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The · Peanut · Grater
Musings on the mundane and other miscellanies that get pundits into trouble
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성약과 지예씨, 이거는 너들을 위해: Forgive the broken Korean, but I can't believe a friend of mine has been diligently checking for updates on my blog after its months of dormancy. Heck, and to think I'd been planning to toss this blog outta the window. Well, here's another one for you, freshly grated and on the fly.
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Close to fifteen years ago (has it really been that long?), I remember how my parents excitedly introduced me and my brother to the basics of using a cellular phone, a gadget the two of them just bought for what was then a fortune. "This is how you make a call," I recall my mom saying before proceeding to demonstrate: after dialing a number, the corresponding phone magically rang from my dad's hands.
Though already fascinating and state-of-the-art during the time, mobile phones back then was a rudimentary contraption by today's standards, a black electronic device resembling a small brick if not weighing like one, emanating a disquieting sound at the push of a button that displayed numbers on a LED screen. Today's models are no less impressive: built in are games that make you wonder how the Super Nintendo had managed to mesmerize you for hours in front of the television's sore glow, multi-megapixel cameras that put even some of its digital counterparts to shame, video cameras that nurture the creativity of a budding director (or, God-forbid, a sauntering voyeur ready to pounce at the unwary, as shown by the proliferation of videos of college students thrashing each other in a moment of passion after a night of drunken revelry), loudspeakers, electronic organizers, AM/FM radios, sound recorders, portable television, alarm clocks, mp3 players, internet access—anything that any paying fool and his dog could possibly want or need under any urban fix. I’m only waiting for the kitchen sink, and perhaps a built-in portable fridge to delight the incessantly complaining food pit I call my stomach.
A cursory browse at the capabilities of today’s mobile phones quickly reveal the power of technology to enthrall and fascinate—which might solve the conundrum of why many an adolescent willingly throw away a year’s worth of savings for what slick model that Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, or Samsung has been peddling around lately. While I don’t see anything wrong with anybody having them, I do see a reason to be bothered when I see misplaced priorities in college students who, though reduced to scrimping after bartering their hard-earned summer stash to books, school fees, and school supplies, discard an old but in a still relatively good condition phone in order to splurge whatever’s left on the most recent advertising shenanigan.
My own cellphone, a used Sony Ericsson T31 which I desperately haggled for from a Greenhills dealer, pales in comparison to the glistening multi-thousand peso communication apparatuses that my generation Y colleagues pull out of their fake and genuine Louis Vuitton bags (both Made in China) in hours of desperate text messaging predicaments and unanticipated swings towards the ennuic. In my case, the heavily-scratched casing betrays the slipshod habits of its clumsy owner, while its rapidly draining batteries often hint at a dilapidated mechanism. The sound recorder, or what had passed off as one considering the noise cranking out the speaker after an attempt at recording, seems to be a manufacturer's last-minute gimmick for an additional selling point. Fuzzy pictures taken by the VGA camera, even in a flood of midday sunshine, make the feature next to useless—unless probably you were James Bond. But then again, why would he even bother with such junk when better models await at the Q branch?
Not that I don’t understand why they would. After all, the cellular phone has become status symbol in this part of the world, soliciting its wielder with a few ooohs and ahhs from curious spectators, thanks to marketing specialists and conventional bandwagon mentality.
