Dear Winner,

I am lucky and honored to be a delegate in the recently concluded National Debate Championships held at the University of the Cordilleras last October 24 to 30. The tournament, attended by at least 250 debaters and adjudicators (the judges in the debate; for judging is also a competition) around the Philippines, aims to determine the best debaters of the country, and to foster unity and camaraderie among the debating community.

The topics to be debated upon, duly chosen and scrutinized by seasoned past debaters themselves dubbed as the Adjudication Core, cover everything under the sun: politics, environment, international relations, social issues, technology, even humor. Thus, it is every debater and adjudicator’s role to beef up their matter, be aware of talked-about and legendary issues, strategize argumentation, and practice preparing rebuttals and counter-proposals.

For the few days left leading to the competition, we have to prepare for these. Matter loading and trainings were scheduled; law books and international journals are crammed, and strategies are anticipated. Personally, the adrenaline and nerves got me up at nights and I end up usually sleepless.

In the competition week, elimination is set out. There are seven rounds for the elimination, each under a different theme, and every debate team is going to be assigned to any bench to defend, either government (you are for the motion) or opposition (you are against it), to measure dynamism and versatility.

Some of the motions came up as shocks. For us, those issues are alien or unheard of. We ended up getting zero for these. As for the others we are quite prepared for, we got reasonable results. In the end, the number of points our team garnered is not enough to carry us through the semifinals.

There are 104 debating teams who joined, and for the 72 teams there who got eliminated, it seemed to be the end of the line. There is always a slice of dread and regret in the knowledge that you could have done better. Sometimes, losing certain endeavors break us, instead of making us. And in the course of the competition, I have to admit that I am one of those. If only I studied harder, if only we exchanged speaking roles with my partner, ad infinitum. If only—two words of false complacency.

I am reminded with what my father usually say, that every competition is not really to determine the winner and the losers. Rather, to teach each one of them a different something that they did not know before. I dismissed it as something preemptive, a loser’s defense of his defeat, pretending to be a winner himself.

But is he, really?

For like the things that usually befall on our everyday lives, we are all competing. We face our struggles either with fear or with fervor and we all have the rights to realize that there is something we should have done. I suppose our regrets should not be counted as defense mechanisms, I say, these are what makes us winners. That the realization of a mistake and a failure elevates you to be the best; because you will anticipate it the next time, and you knew what is already wrong that you will avoid it the next chance you get. Trial-and-error, remember?

Now, I look back at the debate championships and I regard myself as a winner. I knew what I missed, but I also win because I experienced something that will carry me through life, to make better decisions next time, and because I first got there with teammates and competitors, and we all ended up as friends. Sometimes, it’s in the way you see it. As you go on, I wish you take everything on your way the same way I did. You’ll be better, trust me. I’ve been there.

Since good luck is just temporary, I wish you the best. (Signed), A Fellow Winner.

Livin' the Readah Loca

For most of the days, when boredom strikes, I do what Virginia Woolf says to pull you out of an idle reverie: read.


Just this week, I read the 150th novel in my life. Others are kept in order behind my head, while some are lagged files below a thick sheaf of forgotten thoughts. Most of these books haven’t really seen the light of day—they stick out for quite sometime, then just go vamoosh. Gone.




Some of these books however, thanks to accolades of all sorts, are worth piling on a comfortable thread in the mind. These novels are penned by writers who got critical and commercial acclaims. Writers who, in the truest sense of art, are people who wish to go beyond what the conventional and the “modern” brings while being behind with their rent.




My 150th is one of the best I ever read, thankfully. I wouldn’t like to waste the figure flat-150 on something not worth it after all. It’s Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (Hint is on the first line, dear). It was my report for my English Literature course, and since I haven’t finished the novel came report time, I clicked on SparkNotes for the summary and got the report over with. But last night, after Finals, I pulled the manuscript and read it to the last word. Trivia: Mrs Dalloway and To The Lighthouse by V. Woolf are in the Top 100 Best Books of All Time by TIME. I didn’t fully understand it (Woolf has a way with figurative speech), but I am very happy to have read the 150th. Not definitely my last, but very memorable.




