Follow me here.

Got up this morning to blaring horns (i.e. my alarm clock) and to the sound of the doorbell. I didn’t hear anyone shuffling to get the door, so I assumed (and rightly) that my flatmate had already set off. I made coffee, turned the heat up, and started editing this paper that I am so glad is due today because if I have to contemplate creditor rights for another minute, I am going to bury myself in the snow. In the middle of my editing (because I was looking for a reason to dilly-dally), I decided to open the door to check on this increasingly visible nuisance that first appeared several weeks ago: the hill of trash outside my neighbour’s door.

Okay, the hill of trash is not really that tall. If I stood up, it’d probably be past my ankle but below my knee. (Wait, I actually think it’s knee-high. Anyway, that’s not important.) And in fairness to my neighbour, who I met this summer and know only slightly, she does make the effort to keep the trash near her door (which makes me wonder how she steps out of the door every morning, actually), and when the trash spills over (as it must, with the recent addition of a pizza box), it spills over to the other side and must thus bother her other neighbour more. (Background for those who don’t know: My apartment is on the left, and the neighbour I’m referring to has the middle apartment. Ah, I’ll just take a picture and post it up or something. Was never really good at describing houses.)

Anyway, I opened the door, and the trash was still there. I fought my rising temper down and caught sight of this box on the floor. I brought it inside, and cut it open, all the while assuming that it was the book that my friend had sent over from Amazon, for me to bring home to Manila. But it wasn’t. It was a popcorn can, with the skyline of Chicago on the outside and, more importantly, cheese and caramel popcorn on the inside! Yay. It was a gift from the firm I’ll be working for next summer. After shoving a few handfuls of popcorn into my mouth, I was happy again.

I just felt like narrating that story here, because I know that my lot in life is really not that heavy, if compared to that which other people must bear. True, I’m in the middle of finals week, and true, I’m going to have to work hard for the next few days, but I will also be flying home on the 14th. Also, my neighbour might be I-hate-taking-out-the-trash-girl, but she’s nice and invisible most of the time, so there’s really not that much to complain about where she’s concerned. Also, when I complained about her trash last summer, she took care of it really quick, so I’m hoping she’ll respond in an equally speedy way to the e-mail I sent her just a few minutes ago. She has to know that putting trash outside your door won’t make it disappear.

I just wrote this entry to remind myself not to look for things to worry about when things are looking up. And also to look up when the future is bleak. And also to ask myself why the heck I am blogging here when I have mega-studying to do for my finals.

If you think this is going to be one of those long-winded posts that I am usually fond of, then you’re wrong. I have just about had it with long papers on serious topics. Turned in a “proposal” for the statewide adoption of the mature minor doctrine just a few hours ago. And in exactly a week from now, have to turn in a paper about creditor rights in the bankruptcy context. I like writing what I’m doing like that – it makes me feel like some kick-ass law student who is saving the world with her papers. But no, not really. The papers sound fancy, and I suppose that they are in some way, but in another way, they’re just exercise machines that you’d rather other people work out on.

Got another literary dream for me at this point – I want to be a poet. I have about five poems that I’m proud of, and I’ll just keep writing and writing until there are no more words inside me. I sometimes feel like I am neither here nor there – neither fully artistic nor fully intellectual. But I don’t think I can be fully an artist, like the way that writer in 2046 was, with sweat-stained sandos and cigarette smoke in a dim room with roaches on his bed. And at the same time, I don’t think I can be fully an intellectual, like John Nash, in a Beautiful Mind. All I can be is me – the little teapot (short and stout)with the moon-face who has abandoned fashion for comfort at the tender age of 24.

I had a stupid moment just weeks ago, when I watched Borat – I didn’t know Borat was real! I thought it was a film made in documentary style. And even if I knew that those fratboys sued Borat even before I’d watched the film, I somehow managed not to connect that with the reality of the people in the show. Oh my goodness! I don’t know how to explain this. Talk about the non-suspension of disbelief (in a really convoluted way). Now that I’ve watched the film, though, I just have to say that I don’t like it. I didn’t enjoy it, and was ready to walk out at some points because I found it offensive. I still find the trailer hilarious though. Guess I’ll just stick to funny trailers from this point on. Something tells me that it’s actually a good thing that I never caught Phat Girlz in the theater.