But what significant difference does one more mega pixel make in a phone camera anyway? Do more cheap games make a better phone? While screen graphics amuse you with scintillating vivacity and riveting ring tones bind you in its sway, at the end of the day we own phones because they connect us to friends and family who sprinkle life with meaning and purpose, not to an alternate world devoid of all connection, one where unbridled fascination with ubiquitous internet access, television shows, and mp3 players fill the gap in futility. |
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I had some things I planned to do over the summer. Recently I found myself looking over the list of what I had intended to accomplish in those eight to sixteen hour slices of free time only to wonder what went wrong. Maybe it's because between weekly trips to the malls and the ruthless summer glare this previous summer, I have been waiting for a perfect moment to do what I need to do: if the room isn't too hot, I'm not in the mood, or even if I am, I don't have a table next to me, with classical music or the sound of leaves rustling to go with it. After all, if the only thing everyone did was wait for the right moment and mood, I doubt if anything would ever get done. If my grade depended on it, for instance, evenings would find me guzzling one tub of caffeine after another, fending off sleep as I inch my way through the end of a five-page paper due for submission the next morning. And whether I feel like it or not, weekday mornings always find me joining the rush hour hustle on my way to work. The same, I think, is true for writing. After browsing through writers' biographies and the life they chose, any budding talent trying to find the secret to their success would get the impression that the key, as with everything else, is to keep on doing it regardless of what you feel, regardless of whether you are in the mood or not. I focus on these reclusive men of letters only because of my particular interest in the activity--a major reason why I took up Literature. I don't feel like writing at all right now (No need to tell, I guess. All this incoherent drivel betrays me), but in return for spewing this blather I look forward to getting into the rhythm, into gradually letting my decisions drive my mood and not the other way around. ** 'Tis one life, will soon be past
Only what's done for Christ will last Given the attention that billion dollar bank accounts or fame churned by a raving stream of fans chugs from the media nowadays, it's so easy to forget that greatness lies not in but in loving your neighbor and doing what God wants you to do. I don't remember who bagged the 1996 Olympic gold for basketball, but I still do remember a kind deed shown to me from even before that. That is, after all, the reason why people have continued to hold Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., or Gandhi in high regard. But who among this generation still recognizes early 20th century millionaire Howard Hughes or Hollywood actress Judy Garland? |
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A Happy Chinese New Year to everyone. Or as the natives in this East Asian peninsula would have it: Sae hae buk mani padeuseo. A three-day hiatus from the imbroglio of work and the bustle of Seoulites in neckties awaits me--that is, if I'm lucky enough to get tickets to Busan, if not to the innumerable boondocks jutting out from the countryside. It's time to catch up on some sightseeing. |
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After remaining dormant for the longest period, it's about time this blog got a mild kick in the rear. Just how many unfinished entries sat idly by and watched as the world whirled on its axis? Nothing grandiose, but it's another start. |
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I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
- Theodore Roethke |
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Perhaps anyone who has found themselves itching to come up with a first oeuvre that would immortalize their existence knows how daunting a blank sheet of paper can be. On worse occasions, a keyboard and a blank screen isn't much of a help for the more technologically savvy ones either: the cursor, bored at your inability to make it squirt the alphabet in its trail, mocks you with a game of hide and seek, blinking, perhaps itself wondering what's taking this idiot in front of him so long when, after all, he only has to fill it with words. Meanwhile, the blank screen is a flickering whiteness, glaring back in response to a pensive stare. Again and again, I tell myself that, as a blank page, it's supposed to offer no resistance, to be ready to capitulate at my every whim. But then I ask myself what makes it so darn difficult, why trying to do so feels like I'm chiseling the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem on a rock. |
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It’s a far cry from a Ulysses, even a fainter one from Shakespeare, Elizabethan gobbledygook drooling from his poetry notwithstanding, but at least it’s a start. Determined to polish my corroding writing contraption into giving off a more brilliant luster, I shake off the 3am drowsy spell and fasten my butt here in front of the blank computer screen, punching keyboard keys in an attempt to yank a decent length of sensible prose from a brain starved of sleep. A now anonymous news article reminds me that a good tickle from Mozart or a prick from other equally stimulating antediluvian musical prodigies promises to boost my IQ to a more auspicious level, hence I strap on headphones that blare Beethoven to clogged eardrums while the pitter-patter of rat feet lull my already dozing brother to deeper rest. Through my window, I brood over the steady glow of the street lamp near our house that gives the neighborhood a macabre glimmer, and wonder whether it could be the reason for my brain’s equally dull resplendence. I am in my house in Manila, writing as I ponder the secrets of the Universe over the faint hum of crickets after a night rain. It's supposed to be that hour wherein answers do hit you like a bus if you stare at your navel long enough. Though too drowsy to continue writing, I revel at the failure of listlessness to plug me from divulging my thoughts into a sensible string of sentences. Invictus maneo. |
