Entries for May, 2009

May 3rd, 2009

Where has the reading and writing gone?

Where has my writing and reading gone? Where has my interest in these two basic hobbies go? Did I leave it some place that I have never been in to? Or did I forget bringing it with me when I decided to rest a while or do something else worthwhile some place? Is it buried deep underneath the recesses of my conciousness, or perhaps my subconciousness? Or is it buried far too deep, six feet under?

When was the last time I had it with me? When was the last time I picked a book and managed to finish it in less than a week? When was the last time I wrote here? When was it that I last wrote of what's on my mind, instead of what's in my life? When was it that I felt so bored that all I could do (and intended to do eventually) was read through and finish reading up on someone else's life story?

What was the last serious thing that I have written? What was the last book that I have read? What was the last fictional reading material that I immersed myself into and laid my small, intricate eyes upon? What was the last idea that crossed my mind and let flow freely from my cortex down to my fingertips right on to my computer screen to be broadcasted worldwide thanks to my public blog?

And then how come I remember none of these? How come I have managed to live through more than a month without these simple guilty [if anyone could put it that way] pleasures of mine? How come I have been so preoccupied with other matters of my life that I did not bother to sit back, relax and enjoy these handy, easy-access pleasures that I am so fond of since I have learned the skills back in toddler? How come that now, as I look back, I happen to not enjoy these things in life at a certain point in time? And how come there also came a point that I almost believed I have lost it: that I have nothing more to do with the reading and writing, that there is nothing more for me to read thinking my eyes are too tired to comprehend letters and words, that there is nothing more for me to write thinking I have already exhausted my hands in typing and scribbled all my thoughts away?

It's been a while since I did this: recollecting my thoughts, wondering and pondering on life, reaching out for myself and even to others' thinking, observing and enjoying good literature that comes once in a while and is enjoyed by a chosen few. The other night, I had the opportunity to read through a whole book in just one whole day--even less in fact, just about five hours. I never intended to read through the book because I knew well I still had much work to be done, many things not yet ticked off in my to-do list. But then, as I sit curiously in that room of my sis, over and over again flipping through the pages of Tara FT Sering's Reconnaisance, I just couldn't help myself fidget through it and slowly read the chapters and short stories one by one, one at a time. Until finally, almost halfway through the book, I have decided to actually to read it then and there, and bring back the good ol' reading days.

After finishing officially the book this morning, reading the last two chapters just before I got up to shower and go to class, I felt this sudden surge to write--write, write, write! Like I never did before! And suddenly I realized that it's been a while since I've been all out with my reading and writing, my two favorite hobbies in the whole world--before I got myself into drinking and travelling! Explains why I'm here now. Besides, I do have some explaining to do for not quite updating.

Definitely I wouldn't blame my laziness for reading and writing to my hectic schedule. I've been used to juggling my schedule now, after three years of time management. Right now, I'm actually looking into the possibility that perhaps alcohol is really the culprit; blame it to intoxication, for making me forget who I am, what I do and all those skills I have mastered already back then. A pretty good excuse would be that all that interest and even skill in reading interestingly and writing furiously have gone down the drain for everytime I peed from too much alcohol intoxication.

Anyway, whatever the real reason is, I reckon it doesn't really matter anymore. I'm just thankful I'm quite back at this game--slowly but surely. In time, I'll get used to having both reading and writing, and drinking in my schedule. You just wait.

mood complacent
read Tara FT Sering's Reconnaissance
watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

yahn @ 01:53 AM | Ice-peek!, Book Of The Yahn [Add comment/s]

May 26th, 2009

Listing

I miss reading books. I miss reading blogs. I miss how my eyes would hurt after countless hours of staring at some certain medium full of letters and even numbers--meaningful words creatively weaved together to form sensible, emotion-filled sentences making up a full paragraph that in turn creates a wonderful story. I miss the way I would bang my head in pain after quite a while of imagination: what happened in the story, why the characters did such and felt that way, how will the adventure unfold for them? I miss the tired arms and hands I get for holding up a book up my chest--so I won't have to bend my head and spine too much, and get osteoporosis in return. Yet no matter how hard my my eyes sore, my head sucks, my arms and hands tire--no more than half [maybe even a quarter] an hour is enough to get my whole body and spirit back into this cool haven of reading.