In a similar vein, I am finishing up with Augusten Burrough’s “Running with Scissors,” and I am not really enjoying that book either. Augusten’s book reads like a serious of journal entries, and I generally don’t like reading books of that format. Which begs the question of why I got it at Borders in San Francisco, actually, but the easy answer to that is that the book was on sale, and I thought the reviews looked promising. I felt the same way when I read the memoir of Gilda Radner (God bless her soul), highly acclaimed though it was. Ah well, if you leave your journal with me, I probably won’t enjoy reading it unless I know you and the people you are writing about.

This is it for the blog. I have to work on my poetry manuscript now. Teapot clambers along. Oh wait, last thing – check out “Jesus” by Brand New. Amazing song. And last, last thing – this post turned out to be pretty long-winded, didn’t it?

All it comes down to is that I am tired – dead-tired. 2006 has been an extremely long year – eventful, but long, and I am glad that it’s coming to an end. Or maybe it comes down to my quickly depleting maturity reservoir. I don’t know what it is anymore. All I do know is that I keep going back to how studious and diligent I was in grade school, and even in high school, and I look at me now, and all I can do is laugh at the irony and perversity of the situation. In high school, I headed the debating club, served the student body by being completely and thoroughly involved in all student functions, enjoyed my Math problem sets (especially the proving thing we had to do for Geom), worked very hard on my English papers (that were flawless by the time I got through with them), and managed to squeeze all the other class requirements in between. And yes, I still found time to go on a week-long immersion during the busiest part of my senior year, complete my college applications and gain admission to all the four colleges I’d applied to (even receiving a scholarship from one), and go out every weekend, even if only to a movie with my family.

Compare that to me now – I submit papers with typos, sleep (or else lay in bed) nine or ten hours a day just to escape from work or otherwise maintain my sanity, and find myself in these academic traps that I manage to escape only narrowly from. The source of this torture is also the source of my salvation – the work ethic. I constantly feel as though I am failing myself, because I know I could do better work and that I could be more on top of things if I really set my mind to it. And so I feel annoyed about my current state. But at the same time, as much as I dilly-dally or go on these “interesting” adventures (don’t expect me to expound on those here), deadlines still have a certain pull on me, and the drive to work just to meet them is there and will not be ignored. I guess the habit of responsibility still controls me, even if it doesn’t translate that fully anymore into what I consider to be excellent work.

I just need time to breathe and get a hold of myself. And that is why I cannot wait to fly home this December. I’ll be home for about a month. I promised my roommate that I’d be a different person when I come back on January, that she wouldn’t have to put up with the insensitivity or the teeth-gritting annoyances that I emit on an inceasingly recurrent basis. And I know I will come back changed. Just the thought of flying home is already making me happy. I have been away from home for far too long, and it’s easy to lose sight of who you are or where you are in life when you deprive yourself of the time to think and reflect or when you allow your work to define those things for you.

You know what, this post made me feel better. One more month of suffering – I can handle that. One more week until I fly to San Francisco and escape South Bend for a while – I can handle that too. Pat on the back for snapping me out of this moany-groany-complainy-state. At the end of the day, I guess only me can deal with me.

[Begin conversation.]
Hello, Camille. What are you doing up so late?
Hi, Camille. I can’t sleep. What are you doing in bed so early?
I was trying to sleep. [Pause. You know what a pause is?]
This girl is crazy … NOT!
[End conversation. Begin exhibitionism.]

What makes me a Filipino?
* * *
Let me see – I was born and raised in Manila. I’ve lived there for all of my life. I’ve traveled pretty extensively, but I’ve never been away for more than two months at a time (the exception being this long adventure right smack in the middle of Borat’s experiment land). And yet I know more X-Men than Captain Barbell, more Harry Potter than Mulawin, more Lord of the Rings than Encantadia, as much Sesame Street as Batibot, and, yes, more English than Filipino.

I grew up with Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield of Sweet Valley, California. I still know all of their friends – Ellen Riteman, Amy Sutton, Todd Wilkins, Bruce Patman, and so on and so forth (no need for a reunion here). I later moved to Connecticut, with the Baby-Sitter’s Club, with Kristy, Mary Ann, Dawn, Mallory, Jessie, Stacy, and Claudia. I read through most of their adventures, even if baby-sitting is as foreign to me as cannibal rituals around bonfires. And then I dabbled in R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike for a while, sharing in gory murders in homecoming dances and camps, which again were real not because they happened in my world but because Stine and Pike said so. And now and then, I’d read Enid Blyton and join in on the dorm adventures of random English girls with headmasters and headmistresses.

Of course, I had a life outside books. I am the eldest of four kids, all of whom are pretty near to me in age, so we did have some real-life adventures there. I also had a few non-literary friends. (A/N: Only a few because I had anti-social tendencies then, which I think are manifesting themselves again.) But even then, my friends and I would talk about Ghostwriter and Jem and the Holograms and collect posters of Brad Renfro and Prince William.

