Slip of the Pen

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED.

2007-01-03T04:50:00.000+08:00

Head over to blog.corsarius.net for the new (and definitely better) Slip of the Pen. Yep, all of the posts here have been imported!

Also, please don't forget to update your links (in case you're wondering, my blogroll can be now found here).

Slip of the Pen is now powered by Wordpress, which is a better blogging platform than Blogger. Feel free to comment on the old posts; WP makes it a lot, lot easier for me to reply to reader feedback. You can still subscribe to the same feed.

And before I forget -- I celebrated two years of blogging last December 29! You can read my "blogger b-day" post on Crimson Crux.

That's it for now. Thanks you very much for dropping by my Blogspot space for the past two years. See you at blog.corsarius.net!

Of Lit Folios and E[lit]e Notebooks

2006-12-21T03:52:00.000+08:00

Two Fridays ago, I had the privilege of picking up my contributor's copy of the Literary Apprentice Lite 2006 during UP's Writers Night. In the folio's pages was my first English poem published in print.

Though I don't show it here, I prefer to write unabashed street-talk poems in Tagalog. In the same way that I can let loose some grandiloquent pieces in English, I'm fond of having my Tagalog pieces emanate some shock value with regard to the word choice and plot premise. In fact, I fancy myself as a writer who can challenge my readers' sensibilities more effectively when using the strong words of my native tongue.

Needless to say, it was a great feeling to know that my English poetry is publication-worthy. The fact that the Lit Apprentice Lite is a good folio is a real morale-booster in times when I can't write that much anymore due to work.

The folio, entitled A Long Time Coming and a Long Time Gone, is quite the untraditional publication. Aside from the usual printed zine, it also comes with an audio CD and some mini-zines. Heck, it even has a paper boat, not to mention almost-pornographic images adorning some of the lit works. The UP Writer's Club was really creative with this one, which leaves me pondering as to the form of the main Literary Apprentice, coming out next year.

As for my now-personal favorite poem, Typo, the way it was presented in the folio intrigued me. The "i"s in superscript definitely was the simplest yet most effective way to present the piece in a folio where all works had highly 'customized' layouts. However, the "y"s in superscript puzzle me. Aside from the obvious phonetical relation between "i" and "y", having the "y"s in superscript can distract the reader. But I'll stop here; after all, I don't want to nitpick my own published poem.

Another reason to be happy in the past days was the delivery of my moleskines, the 'legendary' notebook used by Hemingway, Picasso, and Van Gogh. Obviously these notebooks won't do you any good if what you write or sketch in their pages is garbage. Still, to have a moleskine lying on my desk is a psychological lighthouse that both ~~reminds~~ urges me to write and comforts me that a haven lies nearby, waiting for the time I'm going to need it.

The funny thing about this writer friend of yours is that I've yet to pen anything on the moleskine's pages. Still biding for the moment when the muse swoops down in front of me, poses seductively in her flowing ancient Greek dress, and enthralls me with her...charms? Maybe. I just don't want to write, "Hey, this is SO cooool. Moleskines rock! I'm so happy to own one" on the first page, no way. I want the first text on the first page to be special. Hence, a still unused moleskine.

So, why have the ideas stopped flowing? Well, the ideas are there -- I fancy myself a "literary idea machine". My problem is actually putting conjured scenes to words -- if you don't know already, I'm a workaholic. Aside from my formal writing/blogging/webmastering jobs (yes, plural), I'm putting up websites like crazy. Right now I'm just trying to open two more sites before my mind calms down and begins to actually write down the 5 poems, 2 short stories, 2 novels, and 1 saga in queue...among others.

(My "write-in-a-frenzy, write-in-a-jiffy!" capabilities have gone kaput.)

*An anecdote: I was informed that "Typo" was going to be published exactly one year after I wrote it.

*Another footnote: Please drop by 1) Corsarius.net, which has been slightly tweaked; 2) Crimson Crux, which underwent a redesign; and 3) Aircraft Models Crux, my newly opened site.

