Estranger

11th Iyas Creative Writing Workshop

2010-12-20T03:25:00.001-08:00

Click on the image for better view.

Love Me if You Dare

2010-04-07T19:36:00.000-07:00

I watched this movie Jeux d' Enfants (which has an English title of 'Love Me If You Dare') over a week ago but it still lingers in my head. It stars Marion Cotillard and her long-time real-life boyfriend, Guillaume Canet.

The exact translation of the French title is 'children's games'. The game of dares.

*spoiler* The last dare, the Dare of All Dares, is cementing themselves in the manhole. Some people believe that the act is a metaphor; some think they are really cemented together to keep them from destroying each other.

Which is which say a lot about how sick or ideal your view of love is.

After much thought, I actually agree on the latter--that they were cemented together. It makes the film unforgettable, stands out among the rest of lovey-dovey comic films because it is the craziest.

And I believe that the crazier it gets, the stronger love is. We have seen it through fiction's history with Heathcliff and Catherine in Wuthering Heights, and later with Chuck Bass and Blaire Waldorf in Gossip Girl. :p

Crazy lovers should just cement each other, literally.

Casey James: a Greek god in American Idol

2010-04-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

He laughs like that, He sings like that, He stares like that, He talks like that...because He is a Greek god.

He is Apollo, Eros, Dionysus. He is Casey James.

Damian the Cat

2010-02-27T21:06:00.000-08:00

We always had cats at home. And although I can say I never really liked cats because I think they are so fragile (in spite of the nine lives) and they have sharp paws, they are just so poised anyone bored should notice.

Here's my Lola's Cat, Damian.

It is the first male cat we have. And it is better that we keep a male cat this time because we learned our lesson about how difficult it is to dispose cute kittens when female cats get perennial bumps.

Chatbox, Christmas Exchange Gift Edition

2009-12-20T06:01:00.000-08:00

y: My heart is all I have to give

x: I can cut my nails for you.

Jeepney Ride, Random Thought 1

2009-12-05T02:44:00.000-08:00

It is incredibly uncomfortable to be “too conscious” of the fact that whatever decisions one will have to make in the present will have huge, direct implications for the not-too-far-away future.

The forty-five minute travel for work during mornings always has the feeling that one can get something from things one sees in the streets. It is the consolation for the eight hours of shrinking the senses for the rest of the day.

Most of the time, I, for one, will just notice how bright it is. The sun is just heart-breakingly warm of dreams—always reminding that there is content in merely seeing bright days.

For someone like me who has a degree in Creative Writing and has hopes that someday, perhaps, when I can have the luxury of time (“without despair”), I will have a long pause so I can collect the flotsam and jetsam and write. What are the odds? Creative writing is a grandiose thing to do in a third-world country. Impractical, I must say. Impractical for me to take “too seriously” now. Someday, I know, I will indulge in the grand and I will not have the concept of practicality because I tossed it out my window.

And for someone like me who is working for five months now in a sprouting outsourcing company in Davao City, who knows that I have a job description as a web content writer, but more often, I create links and post “ready-made” articles for website promotion—it is just a daily gift from the universe that I can ponder on stories, characters and images in jeepney rides. Sometimes, thank God, I am made to WRITE articles on stress, Meniere’s disease and tinnitus. Sometimes I spin articles on online casino gambling.

I don’t mind, as long as I can say I’m a web content writer because that’s what they wrote in my pay slip.

All is fleeting. This is why everything is permitted.

I am planning to go to a law school next school year. I have taken enough time to finally do something for people’s expectations. I am grateful that I have choices because some, who might have the same circumstances as mine, do not.

“In my own pace,” I told my parents.

And yes, in my own pace.

Ondoy on Television

2009-09-27T05:43:00.000-07:00

I have been very fond of weekends since I started working. I never thought how it feels so good to just wallow in my bed all day on a Saturday. Suprisingly, I would rather stay home than loiter around.

To an extent, I refuse to wash my clothes even on a Sunday. Until I realize, I have no clothes to wear for work this week. And so, late tonight I decide to wash, at least, five shirts.

I have a habit of watching news when I'm washing my clothes. I think, that's the only time I intently turn on the t.v for news. I am not a news person since the "Hello Garci" and ZTE scam. Philippine politics dishearten me big time! They eat up the news like cancer.

This time, the news is different. Philippine television is flooded. Literally--Manila area is flooded by Bagyong Ondoy. With deaths, and hundreds of people gone missing--what does someone like me has to do? It just makes me think. My worry does not help a single person stranded in some roof, waiting to be rescued.

I shut off the t.v and continued hand washing my clothes as if they can illuminate the entire world with bubbles. Like the man in the photo (taken by a friend using his camera phone when he was travelling through Katipunan, Quezon City), we all need to walk through life even if that meant ushering through what should have been taking us to places (like the motorcycle).