I started my love affair with books after I perused the ones my aunts and parents read at home. My first crushes were John Grisham, Sidney Sheldon, Don DeLillo, and a great deal of biographers (my dad is into non-fic). Sorry, I haven’t read a lot of Danielle Steele nor Nora Roberts, and if you are to condemn me for not being a well-rounded reader, no thanks. I’ve read a lot of loves to let me go a lifetime: Nicholas Sparks, Sophia Kinsella, and (you might gasp and aaaarrrggh and puke) Stephenie Meyer.




Whenever someone spots me or other readers out there (hi, family), they would always say that there are more worthwhile things to do than open a book and decipher the words. If it springs from insecurity or disgust, I don’t know. But living here in the Philippines, to be a reader is usually to be mayabang. Tignan mo siya oh, nagmamakagaling nanaman. Nagbabasa sa jeep, parang naiiintindihan naman daw niya. I heard this already, mind you. And the best thing I always do when I meet people like this is to smile at them while I bring my glasses out. Part Two will erupt. May grado ba ‘yong glasses niya? To which I would tilt my head so they can look past through it, and see a change in the sight. Mighty losers.




Most of the time, reading is also regarded as criteria of intelligence. The plus size? You get to be the leader for group works, for activities, and everyone thinks you can eat anyone who enters the quiz bee alongside you. The negative? We are reading FICTION pipoooool. We can give you a story or an author or a book review, but reading novels doesn’t mean that we know what is the capital of Zimbabwe? (Although for this matter, we thank Sheldon and answer HARARE!)




I know you have your own story but reading is a curse here in the Philippines. Although we thank the Congress for axing the tax on books, we thank other non-readers more for making a big fuzz about the things we open and read. Books can be read in a week—if read bottoms up, a day will suffice—although you can read Ira Levin for 2 hours. Moms can rage over us for wasting our time, but don’t worry. As long as you are reading it for what it’s worth, for reading it for yourself and your world, you’re making the right choice. Just be sure to step out off the pages.



__________




Thanks to Chloe, Ate Ria, Bobby, Danielle, Carl, Corelle, Ate Rai, Ate MJ, Kuya Bon, and Carlo for the book-trades, book donations, and book list recommendations. I know you guys have gone past 150. :*

to write

For mama and daddy.
Thanks for giving me the pen.

To write is to teach, to compensate
To commend, to condense, to indicate.
To collate, to indict, to comprehend,
To write is to feel, to connect.

To write is to be, to decide.
To feel, to celebrate, to remind.
To send, to inform, to express,
To write is to choose, to mend.

to write is to seek, to further:
To accuse, to justify, to order.
To find, to announce, to build,
To write is to practice, to preach.

To write is to fight and to soar,
To fear and to bear all sores.
To spill, to collide, to kindle,
To write is a mystery to solve.

The Bad Beginning

Biographies are better with these.

The Series of Unfortunate Events, written by Lemony Snicket (pen name of Daniel Handler), is one of the best Young Adult Literature ever-- taking position beside books of Philip Pullman, Lois Lowry, and our favorite, J. K. Rowling.

The first book of the series is entitled The Bad Beginning.
This series is following the lives of three orphaned siblings: Violet, Klaus, and Sunny.

Read Book 1 Here: :)



or,

Browse Inside this book Get this for your site

Enjoy! :)

Choices and chasms

There are 500 things in my mind the moment I wrote this. Actually, I don’t count. Things mount up and ideas branch up from one stem of thought to another, so branding figures on a state of mind is futile. Putting 500, I figured, is more suitable. It gives you the impression that you’re not looking at life as a cluttered calendar while it leaves you an assurance that you’re completely in touch with your surroundings.