I Judged a Book by Its Cover, Literally

2006-11-25T02:30:00.000+08:00

It was something I thought a bibliophile like me would never ever do.

Prior to yesterday, it has been almost a year since I last bought a new book, much less finished one. That’s quite unbelievable for a chap who used to devour three full pocketbooks a week back in his younger days. I enjoyed all kinds of books -- sci-fi, fantasy, classical, mystery, non-fiction, heck, even musty history tomes and medicine books. (I remember myself poring over a gigantic dictionary for hours upon hours; unfortunately it didn’t turn me into the vocabulary monster I had hoped to be!) Once I saw a book lying around in the house that I hadn’t read yet, I’d set to conquer it.

I finally ended my book-drought yesterday when I bought three books -- two fiction, one non -- from a certain bookstore in the Power Plant Mall at Rockwell. I don’t know what precisely triggered me to buy three expensive books with my own money, which I had never done before. Was it the sight of so many titles I had never seen in the “regular” bookstores, or the fact that I had a wad of hard-earned cash in my wallet ready to heed my caprice?

Whatever the reason, for the first time in almost a year, I felt that unmistakable thrill of picking out a book from the shelf, browsing it with excited fingers, letting the scent of the pages waft to your nostrils, and finally bringing it to the cashier so it is finally, irrevocably yours.

At the end of the day, I lost 1,600 pesos but gained three gems. Were these gems as truly brilliant as they appeared in the bookstore? You bet…except for one.

The Historical Hardcover

The World War II 100 by Howard J. Langer

This book was the last of my picks, and the steal of them all. Howard J. Langer’s The World War II 100 ranks the one hundred most influential figures of the maelstrom. Merely seeing the title and the faces of Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Hitler on the cover from afar was enough to reel in this history buff. Knowing that its price was slashed was of secondary value.

Priced at 459 pesos, the hardcover book is now part of my treasured collection of history books, composed of massive hardcovers ordered from the US and cheap paperback editions used in school. Getting The World War II 100 was like a pledge to myself to not forget my passion for history, which has been eroded by non-stop work.

To think that this all started when I, barely out of prep school, came upon my cousin’s discarded, photocopied-for-school pages on Tamerlane and his conquests makes me gape at my doggedness.

The Very Short Stories

Flash Fiction by J. Thomas, D. Thomas, and Hazuka

The smaller, thinner, paperback Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories, priced at a whopping 767 pesos, might seem a bad investment, especially when compared with the previous book. However, I’ve always believed that words woven by artists have more value than words written to fill the gaps between facts, theories, and corollaries.

Ia, who was with me, pointed out the aesthetically-ridiculous cover of the book. However, my ~~scheming~~ skimming eyes pointed out the sterling literature written on the pages, and I decided to make the purchase.

A good part of the fiction I’ve written (some of which you can find on this blog) fall under “flash fiction”, which wasn’t part of my plan when I started to take creative writing seriously in college. I’m not sure if my buying of the book is a subconscious effort to learn more about flash/sudden fiction, and I’m quite excited to see if the 72 “very short stories” are going to affect my writing in the future.

The Doppelganger

Tangled Webs by Elaine Cunningham

The first rows of shelves I go to in a bookstore is the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section, which is perfectly understandable -- one of my first-ever writings was set in a magical world, and most of the “three books per week” mentioned earlier were sci-fi titles bought from bargain shops.

And so I came away with Elaine Cunningham’s Tangled Webs, the second book in the Starlights and Shadows saga. Cunningham is one of my favorite authors, and her dark elven heroine Liriel Baenre is one of the most intriguing characters I’ve ever met in any form of fiction. Still, the book wasn’t on my “to-buy” list. So, what made me buy the book?

