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Nothing to write at the moment. Just that I'm nervous.

I keep forgetting my assignments.

Seriously?! Seriously.

I have no intrinsic musical ability.

I can't write, I can't play. It's ironic that I used to think that these areas were what described me, what I'm attuned to most. It's like I don't know what I'm good at anymore.

"Amateurs and maestros play the same notes, but it is discipline that makes all the difference."

I wish that was true.

Even though I'd still be at the losing end.

It's okay now

Defense is over.

YAAAAAY!

It feels more like we just reported. But tis okay. We okay.

I LOVE MS HEBRON!!!

*happy happy happy*

EEEEP *gasp*

Damn, today was the scariest day of my life.

I wasn't prepped for the defense!!!! EAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!! I assumed that we wouldn't have Chem today. Dammit. I was so nervous and damn anxious about being called that I couldn't breathe *clutches heart*. And when I say cold sweat, I mean COLD PSYCHOLOGICAL SWEAT running inside my head. Wala. Paralyzed na lang ako sa sobrang takot na baka matawag kami. Of course I got distracted because I was praying too hard, and the Chem results were given (which wasn't bad, considering how poorly I studied, how many items I guessed blindly and how much time it took me to answer the word problems).

Buti na lang di kami tinawag. T_______T TENKYU LORD!!!!!
---

We got the Prom invitations today. They were done by Ja.

One word:

ORGASMIC

Shoot, ang gandaaaa!!! JA, WE SO PROUD OF YA SKILLZ! *hug hug*

At least that made me happy.
---

Natamaan nga pala ako ng isang soccer ball habang dumadaan sa field. Sakto sa dibdib. Ayus. T___T Di ko na nakita sa kakaisip ko sa Aerial. T___T Hay naku, isa pa yun. STRESS MEHN.

Ang malas naman talaga o. T___T

Eureka!

THIS IS IT! MY EPIPHANY!

I want to be a Publicist!!!

Thinking of arranging book tours, briefing authors before interviews, going to conventions, being creative and a larger possibility of meeting Neil Gaiman is making me giddy giddy giddy with happiness.

It is so utterly bookish and artsy and wonderful.

I shall be a Publicist.

Not all book lovers can be authors, but at least I can be a Publicist, which isn't half bad at all. Hurraaaaah!!!

www.bookjobs.com is a helpful page if you're interested in the Publishing Industry.

With the bump in the road behind

Ahhh.

Tests are over, hurrah.

I still don't know how I manage to study. Because my study hours only include 6 pm onward due to laziness and my habit of cramming. I cannot manage without cramming (which is why I worry about summer review classes. You think summer is too early?)

CLE I got down pretty much, as well as Health. Geom was BLAAAAH, because it was precisely that; Filipino, though easy, was just so frikkin long-- again, it succeeds as marking itself one of the tests that take more than an hour to finish (thanks to the fifteen-item, two-points-each essays.) If she's gonna put in essays, she might as well make them worth it by, you know, raising the points to around 5... But not 10. Hmmm... I disliked English because of those two 10 point essays. (So bale, pag mali ka dun halos bagsak ka na.) The lit devices and the themes were of no use either, and studying the sequencing of events didn't help much because the wording in some sentences were too ambiguous to refer to a specific occurrence. Nyar nyar. I hate English.
Chem was ok I suppose... hindi nga lang ako nag-aral nang todo, so let's see how I'll fare. I just regret not having the Bright Idea for the essay. I knew vaguely that "incinerate" has something to do with fire. Lamentably, I did not connect that to pressure and temperature. History was okay too, except for the analogy and sequencing... well, some parts of it anyway.

Haaay. I don't know how I managed studying for scanty hours and reviewing during recess. WALA TALAGA AKONG STUDY HABITS!!! WAAAAAAH!!! Di ako mabubuhay sa college, o kaya sa fourth year.

So my only regret is the fact that I did not study well. No wait, I regreted not using my time wisely to study well.

My only regret. My perpetual regret, which reeks of the broken promise that I WILL do better "next time".

Pano ba talaga mag-aral?
---

Haruki Murakami's anthology, entitled "Birthday Stories" (which is a collection of, duh, birthday stories from different authors) was a highly satisfying read. Except for about two, whose point I didn't get, I loved everything. Forever Overhead is one, Birthday Girl is another (as always, Murakami never disappoints). The one with "The Emperor who had No Skin" was weird, amusing and lovable, succint in its length, and sparkling in its happy playfulness.

I brought home another book this weekend: Angelo V. Suarez's A Nymph of MTV. And he's not just any kind of author, he's a POET, and he's a poet who writes REALLY DAMN GOOD POETRY. Read him! Read him! I've never enjoyed a collection of poems as much as I do his-- wait, excluding William Butler Yeat's collection; I enjoyed that immensely too. I'm planning to buy this book when I see a copy lying around; Buy one! Buy one! And feed a hungry, award-winning poet today.
---

Benches Missing by Angelo V. Suarez

[ Item: 25 newly installed benches are stolen from the recently restored promenade along Roxas Boulevard in September of 2002.]

