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I'm glad I don't have to repeat that anymore.

Rep King on Michael Jackson: "There's nothing good about this guy."

Asshats go to hell. Michael Jackson gave birth to more hopes and dreams than he ever will, and he says that is not important? Jesus Goddam Christ. Also, the pedophile comment? One of the replies on the news page sums up my feelings perfectly:

Someone needs to inform Mr. King about libel and slander. Say what you will about Michael Jackson and his personal life, but he was acquitted on all charges by a court of law. Should you have your doubts? Sure, but you can't publicly say something like that without proof. I hope that the Jackson family goes after this guy.

I hope so too. Janet, do your bloody worst and rip this guy a new one.

[ETA]:

This comment made me laugh in glee:

Have you completely lost your mind? Are you more informed than the judge who acquited him?. Go and take care of your sinking party and stop demonizing the dead.

"A little while ago, while we were talking about how I said I believe it's worth the wait? Well, I sort of wanted to tell you that I don't think it's worth it; I believe it is. You're a special person and I want you to find somebody who understands that. I don't want you to make the mistake of going into a relationship just because you can't wait anymore. You're a very rare and special person, and you deserve someone just as special and rare as you are."
- Zyra


"You're different. I don't think any boy your age can handle you. I'm afraid that if you do find him now, that's it. You're going to leave me and get married. Don't be pressured to get a boyfriend. He's out there somewhere, and maybe he's making himself better so that he deserves you. Maybe you have more things to learn. But it will all happen when it's supposed to happen."
- Mom

"If we never learn to wait, we will never learn to love someone other than ourselves."
- The Sacrament of Waiting, Fr. James F. Donelan, SJ

Dear Future First Boyfriend,
I pray you're worth all this waiting. I wonder where you are and why I can't find you, whether you're searching for me just as hard as I am for you, and whether you believe I'm worth it too.

Dear Rogue,
I'm really trying to be what you need in the future, but sometimes, I'm afraid you'll pass me over before I've even had the chance to show you what I can do.

Dear Restaurant City,
Is it really so hard for you to give me a random cream? I play you every spare moment I get, I fall asleep in front of my laptop playing you, but why can't you find it in yourself to make it easy once in a while for me? WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU?

Dear Body,
I love you despite the fact that you resist all my efforts to make you just a little bit thinner.

Dear Universe,
Today I learned that trials by fire come in various intensities.

Dear God,
I don't know why but sometimes, I can feel you in my heart.

While going home from Trinoma, I saw lightning crawl across the sky for a full three seconds.

I saw it happen a few moments later and this time, I screamed.

+

Was browsing through Powerbooks and I came across Love Gathers All, an anthology of poems written? or was it just translated by? Alfred Yuson along with some others. The first poem I read was titled Open (Relationship) and dudes, I'm no poetry genius but it was awesome. Parang baril sa puso. It also helps that the front cover is very pretty. :D

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Sometimes, when I'm not doing anything in the office, I vector. I had Narissa email me the .ai and the .psd files of the illustration I'm working on, but for some reason, the .ai file didn't get sent so all I have is a badly pixelated copy of my work in progress. I still feel like sharing though, so hey, whatever.

( Fighting fish under the cut )

Some interesting things to look at if you can.

01. More people go with Visa. Visa's Go campaign. The first time I saw this was on the elevator television, because my house is an island bereft of all channels that aren't local. It's just fun to watch, and makes me feel all happy and fluffy inside. Follow your dreams, live your life. Just go. Oh motherfucker, I'd get a Visa card just for the illusion that they want good things for me just as much as I do.

02. Espanyol. Malapit sa ating kultura. Just a station away. Berso sa Metro, a collaboration between Instituto de Cervantes and the MRT & LRT stations. It's a reading campaign promoting Spanish poems with accompanying Tagalog translations scrawled on the insides of the trains and the train stations. Design-wise, the quality is erratic. The visual imagery is like a pastiche of semi-related things slapped onto a white canvas with little to no finesse (but there are few exceptions). But graphics aside, it's really the essence of the whole campaign that strikes and crushes with powerful clarity. Heritage is easy to find if you care to look.