I read in a medical journal that we make at least 2,500 decisions every day. Some of these stem from mundane issues that take split seconds to digest like where to sit in a jeepney or how strong you wish to close a door. The rest are crucial and life-altering decisions that need even weeks of scheming or analysis. I would love to think that the split-second-choices make up 2,000 of the 2,500 daily choices we make. I set the 500 aside for my mind to explore, although I myself believe that most of these slip my mind.

It was the author J. K. Rowling who wrote, “It is our choices, far more than our abilities that show us who we really are.” This is not an attempt to defend mediocrity, rather, this highlights our power to use these certain ‘abilities’ to change our lives and others, lay a happy and satisfying future, or even heal the world.

If you look at it, the world is like a web where each one of us is entitled to another. One small decision could set off a portent chain of events that could change other people’s lives in ways we never imagined – or intended.

Did the mother, who locked her children at home from the outside to make sure that they don’t stray while she goes to the market, considered that this gesture of security and love will result in the cruel end of her children perishing over an accidental fire?

Have the Filipinos accepted the fact that more than twice, they chose to vote for household names to seat in the government and eventually, they themselves end up complaining and attempting to topple these said politicians? Or have you wondered about the unborn child whose parents decided to let go, that he could be the next president of the country, because they’re afraid of the consequence of their own mistakes and they want to finish college to earn good careers?

Choices are infinite, and even the smallest scenarios we let slip through our fingers could define our lives and our future. If this medical report of 2,500 decisions is accurate and therefore effective, it tells us how much the world changes in one revolution. Figure out the world population times 2,500 decisions and that huge number tells you how “change” that we all wanted could easily transpire once we all work out together for good.

It is your choice then to choose well and wisely. It is disturbing that all decisions we make could shake the rest of the world but it is a reminder that you do have the power to bring this chaotic state of the world to an end. You may be one, but you have at least 2,500 chances everyday to make everyone better – at least – according to science.

Someone who chose to fight for the country till death said, “The Filipino is worth dying for.” With our own sets of 2,500 choices daily, how will you prove him right?

Borderlines

Is it really possible to be confined in a world of your own, where everything happening is your own thread and every person is attached to that?

I watched Shutter Island in the deep of the night, after reading Brave New World (the powerful, mind-boggling futuristic classic by Aldous Huxley). Directed by Martin Scorsese and based upon the complex genius of author Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, The Given Day) of the same title, this movie steps forward with A-List actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Rufallo, and Ben Kingsley.

It is the year 1945 and US Marshall Edward “Teddy” Daniels (DiCaprio) and newly assigned partner Chuck Aule (Ruffalo) are placed to investigate the escape of a Rachel Solando, a patient/inmate at the Ashecliff Hospital in Shutter Island. Inmates (or patients, as the doctors would prefer to call them) here are the criminally insane and it is said to be the one of its kind in the world.

As their investigation sets on a tragic trance and Daniels starts to have unpleasant flashbacks, he also revels in his personal cause of revenging his wife who was killed by another inmate in the island, Andrew Laeddis.

As his personal complexities and the island seem to bare its true colors, Daniels realize that he is in an impasse where all the people around him—doctors and nurses and patients included—are against him. He finds out a medical scheme within the shores: of patients getting harsh and inhumane operations, and the real Rachel Solando—not a patient, but a doctor who also finds out this plan.

Daniels race to save himself and his partner from this tragedy but he is confronted by the island’s doctor (Kingsley) that he has no partner. Daniels was confronted by the doctor of being a patient in the island himself for two years, a once Marshall who killed his wife after she killed their three children. In fact, Andrew Laeddis is the anagram of Edward Daniels; and Chuck Aule is really a Dr. Sheehan, his psychiatrist. The doctor explained their “role-playing” as a way to help Daniels realize (lobotomy is the last resort) the reality and to make them achieve his cure—being the most dangerous patient in the island.