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"For solitude is sometimes best society." - John Milton I like the afternoon today. Seated on my desk facing the window, I can see the clear blue sky declaring itself above the gleaming roofs and shaggy treetops, the chirping of birds and the lazy din of hammer banging against steel reverberating in my sultry bedroom from a nearby factory. The curtains flutter with a woman's tender grace from the breeze coming through the window. Inside, the slow, steady hum of the electric fan whips dust into the air of a bedroom filled with gentle, green sunlight drifting through verdant curtains--a rural, tranquil atmosphere perfect for contemplation. Solitude like this reminds me of a similar one last week, wherein I watched as the hubbub of daily routine and the clamour of a noisy campus dissolved into faint murmurs in the still, still air. Vividly, I recall myself wandering among the third floor shelves of the central library when my friend Andre offered to show me his favorite spot in the whole campus. Busy as I am rummaging through books however, I brushed it off for later--and also because I wasn't in the mood, because I thought it would be another ennui-inducing stroll in the alumni park or perhaps a discussion over coffee at the Reader's Cafe at the library's ground floor. But he insisted to show it now, and minutes later I found myself descending the steps of the library entrance being tugged along to God knows where. We stopped for a bathroom break at the UST Chapel. We were nearly at the edge of the campus; where was he taking me? On our way back out from the bathroom, we walked in silence, our echoing footsteps disturbing the stillness of the century-old chapel walls. We stopped at the main entrance under the portico of the chapel and sat on the steps overlooking, on the foreground, the small garden and the walkway, and on the background, football players training on the field. So this was it. "This is the most quiet spot in the whole school," he muttered, "You get to see the whole world lazily pass you by." He was right. The mouth of the seminary building (where the chapel was) gaped, from our view, like a giant frame for a giant painting, or more appropriately in this case, like the dark edges of a cinema's big screen, or perhaps even more like a window to another world. Inside was stillness, or more appropriately, tranquility, the type that seeps into your blood and gives a nostalgic fever, disturbed only by seminaristas whispering to one another or a student marching in or out of the chapel every now and then. We seemed to be gazing out to a window to another world as we sat next to each other isolated from the rest of humanity, isolated even from each other, sequestered and buried in our own solitudes. For perhaps half an hour, no word passed between the two of us, and perhaps nothing probably had to. For half an hour, silence became language. He had been wrestling with some issues lately then, and he probably insisted on going there for that reason. In those moments, I prayed, I let my thoughts wander adrift, flitting anywhere from God to studies to, ehe-ehem, even her (Lord, why do girls have to be so helplessly and so darn captivating?) as I left my friend to himself. Ontological lightness, "the reality that when I stop 'doing' and simply listen to my heart, I am not anchored to anything substantive. I become aware that my very identity is synonymous with activity," explains John Eldredge. Often, people recognize me not as Jerome because of myself but as Jerome because of what I do. My activity has become my identity. But in solitude, in idleness, stripped of activity but not identity, I am no one but myself. We stayed further, chatting sporadically throughout. After roughly an hour, he asked me if I had had enough. Did I? I don't think anybody ever would. I loved it there. But we couldn't kept our three o clock class waiting, and walking out of there felt like walking out of a shower, clean and freshly scrubbed. I'm ready to face the world again. "I had three chairs in my house: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society"
- Henry David Thoreau * * * This here is going to be a bit silly now, but if you are reading this, it's for you. Why do you have to be so lovely, so darn captivating? Already I grow weary thinking how,
Unwearying, my thoughts upon thee dwell,
And how to life they cling as to their hell
When they might quit their sighing at one blow;
And how of that sweet face, that hair, that brow,
Those eyes, the sun's pure golden citadel,
By day and night naming thy name I tell
Their virtues in my beads until they glow!
And how my feet, not tired, not broken, still
Following thy dear footsteps everywhere,
Mount uselessly a never-ending stair;
And whence the ink, the paper which I fill
With thee? If incompletely I declare thee,
Blame not the art but blame the love I bear thee. - Francisco Petrarca, Sonnet 54 You've been my friend since the day we met, and I admit that I liked you then, even till now. But why am I suddenly going gung-ho about you just recently? I wonder: do you see me the same way? Do I ever cross your mind, sometimes? Here's silly me, wishing.