My particular favorite is this poem:

Spanish:
Todo pasa y todo queda,
Pero la nuestra e pasar,
Pasar hacienda caminos,
Caminos sobre la mar.

Tagalog:
Lahat ay dadaan at lahat ay maiiwan,
Pero tayo ay dadaan,
Dadaang gumagawa ng daan,
Daanan sa ibabaw ng karagatan.

English (my rough translation):
All will pass and all will be left behind,
But we will pass,
Passers-by making passageways,
Passageways above oceans.

+

I remember that there was a third one I wanted to share, but I can't remember for the life of me and it's gnawing at my brain like a hungry rat. In other news, I have picked up Wraeththu again and find that once I've dropped all my expectations of it, it's actually quite a nice read. Pell can still fall off a cliff (so can Cal) but I have a fondness for Seel now, as well as my under-dog favoritism fetish for Vaysh.

Most memorable line(s) I've read today from the book:

"What did Ashmael say when he saw you?"

"Say? What do you think? A long time ago, I died in his arms."

- Wraeththu, The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit, Book Two, Chapter 8, p. 195

:S

+ 

[ETA]: 
I know remember what that dang third point is! It's MOODSTATS. A motherfucking app that monitors how many times you feel bad, happy, depressed, crazy, hungry, whatever-you-name-it-it'll-compute-it in a given span of time. And not only can you set it to monitor your moods, but you can also change the settings so that it monitors how stressed you feel or, this one's my personal favorite, how many times you pleasure yourself. Yes, I just said masturbate. 

Honestly, I downloaded it just for the titillation factor (!!!).

I swear I will quit being such an n00b and stop posting about work, but there was this one instance that really makes me want to hug my parents and I don't want to forget it because it makes me want to giggle and D'AWWWW like a sappy teenager.

So I got home from work the first day and I'm damn tired because I'm used to doing nothing productive with my days, and I'm lying on the bed just wanting to go to sleep and never wake up for another 8 hours or so. And then my parents come in and both of them, both of them, are practically hovering over my bed looking down at me with the most worried expressions on their face and asking me if I'm alright and how was work and did I eat already, stuff like that. And there was a small part of me that wanted to just hug them and say "I'm okay, really," but it was overruled by the majority party which wanted them to just leave me alone so I could sleep.

What's my point. The point is was that they were both mother hen-ning me, something they've never done since... ever. And it just drives home that I'll never grow up in their eyes ever, I'll always be their baby, and I want to cry because yeah, I love you too mom and dad and I'll tell you soon as I figure out how without becoming an emotional mess.

Things aren't so bad, actually. Yesterday I was just scaring myself. No first job is perfect and by the looks of it, I'm actually very well off. Give me 2 years and then maybe, if I still feel like it, I can quit and look for something else to do.

I've also sort of resolved to do something creative every weekend, mainly because I don't have any time within the week for anything else but sleep and work. That's what I think has me so on edge. It's that I can't balance the things that I used to have time for. Previously (because my life is a show only God watches), I had time for everything and then some. I could play with Raphael and talk to him so that at least he gets some interaction with people outside a viewing screen. I could read whenever I felt like it, wake when I want to, eat when I want to, take a dump when I want to.

Nothing's like that anymore and I'm adjusting as slow as a crippled snail.

This isn't supposed to be a sad post though; I'm just sharing what I've become recently. Probably the only things that really bother me right now are that I haven't taken a dump since Sunday and that I just want to be there for my brother and make sure he's okay when he starts school on the 22nd. If only for that I'd quit just so I could monitor that like a hawk.