He accepted this although the next day, he fell back to his usual trance and called Dr. Sheehan as Chuck. The movie ends with Daniels being led for the lobotomy.

What struck me odd is this—is the mind really so weak and powerful all at the same time to not accept its sores, yet he can manage to set up his own version of things? I did not really understand the command to which Daniels bear, not until the end when the truth is rushing down on his character. I think it takes a real man to accept his defeat and accept the way things go. As it turned out, Daniels is a bigger man who has to erase the failure of a supposed-to-be good family and honest-to-goodness career. Would it really look good for a US Marshall to have a psycho-wife who killed her family? What dad would not turn mad when in his return to his home, he found out that his wife killed their children?

I think what scares the viewers of this movie is not about how the character of Daniels, the smart, ungiving Marshall, turned out to be psycho. There is a relief actually in the fact that even the most brilliant among us have issues to go on through. The real score is that insanity is not really an option of life—it is borderline. It is something that we also experience, something we revel to. Insanity, in my opinion, is not a sickness. It is a defense mechanism where we give our real selves up to find your real “you.” What sets us apart only is how much this insanity is left on everyone of us, and how dangerous it could be.

As the DVD ended that evening I watched it, I thought about how Daniels would be after the lobotomy. Will he really be happy to be back in the cruel chasms of reality—or will he be suffering more for those memories? Think about it.

I read in a book before that insanity is something people condemn, not because it’s dangerous or scary. It is because everyone of us knows that there is an insane part of us, a tiger waiting to be uncaged. It’s just something we are afraid to set loose.

If you think about it, we’re all mad here. And between us and them, they’re the happier ones.

Our lives are seasons, waiting

For Irvin.
Happy birthday.

Our lives are seasons, waiting,
The sun in haze and sultry.
The sphere to which her light conjures,
Is a passive sight of a Sunday.

Her hands are wavering toss of waves,
And they soothe a dry, crisp desert.
But Life is one bigger complement,
Than the chances we have in seasons.

Had the rain subside to let streams level,
Our voyage stripped and bland.
So I'd rather wait for the next blue winter,
Before spring takes all the same old span.

/August 16, 2010.

Suffering Suffrage

Elections here in the Philippines are always a pandemonium. It is the high time to realize a leader’s “hidden skeletons in the closet”, where everyone is swimming in a sea of infomercials and advertisements on platforms, promises, has-beens and what-not, and where candidates throw stones and daggers, literally and figuratively, at each other. Yet, it also serve as everyone’s chance to take part in our nation’s transformation, to cast our votes along and against a million more, and best of all, a fresh opportunity to choose a set of people who we’ll entrust our future to.


But time saw us wasting this valuable break. Looking at the past elections here in our country, the voters’ turnout is not even near absolute. There are a lot of us who don’t participate, who appear not to care at all. Worse is, we complain about corruption, the lousy system, and whoever won that election we did not took part in.


Aside from blaming it to Filipino’s apathetic attitude, perhaps we should also look at the fact that maybe, and just maybe, politics and its promise of a fairy-tale country has lost its appeal and luster to the electorate. Maybe, and just maybe, Filipinos are already tired playing trial-and-error since whoever they vote, he or she tends to be unconstructive in the end anyway. It may look futile, but it makes a lot of sense.


Today, the proliferation of mass media, and the Internet as well had changed the outlook of the Filipinos on elections. I always get to hear people who talked about the election alongside topics like recipes or telenovellas. Everyone seems to have a say in the elections and it always starts with something like, “that’s what I read in the news” or “that’s what I saw on TV” or something they saw on Facebook.


Although it is ironic to think that the press and media profits or get subsidy from these aspirants’ ads, it is amusing to note that they are also the ones responsible in spilling the beans about these hopefuls. They cover the issues that could destroy them but it also celebrates with them on fine times. If you go over it, there is no such thing as “the perfect leader.” For a reason or two, they have some skeletons hidden in their closets or secrets they would rather carry to the grave.