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Often when I find myself inclined to sneak past the margins of Biblical caution, the following serves as a reminder of God's genuine concern. Philip Yancey's Rumors of Another World rips Biblical advice from its pages and into the plane of present reality as he outlines a study by a doctor concerning the physical benefits for all ye faithfuls: "Another physician I have interviewed, David Larson, made a career of researching how religion affects health, focusing so much not on the harmful effects of behavior but rather on the positive effects of spiritual life. What he discovered shocked him. For example, people who described themselves as religious have a markedly lower incidence of heart attack, arteriosclerosis, and hypertension. Churchgoers average a blood pressure reading 5mm. lower than nonchurchgoers. Religious people are also less likely to abuse alcohol and far less likely to use illicit drugs. People who attend church regularly, pray, and read their Bibles are hospitalized less often, recover from surgery faster, have stronger immune systems, and normally live longer. "Dr. Larson told me that statistics on marriage impressed him most. Married people seem to handle illness better, earn larger incomes, and adopt healthier lifestyles. Indeed, divorce represents one of the greatest hazards facing modern Americans, dramatically increasing the likelihood of early death from stroke, heart disease, hypertension, respiratory cancer, and intestinal cancer. Suicide rates double for divorced people. Astonishingly, a divorced nonsmoker faces roughly the same health risks as a married person who smokes a pack or two a day. "Dr. Larson concluded, 'In essence the studies emprically verify the wisdom of the book of Proverbs. Those who follow Biblical values live longer, enjoy life more, and are less diseased.'" In his own conclusion, Yancey muses that unlike his childhood conceptions of God as a grumpy old man in the sky who zaps anyone who seems to be having a good time, he now realizes that God fences us with restrictions for our own good. So do nice guys finish last? As my friend Francis Pena remarks, only when you're looking at the wrong finish line. What can I say? God's right again, as always. |
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THREE weeks ago, a Fortune magazine cover story read: "What It Takes to Be Great: Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success." With legs throbbing from an estimated mile's walk from DFA to MRT Taft Station (I was scrimping on money, okay?) and twenty or so minutes of negotiating my balance on an aching foot aboard MRT's wobbly wagons, I endured another thirty minutes postured beside the magazine racks trying to decipher the codes of success. And the secret, I discovered, is simply the classic advice mama kept drilling on our heads but which we never took because we thought we'll all eventually figure it out on our own. The article began by clarifying, despite Warren Buffet's insistence otherwise, that nobody is born with a natural gift for a certain job; rather, "you will achieve greatness only through an enormous amount of hard work over many years. And not just any hard work, but work of a particular type that's demanding and painful." It went on to cite the result of a study over a wide range of fields--such as sports, music, chess, business, among others--that demonstrated hard work as a key factor in success. The study gave out two conclusions: firstly, that nobody is great without hard work. "It's nice to believe that if you find the field where you're naturally gifted, you'll be great from day one, but it doesn't happen," the article chides, "There's no evidence of high-level performance without experience or practice."; second, that practice makes perfect. "The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call 'deliberate practice.'" As demonstrated by a study of old violinists, the best groups turned out to have had an average of 10,000 hours of deliberate practice in their lifetime, the second best had 7,500, while the third had 5,000. "It's the same story in surgery, insurance sales, and virtually every sport. More deliberate practice equals better performance. Tons of it equals great performance," whirls the writer to a perfect paragraph finish. To end, the article gives true to life examples of people who attained success through Via Dolorosa: Winston Churchill dragged himself to practice his speeches. Tiger Woods' father encouraged his son to practice relentlessly; fifteen years of practice led to his bagging of the US Amateur Championship at age eighteen. Jordan, after getting the boot from his high school varsity team, played intensely more than the varsity's already harsh drills. Finally, the article wraps up by saying, "The critical reality is that we are not hostage to some naturally granted level of talent. We can make ourselves what we will...The striking, liberating news is that greatness isn't reserved for a preordained few. It is available to you and to everyone." * * * More than anything, this article was a real tap on the shoulder. Even as a child, I had always wondered what I was good at--if I were good for anything at all. In basketball, I had "loser" painted all over my face; I got to play in intramurals only out of sympathy. Academics weren't very accomodating either; a report card that almost always displayed numbers between 80 and 90--majority of them nearer the former--betrayed my identity as average Joe. Not even my schoolmates were kind enough to spare my physique: studying in a Chinese school as a Chinese diluted with Filipino blood, I barely emerged unscathed from their slurs of me as negro or payatot. I believed them. I grew up believing nothing could be