I've been working for 2 days and already I am paranoid and depressing myself into a rut. I can't help but feel like there's so much expected of me for being an Atenean, and I don't want to let those expectations down because I know what Ateneans are capable of and I don't want to be the bad fruit in the bucket. I should work harder you know, and stop making excuses. It shouldn't matter if they're still on Photoshop 7 and Quark Express and Mac OS 9 and I NEED INDESIGN. 

Maybe I've had it too easy these past few years.

Please God, please. I just want to prove myself.

+

Also, depressing thought of the day:

I feel like the only way I'll ever be able to freely do what I want to do is if I marry some rich schmuck who doesn't care how I spend his money. How fucked up is that.

I'm so afraid that will happen.

"I've had the experience of waking up at a party to someone fucking me. Wasn't something I would care to repeat. I never, ever, mentally classified it as rape -- though I had been forced into sexual acts previously, by a boyfriend, that I did "count" -- because that was just what happened to girls who were stupid enough to get drunk enough to pass out at parties.

I spent my teen years being aggressively promiscuous so that nobody would have the chance to take it before I gave it. There should be a word for that, I think. It's not rape, but I wasn't doing it NOT out of fear, you know?"

misspamela on the comments section of the entry On Rape and Men (oh yes I'm going there) by cereta The title is from anachronisma , also from the same post.

I was in the shower, and I could feel myself about to think about stuff I didn't want to think about so what I did was, I punched myself in the skull. Lightly, mind you (I love my brain) but dudes. It sort of works.

+

Han's said:

"You can only love a person as much as they want to be loved."

I laughed out loud in response.

Fainaru Fantaji Fohteen. Can I haz a job now plz.

But not really. I and MMORPG's have never been the best of friends after my short and unexciting stint at RO. But still. I have tied myself with steel and blood to Squeenix. I cannot break our love.


Watch in HQ for mind-blowing graphics, though the part when they spell Eorzea makes me want to grab my hair and bleat like a lamb to slaughter. SPARKLING TEARS, OH LAWD. But hell, the grass looks fresh enough to eat and the main character has a six o'clock shadow I'm dying to shave. Every thing is so beautifully rendered I want to vomit.

So. PS3 or an Xbox360? Square Enix has 80% of my vote (so if the rumors are half true, it seems my money will be with Sony during this generation's console wars) but I'm biding my time since the tides  are currently swaying in favor of the 360.

Decisions, decisions. As if I have money to spend, but let us make a list anyway:

- Final Fantasy Agito XIII (PSP)
- Final Fantasy XIII (PS3/Xbox360)
- Final Fantasy XIV (PS3/PC)
- Final Fantasy Versus XIII (PS3)
- Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP)
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (Wii)

TRABAHO, NGAYON DIN.

I laughed so loud the dogs jumped and gave me an Are You Retarded look.

From ohnotheydidnt , particularly this post.

Name of FFXIII's main protagonist: Noctis Lucis Caelum. Roughly translates to "Light of the Night Sky".

Nomura makes me want to shake him like a dog with dead rat.

Also:

Noctis has three companions who have been revealed in the video game magazine Famitsu. The first of these characters is a man with light brown hair and glasses who is seen wearing a suit and driving the protagonist's car. The second character is a bulkier man with dark brown hair and a scar on the left side of his face. The third character is a young blond man carrying a shotgun. These three people are Noctis' friends; they speak casually and amicably with him, and they also accompany him during his travels.

Another character, wearing all white (possibly a symbolic contrast to the protagonist's darker clothing, which may imply another character foil), has been introduced as well. This character is seen facing off with Noctis in a building near his castle, where they cast spells at each other, implying that they are enemies.

Mysterious soldiers have been featured in the trailers as well. These unknown warriors wear medieval-styled armor but also carry assault rifles resembling modern automatic weapons.

- From Wikipedia

Not only did Nomura give the fangirls the possibility of a Weiss Kreuz remake, but we have the COMPLEMENTARY FOIL NEMESIS thrown into the mix, too. 