How bizarre for benches to disappear just like that--
all twenty-five of them, according to a witness,
stuck in a truck like they were nothing A plate
number is disclosed and next of course comes
the hunt for the darned pick-up Darned cunt

makes the police proceed to Pampanga
then Nueva Ecija The truck is traced to Talavera
where the owner's relatives claim it has been sold
six years prior to the theft What else is left
in the world that is yet to be stolen A year ago

it was Bonifacio's own leg reported missing
from his own shrine Every week a sewer lid
disappears someplace Each night baranggay
tanods fail to trail that bastard that keeps scraping
emblems off the hood of cars Even the chocolate hills

in Bohol have started vanishing one by one long ago
into thin air Look at that guy No hair See No hands
He drives his car to a corner where it promptly
disappears Soon the guards with the funny hats
by Rizal's monument disappear In a while

Mount Mayon's perfectly cuved shape uncurves
Coconut trees vanish from scenic Pinoy postcards
Krip Yuson's hair-tail's been cut off Ophelia's
make-up is gone Manuel Legarda has no guitar
Oh a sitar with no strings! Alas who sings

for the Cradle now Barbie Almalbis is gone
KC Montero is gone from MTV (But who cares)
See See No more fake Nikes at Greenhills
Shopping Center No more pirated CD's
After 25 benches who knows what else can disappear

in a night Hell Whole cities might disappear
Entire municipalities Next thing we know Luzon
has disappeared The rest of the country
Even poverty disappears War Famine Violence
in video games Whole continents dissolve into mist

In the void sleeps one of the disappeared
and dreams of God wearing shades and a trench coat,
roaming strolling around the aisles of the grocery
of space till He eyes the sun slips it into His pocket
looking around as if shoplifting an orange
---

God in shades and a trench coat... I quite like that :).

Nothing like two great books and a prospective trip to Tagaytay for recreation to wrap up my weekend, before blowing my brains out for the Defense. God bless us.

Ah, these days, these days

Have you always been able to draw?

I think anyone can draw, but it takes a little more dedication and work to get to the place that you want. and i find that talent can mean a lot of things and not necessarily that drawing comes easily to you. i remember watching one of ian mccaig's videos (the one who did the costume concept art for star wars) and he said that everyone can be at the level he is if they're willing to work...and that talent may or may not be there but it's more of something that you love to do. i know that there are a few people who find that drawing is easy to them but they don't want to pursue it because it just isn't their thing.

I think everyone has to work at it, or else they'll never get anywhere. and i agree that everyone has their bad drawing days... i know i get enough of those. and i find it difficult to see how people can get worse from where they started... i think it's just a matter of getting back into the swing of things and learning how your motivation and creativity waxes and wanes. sometimes it just means applying yourself in a different direction... so i think it's just a matter of understanding yourself and what your body and mind is telling you. i learned that from my experience forcing out results can leave you burnt-out and often than not it's less than stellar. --sporkii

BURN-OUT

I used to think that I had a knack for writing, and that most likely I was going to pursue that someday. Which is why I wonder why I have never ever wrote anything by myself, for myself, just for the heck of it. I've written for school work, I've written for somebody else, I've written when I have to, but not necessarily because I wanted to in the first place. So... let me scratch my head and step back. When Misha was my seatmate, she SCRIBBLED over EVERYTHING she had: cds, things, aprons, pictures, her Starbucks planner, her history book (so she could annoy me). But the important thing is, she loved to write and she did it everywhere. I tried making a shadow of a novel just because I wanted to. I ended up disgusted and gave it up. Somehow, I can't find it in me to write with as much depth as I want to, the way my most admired authors do. Maybe because I don't have anything to say in the first place. Or that I just don't have the words to say what I want to.

What is okay to write, and what's not? I always find myself steering clear of overly-used topics because I have this strong desire to be original. To be original, and to write something splendid and marvelous and so unabashedly GREAT that I'll have my worst critic nodding with approval-- that is, myself. But I've always been so conscious with form, with that mumbo-jumbo about originality that the first ideas often lose their sparkle after the initial murdering survey. And so I end up with nothing, yet again.

Ah, a paradox. I've trapped myself in a paradox. And I'm gridlocked.

BURN-OUT

I'm a bit of Jo, a bit of Amy.

I'm in limbo.

One look at the week

It was Dad's birthday last Wednesday. We had pizza for dinner, then just sat around and talked.



Kasi kumakain si Dad ng saging, kaya ganyan itsura niya. Good thing he knows how to do Swing, so I can practice. Hehe, parang sa TV, mga daddy-daughter bonding things. We aren't as sprightly as we were around 5 years ago-- grabe, nahilo na ko sa kakaikot. That never happened to me when I was younger. Yak, parang antanda na e no. But it was still fun.



No flash.

I just really like this photo. I'm starting to love the exposure meter more and more.



This was how the moon looked like about two weeks ago. Laki no?