From one of my favorite authors, I like to quote: "

"Something pummels us, something barely sheathed. Power broods and lights. We're played on like a pipe; our breath is not our own." -Annie Dillard

*photo by Lester E.

Action Sampler Camera

2009-09-25T09:37:00.001-07:00

I recently became familiar with lomography from a friend. And because it sounded very interesting that you can take photos in film these days and that the camera is actually plastic, I bought one from my Singapore trip last June 2009.

I planned to go to the lomo exhibit which was happening around that time, but my aunt and uncle had other plans.

Btw, I had the action sampler.

I chose it for these reasons:

1. it uses the standard 35mm film which I can just buy from any Convenience Store.

2. it is relatively cheaper, 69 SGD

3. it has a definite feature: it takes 4 shots in one click in a span of a second.

And the following which I have realized while using it:

4. the fact that it takes 4 actions in a second (thus, the name action sampler), adds up to the surreal effect in terms of light esp when it is sunny. In occurrence, light will really vary even in a second considering that the speed of light is 299,792, 458 m/sec.

5. you can experiment! You can take a shot of a moving object or you can move the camera while you take the shot. Or do whatever, upside down, downside up. Take a shot without even looking at your subject. Take it from your hip, or from the floor.

6. it is actually better (still, depending on which effect you want to achieve) to use 100 ISO films even if it is just comparatively sunny. It develops into more vivid and bright pictures, and sunlight seems caught and smoothened.

Here is a shot of myself jumping like flying at Jurong Bird Park (I used 400 ISO on this one):

Then back in Davao when I joined an outreach program by the Red Cross at Upian Elementary School at Marilog, my favorite shot is of this little girl (100 ISO on this, see the difference?):

I am really very interested in plastic cameras. Golden Half is next!

a tribute to the dodos

2007-03-19T23:15:00.000-07:00

we are no more than a pair of slippers. you're my right,i'm your left. i'm your right,you're my left; and vice versa. we look alike, in the mirror i'm you. i look exactly like you.

we are no more than a bubble gum. i just love to chew you until you're neither sweet nor minty, until you become saliva. we are no more than the taste of saliva.

we are no more than shit. we have to be eaten alive or dead twice, thrice, they dont care. and they get everything out of nothing, as nothing as shit. so we become shit: the "shitee" and the "shitter".

we are no more than immature poets. we immitate "mature" poets. and when will we mature? until we learn how to cheat?

we are no more than mothers. we are sucked and we suck. and life sucks. the least we can do is suck back.

we are no more than nikki, or kae... we feel we are them sometimes.

we are no more than stretch marks, hair split-ends and breaking callous. we are the flaws.

AND the dodos are more than just what and who we are.

Being a Cat

2007-02-06T03:32:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a mouse-chase going. I laid still
between the sofa and shoe rack—
in case it will come out nicely out a hole
in that roomful of papers,
cloths, cans and dusts.
The whole time I did not flicker an eyelid;
it might scamper right before me
and I will miss it.
Until the wait expired and settled
as a false hope. So I closed my eyes,
Finally sensing the cold floor appeasing
my hairs down to my very skin.
And the night, was silently devouring me
To sleep. But I did smell it—it tickled my
My whiskers through my wary nose.
Ah! I heard it too!
But my instinct was swifter than my eyes
that it was Browny I mistook for a mouse.
My heart leaped a hundred miles
that I screamed the moment away
and ran like Uncle Cheetah.
Until I found myself a safe place
up near that hung pictures. Thank whoever!
I do not want my nine lives to be all gone at one time, you know.

original photo from Nala2409, processed in Poladroid

estranger

2007-01-25T03:39:00.000-08:00

hi.

i was suppose to write hello. yet i dread its first three letters.

i had the chance to go out alone yesterday. it was something special for i consider it a date--a bond with myself. it was not really an ideal time to hang out. it was already 7pm. and it was drizzling, plus i have colds and my head occassionally aches.

i like it that i am stubborn sometimes. oh, and snobbish too!

but i was afraid. what if out of nowhere someone would grab me and rape me, or something...you know. no one can really tell.

still, i rode a jeepney. i was not at all certain where to go.

but i stopped at SM. i almost freaked out when i saw groups of men in fatigue everywhere. i suddenly felt the need to be with my mom, or my lola...or my aunt--whoever!

i looked at myself at the glass in front of me to check if my body is still intact or if some parts might be missing... but i was fine; i knew i was.

i strolled around, almost dreamy. i happened to stop and read, "Dickies Eyes", tagged on an eyeglasses.

at last i remembered that there is such a thing as a smile. so i smiled and knew i was really okay.

and because i love coffee, i sipped two and one-half cups of it.

suddenly i wanted so badly to go home, take a shower, and sleep.

sleep--all i want.

yes, i did go home right after i felt the powers of coffee already consuming me. i took a shower, attemted to sleep again and again and again.

until i was too tired of trying to sleep that i forgot what happened next.