Most of my lessons were in English. I studied Math in English – from simple addition to geometry and trig and later on to derivatives and those loopy, graphy things for my management course. (I genuinely like Math, because there’s a rhythm and pattern to it that makes sense to me after a while, but I can never remember it after I study it.). I studied Science in English – from the cholesterol-sounding things that makes plants green (I was never good at Science) to Gregor Mendel and his fruit flies (Genetics was the sort-of exception) to college-level Zoology (which was not about giraffes, as I’d thought, but about yucky-yucky cells and Golgi apparatuses…again!). I have been studying English (the language) from kindergarten to my sophomore year in Ateneo. And I did study Filipino (the language) and in Filipino as well – the latter for the Filipino grammar class, and the former for Filipino history.

Despite the experience, though, I honestly think that I relate as much to Filipino as I do to English, perhaps even more. Over the past how many weeks, I have been listening to APO songs (“Panalangin” and “Ewan” are my favorite; although “Yakap sa Dilim” and Doo Be Doo” are also good) and getting to know the new bands that have cropped up in the local scene since I’ve left. I plan to do a more intensive post on this in my other blog, but suffice it to say that I’ve checked out Hilera, Cushe’, Itchyworms, Chicosci, Narda, Outerhope, and Neruda. Check them out at myspace and/or purevolume if you want. When I get stressed, I blast my Pinoy combo of Rivermaya’s “Elesi,” Eraserheads’ “Alapaap,” and Parokya ni Edgar’s “Harana.” When I feel down, I play Bamboo’s Noypi and take solace in this line: “Hoy, Pinoy ako/Buo’ng aking loob/May agimat ang dugo ko.” When I see a friend, my instinct is to say “Hoy, kamusta na?” instead of “Hey, how are you?” And when I curse, I say punyeta instead of fuck.

I have always believed that the Filipino language has something the English language does not. [Shameless Camille-plug: In Ateneo, I made it a point to take two Philosophy and Theology classes in Filipino. Quatro, friends, for both classes. That should show those who say I can't speak Filipino for jack just because I come from the "tusok-tusok" labeled school. Hah! Hahaha, sorry, just had to be silly.] Is this because Filipino is simply different from English, and therefore is able to capture what English cannot? Is the “Filipino” part of the language irrelevant insofar as it is subsumed into the differentness? Would the language speak to me in that same way if I was born and raised in Switzerland and learned Filipino there? What about if I had no Filipino blood?

Or when I speak in Filipino, do I tap into a deep Filipino subconscious that is my birthright, just because I can trace my roots to Pangasinan and Zamboanga both? Am I missing out on something by not knowing Pangasinense or Chavacano? How about if I learn Mandarin? Will I feel more complete then? Since more than half the blood that flows through my veins comes from the Fujian province somewhere in China (near Taiwan, I hear; never been), when I speak Fookien (theoretically, because all I can say right now is I’m hungry, thank you, and good-bye), does that mean I am tapping into that Chinese subconscious? How about if I learn Sesotho? Or how about French, which I have an (ir)rational aversion to because of my horrible experience in the Paris airport?

* * *
Is there something inherently Filipino? Or is being Filipino simply a product of culture, of shared experiences? And if it is a product of shared experiences, then what do I share with most of the other Filipinos? The Philippines is a small country (relatively), but the differences within it are vast. Poverty and comfort – two sides that co-exist, only slightly aware of the experiences of the other. And I guess I can only be grateful that I have fallen on the more comfortable side of the line.

I learn about pagsasaka (farming) and pangingisda (fishing) being the main occupation of the Filipinos. Even the “native” Filipino story in #2 Childcraft (the children’s encyclopedia) is about a fisherman’s family. The Philippines is, after all, an agricultural archipelago of 7,100 discovered islands with even more islands that have not yet been named. And yet I don’t have any relatives who are either farmers or fisherman. The closest to that would be some friends who own horses housed in the Manila Polo Club and perhaps some of the the 12 disciples of Christ, my adopted brothers.