I miss writing in my blog. I miss creating stories and literary creations. I miss mixing my words with words that I have just read. I miss typing on my laptop, or perhaps any keyboard for that matter--and go typing all the spontaneously, like there's no end to what goes on my mind, to what I want to say. I miss the longs posts I make--how natural the words come out of my neurons, how free-flowing the stories and especially the ideas that I share, how how great the words I manage to use and reuse and keep on using, how fast I would come up with a sentence, but takes me pretty much longer to complete a paragraph that could well sum up my story for the moment. I miss what writing does to me: reflect and develop.

I realize just now how less frequent I blog these last few years. Yes, when I was starting it was as if there's no tomorrow: always had something in mind to write about, to comment about. I would publish three posts at least in a day: one to update what's going on in my life, two for what goes on in my head, and three for all else that goes about in the setting I live in.

I realize just now how fast paced my life has become. Not that writing was of no more use to me, because I got much more friends to talk to, and even more crazy, time-consuming sites to post my insights. I've had my hectic affiliation-filled life since my sophomore year in UPLB, and I can't blame to that as well to my being out-of-touch from the blogging-slash-writing-slash-reading world. I guess things have changed: priorities have, and so do schedules.

I realize just now also that I'm on my fourth year in college. What on earth will happen now? Barely ten months away from job-hunting myself, even just for practicum matters. It's been set on my mind: two years from now, I'd be reviewing already for the September EE board exam. That is no joke to me. It is a serious matter that I plan to take seriously even right now, before the classes open. I'm already planning the subjects I could take for the next two years, and hoping and praying fervently that I get the major I've been vying for--and have things go the way I am planning them to. And then this time, already now, I have to gather up all the courage and confidence I could to assert my needs, and get what I really, REALLY want.

I realize just now how much I want a drastic change in my life. Well, let me start with my figure. And then my academics. Finally the work I do for my affiliations. Now, discipline is the key. And I do wish I had just that.

And now, I suddenly realize... this post is no different from the last one. I'm still wanting to get my writing back. Include there the reading as well.

Where have they gone anyway?

Bottomline is:

I miss my mind the most.

PS: Would you like to hear me tell tales once again?

Another PS: This wasn't exactly what I wanted to post, but then, it turned out pretty good for me still. Not much close to what I was thinking, but then who cares now? I could still write a lot more.

Last PSS: A smiley. How refreshing. After quite a while.

listen Jai Ho Remix by PCD
watch CSI: New York

yahn @ 10:08 PM | Ice-peek!, Book Of The Yahn [Add comment/s]

May 28th, 2009

A Tribute to Mother

On The Side of Me
Corinne May

I'm not the easiest person to love
I'm often the one who lets things go unresolved

Yet you choose to be
On the side of me
On the side of me
Yet you choose to be on the side of me
On the side of me

I'm not too proud of some things
I've done in my life
The skeletons in my closet
Are too big for me to hide

Yet you choose to be
On the side of me
On the side of me
Blessed Charity
You're on the side of me
On the side of me

'Cause everyone needs a friend to hold
When it's cold outside
And there's no place to go
Everyone needs a friend to hold
All alone I cried
There was no place to go
I remember when nobody cared
But you

I'm not the easiest person to love
But you, you've opened your heart to show me what I'm worth

'Cause you choose to be
On the side of me
On the side of me
What a mystery
You're on the side of me
On the side of me

'Cause everyone needs a friend to hold
When it's cold outside
And there's no place to go
Everyone needs a friend to hold
All alone I cried
There was no place to go

I remember when nobody cared
I remember when nobody cared
Nobody cared
But you...

Yeah you choose to be
On the side of me
On the side of me

I was awestruck to this latest Mitch Albom book, For One More Day. It is without a doubt another whimsical product of Mitch's infinite imagination: inspiring, thought-provoking, and above all heartfelt. I couldn't help crying on the first few pages already!

