its view of justice, to how it works. I tainted Kid into becoming my evil half and I couldn't bear it so I locked him up and threw him away.

Isaac Matthews then came into words. As apathy seemed to be the only answer, I saw my future in Isaac. Someone in suffering, someone in limbo, someone who doesn't care. In this time of depression did my love for writing flamed intensely. I was known to be a "writer" (I use this loosely) because of what Isaac said and did. Episodes of mad depression followed as I traced Isaac. It was then that I developed the habit of waking up in the middle of the night to write, a habit I exhibit whenever I'm depressed. Isaac defined me for who I was becoming but I was afraid of him. Why? Because he was an open sentence. I had no ending for the life Isaac Matthews except ... the utter loss of his being. Unlike Kid who was defined and whole, Isaac was a spur of the moment, a being of sadness that I personified into a character of the Shadowkeeper Journals. His story had no end... it will end in nothing. Alas Isaac Matthews was also locked away.

Probably the character that I betrayed the most was Scion. Who was he? When I created Ghosts, a sequel to Kid's story, I wanted to start anew with a character who was pure. His name meant successor which was aptly so, as he would become Kid's successor as well as suffer the same fate. Scion was me trying to start over things. After the great depression episodes of Isaac Matthews, Scion seemed to be like a scapegoat. I wanted Scion to learn all over again as I do. I want to learn all over again, what things meant. Richmond was there to help (he was a character from Kid's original story) in his growth and he even had someone like Isaac, who was Dreamer, to be his conscience. He was my hope actually, a hope to reconcile the things I left unanswered. I wanted Scion to become the happy ending

I betrayed him the most

I didn't tell him all the mistakes. I was too ashamed to. He did not learn the mistakes and he ended up repeating them. He was never Kid who was whole, he was never Isaac who was calculating, Scion had nothing. He ended up bearing every mistake. Like I said, a scapegoat for all the wrong reasons. He ended up becoming a shadow of a former person. No substance, no meaning, no point and he was then discarded and forgotten.

Now, I feel like I can't create anymore of these characters of mine simply because it's so hard to feel whole. I've been having days of depression in which I feel like I was back in the Isaac days but it feels different because Isaac, who he was, was not real. His frustrations were in the safety of his bubble, my problems now are the deterioration of my defenses. Isaac cannot stand up for me and he was the strongest character that I made. He was a dark side that I fall into but as years went, the comfort of even my own Shadowkeeper cannot bear the facts of life.

As much as how I wanted to change, I guess the basic fact is that I cannot let go of the past. It's just who I am, I hold on to things too much until they hurt. I have come to the conclusion that I cannot be a new person. I cannot be another character. I will always be Kid Thunder, the original. He was whole, defined, me. Isaac Matthews had his time and he will continue to linger on every time my heart's broken or I endure pain. Scion will be a constant reminder of how futile it was to escape mistakes. Kid may have turned into a villain along the way, but now as I write this entry, I may have found the heart to make him who he was again. You may not have known who Kid Thunder was, but he is me. It has always been me. I am glad enough to know if only a handful of people remembered who Kid was, they keep the memory of being whole keen. He had always been an escape from the world, a way to fight back and I may have forgotten that when I gave in and made him conform just as I had.

Kid has to come back

150th: Sleepless

2006-02-15T23:58:00.000+08:00

The 150th post ought to go something like this:

Alone in my dark room, I begin to write
I try to think of what to write that would suffice, scratching my head for ideas to arise.
I can't seem to write for the night and I find that hard to believe since after all I write much like how I breathe.
I find it necessary to put down every thought that I have, mainly for my own sake, for the attention or for when I'm sad.

Yeah I know, the poem kind of sucks but then I was never the good poet.

Let me describe to you how I sleep at night. Usually by around 12am, I crawl into my bed and put the covers up to my head. Then, I sandwich my head between two pillows because I've always had this fear that the ceiling would fall and crush my head (yes I know, and the pillow will save me *rolls eyes*). While my head is between pillows, I stare at the light in front of me, a warm gentle orange glow on the night stand across me. I stare at the light until I feel my head spinning. I feel like the weight of the entire day rushed out of me, leaving me with this feeling of relief and comfort, all the while I still watch the light across me in a sort of hypnotic trance.

I find enough strength to put my hands together and close my eyes. I then whisper my prayers and hope to find myself answers. I pray for the people who have problems, who took the time to tell me. I pray for myself to get better, to be who I was meant to be. I pray for the forgiveness of my sins, a task I try everyday. I pray for those who have been forgotten, because I think they need someone to believe. Mostly I pray for the one who I dream about, I wish her the best of the world. I say my prayers humbly, talking myself to sleep.

I repeat my words over and over, hoping for someone to hear yet I find that there is no one there. I must have been dreaming I often say to myself. I am reminded of the stories people have told me about; about a Sandman that sits by, listening to your whispers and whose sand, he puts in your eyes, whisks you away to dreams. I dream of tomorrow mostly, about the days to come. Never about the past, which I tried hard to overcome.

My head keeps on spinning and I begin to relax then. I sleep, I dream... and for the while, I'm in heaven.