done about the way I looked (thus the shaggy, unkempt look throughout elementary and most of high school) and that, if ever I was going to attract a member of the female species, I was going to have to try another way. All my life I had searched for something I could be good at, some significant contribution I could make to this world. All my life, I wanted to be at least a genius in any way. (For what reason, I wish I knew as well) I confess to several times gazing at a friend while drooling with envy with the way she woos the audience with her mellifluous voice, or the way another discuss Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit as if it were a short story for fourth grade, or even with the way someone manipulates colors on Adobe Photoshop like brush on canvass. All these things, I must confess, I'm still doing my best to have a knack for. Always, the question is why? Why do others seem to have it so easy, Lord, when I pour blood, sweat, and tears to what I do only to find others licking it all up as if it were nothing? Not at all unlike Antonio Salieri in the classic film Amadeus. I recently adopted a tagline I picked up from hours of watching Naruto: "Hindi sumusuko ang isang ninja." But while I'm not one, I empathize with Naruto: certainly not a prodigy ninja himself and ever the second fiddle to his teammate Sasuke in talent, nevertheless he found ways to brush off the label by conjuring clever tactics discovered either through a never-give-up attitude or sheer clumsiness to defeat an opponent. "Hindi sumusuko ang isang ninja." Maybe I'll never become an innate genius at anything. I probably started too late for that already. But one thing's for sure: I'm not giving up. I'll give my best in doing what I like most till there's nothing left to give. And maybe someday, who knows? That may just be good enough to pass as genius, too. But then again, maybe.
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It was a bad day. Or so my friends argue moments after today's drizzle culminated into a declaration of war from the heavens that poured everything but the kitchen sink for two full hours. Well, I've had worse days, but then again, auguries of the inundating afternoon seemed to have begun with our Filipino professor asking us to sing whatever snippet of a song we've managed to translate within our week-long hiatus from her subject. And so, one by one our class bashfully approached the platform hauled only with hopes for high grades and dragged back with fears of whether our ouevre would climax in an eruption of applause or in a barrage of tomatoes. Our opuses survived the furnace despite our voices' refusal to cooperate and despite of some of our slapdash attempts to squeeze ten or more syllabled phrases into lines where only six will do. A portent of our twilight misfortune perhaps? Maybe. It's hard to argue with the downpour blaring from the roof. Anyhows, how unfortunate that the torrent had to begin its angry thrashing all over the campus a few minutes before my friend Brian's car could fetch us. Drenched from hair to sock and with shoes already choking on rainwater, we resolved to just sit nature's fury out somewhere until it subsides. And just when we thought things couldn't get any worse, it did. I hate to leave you guys hanging, but I think I'd rather do so than raise a few eyebrows and step on a few of society's sensitive toes. (If you really want it that bad, then I guess you can IM me.) Enough said. I think I've had too much for one day. I'm hitting the sack.
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You Had a Bad Day | |
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What the thunder rolling across the sky couldn't do to me yesterday afternoon, the angry lightning that preceded it and which grazed the landscape did in its flare of anger. I was about to leave for SOULStop, our weekly college fellowship night, but with the lightning's glare, I realized that maybe I'll just curl up in my bed for a while till the storm has done its worst. Even the most corpulent of the clouds can only spit so much rain, you know. Wrong. I waited. I waited. I waited. I waited till the clock's longer arm had plowed half of the clock's face. I waited till the shorter one has crawled from 5 to 6. I waited by watching the drops of rain hurl itself against our roof. I waited by witnessing a plastic jar drink in the rain mouth wide open until it choked on all the water. I waited by mowing down a meal of rice, fish, and noodles. Finally, before the storm's fury drowned all hope of ever attending that Friday's SOULStop, which was just 30 minutes away from starting, I resolved to brave the downpour the moment it evinced even just a hint of exhaustion from spewing out so much water. With umbrella in one hand, I sat at the couch near the door praying for God's mercy as I readied myself for mission impossible. * * * Minutes later, a smile of victory traveled across my face when my puddle-soaked shoes kissed the threshold of the LRT Katipunan Station which stood undaunted against the storm. I was happy to have made my way wrapped in a raincoat's embrace and nearly crouching from the rain under my umbrella to hundreds of meters of streams and ponds that, as I remembered it, weren't there hours ago. Later still, I was already lost in the tranquility offered by Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" while waiting for the next train to arrive when my brother, whom I had left at home to himself worry how he would get to their youth fellowship, which begins the same time as mine, tapped me on the shoulder. "How'd you get here?" I blurted. "I waited a few minutes more after you left. And then the rain stopped." Oh well. So much for mission impossible. God's got a sense of humor, all right.