Getting tired of school. Urgh. Wala na rin akong excitement sa prom, kasi andaming trabahong kelangan tapusin!!!! Pero ano ba namang maganda na hindi pinaghihirapan? So I'm just hoping that the outcome would be worth slaving for. Hay.

I think I wrecked my ballpoint pen

Friday tomorrow-- school mass, the first of the year and another glorious time to wear those frumpy frocks that always seem to look better on everybody else except you.

Speaking of dresses,



I drew this yesterday. Just something simple. The color would be, ideally, the "first blush of dawn before the sun rises", to romantically put it. I tried to get it as best as I can. I even tried putting down the color's name within the span of two words. I came up with "warm pink" (hindi hot pink, haha) and "golden pink". At least gets ako ni Shai, and we agree that it's a pretty color.

If anybody else wants me to draw their dress (NOTE: DRAW, not design, because I'm bad at that), you could come up to me and just describe it to me. You know, for those who are having a hard time picturing the look of their dresses. It also helps in bringing about a decision for those who're kinda indecisive at the moment.


Did this in History the other day



And then did this one today, during Geom



Ayan na, it's the culmination of all those Right Triangle theorems combined with Sir-Andie jokes. In furrness, I think it's pretty good, especially since I usually fail every other attempt to do this kind of fancy pen tattoo things.

Won't be continuing this tomorrow though. I think I wrecked my ball point pen drawing on my skin, and my skin feels rather tender from the sharp retouching every now and then (kelangan ko talaga picturan bago ako maghugas ng kamay e). I'm also under the Law of Diminishing Returns, which dictates that things usually get worse as they progress-- it applies to movie sequels, and it also applies to me. At baka ma-tetanus na rin ako.

I saw the moon rising today, big and bright and yellow. Combined with Haruki Murakami's book, I take the sighting as a good omen.

Late New Year's post

So here's a late New Year's post. Blogger wasn't loading properly for the past days, so I couldn't write my heart out.

Spent a sleepy sort of New Year with my cousins at Fairview. We spent an hour lighting fireworks and choking on our surgical masks. Yes, we were wearing those-- mukha tuloy kaming nagwewelding nung hawak namin yung lucis. Got home at around 2am, quite safe and whole, albeit with slightly more lung damage than we started out.

Spent the next day cleaning up the right half of my closet. Had to mercilessly throw out those generic 5-year-old palancas. Now I'm just waiting for the others to drop their sentimental value so I can get more space to hoard another 5 years' worth of mindless paper. I kept some, though, which is why my closet isn't as spacey as I had imagined it to be.

I also found tons of Pokemon stuff in my drawers. Good God, Tina, what did you DO in your childhood? Hindi ko alam kung pano ko natiis mangolekta ng teks at sticker ng Pokemon. Pero sorry Za, wala akong Charmander. Hahaha. Charmeleon lang at Charizard.

I also found my old diary, full of odd notes masquerading as entries. The oldest dated post was written in 1999; the undated ones, I'm not so sure of.

Reading them made me slightly sick, amused, delighted and incredulous of how HUUUUGE and scraggly my handwriting was, and how sharply my personality shone through my writing. In my mind's eye, I sort of saw my "old", childhood self, playing along rather sassily. I realize that our minds never age-- we just get mature enough to move on to other things. It's weird how everything seems to slip by so fast. I've always wanted to be a teenager when I was a kid; now that I'm turning 17 this year, the rumored glamour of this age has worn off, and I'm left wondering why I wanted to be at this point in the first place.

Still, I look fondly behind. I wish I could talk to my old self and see how we'd argue. That'd be a blast.

So anyway, after getting myself out of the flood of dust and grime and cleaning up the same floor littered with the dust and grime, we trooped to Tita Chon's to spread some New Year cheer. Or cheer ourselves up by going there. In any case, it was fun, especially while playing around with the MagicSing. It's the first time I enjoyed a sing-along so thoroughly that I didn't really mind if I hit notes or missed them (mostly the latter though, judging from the score). I wasn't under the influence of any spirit, mind you, liquid or otherwise. It was fun belting out YMCA until I was hoarse, or trying to sing A Whiter Shade of Pale, Annie Lennox style. We got lucky with the Beatle's Long and Winding Road; Bianca and I got a 95! In furrness, mahirap din pala maka-score nang matino. Hurrah hurrah.

Bianca and I set out early the next morning (Jan 2) to do some walking exercise with Mama Chon. It was invigorating! I've never felt so internally clean, like all leftover food still rumbling in my stomach had been put to good use by walking around for an hour. It's a good start to the morning, even though I had a nightmare of Sir Ruel eating me alive because I didn't attend the vigil the night before. Upon getting back home, I slept for three hours kasi inaantok ako. Hahahaha, so binawi ko rin yung nilakad ko. Oh well. At least nagbabagong buhay.


One month til prom. I feel like collapsing everytime I think about it. Now that it's approaching and all magazines advise me to do this and that starting now, I can't help but wonder how my sister came out of the rubble alive. I now realize...

Surviving the prom is no mean feat.

Maybe I'll laugh about this statement someday. But for the meantime, I'll have my crumbly nervous-anxiety moments.