You guessed it -- the cover. The 384-peso paperback featured the great new cover art found in recent Forgotten Realms releases. Sitting beside the book on the shelf was Book 1 of the saga, which I knew I already had just by looking at its cover. The cover of Tangled Webs looked foreign to me, and thinking that I had probably missed the sequel to Book 1, I bought it. Why not? It was new!

Big mistake.

Just before bedtime, I skimmed over the first pages of the novel (as I am wont to do). Oddly enough, the text looked familiar. Chills running down my spine (incidentally, I was also having the real chills after an exhausting day), my fingers sped to the last page. To my horror, I recognized the ending. I had read this novel before!

Sifting through my collection of novels, I had trouble finding the “duplicate” copy. No other book looked like my new Tangled Webs! Where did I first read the story? There’s no Tangled Webs here. Look, here’s Daughter of the Drow, the first book of the saga. And here’s Elfshadow. And The Magehound, Thornhold, Tangled Webs…

Tangled Webs. I was holding my new Tangled Webs in my hand, and staring at another Tangled Webs. With a different cover.

My old copy of Tangled Webs

I was right. No other book looked like my new copy. My old Tangled Webs was published way before Forgotten Realms changed the style of their cover art. And with my hundreds of owned titles getting the better of my memory, I simply got blinded by the “great new cover art” of the book. Turns out I purchased Book 1, which also had new cover art -- after I read Tangled Webs, the second book. Heck, I probably didn’t even notice that I had finished the whole saga already!

I tell you, it was a humiliating day to be a bibliophile. Or at least to claim to be one.

* * *

I judged a book by its cover, and what did I get? A duplicate, a few hundred wasted pesos, and a lesson in life. So next time you hear one of those wise sayings, take them to heart, and if possible, take them to heart literally.

Deviations III: The Stink

2006-11-12T00:57:00.001+08:00

Deviations II • Deviations I

The Stink

They had just stepped into her house and locked the door when she looked around as if looking for something, crinkling her nose at the same time.

"What?" he asked.

"I'm sorry if it stinks around here."

"Huh?"

"The result of having too many assholes sharing one place," she answered, not even looking at his direction. Her stare now seemingly darted from one spot of the floor to another.

"Assholes, eh? Do I know them?"

"Of course you do. Parents, stuff. Why, who else lives here? Son of a bitch, you can be so stupid at times."

He managed to sound off an overplayed grunt. She disappeared around a corner, and he heard a fridge creak open. He was getting impatient.

"Beatrice." Full names are commands, he'd found out early in their two years.

She appeared right on cue, eyes now pledging allegiance to him. "Yeah?"

"They're really out, right?"

"Of course they're out. We wouldn't be staying here if they weren't out."

"O, so what are we waiting for?" he asked, raising his voice. He scratched his neck.

She stood in her place a few feet away, breathing deeply, slowly – deliberately. She began to crinkle her nose.

He swung open his arms in an imperious manner.

"Give me the goddamn fun, girl."

She walked into him, letting his arms reach and coil around her. Her face drew nearer to his, and she opened her lips.

"Suddenly, it stinks even more around here." She kissed him.

[Women, this might not be new knowledge to you, but some men know that their only difference with a sinus is one syllable. The tragedy lies in enjoying being one.]

She, I (also The 24th of October)

2006-10-24T00:01:00.000+08:00

She was born on 5:28, I was born on 8:52. At first glance it seems a harmless coincidence; after all, there's a person born every minute. But when two people having those amusing numbers cross paths and spend eight years dancing with each other, you're reminded of an oft-abused word having "soul" and having "mate".

These two people are two shoes in different colors. Somehow, they sport similar designs. (Maybe because they come from the same Maker, and were meant to be paired in the future, albeit in fashion faux pas?) The feet that wear them walk together in different cadences, but if one falls behind, it always catches up – the other never leaves it behind. And when these feet find themselves back on the same track, the cadence goes awry again after some time. But as always, one waits for the other, the other catches up. It's a cycle, a sequence of missteps and small reunions, all backdropped against a war of colors that, oddly enough, look good together from time to time.