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Below, I figured, is an article with some teeth-breaking nuggets of wisdom about the bizarre phenomenon called brain drain which is plaguing, I would assume, a hefty chunk of noy-pis who just got, is getting, and will get their BAs, MBAs, MAs, Ph.D.s--and the rest of the Roman alphabet to tail their names in flying colors--in America. Published, I think, in the Philippine Star last Monday, this was part of a speech given by writer and UP professor Butch Dalisay to a select few Fullbright noobs. I didn't have the good sense to post this at first as my friend Jomar did, but then I thought the gallant tidbits sprinkled all over the speech can always remind us that, wherever in the world we are, the very soil we'll someday crumble into is, after all, the Filipino type. So here. I'm reposting it for a few more people to see. "I have only one real message for you today: study well, enjoy America—and come home and serve our people. The first two I am sure you will do without being told. "The third—coming home—is something we all probably feel we do not need to be reminded of; it is, after all, part of the basic agreement you entered into, and as full of patriotic fervor as you may be today, it is almost an insult to suggest that the thought might cross your mind to renege on your commitment and find a reason and a way to stay in America. "But to go back to my first message: love America all you please, but never forget where your home is, which is here—not even here in 21st century Makati, but in those parts of our country which languish in the 20th and even the 19th centuries. We go to the great schools of America not just to improve our lives but theirs—those Filipinos who cannot even read, or are too hungry and tired from work to read. We are their emissaries, their agents, their speaking voices in a world so caught up in wealth and newness that it can despise and dismiss the ancient pains and plaints of the inarticulate poor. "You can make all kinds of arguments, justifications, and rationalizations: my life circumstances have changed; I’m no longer the same person who made that promise; I can find the money to pay back whatever I owe the program or my university; our facilities back home are too primitive for the kind of research I need to do; my department has forgotten all about me; the political situation back home is too volatile for my safety and that of my family. All of these could be true—and in the end, all of them would still be, in your heart of hearts, false. "None of these conditions exist in the fine print of our contracts with our people; we pledge to learn, to return, and to serve unconditionally, as our way of saying “thank you” for all the new knowledge we will be privileged to gain—for all the brilliant autumns and the showery springs ahead of you, for all the lectures that will leave you breathless, for all the bottomless libraries, for all the summer frolic on the beaches of another ocean, for the skyscrapers of Manhattan and the sunsets of San Diego. "Again, for all these, study well, enjoy America—then come home to say 'thank you'." |
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What can I say? A 200-something word entry diluted in Live Journal's massive database can't possibly really convey what went on those four days and three nights at Shifting Gears. Was it fun? Yes. Was it meaningful? You betcha. A real blessing? An understatement. Yes, a spectacle did dazzle my sight as I witnessed a field of hands cradle the chilly air of Caliraya's valley theatre back and forth in worship to the Lord. I also remember gliding to the stage in Pastor Nathan's message to tie a few of my life's loose ends. And who could possibly not have felt the spirit of friendship weaving through the Caliraya sojourners as they whipped a football ten feet against the cerulean sky or plowed the grass trying to clip a whirling frisbee from its flight? But even so, I find it difficult to tell what actually went on. I guess that's how you know God really moves--when you never really know what went on. * * * Of course, there were the people--friends who, as I always say, opened windows in the camp which would otherwise have remained shut had they not been there, tinging the event with brushes dipped in their own iridescent palettes. To be sure, Shifting Gears would still have been as meaningful, atmosphere still as spiritually charged in an almost insane frenzy without a few of them. But I seriously doubt if I would remember it the way I do now had one of those wild campers decided they had better things to do back home. Campers (you know who you guys are), my thanks clamber up to you from the deepest trenches of my heart. * * * First few days for me was hard though. After finding myself rampaging around Caliraya hollering hoolabaloos like an asylum fugitive, I recall myself staring blankly at the sky while crunching the grass underneath, questioning God why He even let me there only to shame myself running amuck drenched in tomfoolery. That was the last straw for the -nth time. Though I told myself in the past that I simply had had enough, those times back then were not to be the last. Now, I just wanted to go home. But then, I don't know what God sprinkled the atmosphere with within those three days. All I know was that I gazed at the receding sight of a Caliraya entangled among a tranquil forest of green with the feeling that I had just been privy to a divine rendezvous. Again, what can I say? Another four days well spent. * * * It's been quite a while since I last wrote here, so I apologize if this post seemed to be occasionally jerking in its cruise. Most of what I said here was off-the-cuff, so pardon the ad libs.