Some foreigners ask me if I like living in nippa huts and seeing coconut trees as soon as I wake up, but they might as well be asking a polar bear from Antartica. The beach is not far from Manila, but I don’t live in a beach and in fact don’t know anyone who does. When I wake up, it isn’t to the soothing water sounds – it’s to not-so-distant Metro Manila traffic. When I look to the distance, I don’t see the horizon; I see Kris Aquino’s magnified face promoting whitening cream. (Sidenote: why is she promoting whitening cream? Didn’t she tell Boy Abunda that she takes a bath in milk? Yuck. Why can’t it be Christian Bautista promoting Bench undershirts instead?) When I go to school (or go wherever, basically), I get driven there and therefore don’t have to endure the stifling Manila heat.

So again, is there something inherently Filipino? Or is the inherent Filipino-ness simply a result of other people assuming that since you look like them and come from where they do, then there is a part of you that is just like them? Or is it a result of you assuming that very same thing? Or are both of you simply responding to a ‘calling’ that is very real even if it cannot otherwise be defined?

Since grade school, my school administrators, even as they have demanded increasingly exorbitant tuition fees from me, have berated me for living in a bubble and not knowing what Filipino society is really like. It’s always been a bubble world, a prison, where I was somehow kept from the “real world.” (And again, it is just my luck that I have managed to land in yet another “bubble,” this time in the US and A, as Borat says.) Who were they to say what was real? Does the fact that more people experience something mean that it is the more real experience? So before Siddharta Gautama exited his castle and saw the poverty and disease that made him Buddha, was his life fake? Can something real come from what is fake?

Is being Filipino a de facto category that I fall into, just because everyone somehow gets defined according to where they were raised, and the Philippines was where God assigned me to?

* * *
Is there value to a culture for culture’s sake? When the Igorot (indigenous group) in Baguio are protected, doesn’t this ‘preservation’ ultimately destroy their culture instead of protect it? Culture has to survive on its own, to a certain extent. It is my view that preservation sites probably make the cultures artifical because the culture is being preserved not based on its strength or its inherent good, but based on what others want it to be – an example of a culture, a living link to their heritage. It’s more like a zoo, then, than a culture.

Does colonization destroy a culture? More than three hundred years of Spanish rule accounts for why my grandmother swears fluently in Spanish and perhaps why I pray to Jesus Christ instead of Bathala. More than fifty years of American rule accounts for why I learned all my lessons in English. Does being free for only 60 years so far (since 1946) explain why perhaps the Filipino culture is still being built or why Filipinos feel as though they don’t really know who they are?

When the Bayanihan Dance Troupe performs “Pandanggo sa Ilaw” or other Spanish-influenced dances, are they showing Filipino culture or the perversion of it? Is it even proper to speak of the ‘Filipino’ culture, with all its references to that 16th century Spanish king? Should we call ourselves Moros or Malays or Indios, or whatever Filipinos were called before the Spaniards came? Are we still being defined by the labels imposed on us? Or are we breaking out and becoming more free, even within those labels? And if it’s liberation that we want, then why keep the labels to begin with?

* * *
When you learn history, is it important to learn your history or to learn the history of people who look like you or to a certain extent are related to you? Is it all about blood then? When full-blooded Filipinos who have been born and raised in America learn about Columbus instead of Lapu-Lapu, can they really relate to that history, when that isn’t really their story – when their forefathers did not participate in the building of America and the many revolutions that have made it what it is? Or is it about choice? Can I call myself Dutch if I learn the language and settle down in that society?

Can I take credit for having the blood of emperors and empresses flow through my veins even if I have never been to China? If I should not be held accountable for the sins of my fathers, should I still enjoy the glory that they have earned? Should I still be proud of being Filipino, when the Philippines I was born into was made by people who are not me? When I haven’t done my part yet? When my country still doesn’t know me?

* * *
I have questions about my country. But at the end of the day, my allegiance to the Philippines is strong. In my dorm room, I have a Filipino flag. When I become a millionaire and can start supporting charities, the Filipino public schools will be the first to benefit. I have grand dreams for my country, and I know I will somehow make them come true.

Hay, Pilipinas. Hindi pa kita gaanong kakilala, ngunit sigurado na akong iaangat kita.

The falling part wasn’t bad. I hurt myself more when I tripped and fell last year, in a sorry attempt to get to my 8 AM class on time. Then, I had huge gashes and scratches, and little rocks stuck to my jeans. Now, I just have a graying white sweater and a red right palm. What was bad was that he threw me off when only a white-haired gentleman was around to help me. I don’t go for old men, Fuzion. Why is that common-sense fact so difficult to remember? I should be grateful though, that I didn’t go kissing the ground when it was all wet and leaf-laden. It’s actually pretty nice today – sun shining, leaves wiggling, and squirrels invading my path – that kind of day. The perfect antithesis to my self-imposed Hamlet mood.