That is also what makes politics amusing: We don’t vote for who seems to be the best nor have a lot of achievements. We support the ones with lesser mistakes, the ones who are not in the middle of scandals and issues, or the ones who are endorsed by our favorite stars.


The media serves as the check and balance to our nation, that’s the reason it is called the Fourth Estate. It looks over the three entities leading our country—the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. So it also has the responsibility to inform the electorate of what these aspirants are doing up close and personal. The media saves us from our idiocy of giving our votes to candidates who appear on TV with the most famous singers or the common tao who is not sure of getting that same attention from their bet after the elections.


Elections are big occasions that don’t simply make us exercise our right to suffrage. It leads to other rights like option, appointment, freedom, and life. It is a rare chance. We give them the power to hold us in their hands and it is the media’s duty to lay the sketch of everyone who aims to lead our country that we may scrutinize them one after another. Let us put in mind though that the media tends to be objective.


The final vote is still our choice.


_______
Guys, sorry I cannot look for the link in the Midland Courier's site.
I hope this will do. Thanks for the support and readership.
You've spoiled me sooooo much on this little journey.
I hope i can keep up with the other good wishes you have for me.
(Except for the accounting stuff of course: Carl, Melowin, Mae, Alex, Gem, Vange, Rhea and Josaine).
Thanks guys. :)

Summer Salts

Celebrating summer through HAIKU



I. The sultry weather:
It wets my temples and cheeks.
Life drips to the ground.


II. Windows seek cool air.
While kitchen sets off dried fish,
Buzzing diablos thrive.


III. Pop music blazes.
Topless men wore caps then doze
on rooftops with mats.


IV. Summer classes start:
Coke and hankies pile backpacks
along with textbooks.


V. Shiny sunglasses
Makes a collage of black sea
of fashionistas;


VI. Pinks and yellows drape
over their arms and torsos
as they lick ice cream.


VII. Sitting on benches,
lovers await the sunset.
Twilight forms shadows.


VIII. The sultry weather:
It wets my temples and cheeks--
Splash of a warm bath.



[March 20, 2010]

A Saga of Kittens

Our pet, ginger cat Midnight, just gave birth to four cuddly and petite kittens the other day. They were so cute I almost squeeze them. Two are soft brown and orange like Midnight, and the other two have black spots. Hmm. Maybe ginger cats have stronger genes after all.


Midnight was a gift from our Uncle jose before he left for Saudi last year. We named her Midnight after Prudence Phillip's (Catwoman) cat. It was a coincidence that the book I read online (which never made it to print) that I love was entitled Midnight Sun.


So I think Stephenie Meyer would be happy to know that I named Midnight's cubs as
Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.

My family likes it anyway, and they don't really care what name we give our cats actually.
They just care that they're cuddly and don't smell. :)

The Bigger Picture

(This essay was published in the March 28, 2010 Issue of the Baguio Midland Courier)

Today, being strong is equated to being independent. For every setback we encounter in this life, we tend to be headstrong and try to face the dilemma alone. We even term it maturity—and we justify that since the consequences or rewards are exclusively for us to reap, then we might as well rely on our own.


Same is true when we address bigger issues. We count on our own individual powers and intuition and say “Hey! I did what I had to do.” Then we sit back and wait for the rest of the world to do their individual responsibilities.


So much for “you have to start with yourself.”


Let’s face it, being an individual, you are like a dot in a vast canvas and you don’t have the ability to effect a big change. Sure, your action made a slight alteration in the society, but in our present era where quantity is necessary like in People Power and the political elections, where does being alone stand out?


In this era of economic instability, social sites, YouTube campaigning, and “virtual life” (as in, a technological alter ego), the lethargic mind set of every Filipino results in a country that misses its purpose: a progressive and colorful country where there are no hungry mouths to feed nor estranged feelings with each other needed to be dissipated.