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Oh wait. I haven't written here for almost a month now. I haven't been sinning against my blog, am I? What the heck! Even though school work's all done, I can't think of anything to write as of late. So for the meantime, I'll try to make your lives miserable by giving you ten things to think about, ten quotes to ponder and be guilty about, courtesy of Patch Adams: 1. The world's richest 360 people have the same amount of money as the poorest 2.4 billion people.
2. The most revolutionary act you can commit in today's society is to be publicly happy. 3. "When it's all over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement." — Mary Oliver 4. "You have to let the small animal of your body love what it loves." — Mary Oliver 5. "Life is trouble only death is not, to be alive is to undo your belt and look for trouble." — Kazantzakis 6. "To mourn a mischief that is past and gone is the next way to draw new mischief on." — Shakespeare 7. "In every job that must be done there is an element of fun; you find that fun and snap, the job's a game." — Mary Poppins 8. "Only a life lived for others is worthwhile." — Albert Einstein 9. "Life doesn't cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." — G.B. Shaw 10. With passion, anything is possible. That's all folks. Now close your browsers and make a difference! |
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Two sundays before, I should already have graced the movie houses watching "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." Right after we succeeded in coaxing a friend to treat us to Narnia's opening after the third service, I with a group of friends marched to the cinemas expecting myself to be among the pioneers who will share its beauty to the world. However, discovering to our dismay that the next full show--to which our sponsor cannot go--doesn't begin until four o' clock, we just vented our frustrations on bowlfuls of halo-halo and steaming rice and tofus, while I silently mumbled to myself that I'll have my day with Aslan. Well, I finally had my day. A few days before then, I with my other group of friends had already been contemplating paying the theatres a visit sometime. And we nailed it on Monday--as in the next day after my tragedy--a perfect time for Narnia and for me to recover from the previous day's exasperation. But, as God would have it, gatecrashing our plans was a paper due the next day. I watched as my excitement got lapped up by dogs. Oh well, I told myself, there's always a next time. In the days that followed, I discovered the paper was due for three more days. Now they tell me. It's been two weeks since then. Two weeks! I'm kind of wondering myself how I lived that long without watching Narnia. Ever since I saw its poster a year back, I already resolved to only see it with a friend or with a troop of them. Sounds crazy I know, but I am--ever since I enjoyed the series' pages in my childhood. My, my, my. I never realized difficult it is to have something so near--only to have it slip through your fingers. As of this moment, I am still dying to watch it, and am waiting for the day when someone would nod a willing head to storm the theatres with me.
