The Great(?) Depression of 2012

Ich hasse dich, Christian und Olli!

Curse you Luke and Noah!

It’s been more than a year. And  I’d be lying to myself if I didn't say how much I miss that feeling.

I’ve been feeling like I’m in a rot these days. I don’t know.  Something unknown has triggered something within me and I feel all mopey and depressed. Being depressed for no concrete reason is stupid, I know. But I can’t help feeling down these past few days.

Maybe it’s because of all these stories I’ve been reading. Stupid romantic stories. I’ve always been the cynic type-of-guy in front of everyone –cool, collected and  usually the first one to give a sign of reproach and disgust when someone shares their mushy story. Bleh. I mean, I can give the “awww...” expression coupled with the puppy dog eyes that say how cute it is when someone tells me the lovey dovey details of their lives. But I always give them a hard time after that because of it. I guess  it’s easier to be that skeptic person and laugh at how cheesy one can get when he’s in love than to cover how much a sentimental guy I am deep inside. Poor, hopless romantic sap, yes. Call it my defense mechanism.

Stupid gay love stores and their evil plots of happy endings! Wretched fantasies are what they are.

The Countdown

You will receive a phone call. And after 7 days, you will see the ring.

The countdown begins.

And I am reminded of all the unconscious fears that I have tried so best to bottle up inside me:

-The fear of flying
-The fear of heights
-The fear of being lost in a foreign city
-The fear of being kidnapped and killed in a foreign city
-The fear of failure

and the list goes on.

I am being mellow dramatic, I know. Still, the possibility of dying in a fiery and horrendous plane crash is still (literally) on the horizon. Shudders.

Aside from the panic and fear building inside me, I also can't help but feel stupid about the whole situation. I am not the traveler kind and my idea of a great vacation is staying home and watching the Discovery Channel. So I don't have any idea on what to pack, what to do in the airport, how to check-in the hotel, and so on. Oh well, at least I can Google those.

Dear universe, I implore you. I've never been so nervous in my whole life.

Crossroads

I actually don't know where this is going, but I'm planning to stick around to find out...

Things have been so crazy lately that I don't even know where to begin. I write work emails everyday but it's been ages since I actually wrote something. And yes, I sort of miss it; but given the amount of work I've had lately, I can't seem to find enough time to put all the craziness into writing.

I say "craziness" is an understatement; or being overly dramatic. I honestly don't know. I feel crazy about everything there is about my new work. Oh yes, work! Well, I'm happy to say that I no longer contribute to the country's continuous economic downfall and I can proudly complain how BIR unreasonably deducts outrageous amounts of taxes from my paycheck. This means that I'm a full-pledged working individual. My mom will be so proud.

Of Precious Gems

The fourth episode of the Level-Up Brotherhood Salutations series of 2011.

I have always been taught that still water runs deep...that was until I met you.

We are often told that people who are noisy and loud are not always the smartest people in the bunch. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. People mostly think they are shallow airheads.

But you know how you get to meet a certain person who defies what you have always believed in? There is always going to be that one person who destroys any preconceived notion you form at the back of your mind. And you finally say to yourself that not all of what you were told are right. And how first impressions are not always the best. That’s what I think when I talk about Gem.

An Appeal To Those Who Shared This Photo

Caption: Thamsanqa Kitso Ndlovu's Photos Christians burnt alive by Sunni Muslims in NIGERIA...(Posted by Jillian Becker in Africa, Arab States, Christianity, Christians burnt alive by Sunni Muslims, Islam, Muslims, jihad).....PLEASE SHARE IT OR JUST UPLOAD YOUR OWN...BUT SOMEHOW SPREAD IT IF YOU'RE EVEN 1% CHRISTIAN — It is still not over yet!

The picture is not what it claims to be.

The propensity of people sharing links in various social media platforms has been quite a problem these past few days. It seems that with the advent of the social media era, we forget the power that we hold with just a single click—the ability to share and proclaim information as though they are the Bible truths.

100 Posts of Mental Solitude

It surprises me how I’ve become so dependent on technology to pass the time. Power has been out since 7 o’clock yesterday morning because of typhoon Pedring. The good thing about my cellphone, my ipod and my netbook being totally battery-drained is that I get to do more manual things like writing and reading. It’s torture to not be able to go online or watch movies. Without electricity and with nothing to do, time passes so painfully slow. From this whole ordeal, I realized I can’t live without technology. I love the rainy weather but I absolutely hate power outages.

I never thought that I’ll be able to see my 100^th post on this blog. Yet here I am writing through pen and paper under a candlelit stormy evening. Rest assured that such romanticized style of writing is not to commemorate the 100^th post occasion. The ghastly arms of our wall clock are saying it's twenty-five minutes after three in the morning. And I’m here writing in cursive at the back of old scratch papers trying to pass time. I figured that rather than die of boredom, I’d better do something productive.

And with not so much to do as to sit around in darkness, I decided to write.

Captured

It was dark when I woke up.

I tried to open my eyes to get a better hold of my surroundings. I felt a sharp pain in my temples—like someone was trying to drive a jackhammer into my skull. It was as if I woke up with a thousand tequila hangovers, only worse. I tried to blink as much as I could in the hopes that the pain will go away with each blink. But it didn’t. In fact, opening my eyes did nothing to absolve me from the pain or from being enveloped in darkness. For a moment, I thought I was just having a bad dream and any second I would wake up and everything was going to be fine again. However, the throbbing in my head suggesred that everything was all too real to be a dream. The darkness was all too real. I was sweating profusely and  I could feel globules of sweat trickling down the sides of my face. No one perspires this much in their dreams—I thought.

The Weekend Report

Well I went home this weekend after spending last week at my brother’s house in Valenzuela. Although I have to get used to this kind of set up and I have to start to calling his apartment my house from now on. I plan to stay at his place once I start working and going to school. Though Valenzuela is ridiculously far from Pasay where my work will be come October 10^th, it sure beats the hell out of having to commute from the more remote location of our family house here in North Caloocan. What I love about my brother’s place is that it’s more convenient and transportation is accessible 24 hours unlike here; wherein once the clock strikes 12:00 AM, there won’t be any more means of transportation available aside from abusive and overcharging tricycles and a few cows on the road (as in the Bos taurus kind) from god knows where. And you never have to worry if you ran out of food or if you go hungry in the wee hours of the morning since there are a lot of convenience stores available to buy what’s needed. I know how ridiculously shallow these justifications are, but they are kind of a big deal for someone who’s lived in a place so urbanely remote. Plus in Valenzuela, everything’s just an LRT or a short bus ride away from everywhere I need to be.

Dear John

He was always ahead of me. In the system of names he was always the first—always in the first row, always in the first group and always among the first lines. And I was always in his close second. I’ve spent four years of high school life being only second to this guy. We were always seatmates, groupmates and team mates. Which is why no matter how much I try to distance myself from him, consequences would always bring us together. If not the doings of the cosmic universe then the teachers certainly made it inevitable. Now as I think about it, I couldn’t be happier that our names are so close with one another. It is through names that I’ve come to know this guy and be friends with him.

Patience

The age old adage that says patience is a virtue is not true.

I would like to think so.
image courtesy of dennysfunnyquotes.blogspot.com

Virtues are assets that we can sometimes do without in this world.  Beauty is a virtue and so is faith among other beatitudes.  But one cannot live without patience.