Verdict: It's a hor game. A completely unsalvageable hor game masquerading as Nomura's latest masterpiece. Somebody shoot me but I'm on it like commuter smoke on new make up.

+

Speaking of more things like this, Korean pop incites in me a burning rage and/or a raging boner. I am broken beyond all my hopes of hope. The only good thing that ever came out of the 80s was me, and this video looks like somebody had tried to rip it from the void kicking and screaming for crack. Which it was given.

Please note the pink jumpsuit, followed by the pink faux leather jacket. Please also note that even though the guy in the squared glasses is wearing a blinding red plastic jacket, some part of me would still do him if it had a chance and a half, and no, I have no excuse whatsoever.

My libido is confused now. I am debating whether or not to just punch my ovaries out and end my suffering.


Aika. This is all your fault.

I had a classmate in Fiction class last semester named Iggy. He was probably the best writer among the lot of us, even though he was always red in the face. I like to think that he was suffering from the characteristic shyness I think all writers are afflicted with, but really, I think he might just always feel hot.

Anyway (I dislike how this is slowly degenerating into a pretentious creative non-fiction piece) I remember him saying that Danton Remoto once said in class:

"If a story stays with you for a long time, then it's a story worth writing."

The quotation marks on that are purely fictive (it's a paraphrase at best) but the essence is haunting, because I have come to realize that I have been haunted by the same story for close to nine years. I can't explain that it isn't a scary kind of weight, only that I know that if I do not write it, I will always come back to it. If I don't, there are no stories left for me. Nothing will satisfy.

I feel like raving and throwing my hands up. I finally know what I need to do, but it doesn't fit in the scheme of my present plans. How do you do justice to a story you've been circling for nine years? How do you lay your demons to rest? How do you not fear your purpose, and the utter surety that this is what you've been called by the gods-of-your-fucked-up-psyche to do? How do you not run away from a love you cannot destroy? Because this is exactly what it is. This is exactly what it is.

My love for writing is like a cockroach. Nothing short of my own self-immolation will kill it. Believe me, I have tried.

Two years ago, I was asked to create a mobile. I explained the idea (it was a monstrously complex thing with paper lilies and Japanese koi and a backstory) but I backed out at the last second because I couldn't do it. I didn't know the first thing about balance or mobile making, I had no experience, I had an idea that I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. My teacher, Ali, said:

"Natakot ka sa sarili mong idea."
You got scared by your own idea.

And it's always like that. I'm always like that. I never have enough courage to follow through on the things that are important to me because I can't face the failure that I might not be good enough for them. If I don't do them, they will always remain brilliant.

That, I think, is why John Steinback has always stuck with me, even though his work might drive me to suicide on a bad day.

"I am sure of one thing -- it isn't the great book I had hoped it would be. It's just a run-of-the-mill book. And the awful thing is that it is absolutely the best I can do."

John Steinbeck on the Grapes of Wrath

My thoughts have no coherent unifying theme right now, so I'm just going to blather what I remember wanting to post here and hope it all makes sense in the end.


01. Interesting things that I said or were said to me in the last couple of days.

Your gay poem is full of pussy. ACTUALLY, it's full of pussies and a busheater. Ur doing this all wrong, dear. :))
- Me on Lester's alleged gay poem with lolcats and bunnies

Mukhang cake!
- Aislinn Kee on floral embroidered bras

Si Earl may business na daw. He runs a restaurant called ONLY.
- El on Earl's prospective god-status in Restaurant City


02. Bra status

Thank you to all the people who have shown concern, horror, disbelief and approval at the State of My Underwear. No, I have not found it yet. Yes, it might still be somewhere. No, I have not given up hope.