And this time around, the book just made me appreciate my mother all the more. Well, not exactly. But gives me a much clearer idea of how it is to be a mother--and a good one, at that. It's about her being the best mom for me and my sister, whether we like it or not, and me becoming one sooner or later.

Then again, even the book reminds me of a person I surely miss. *sigh*

Anyway, Angels and Demons is up next. Hope I get to finish it before the week ends. *cross fingers*

listen PCD's version of Jai Ho
watch PCD's MTV of Jai Ho

yahn @ 01:39 AM | The Letters, Book Of The Yahn [Add comment/s]

My Turn To Rant

Wondering what I've been up to these past two months? Now I'll tell you.

First off is the summer season. In truth, it was no summer season at all for me. You see, it has been raining in Los Banos all this time. The summer heat only made its heat felt in the beginning of April. But once classes have started, rain poured almost everyday, non-stop. Talk about global warming affecting huge climate change.

And so, as the summer closes, I joke around, telling people that perhaps now is the best time, a few days before the regular La Nina phenomenon strikes, to go swimming and sunny-dipping in the famous Philippine beaches, which are either golden white sand or mud black sand. You choose. Rather, your money choose. :D

At the start of summer, I was no longer worrying about my 2nd semester subjects, having been confident enough of passing them all in the last minute. Even before leaving Los Banos, I spent my nights in gimiks, rather more of home-style drinking sessions. Anyhow, the bottom line of all this fuss of celebrating my good sem that I never thought would turn out to be such is that I pretty much got bankrupted. I didn't realize until the summer classes started how much money I had wasted already on other people's [and even mine, mind you] alcoholic thirst-slash-need. Still, I enjoyed the blurry nights.

The guys I would usually drink with the past semester weren't around this summer. They're older than I am, so they have on-the-job-trainings away from our province this past two months. And so I thought it would stop my drinking sessions. But lo and behold! As they went away, new drinking pals came around--partymates as I'd like to call them. They're my dormmates with quite a different taste in gimiks. Dance party while taking shots of hard liquor is what they enjoy--pretty much the same things I enjoyed two years ago, but not much. And may I just note that just as I was meeting people who have the same taste for hard as I do, suddenly I miss the lingering taste of beer in my tongue--which happens to be the drink my guy drinking pals are fond of.

At first, sure I didn't really mind the gulping the heavy booze in my stomach. After all, Red Horse is the first alcoholic beverage that I tried. But somewhere along, I kind of got too used to it that I no longer enjoyed it--like I was looking for something else, for something different, different from what used to be. You could probably say it's like beer turning into water: tasteless, dull.

Haha. OK, that was some exaggeration there. But you get my point, do you?

Anyway, enough of the drinking melancholies. So I go party-ing with these partymates. And after enough booze circulating in our body, we walk our way to our dormitory that happens to be almost at the top of the mountain. Again, that walk happens to take about an hour for us to travel. That far? Not really, if you're walking on a fast pace with no sidetracks, you'll definitely get from the campus gate to the dorm in less than fifteen minutes. But what have we been up to on those midnight walks that's been taking us an hour to get to our rooms? Here's what we do:

Our own pictorial around campus! Now, how cool is that?

Now we go next to my swimming escapades. Let me start off with my trip with my sisses and brods in the falls of Majayjay, where we felt like camping out the forests, near Taytay Falls. We were lucky enough for dragging our two brods in this trip. There were only like, what?, barely ten of us! But we survived the trip, really big thanks to our brods who did most of the chores all the while.

We left in the afternoon, and when we got there it was pretty dark already. The travel was pretty much long, I'd say. We did quite spend much in transportation and food and of course booze once more, but what the heck! It was all worth it.

So, we drank and ate pretty much and spilled confessions the whole night--'til we dropped. I admit I dropped dead, slept through for two hours in the cool tent as I no longer could tolerate the G-Mat by 4 AM. And may I just add that it was my first time to taste mussels [I'm not sure I translated it right, I simply meant tahong], and I kinda enjoyed it even though it was just grilled [malansa--I know!]. The following day, I was just awakened by the noise of both nature and the brods and sisses shouting out on each other, inviting to go swimming in the falls already. Yay! Sure, I got up and prepared myself for some splashing and gliding along waters.