I was reminded of my History teacher who said that the Philippines was conquered well and easy way back because the Filipinos were divided by language and disparate ends. Although they all seemed to want freedom and revolted against the oppressors, their sense of camaraderie was limited to who they knew only—thus, they are in small numbers and tribes and can be easily attacked by the foreigners.


Likewise today, we are all divided by our different passions and beliefs. We tend to believe so well in the notion that individuality is what can lead us to that big thing called development. What is worse is, we limit ourselves to our single human powers and expect others to do the same, not realizing that some still need help and inspiration.


Let us not stop by ourselves. As human beings, we have our social proportions to fulfill. Let us change the notion of being alone. Yes, it should start by ourselves, but it should also pull others to do the same. And, like a child’s play of connect the dots, we can see, that the minute dots can form something—a bigger picture.

[March24, 2010]

FaveQuotes From Coelho's ELEVEN MINUTES

1. "When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true."

2. "Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I didn't have the courage to say "yes" to life?"

3. "Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it - which of these two attitudes is the least destructive?"

4. "Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant."

5. "At every moment of our lives we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss."

6. "The power of beauty: what must the world be like for ugly women?"

7. "Considering the way the world is, one happy day is almost a miracle."

8. "What is real always finds a way of revealing itself."

9. "It wasn't necessary to know your own demons in order to find God."

10. "The strongest love is love that can demonstrate its fragility."

11. "Pain and suffering are used to justify the one thing that brings only joy: love."

____

Coelho's "Eleven Minutes" started with: "Once upon a time, there is a prostitute named Maria."
Although it sounded really intriguing, i think it is an ingenious way of making the reader engage with it by also asking him/herself: "Once upon a time, there is a ______ named me."

:) Hope you read it sometime, too.
Like every Coelho, it is worth your while.

Unwavering Through This Rain

I dedicate this to the unsuspecting souls who didn't see it coming.
May you rest in peace.

It was the evening of Sunday (11.28.09). It was my father’s birthday and the third day of the Northern Luzon Debate Championships. I got home by 10 and sat down to rest. What my eyes met on the day’s paper will be one of the events that won’t escape my mind as long as I live.



It is very ironic that I spent my day in an auditorium with bright people and debating on policies and values while the typhoon Ondoy (international code name Ketsana) raged over the Philippine metropolis and created a killer sea to claim lives and take away properties. I cannot help but think that if only that same auditorium was in Manila, then it could have been an aquarium if not a refuge for some victims.



I cried for how something like these can happen. Like a thief in the night, the rain just came and poured in a few hours what it could have shedded in days. It is Mother Nature’s cry. But to put it in the sense that even the innocent is claimed is something I cannot comprehend.



My Business Law instructor related it in “what if that is how the end of the world would look like?” It is very hushed, unspoken. You just go to bed and say your prayers. But before the sun could set on God-only-knows when, you would be fighting for dear life.



I am very troubled and blessed by Ondoy. I think this is what it means with “unity and diversity.” Tears would always spring from my eyes whenever I see the news of rising figures of death and the sight of fellow Filipinos and foreigners alike guiding each other… Helping, donating, embracing, loving.

Sometimes, I think what Ondoy wants to teach us after all is not death and hurt and pain. Maybe she wants us to face life with the colors that only grief and hurt can bring. Maybe she wants us to realize that regardless of who we are and what we do, we are all the same: we love, we feel, we cry. I think I realized that your money cannot help you in this impasse.

Well, I am glad that through the media, we can see that we are finally living to that lesson. We are all standing up in our won ways to help and do even the most minute things for them.


My brother asked: “If only there is something we can do too.” Being far away from Manila, I think there is always something. After all, prayers can also dissipate even the biggest of the seas.