She was born on 5:28, I was born on 8:52. She was born, I was born.

She, I.

Happy 21st birthday, dearest Ia. Guys, please do me a favor and greet her at the newly-opened Stellify.net. Thanks! (And it's not my birthday today -- I was born on May 10.)

Where There's No Lack of the Red and Black

2006-10-22T22:10:00.000+08:00

It dies in a blaze of glory and is reborn from the ashes.

An elegant line. Unfortunately, one that can't be applied to Corsarius.net. That's for the phoenix.

It dies in an ignominious Fil.ph crash –

there, that's more apt, though it must be conceded that –

and is reborn from the ashes.

Reborn, in a blaze of glory.

Guestbooks aren't dead. Feel free to leave a message in the new Guestbook. (That's why the comments page for this post has been closed – wink wink.)

If There's Nonsense, Then There's Sense (A True Story)

2006-09-22T05:58:00.000+08:00

i give up
i spent the past four hours writing a piece
that soon turned to a piece
of crap
words of crap, phrases of crap, heck,
i knew it was doom
when it all devolved into rap

-- put in the rhymes, put in the rhythm
it's all about the chimes and the m*th*f*ck*n' Schism --

when the commas looked like fleas
jumping from line to line,
when the question mark was Death's scythe
(deathly white, with that carnuba shine)
when the periods were puddles of roach poop,
when the a, b, c, to z
were a putrid hieroglyph soup.

slapping my face in vexation, the pimple goes pop
it hurts, but not really,
only if you slash the wound
with a pen, and use the same pen
to write a disaster waiting to
happen

(DING! shameless rhyme!)

trying to make treasure from trash?
impossible, but only if the pus remains on the face
because you didn't wash
(if impossible has a "but",
then is it entirely possible
that impossible is
possible?)

put in the rhythm, put in the rhyme
it doesn't matter if this chatter is just for
the (mean)time!

5:52 AM
September 22, 2006

*This piece was written by Ronald the Duck. Absolutely. That's my laptop, and I seriously doubt it that you mistook the duck as the Corsarius. And yeah, that cussword is without asterisks in the final version.

Boracay: Back in the Arms of a Lost Sweetie

2006-08-21T18:22:00.000+08:00

Home sweet home!

If the title strikes you as a bit something straight from a soap opera, then I've already succeeded in conveying my sentiments. I approached my recent trip to Boracay two weeks ago with the same melodrama attached to telenovelas -- yearning, apprehension, suspense, jubilation, love. Granted, a beach is a beach, nothing more. But when that beach is part of your home province and was your regular haunt -- was, because you haven’t visited it for an effing decade already -- then a little melodrama is justifiable.

The Kimpos have touched down. Yeah, we had the entire frikkin' boat to ourselves.

Yep, my family is from Aklan, proud mother of Boracay, and that is why in my childhood years I was able to enjoy the white sands almost every year. But somehow since I stepped into high school, I couldn’t find the time to visit my old love. My trips to Kalibo, capital of Aklan didn’t stop, which just made the yearning for the beach grow stronger -- I often found myself just a two-hour ride and a short ferry trip away from Boracay!

So you could just imagine the almost surreal feeling I got when I disembarked from the rickety boat

Landfall. See the seaweed?

onto the fine, ivory sands dotted with...seaweed. Yeah, the whole (extended) family made the trip in Boracay’s off-season -- the merry month of August when tourists are relatively scarcer, the winds are fierce, the suntan is a near impossibility, the rain is intermittent, the waters are choppy, and the waves are huge (you’ve got to experience being slammed back onto the shore after wading chin-high in the water just two seconds earlier!). At least, you’ve got the beach all to yourselves.

Approaching the beachfront from the place we stayed in.