03. New word processor

I did not know just how ungainly Microsoft Word is for writers and the writing process until somebody recommended using Scrivener in truepenny 's call for a possible replacement for Word Perfect. I tried it and I offered it my soul soon after. I love it. I can't imagine writing stories on Microsoft Word ever again. It makes me believe that maybe, maybe, I can possibly finish a novel just by using this. I tried writing a review for the app but ironically, I couldn't find the words. I just don't know where to start and what to focus on and how to best convince you to try out Scrivener if you're on a Mac.

Oh dear. I want to write a story now.

See you guys later then.

I have a sneaking suspicion some of my cousins have a crush on me. I have no solid proof, yeah? But there are weird touches every now and then, sneaky requests of taking pictures together, being pimped out to friends and other such things that make the hair on the back of my arms stand up. I mean, I'm down with things like that (I had a crush on a first cousin too and dude, they're teenagers. Looking at a toaster wrong can give them hard-ons) but

one of my bras is missing

and MAYBE I misplaced it but if I don't find it in my luggage when I get home I am going to freak out and scream.

Guys, please pray that I find my underwear.

I'm coming home with so much useless stuff it's almost funny. I mean, for crying out loud, I bought a lightsaber. A mofo LIGHTSABER. I couldn't help myself with that one, really. It makes those lovely zing zing electric sounds whenever I hit my brother's body parts (we practice in the street, complete with 360 turns and acrobatics. I will demonstrate one of these days dudes. Just call me up) and it lights up like my own very long and phallic flashlight.

I'd commute with it if I could, swear to God. Let me see those muggers try to corner me with their puny knives and shit. I'm ready for you with my Jedi skillz, bitches. YOU WANT SUMMA DIS? IMA CUT YOU UP WID MAH FORCE, DAWG.

CUT

YOU

UP.

*ptew ptew ptew*

Ahem, moving on. I realized that I really want to date a blond simply because they're such a novelty for me. Though I will always have an undying Asian fetish (care of Japan. I will always love you Toma. They can't break our love), I'd like to have some of that Caucasian flavor before I settle down. Maybe they taste different?

Hmmmm.

Also, no Mexicans for me. Oh my God. Friends, when we see each other, remind me to tell you about how I nearly got shot in the parking lot of Speedzone because I kept gawking at the Mexican gangs in the parking lot.

Lastly, the one other thing I'm going to miss about America are the clothes. I love Sonoma. It's an obscure brand they sell in Kohls and it's so cheap I have a sneaking suspicion every American teenager is going to laugh at me when they find out I shop there, but I don't care I love it. I blew all so much money in that store, almost rivaling the stuff I spent at Amazon, that some part of me insists I feel guilty (but I am ignoring it with all my might). And because I have forever been scarred by my fat years, I absolutely love the fact that I am overweight but I fit in the Juniors' section.

Swear to God. I bought a top for $9.99 BECAUSE APPARENTLY THERE ARE JUNIORS IN AMERICA WITH A C CUP. I could hug baby Jesus for all the joy I feel right now. I CAN SHOP IN THE JUNIORS SECTION EVEN THOUGH I AM 21 AND HOW WONDERFUL IS THAT. In Manila, I'm lucky to fit into a Medium on a good day, and if I breath wrong I am an Extra Large, but in America I can fit into a Small no problem.

Thank you baby Jesus. *cries*

Also, I went to Victoria's Secret to fit their new bra, the Biofit and you know what. YOU KNOW WHAT. I shrank one cup size. I am not a C here. I am a B. I feel so thin and just thinking about going back to Manila where I will once again join the ranks of heavy weight champions make me sigh in despair. On one hand, I miss sweating, on the other hand, I miss being small in a land of large people. And it's not like I actually lost weight you know. I was shopping in Forever 21 and fitted a vest, then bought it. Next day, IT DIDN'T FIT ANYMORE. I GROW FAT OVER NIGHT HERE. I get paranoid everyday that when I look at the scale, I find out that I've turned into Jabba the Hut without realizing and should just kill myself.

I kid, but you get what I mean.