[sept.30, 2009]
from my journal

Mind Out The Box

(Previously published in the Baguio Midland Courier under the column "Speaking Out", October 11, 2009)

If I say that every leaf I see is colored black, would you believe me? Check me, now that would be more definite. If I also regarded your top as unsuitable to the jeans you’re wearing, would you just shrug it off or heed my advice to change?

I am in my right mind. I do not suffer from colorblindness, and I do not really enjoy criticizing garbs for fashion matter. I simply posted the questions above because as far as I have observed, we tend to become what others want us to be.

Paulo Coelho in one of his books brought out this question: “What is the real ‘I’? The answer was simple but challenging: It is what you think of yourself, not what others think of you.

As a teenager, it is no longer new to me if somebody pushes me towards something or forces an option for me to take. As a teenager too, I am prone to manipulation. But I am 18, and haven’t the law express that you are considered to be intelligent if and only if you reach 18?

Sorry if you have not reached your 18th birthday and the law consider you to be not intelligent and excused from not understanding the things around you. But being the ‘youth’—and the hope of the fatherland at that, I think it is not an excuse to be not of legal age and keep on committing mistakes. After all, thinking is one of man’s prerogatives among other creatures.

My instructors usually tell us in class that the youth now are “passive students”. We just eat, we just chew, but we do not digest what we take in. So I also get the idea that we are indeed getting dumber and dumber every day. We lack to see substance. When someone tells us something is to be, then it should be.

It makes us fall then to the negative sense of being followers. We fail to think on our own, and we willingly concede to what culture and the status quo dictates. These are the same reasons why we think leaves are “green” and horizontal stripes hides fat.

It is also very shameful to admit that for times in our lives, we actually rationalized that we do something because everybody does it anyway. Example, when we commit ourselves to certain appointments, we tend to be late and call it “Filipino Time”. Sometimes in class, we cheat and reason out that it is just but normal.

Normal? Then what will happen to our country at the end of the day? We all cheat, we all fail, and we all lose because it is “normal”? No one asked you to ride that boat on the first place. You just resorted to join because it is an easier alternative and it held no commitments.

The point is, if we can’t deviate for the better on smaller issues, then how could we efficiently face the bigger ones soon?

Our world is a better place to live in because of the genius of our predecessors. They were also ordinary people who chose to think outside the box. They invented the technology, they devised the techniques, and they came out with our laws. They had believed that there is a better way than what is already present, and with that conclusion, they worked things out from what everyone says is—even to the extent of being considered insane. Without them, we might still stick to the knowledge that the earth is flat, the sun is a moving body, and that we are held by a turtle.

Going to Paulo Coelho’s challenge, I think it boils down to ourselves as the masters of our fate. Yes, we should listen. Yes, we should learn. But whatever culture dictates is not constant—and the power to change it resides in us.

[Oct 4, '09]

Don't Wanna Stutter More

As a campus journalist, an Accounting major, a novice debater, and simply a human being, I came to realize that expression is the most lucrative and greatest asset that we ever used.
It does not matter what media we use, nor is it a care if we say it with numbers, symbols, ciphers, codes, words, calligraphy, ad infinitum.

However, I realized that as we delve into this technological era as chat, text messaging, e-mail and social sites, our gift (and freedom, per se) of speech is slipping its way through our fingers and we are getting away from its REAL purpose. In fact, with it, I think we are becoming weirder.


Case in point:

[A text message thread between BF and GF]
BF: Hi, babe.
GF: Hi 2. (Wrong grammar!)
BF: Musta ang day?
GF: Fine nmn. U?
BF: Fine dn.
GF: IC. Lab u. (nahiya pa... “lab” eh?)
BF: Too. (huh?)
GF: Ingat.
BF: Too. (uli?)
GF: Tnx.
BF: Tnx too. (wrong grammar again!)
GF: K.

(The next day…)
BF: Hi, babe.
GF: Hi 2. (Wrong grammar uli!)
BF: Musta ang day?
GF: Fine nmn. U?