Yesterday was a beeyotch of a day. I spent half the day flipping through this tiny book and editing this guy’s article on a topic that I wasn’t really interested in. The doing itself wasn’t bad. The fact that it took me forever and (half a) day to do that was the problem. Glad that it’s done with though. Modesty aside (when is it ever inside?), I think I did a pretty good job. And really, I was rewarded for it with an intellectually stimulating talk on religion with my roommate. Even while I was doing it, I was sort-of having fun. I haunted myspace and purevolume for current Filipino music. Not bad, friends, not bad at all. Will expound on this in a later post, but I did like a lot of what I heard. I liked “Stay” of Cueshe’, found Hilera and Chicosci absolutely addicting … And I am starting already, so I’ll stop.

In yet other news, I joined this intellectual blog about pop and culture. It’s more than that, but pop and culture are all I will be writing about, so if you’re going there to see what I have to say (a pefectly valid reason, of course), then expect to read only that from me. I’ve been thinking about how to split my limited time between here and there, especially because I tend to ramble when I write and my posts end up having little bits of everything. The best answer I could come up with is that if I start thinking about me, I’ll write here. If I start thinking about abstract ideas or pop-py things, like BtVS, then I’ll ramble there.

You should also know that I am working on yet another blog. The other blog won’t be text-based so much – it’ll be more like what a blog was originally envisioned to be, a webpage with links to websites I find interesting or a showcase of the books I’m reading and the pictures that I like. I’m a fan of YouTube, and I’ve gathered a small collection of favorite clips. Some of them are Hollywood-related. Some of them are guitar-related. There’s this random kid, for example, with the best covers of rock/alternative songs, from Gin Blossoms to Oasis to Fleetwood Mac. Man, that kid can play his strings. And yet others are fan-based – good LoTR clips or X-Men. So yeah, will be putting them up there, partly because my Bookmarks folder is getting a little full. I actually put this blog up maybe a month ago, but I kind of abandoned it. Anyway, it will be making its debut here, when it’s ready.

Apart from the online projects, I also have some random offline projects, most of them writing related. I’m a madwoman, I know. It’s not as though there’s a dearth of things for me to write about. I have deadlines looming for papers on bankruptcy and juvenile law. But whatever. It’s nice to be able to write without having to worry about structure or CREAC (conclusion-rule-explanation-application-conclusion; and then once more with feelings). Plus, these little projects make me feel productive. Like now, for example. I should be heading home to change into a suit for an old talk that I have to attend, but instead, I am sipping caffeine-based beverages and waking up to the beauty of two new blog posts. Lovely.

Time shouldn’t be defined by just one project anyway. There’s a fundamental flaw in that, as well as a dangerous inconsistency with the Theological Teaching on Time. Something like that anyway. Remember my faculty advisor who wrote about BtVS and the salavation theory? She gave a talk about the Theology of Time in the context of law and billing hours. It was an interesting talk that I might write about at a later date.

I don’t want to blog anymore. I think I am going to write a poem now.

More now than ever, I am being assaulted by ‘thought sessions.’ I am being attacked by this force that drives philosophical discourses into my head and leads me to a black hole that reason can’t get me out of and that emotions readily seal in. And that’s why I brood and dwell. It passes when it wants to. Sometimes, a few minutes is all it asks of me. Other times, it consumes me for days. But inevitably, I snap out of it and revert to my ‘toddler-personality,’ where battery-powered lightsabres and remote-controlled cars provide genuine entertainment, and where laughing sprees are initiated and sustained by a facial expression or careless words.

I get annoyed with these ‘thought sessions’ sometimes and always wish that they’d pass quickly or otherwise amend themselves to convenient scheduling. But when I do stop to think about how I react to them, I feel frivolous and stupid. These ‘philosophical discourses’ are existential questions, ideas that go directly to who I am and what I am doing in this world. I should be happy that I get some insight into what is larger than myself. On the other hand though, I feel that these thoughts prevent me from completely ‘being in this world’ and therefore from achieving excellence or greatness and thereby leaving that much-desired legacy. It’s sort of like being an actor in a TV show – you can’t get into your role if you’re constantly questioning why you’re playing this role or what you’re even doing in the show. And just like Sporos in Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wind in the Door,” you can’t grow if you don’t root yourself somewhere. I don’t know where to root myself. And so I bounce back and forth, like a ping-pong ball. (Random thought – I am beginning to look like a ping-pong ball. My face is as big as our dinner plate. But back to the broody post.)