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 frustrated | |
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My, my, my. I was supposed to write something just now. If only I can remember... Well, until that comes, I guess I'll amuse you for a while. So, it's six or seven days till Christmas? Got that gift for Uncle John? What about a gift for me? God knows how receiv...er...giving gifts enamours me--that is, if only I weren't so broke right now. Really. If I had a work that pumped real cash, I think you would all receive from me picture frames, mugs, and desk clocks. But I guess you've already had enough of that stockpiled from last Christmas from well-meaning people like me. Now, if you're having a premonition that history's bound to repeat itself, don't rain tears now. Remember: the important thing is that, even if your best friend gives you a ubiquitous towel with Chinese hieroglyphs and the words "Good Morning" scribbled on it, the value is not on the gift itself but on the thought behind: that somehow, they cared about you enough that they just had to give you something. Besides, Christmas is not about giving or receiving gifts. It's not even about being with your family. When God sent His one and only Son on a rescue mission (me included) to rip through sin's titanium bars and get you and I out--while getting Himself killed in the process--that's Christmas. Now that squirts real shame to my face, being someone who never deserves His grace. But somehow, God just wasn't about to give up on a stubborn reprobate. And I'm glad He didn't. Paul says He never does. Now dear reader, peel thy ears for here I descend to the juicy details--you know, Christmas' dirty little secret: God offers you cash for your trash. Life for your death. Righteousness for your sin. He's footed the bill, served the penalty for your mischiefs, and done all the work (yes, the Bible says you pay nothing for it. That's what He came here for). If you surrender your life to the God who surrendered His to you, He guarantees you eternal life. (Too good to be true? Check it out at John 1:12-13, Rom. 10:10. Take note: it ain't gonna banish all your earthly troubles though) Either that or...well...you serve the sentence yourself, if you know what I mean. And that, my friends, is the true meaning of Christmas. Now that was a mouthful. If only I could figure out what I was about to say... |
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"Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. "To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture." -Pablo Neruda, Tonight I Can Write Ah Lord, you, above all, know more than I do that she deserves someone much better than a dupe like me. Give her Lord someone, whoever he may be, who will love her, cherish her, enrich her, and really carve in her a deeper craving and longing for You. If I would have the privilege to be that someone, then, my Lord, I am honored. * * * So far, my most comprehensive search on Google yielded only three or five links with mere references to my name. That's three to five references that managed to scrimp my name on a passing mention. Imagine that. Well, whether that's the internet's way of mocking me for being such a dupe or not, I think it's time for my fingertips to stop wasting its energy maneuvering DotA characters and to start getting hooked manipulating words on the screen. An award-winning piece with my name on it always beats five DotA games bagged with a "beyond godlike" tag. All that's needed is passion. And discipline. Tonight, I'll sink in my bed to ponder: with my relationship with God, friends, and almost everyone else taken care of, something has to happen in my life.
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 contemplative | |
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For now, I seem to be struggling with splashing my ideas on the computer. Terrible, especially since the Ustetika cuts me off from literary ek-ek in a matter of days. Well, whatever has creeped its way into my silly head and shut the creative writing department down had better get out of there fast. Real fast. Before I get desperate enough to start watching Epol Apol. |
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Is it a little too late for this? Tomorrow, yet another Jzone faction--the high schoolers--are off for a three-day jaunt to Rizal Re-Creation center for CSI: Jzone. Meanwhile, though it's been four days since my three day sojourn to Rizal for CSI: Jzone (College) last weekend, something about it refuses to just doze off in my head. For one thing, the multitude of newbies were elating. And with all the prayers and breakouts we had to shovel our head into, I have no doubt somebody got himself enlisted in God's army. Apart from the stickier bond I had with my friends, the mini-retreat also got me acquainted with a bunch of crackpots like myself which, otherwise, I never would have known existed. Between me and myself, my only regret was missed conversations with my friends, new and old, under the looming shadows of palm trees swaying to the breeze against the star-splashed sky of our last night. Since Kuya Ryan wanted everyone to have enough zest left in them for the day ahead, the marshalls waved us goodnight as they asked us to troop to our beds and chatter another day. Speaking of friends, JC's message on friendship brought this topic close to home. Myself a Friendster incarnate, I can't help scrutinizing myself for any anomalous, mutant feature protruding from my anatomy whenever I find myself alone, jilted. Is there something wrong with my face? Do I speak like I've gobbled up five volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica? Was I just too handsome for them? (Just kidding, folks) Well, JC advises, you just might not have the same interests. Or maybe you just don't click. Nothing's necessarily wrong with you right away when people elbow you out of their circle. With that, I must say he hit the nail on the head. Finally, how can I relate my experience about this jaunt without also divulging that we "lost our honor" when we scored ten points shy in the basketball court against a few girls or that I had glanced directly above me just in time to see a whole, dry palm branch about to make a pancake out of me? Ah, but experiences like these, I think, deserve another blog entry. And so tomorrow morning another bunch of crackpots and geniuses are off to Rizal for the same adventure. Whatever awaits them, I pray not only that God works as miraculously and as powerfully as He did in CSI College, but that they also stay clear of coconuts nearly succumbing to gravity. I did--and survived. |
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jeromeslim's journal