( Cut for the list of things I'm bringing home because I might miss something and need a checklist. )

So what do you think of Willie?

Mexican Fail.

----*

Not that I have anything against Mexicans and other Hispanics in general. Just this one person.

MEN. *shakes head*

I don't know if I've told you guys this, but I've spent up to $60 on books alone. And for some reason, they weren't as satisfying as I thought they'd be. For example, Ginn Hale's Wicked Gentlemen. I read the reviews, thought that I'd have a blast with the plot (half demon + demon cop + place called Hell's Below + tension + angst + et al = great success) but it left me feeling flat. It's not that it was bad per se, but I was expecting more from it and I'm disappointed that I hyped myself over a mediocre book.

I'm going to reread it on the plane (in case I missed something. I'm going to take notes this time), along with digging my jaws into Corambis (Monette, don't fail me now) and hope for the best.

Wraeththu on the other hand... ugh. I'm not excited about getting back to reading it. It's not anything spectacular, even more disappointing than Wicked Gentlemen, and I have this distinct feeling that Storm Constantine is writing a romance novel rather than sci-fi. It's a story about the impending end of the human race through the eyes of species responsible for the destruction but there are no heart-in-my-throat moments, no believable discussions on how such events have come to pass, and even less world building. It's like flinging shit into a pot and waiting for coconut trees to grow. But more than what I feel is a complete lack of substance is the abusive use of aruna in ever two chapters or so. It's the use of titillation to keep the readers reading, and if that isn't the dirtiest and most underhanded way to keep a story going, I don't know what is. Also, the  Why am I still reading, anyway? Some sort of masochism and probably a mislaid hope that the plot's going to keep better if I don't give up. *sighs*

God dammit.

----*

Are Baptists and Protestants the same? I think my relatives here might be one or the other. And then the day before yesterday, they took me out to go see my cousin's dance performance, but before that we had to have a prayer service before anything started. It was smothering; I was practically writhing in pain in my chair. It was like having a theological discussion with people who wield the Bible like a deadly weapon; you're not going to win if you don't fight by their rules and fighting by their rules means partly, that you've let them win. It's Convert or Die, the ultimate game of endurance. 

Now I have nothing against Protestants or Baptists or missionaries of evangelizing people in general. What I have a problem with is missionary zeal that does not listen, or isn't open to being discussed. I'd like to think that when you're a missionary, it's you trying to offer other people a different way of life, not you trying to hammer your morals and your ideals because you think you know better than the poor unfortunate souls who don't believe in the same thing. How presumptuous and conceited of you. How bloody arrogant. Would you believe that my uncle was citing verses to me in order to prove that Jesus fulfilled 300 prophecies made about Him in the Old Testament?

Tssss. God dammit, for real.

----*

recession |riˈse sh ən|
noun;
1) a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.

Staying in LA for the last couple of weeks, I have come to the conclusion that I don't know what being in a recession means. We were in the car and another uncle I had was going on about how you can really feel the diminishing value of the dollar and the lethargy of the Californian economy. And there I was, looking out the window, watching the malls go by, the suburbs go by, the Camrys and women driving with their Chanel sunglasses and the men eating their burgers while driving, and thinking "A recession from what?" Americans are still the most well fed people I've ever seen, I have only seen one homeless person (and he was wearing shoes and a shirt and jogging pants), and the freeways get shampooed every week. The Philippines was never hailed by the international community as being in a recession (except maybe until after World War II) but more than half the population doesn't enjoy what America's unemployed are enjoying right now. If America's in recession, then the Philippines is what? In Hell?

What does it mean for a first world super power to be in recession? That it's not spending as much as it usually did (and is that a bad thing)? Does it mean that it's close to becoming a second world power? Does it mean that the country is having a hard time supporting the former lifestyles of its citizens? Does that mean America is now less powerful than it was a year ago?

So I ask anyone who's willing to answer: What does it mean to you that America is in recession?