You tell me now what is next…


It is short. Futile. Stupid. And it goes again and again, day by day.

I don’t want to be a hypocrite, though I admit that I have been to a conversation like this (but it’s not that bad.) I also text other people when I miss them with messages like “Hi. What’s up?” (Street-like). Or, Hi, anu gawa mu? (‘u’ nalang ba lahat?) and some of them blast off while the rest go with my dim-witted strategy.

My teacher in Theology 101 at Saint Louis University said that interaction is more important than actions. It is straight, WYSIWYG, and it does not misled other people with their disparate interpretations. It is our Biblical proportion as social beings.

How I miss the days in my grade school years where I always stay late in school to chat with friends and we do not have to be worried about “extra load” (for contra-sim providers) and low batt. We are happy, and the next day, we do it again. It is not short, of course. But it is never futile. Never stupid.

It goes with our way as children of the technological era. We have them all (YM, e-mail, FS, FB, Multiply) but these should not get in our way of being comprehensible and intelligent speakers.

I do hope that the world may change its media but it should not change out ways. With this, it is not too late to develop into weird aliens of weird language.

Not short. Not futile. Not stupid.

PEACE!


[sept8,'09]

CAMPUS COLLAGE

I write this with a million things stuffed in my mind, with articles on my corkboard waiting to be touched, and accounting homework left ignored. I don’t know. I think i am just starting to feel wrong about myself. I just remembered about high school so i face this desktop trying to seek a friend’s attention.

I miss high school. I remember not being the best student but at least I know that there are a lot of things i have yet to achieve. I miss my Chemistry teacher who made me feel like I am Harry Potter and she is Snape- and she do hate me! I miss writing for the school paper and running away from my adviser when I myself did not pass an article on due date. I miss cheering, dancing and screaming in the grounds like life mattered only on that moment. I miss my bestfriends. Carl, who became my twin brother, and my Math homework sharer. Corelle who share my passion with writing and our heated arguments sometimes. Venus and her mimicked Tweety voice. and Danielle of course who supplied me with an ample load of paperbacks or novels and our imaginative conversations. To my surprise, I also miss the first years in my senior year who loves to pick on me, teasing. I rather they laugh at me now while i write this quite emo blog.

But i just don’t know.

When I was in high school, i don’t count the days I spent with them, the school, the teachers, the activities i incurred, the projects. Instead, i count the days when I would graduate. Leave that stinking pighole (at that moment, i really was thinking this) and enter university.

I really hope I hadn’t counted at all. That I should have
joined my very noisy girlfriends and uber-partyholic boyfriends. I also wished I
did not count so that I had the time to write my articles and finish my essays
and reports rather that run away from my adviser or rush them on recess times
when all the fun really happens.I just have to wish now. But it ends there.

I will always miss high school like you might do feel sometimes. I still have college after all, right? Maybe I shouldn’t be counting now, too. I’ll just shut this down and go after my articles and maybe i could spend the night with my book and Accounting things.

Life is limited. So i shouldn’t count. I’ll just spend…

[aug26,'09]

Prologue

Phew... I thinks this is the right word for me to start blogging. :)

My name is Ivan Jim but you can call me Van for short. I wish i have started blogging years ago instead of just scribbling my thoughts on paper and worn-out notebooks that reached the trash bins when my mother saw them lying about in any part of our home here in the Philippines.

Actually, I live quite a boring life that I have to become a writer to keep me sane and moving. That is, being a writer, I have to observe so I may comment.I need to read and watch that I may share and criticize.I need to talk and interact that I may learn, and I have to live so that I can say that what I have written is something that made something good (or bad) in my life.

Days are rolling fast in my Life now. I'm growing up and I hope to share the things that I saw and experienced. Forgive me if i seem egotistic and proud sometimes. I'll try to keep it down...

Join me! :D

[mar18,'10]