Thursday, December 29, 2005

i'm happy!

weehee!!! ibn kidnapped! after a 4-hour drive, picture-picture!! :D







hahaha!! i know, i know, we both need to lose a bit of facial fat. but hey, that's what love gives you - a bloated look. hehehe.

Posted by xam :: Thursday, December 29, 2005 :: 1 Comments:

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Monday, December 19, 2005

Unresolved Resolutions

In the spirit of recapping 2005 and moving forward to 2006, I decided to review the resolutions I made for this year, to see if I learned from my mistakes in 2004 at all.

Drumroll please...

2005 Resolutions made last January 4, 2005:

(1) DAMMIT DIET
Didn't do this. Lost 7kg in the third quarter of the year by sheer stress, gained maybe 3 more this month by sheer stress again (the other side of it). Will work on this again next year...

(2) DAMMIT EXERCISE
Haven't exercised even ONCE in this year. Maybe next year?

(3) DAMMIT DRINK WATER NOT COKE NOT C2 NOT ICED TEA NOT COFFEE NOT GODDAMN BEER!!
My favorite line this year was "Go Large". Failed again. I really should start drinking more water.

(4) DAMMIT STOP LUNCHING OUT IF YOU CAN HELP IT
Couldn't help it. I became a field person this year. I'll be easier on myself next year. Maybe affordable lunches / value meals should be my goal next year.

(5) MINIMIZE THE NIGHTLIFE
I guess I've minimized the strobe light kind of night life, but blogging at night has become a convenient replacement. Have to work on this again next year. But I guess this could still count as "done" since I was referring to the strobe light kind of night life. :)

(6) SLEEP EARLY WAKE UP EARLY
Did this from May to June when I just moved to CDO. Well, old habits die hard so I'm back at being an owl by July. Ibn's been nagging me about this lately.. I really should start doing this. I know this is a major source of my recent stress problems.

(7) SPEND MORE TIME PREPARING IN THE MORNING FOR VANITY!
Did this from May to June 2005 again. Back to usual self by July. Yes, next year I'll do more of this if I want to start feeling better about my self.. And I'll also spend more on vanity at night (I'm gonna start on Enuh's Pond's regime next year). This is after all the year I started noticing wrinkles and fine lines and shit, not just a multi-layered middle, but worse.. a sagging double chin! Shit.

(8) SPEND MORE MONEY FOR VANITY, BUT LESS, LESS, LESS ON GIMMICKS
Hmm.... I spent less on gimmicks, but MORE on plane tickets!!! I guess I failed this. As for the vanity thing, well... I'm working now for a vanity company!!! So a lot of my vanity stuff are for free! :)


(9) SPEND MORE TIME REFLECTING
YES! This is something that I've done this year. Truly!

(10) DO NOT SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF. DO NOT LET THE ROSARIO AND C5 TRAFFIC AFFECT YOUR DAY!
Hmm... I still sweat the small stuff, but I guess the stuff I considered small at the start of 2005 are now much smaller? So I think I see a progress in this part. :) I do believe that this year, my patience and determination were really put to the test. I'm still alive and surviving, so I guess that's good.

(11) SAVE MONEY
**MOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN** When will I ever learn this? All I've proven this year is an economic theory about income and expenditure. Next year, that must change!

(12) FIND RACKETS
No rackets. Just a small investment in something I'm sure is worthwhile. Next year, I'm thinking about venturing into a small business.

(13) DO SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR WANTING TO TEACH AT UP
Didn't do anything about this, except that I continue to work in a prestigious company. Before December ends, I have plans... (Hey! 2005's not over yet!!!) hehehe

(14) CONTINUE TO SEEK KNOWLEDGE
Hmmm... Does taking the LAE (finally!) count? Once more, as I said, I have plans before the year ends...

(15) TAKE A LEAP INTO THE FUTURE!
I guess I did this year. Yeah, I guess I did. :)




So where do I stand? I'd say I definitely failed 8 of my 15 resolutions. That's a failing grade for myself. I can't believe I haven't improved that much from 2004! Oh well, next year, I'll try again with these resolutions.

I'll think about some more resolutions for next year, and maybe I'll post them in January 2006. :)

Posted by xam :: Monday, December 19, 2005 :: 2 Comments:

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Sunday, December 18, 2005

RECAP & COUNTDOWN!

Instructions: Copy and paste the first sentence(s) from your first entry of each month this past year. What better way to sum up your year and make a countdown to '06! (Great idea rej :p)

January
potah.

there's my first word.