I sometimes wish that I knew where to situate myself. Remember the last post, when I talked about questioning reality? Well, I was thinking about it again, and I realized that as much as I am capable of questioning reality, so too am I capable of (or even predisposed to) being completely absorbed by reality. I sometimes get so involved with, say, a writing project, that nothing else matters and everything is subjugated to my labor and my creation. The world becomes all about me and what I am doing. Labor theory implications aside (i.e. labor as the means of bringing out the transcendent element of self; labor as means of genuine interaction with this ‘objective world’ and other people), this ‘immersion into reality’ is also manifested by my interaction with other people, where I feel genuine concern about and interest in what is happening in their lives, lives that have been removed from mine by close to nine months now, or where I feel disturbed or bad when I think I may have offended someone or when someone has in fact offended me.

I have always thought that I was more ‘sensitive’ (in the sense of feeling emotional response to and perhaps involvement in the not-me) than most people. I dwell on random events, events that are otherwise meaningless but which I find still lingering in my head days and days after they had taken place. I get affected by the actions of some people, to the point of being partly paralyzed by this disturbance. I think I can read non-verbal communication well. But of course, this can just be me imagining things. I have a crazy imagination that is quick and eager to present itself, whatever the occasion. Case in point – when I space out and hear just bits and pieces of conversations and words, I have in my head a complete story of what must have happened, and I usually convince myself that I am right.

Okay, concrete example. About a year ago, a friend and I were working in the library when she was approached by another student in our school. She stood up and shook his hand, and they engaged in ramdom talk. Then after all that, she said that ‘that was weird.’ I didn’t see how that was weird. I thought that the other student had gone to her previous school and had studied what she had and was in fact an M.D. who was now taking law. None of that was true. What in fact happened was that the other student had said something about her cap (which happened to have the name of her previous school on it). And that was all. It was a funny/horrifying realization. Random mistake or manifestation of character?

So I may be sensitive or I may be delusional. Nice. And here’s my third option – I may not be sensitive at all, to the point of sociopathy. I read about bombings in some poor province in the Southern Philippines, and I know that it’s wrong and unjust but I don’t feel the wrongness anymore. It doesn’t resonate emotionally. The tragedy presents itself, if at all, more as a topic for intellectual discource than as a call for an elemental human response (which is not to say that intellectual discourse is not an elemental human response or that the two are mutually exclusive; only that emotions I think should be the immediate and instant reaction). Maybe it’s just me being desensitized because I am from Manila (or the Philippines more generally), which First World Travel Advisories paint (not unreasonably but not entirely justly either) as the Land of Mordor before Frodo and his crew brought Sauron down. Random murders don’t disturb me anymore – well, they do, if I happen to know of the person (remember that suicide case that involved a rope, a boyfriend, and a high school student?) or if the murder was committed in a particularly gruesome way (i.e. The Black Dahlia). But it shouldn’t be the case that ‘plain ol’ murder’ ceases to be a big deal.

Yes, in true me form, I have managed to complain both about not feeling and about feeling too much. My last observation is this: Aristotle might be right after all, in that mesotes (mean) is the key to human happiness. Well, he may be right. But so what if I’m not happy? I think I like the drama (imagined or real) of the extremes more.

[Epilogue: Okay, one 'thought demon' is out. Daresay that next one will be about consistency in policy and the 'balancing test' that Courts use a lot. Or maybe it will be about affirmative action and the minority movement. Or maybe about the awkwardness of the human form, the Eternal Generation of the Son, or that Muslim Cleric's remarks about rape, female attire, and fresh meat, which relates to that debate about whether a woman's sexual history should be admissible evidence in a rape case. Or maybe I will write about what you (the comment-er) want me to write about. Ooh-la-la, this is exciting.  But wait - back to passing law school now.]

* * *

Truth be told, this is actually my third attempt at a blog post over the past few hours. The first one was getting exceedingly interesting and lengthy, and I was right at the thick of it, when my browser refreshed and I was left with NOT-A-WORD. That didn’t faze me (but it didn’t prevent me from cursing in colorful language either). I still had things to say so I started another blog post immediately after. But then my mind started wandering. So I let that post go and made my way to my newest haunt, where I happily drooled over hot men. And now I am blogging again.

* * *

The fall break comes to a close in less than 48 hours. I should feel sorry that it ends so soon (opportunity to study missed and blah-blah-blah). I’m sure I will definitely regret not working at all during this break when deadlines for my papers start looming and when I have to work my ass off just to stay on top of things and get the results I want. But at this point, I really don’t care. The crisis is coming soon, but it hasn’t arrived yet. I still have time and space to breathe and be merry.