River water was so cold, I'm telling you! It's more than chill to me in fact. I enjoyed the unpredictable depth of the waters, but not exactly the rocky grounds--makes me think of the worst case scenario of having your foot stuck in those big blocks. I know--paranoid.

The next swimming trip came pretty long after already, just last week in fact. We were in Nasugbu once again for a little reunion, and guess what? I happen to invite my good ol' partymates to crash and eat with us. Haha. Even a common teacher of us was supposed to come. But then, due to her own academic responsibilites, she didn't get to join in crashing our family reunion and getting tanned in the public beach that I haven't really seen in some time already.

Funny how much I drink, and you see these beers hanging around our table. Funny how my father would scold me to not drink alcohol and find this big cooler full of I-can't-even-count-how-many-already cases of beer being cooled in ice, along with the big fishes caught freshly in the sea. And even more funny is how I cheat drinking the beverage right before my hysterical mother who naively doesn't want me to even touch the bottle of beer--and all the while hiding the local fermented alcohol in my partymates' bags. Talk about lambanog fresh from Nagcarlan, Laguna, that turns out to lose its alcohol content as time passes. Tsk.

Next week, I'm looking forward to two more swimming trips, and then one movie-slash-shopping trip with my girls. Yay! ^___^

And then of course, there's the summer classes that lasted four weeks. The other day I went to the faculty and got my grade for one of the two subjects I took. I got a 2.0 on PI 100 [Life and Works of Rizal] while on Psy 1 [Psychology 1] the professor is still grading our papers, projects, and reports.

I didn't quite like the subjects I've taken this summer. This is perhaps the worst academic season of my life.  I've had a lot to rant about the whole while I took these subjects. In PI 100, I would most often than not fall asleep, even right before my Ilonggo teacher who talks in English and Spanish, but not quite in Tagalog. Sleepy time, boring teacher, lousy room, irksome classmates. Add to that the class decision of not having this field trip in Mt. Banahaw, Quezon--that's supposed to be another swimming trip for me! Well, at the end of the summer, I did learn much--I gained quite a lot of inside information on different fraudalities of different people. Even one cool thing to be happy about.

While in Psy 1, got quite a problem with the teacher. Boring, often late. Well, that seemed to be how my classmates and I have evaluated the class. Rather her, since the whole class feels upbeat in different activities. Whatever the case, my friends and I had this 'cheating arrangement' problems, plus those presentations that just made her burst in anger at the last class meeting. A good closing, eh?

On another note, so I seem to often complain and rant about my reading and writing, eh? But it's just awfully true. I haven't really read much in a while. And you could well notice how less frequent I write here--even how short my posts have become. Sometimes I feel like I'm all too tired to write already.

Well, writing takes time and effort too, after all. And these days, I can no longer devote that much time and effort in this great first love of mine. I just realized that I got to produce such long posts back then but they take me hours, even half a day, to write them down. Plus, I got to conclude some time before that short, frequent posts are much better than long, occasional ones. Didn't I do just that last year? I might as well repeat it again--find time to post even when there's almost none to blog about. :D

These days, I have a different kind of addiction. I'm so much hooked to uploading music videos--especially dance-slash-party ones that I try to mimic as much as I could. And then I'm socially active even without a single peso my prepaid balance through the cool Facebook chat that I can't quite get enough of [add to that the quizzes and surveys that I'm not yet over with since Friendster times]. I keep on adding people I know so I get to chat with them and update on different lives and stories.

But most of all, I'm currently active in Yupielbi.org that I once disregarded for some time. Now, I just can't get enough of it.

Whoa. Took me two hours to finish this whole rant-slash-storytelling article. Less even. Whoever gets to read this, I salute his/her patience. Amen to you!

So, does this post make any sense?

PS: So I said Angels and Demons is up next in my list to read books, eh? I just realized last night: how on earth am I gonna do so when the book is MISSING? Boohoo.

listen Mariah Carey's I'm That Chick
watch TLC's Waterfalls

yahn @ 06:51 PM | Book Of The Yahn [2 comment/s]