February
*no entry*

March
and everywhere I see the love-struck
eyes and hear ballads singing of new
loves, growing, dying and ending
and yearning and
starting
all over again

April
This is a man
who dreamt of a two-storey house,
a maroon family van,
and a garden with lilies.

May
I have forgotten how it felt to not know where I am. Just a few minutes before, I was home, in the company of friends and love.

June
In consolation to myself, at least now I have some time for myself. A few days more to plan out my life, a few hours more to reflect, a few minutes more to look at myself in the mirror, a few seconds more to space out.

July
*no entry*

August
It’s Kitchie Nadal on the radio
Singing, at the top of her lungs –
…What I don’t understand is why I’m feeling so bad now
When I know it was my idea…

September
As much I had liked to find all sorts of justifications to prove that the day of my birth and I are not ordinary, but miraculous in a sort of “God’s gift to mankind” way (for instance, that eight is a lucky number in Chinese feng shui - and I have quite a lot of it on my birthday, being born on the eighth of the eighth month of the 1st year of the eighth decade of the twentieth century; and being a Lion in Pagan astrology and a Rooster in Chinese astrology at the same time made me think I not only may be lucky, but I also have the license to be cocky as well).

October
Pure, raw, explosive pleasure!
Better than drugs,
Better than smack!
Better than dope-coke-crack-fix-shit-shoot-sniff-ganja-marijuana-blotter-acid-ecstasy!

November
seven things he can do
1. drive a loooooooooong drive
2. smoke, smoke, smoke
3. oversleep
4. undersleep
5. be a warrior
6. cook the best tiyula itom
7. charismatic


December
i don't know what i'm waiting for. i'm waiting for something. even working endless nights for it. i don't know what for.

Posted by xam :: Sunday, December 18, 2005 :: 3 Comments:

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Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Still Mad

i imagine a life of searching and not finding. i'm officially sucked into the capitalist whirlpool and yes, there is nothing inside.

Posted by xam :: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 :: 0 Comments:

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Sunday, December 11, 2005

Madness

"Everybody's changing and i don't feel the same" felt right until recently.
"I am changing and everybody doesn't feel the same" is now my anthem.

I've been afraid this would happen. I've been afraid to look at the mirror and be surprised to meet someone new. To see a new person lurking behind those sullen eyes, eyes that have recently started to twinkle. The seemingly familiar face has acquired a new shape, there are new hollows and fills. The hair flows around her face and down her back in a new fashion, changed by the emerging mannerism to flip the hair with a subtle, sexy (as she has intended) toss of the head. Chunky earrings jangle from her ears. She moves, calculatedly, in a more confident, feminine manner. "Who are you?" I'd said.

And so we met, and occasionally we have a funny or a philosophical, life-altering conversation. It happens in those moments when I'm alone, wanting desperately to have someone to share a nice story with.

This lady likes music and poetry. She weaves poetry as she speaks to me, and I love the way she edits the words as I listen, as though the poem was designed to please me alone. When I tell her about my observations, she drops funny one-liners that make me roll over and laugh, or stab me with one of life's truths I never realized before.

She's convinced me to ease up and feed my soul with music, poetry, stories, books and places. She's the only one who understands me in a way I have never been understood.

My solitude has brought forth this woman I just met. She makes me dizzy sometimes, but I'm happy the way she drowns out everything and makes time fly I hardly notice anything anymore.

But I'm afraid of this woman sometimes. She possesses, consumes me in a way I've never imagined. I'm afraid the threads of the past are becoming thinner and weary over time. I'm afraid one day she will cut the threads loose, and I will be left alone with this woman, reciting poetry with jazz music in the backdrop, until the end of my remaining days. I don't know if that will make me happy or mad.

Posted by xam :: Sunday, December 11, 2005 :: 3 Comments:

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Monday, December 05, 2005

LAE IRONIES

LAE Ironies

If I had only read this book prior to taking LAE 2005, I would have been sure to pass it.

First, I would have had SURE answers for TWO vocabulary words: briquette and woozy. Briquette – I’ve never heard before. In the book, the love affair (which comprises the essence of the story), was commenced by the leading character’s encounter with his love interest, and… briquettes. The context so clearly describes what a briquette IS, that I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time for knowing now what it meant and being certain I made a wrong guess in the LAE. As for woozy, I’ve heard it before. See, by just looking at the word itself, anyone can get a general idea what it means. And that’s just what I know about the word woozy – general. LAE vocabulary questions, however, are anything but general. The exam doesn’t ask you to give a rough answer, it demands the “nearest” or worse, the “specific” answer. So there went two sure points. I just hope it won’t make the difference or I’m going to hang myself.