Part of the reason I really don’t care is because I just survived a very harrowing experience – I got totally and completely lost in the dark land of disturbing thoughts. It happened a few days back, when I was left all alone for a few days. My faithful companions had places to be and things to do, so I was left with me. Looking back at that experience from this vastly more comfortable vantage point, what I can say is that I am not surprised that disturbing thoughts assailed me. (Reason: I brood a lot. I always have.) What surprises me is that I allowed these thoughts to consume me and that I actually followed them to their non-existent and illogical conclusions.

For self-preservations’ sake, I’ll leave out the more contentious (a.k.a. dark) of my thoughts and say instead that one of the things I was thinking about was reality (or the absence of it). There were hours when I’d be sitting in my room, looking at all my stuff suspiciously and questioning myself as to whether what I was seeing was real or not. Specifically, I was thinking that my closet was real because I could see it but then it was also not real because it probably only gained solid form when I reached my hand out and touched it. Then I was thinking that maybe I was in a pseudo-Truman Show, when I was the only one who was ‘really’ playing the part of me. And then I thought about alternative universes (like The Matrix) that themselves question reality as we know it but then seek to impose their own realities on those who would buy into them.

I lightened (pun not intended but recognized) up when I realized my hypocrisy in asking my roommate whether anything was real. (For those who didn’t get it: if I honestly think that I am the only ‘real thing,’ then why I am asking someone who is not me to affirm that things are either real or not real?) And then I got jolted out of this state when I told an authority figure that I may have a ‘thought disorder’ (all the while thinking that a ‘thought disorder’ meant a perceived disorder or unusualness in the way you think) and then when she started treating me like the Sixth Sense boy by asking me if I thought I saw or heard what normal people did not. I have been normal ever since.

* * *

I am light and bubbly again partly because of my materialism. I have two new toys. Here they are:
and

The first one was an impulse buy. Was hanging out in Toys R Us, one of my favorite places in the world, when I saw this and remembered my Tampa Jam scooter and the good ol’ days of scooting around the village. The handlebars were just right for me too. So far, so good with Fuzion. He and I are going to be good, good friends (even if his four wheels combined are still smaller than Tampa’s two). As for the guitar, well, I finally caved in. I used to play on a Yamaha classical, so this Epiphone acoustic is pretty new to me. No question that the Yamaha’s nylons are easier on the fingers than the acoustic’s steel. In any case, am really glad I got the guitar. Been working on The Beatles’ “Blackbird.” Should be done with that in a few days, if not over the weekend. The next two songs I have lined up are Gin Blossoms’ “As Long As It Matters” and Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind.” I’m really happy that there’s a guitar in my room and that it’s real enough to play.

* * *

Last section before I end this novel. Had a really great birthday, and I’m very grateful to God and to everyone who made it that way. Had a long conversation with one of my best friends from home two hours from my birthday. Crossed over from the day before my birthday to my birthday while on the phone with my dad. Talked to my sister just minutes after midnight on my birthday. Talked to my mom after I talked to my sister. Slept for a few hours and then talked to my family back home just minutes before they went out and celebrated my birthday for me. Went back to bed and vaguely heard my phone ring at 10:30 in the morning. Got up at noon to a phone message, e-mail messages, and posts on my facebook. Got a call from China had a long and interesting conversation from my oldest guy friend. Got a call from London and had another long and interesting conversation (catching up and making plans as law colleagues). Got a call from Canada and had yet another long and (especially) interesting conversation (from gaydom to rabbits). Went out to dinner with my ultra-fabulous BFF/roommate (who deserves a lot of credit for putting up with weirdo me). Took a call from a college friend who I may be meeting up with when I fly to San Francisco for thanksgiving. Watched Grey’s Anatomy (I hated this episode with a passion). Took two more calls from Manila. Brought Fuzion to the grotto where I spent time meditating. Took another call (local this time) walking home. Then I went to bed late. And woke up at precisely 1:16 PM.

* * *

I’m going to read Buffy essays before I go to sleep. BtVS is the best.

I’m starting to realize something about my humor. I do not, for the life of me, find Family Guy, the Simpsons, or Futurama funny. I laugh at some points while watching these series, sure, but I laugh because of, say, Bart’s expression, and not because he said something funny. What I do find funny, though, are borderline (or really) politically incorrect movies, such as “Phat Girlz” and, my latest discovery, “Borat.” Oh my goodness. “Borat” kills me, especially Trailer G. “This suit is NAT BLACK.” Hahaha, I’m laughing already. It’s hilarious. Can’t wait for the film to come out. For all the good that political correctness has brought, I’m glad that some witty people have the gall to ignore that completely and give me a few minutes of shameless entertainment.