Second, the infamous LAE essay. This year, the LAE committee had to get all odd and chose an elementary-ish question – “EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW: Myth or Truth?” I seriously wanted to write “Kailangan pa bang i-memorize yan???” What was that about anyway? A test of naïvete? I expectedly answered, “myth.” I went around circles, no, make that zigzags and broken lines, talking about how it’s a myth. Later on, when I got the chance to ponder more about it, I wished I had answered “truth”. That would have at least set me apart from the rest. Then again, with my scrambled brain at the time, I wouldn’t have been able to defend it. (I couldn’t even defend the most obvious, easiest answer, certainly I had no more brain cells left for a little more thinking.)

I was already certain after the exam that I’d get a low mark in the essay part (I’m lucky if I won’t get a zero). Then came this book. There’s a paragraph that really hits home. It conveyed exactly the point I was driving at in my essay, except it was done elegantly and eloquently.

“… I felt it for the first time when I was working on the legal codes and drafts of the Enlightenment. They were based on the belief that a good order is intrinsic to the world, and that therefore the world can be brought into good order. To see how legal provisions were created paragraph by paragraph out of this belief as solemn guardians of this good order, and worked into laws that strove for beauty and by their very beauty for truth, made me happy. For a long time I believed that there was progress in the history of law, a development towards greater beauty and truth, rationality and humanity, despite terrible setbacks and retreats. Once it became clear to me that this belief was a chimera*, I began playing with a different image of the course of legal history. In this one it still has a purpose, but the goal it finally attains, after countless disruptions, confusions, and delusions, is the beginning, its own original starting point, which once reached must be set off from again… “

(*Note: Incidentally, chimera means fantasy, something similar to “myth”.)

First time I read it, I wanted to cry. Now, I sigh. SAYANG. Not to borrow the lines word for word, just the “general” idea. It was what I was saying in the essay anyhow, but I just couldn’t organize my thoughts then to form something, at most, half as good as this paragraph. I just kept on repeating how there’s always an attempt, and that we always fail, blah, blah, blah. (((( SIGH )))) If I had only said it in this manner… (((( SIGH )))) again…

My only hope now is that, with the increasing complexity of the exam and the length of time dedicated into thinking and stressing, everyone else was as jumbled up as I was when they reached the essay part. I hope this is the case, for my ego’s sake. (I’m bad, I know. I’m bad.) I wonder what got into (or out of) my head. I regret now taking that exam. Three months from now, my self-esteem is going to hit rock bottom. Oh well. Whatever.



The title of the book, by the way, is “The Reader” by Bernhard Schlink. Great book.

Posted by xam :: Monday, December 05, 2005 :: 4 Comments:

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Saturday, December 03, 2005

the long wait should be over

i don't know what i'm waiting for. i'm waiting for something. even working endless nights for it. i don't know what for.

maybe i'm dwelling too much on the trivial. maybe i've been looking at everything all wrong. it still surprises me that for the past 6 months i've been living like an adult, but not really succeeding at it. i know adulthood is not supposed to be just about responsibilities and getting bills paid. it has something more to do with shredding of old skin and starting anew (hell i don't know what that new thing would be) - a process that doesn't necessarily happen overnight.

sometimes i meet 7-seven-year old adults and i get embarrassed about myself. the pain of the years etched on their supposedly young eyes, speaking in slow syllables, profound meanings locked between short moments of silence. whereas i, i wake up in the morning and my concerns are no different from ten years ago. and i'm always on the hurry to get things done in the shortest possible time, only to end up surprised that i have aged doing it - far too long or far too stressful, i don't know.

i refer to my ageing as something different from my entering adulthood. see, my father doesn't sharpen my staedtler pencils anymore, and instead of doing it myself, i only have unsharpened pencils all the time. my mother doesn't wash my clothes anymore, so when i wake in the morning, i step on dirty laundry all the way to the bathroom. things like these show that i may no longer have any adult looking after me, but that certainly doesn't mean i'm already an adult looking after myself.

what a waste, i always say to myself. years of effort to become a responsible human being, and i ended up a slob. i could hardly move in my place, i could hardly breathe inside my car. files and bills and thoughts scattered about, nothing is getting done, not even growing up.

all i have developed so far is allergic rhinitis, three layers of cellulite belts, prematurely ageing skin of my own doing, and a life already going downhill. apparently, the past few years was already my life's peak.

the future's bleak, and i can only hope that a few years from now i would look back to say, that was then, and boy am i glad that's over. that this is just part of the becoming. but today - right this moment - i'm here, in this state. waiting for something.

Posted by xam :: Saturday, December 03, 2005 :: 2 Comments:

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