In other news, I’ve also realized something about my love for superheroes and superpowers. I like flashy superpowers, such as Jean Gray’s or Pyro’s or Magneto’s or Rogue’s. I do not like what I call brawn superpowers, such as those of the Hulk or Beast or the Thing. I do not like dead people who cannot die, such as Eric Draven in “The Crow” (although the movie was good). And lastly, I like my superheroes to look remotely human, unlike Yoda in Star Wars. Just a matter of preference, really. Yes, yes; I may be a little flashy and a little superficial.

And now let’s talk about the Ateneo Blue Eagles (my once favorite topic). I’ve been getting high on this video, a welcome addition to my favorite YouTube videos.

I miss Ateneo basketball. I don’t know if I have been doing this consciously, but I have never cheered for another team as much I have the Blue Eagles. That’s kind of funny, really, because I’m in Notre Dame, where football games reach the stature of the National Olympics and where home games are an open invitation for everyone and their brother to invade this picturesque campus. And if I’m proud of the famed Ateneo drumline, then Notre Dame has their Marching Band, the oldest Marching Band in American college history. But I don’t know. I never really got into the whole football scene here. The one game I watched during my first year here (where I ended up splurging on nachos and Diet Coke to quell my boredom) sealed my fate not to buy season tickets this year.

To my mind, screaming “Go Ateneo!” will still always sound vastly better than screaming “Go Irish!”. There’s just something about the pure energy the Blue Babble Battalion beats out with their huge bass drums that the Marching Band’s trumpet sounds can’t top. Ah, dear old Ateneo. In any case, I promised my friends here that I will get season tickets next year, and who knows, maybe I’ll finally feel at home among the legions of people who shout “We are ND.” But even if that shall be so, I swear up and down that I will not do that cawing cheer. (I’ll be home this December, so I can demonstrate this to my Manila friends.)

Since we’re on the topic of Ateneo, I’d like (finally) to give my say on the whole ADS bashing thing. I can definitely do this, if I’ve gone all out in defense of Mel Gibson, someone I do not know and am not affiliated to in anyway. I don’t want to create issues when there are none or to rouse scandals just for my self-entertainment (although I’m so bored right now that the thought of doing that is not above me; but I won’t do that because I’m not drunk). But I do want to say that I think it’s very ill-mannered of people to refuse to cheer for tourney victors just because the school those victors are from have won the tourney for years now. And that it’s very contriving of people to call their debating tradition “honorable,” and very clearly imply that anyone who is not with them or for them is debating not “for love of the game” but “for love of the trophy.” What kind of illogical banana is that?

Debaters are born and not made, I’d like to think. The rewards of debating can be great, but they’re nothing compared to the emotional and intellectual investment that you have to make just to get up and speak for seven minutes about a topic you’ve heard only fifteen minutes beforehand or to subject yourself to the judgment and mercy of people whose minds you cannot know much less control. I’ve always believed that debating is a calling, and that those who have stuck to debating are those who are either brave or stupid enough to answer that calling. In fact, one of my earliest memories of Bobby was him grinning at me and asking me “Why are we still doing this?” when we were hanging outside SOS 101, waiting for the judges at the Ana Alano Debating Championship to give their verdict. And I remember laughing because the question was unexpected but at the same time really true. Funnily enough, that was when we both made varsity.

It’s because of this belief that I’ve always felt an affinity for fellow debaters, expressed or not. I guess all I’m saying is that it’s sad when people deflect their attention from the energy and passion of the ‘debate totality’ (with the various styles and strategies of debaters) and decide to focus instead on the personal demons that haunt some of those who play the game. If anything goes against ‘love of the game,’ I sure as hey would say that that would be it.

I have absolutely nothing against school rivalry. I love school rivalry, both when I’ve come out the victor (i.e. NDC 2000) and when I’ve lost and been slapped hard in the face in the face because of it (i.e. IIDC 2001). I just don’t like it when it’s manipulated by people to justify or propagate classless behavior.

Lastly, there’s romance and drama in being the underdogs, but there’s no shame in being the conquerors either. So to the ADS kids (can I still call you old people that?), just go on and keep up the winning streak! If silence or, worse, snide comments and venomous rants meet your success, then just smile, be polite, and move on. You’re above all that. Besides, people will come around, sooner or later. There are bigger fields to conquer, larger dreams to pursue. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.

The end.