How was world-renowned Boracay from the perspective of someone who went AWOL for ten years? Great, as always -- the beach was magnificent, the nightlife was crazy, and the food was sumptuous -- though I took some time to absorb the changes that have marked Bora’s landscape since the last time I roamed it. Here’s a trifecta of them:

1) The small bamboo/nipa cottages have almost gone the way of the dodo. Most of them have been replaced by concrete inns and apartelles, not to mention the sprawling hotels (some of which have been developed by Koreans to accommodate...Koreans).

2) The windscreen/sandscreen/whatever installed on the beachfront wasn’t pleasing to the eyes at first glance -- hey, I want a clear view of the beach from

The cousins strolling around in stormy Bora.

the open area bar! -- but you’ve got to thank their presence when the wind’s slamming the shore and (1) the sand’s not getting into your eyes, (2) the sand’s not getting into your food, (3) the sand’s not getting into your booze, and (4) your clothes are still on.

3) D’Mall. Or D-Mall. Or D*Mall (that’s what the beach sign says). Heck, let’s just call it “The Mall”. You and I might spell it differently, but we’ll agree that this shopping complex makes Bora more sophisticated. Great shops, great buys; just make sure you’ve got dough, as many products here are priced for the foreigner and his almighty dollar.

All in all, Boracay became more mature, more hectic, more urbanized. The Boracay I had known ten years ago was a bit more rustic. But of course, ten years ago I was still in grade school, so it might just be me.

The view from the balcony of Paulazaros Inn.

The family (oops, I forgot -- the extended family) split up and stayed in two separate places. The oldies had the privilege of lodging in the prestigious Fairways and Bluewater Resort, while the young ones checked in at the Paulazaros Inn. While not exactly a luxurious suite, the latter offers great rooms at an affordable price suited for mid-income vacationers. (I’m beginning to sound like a holiday plan salesman, so I’ll stop.) The inn is also a mere twenty seconds’ walk from the beachfront, so I guess you can call the location convenient. While it doesn’t have a view of the sea, you have a superb vista of the island’s little green mountain to compensate (why, you thought Boracay was flat?).

When cousins go to the bar...they get drunk, what else? That's me in the white shirt.

What’s a sojourn at a tropical paradise without the booze and heart-thumping music? The two nights we spent at Boracay found me and my cousins drunk and dazed at two hubs of the island’s night life -- the famous Cocomangas and Summer Place. Considering that the night before our trip to Bora was a tequila-laced one (at a wedding reception in mainland Aklan), that made for three straight hangover days for yours truly. Ah, the good life!...ends quite abruptly due to a wrecked liver, I guess.

Back in Manila, with a slight suntan (?). I probably included this pic because I didn't want you guys to remember me in a drunken pose, hehe!

Three days and two nights. Flew past my face so fast I can’t even play back a good rewind. Therefore, the only option is to repeat those three days and two nights. They more than made up for the ten years of absence, and heck, they convinced me enough for a return trip...soon.

*You can also read this piece at Boracay.com.ph, a great new site created and maintained by my friend Jason Torres of Enthropia, the company I work with. (Yeah, the Corsarius is now a...yuppie.) If you've got the time, be one the first people to share your experiences and reviews of Boracay. Thanks, guys.

The Filipino Can Do It: The Encore

2006-08-19T01:25:00.000+08:00

It's been an effing long time since I've blogged here, and frankly I miss Slippy. Right now I want to post something more than an announcement here, but trust me, this announcement's quite big.

If you've been keeping tabs on this blog for more than a year already, then you'll remember UP ACM's stunning triumph in the international scene. To recap last year's event: our student org beat first-world universities en route to bagging two of the five Student Chapter Excellence Awards given by ACM International. And you know what?

UP ACM has done it again. Yes, yes, the Filipino has won again, bigtime! Read my announcement on Crimson Crux for complete details. Ang galing ng Pinoy!

[If you've been wondering where the hell this corsair has been, this'll sum it up for you: In the last three months, I've went to two major family reunions slash vacations in Kalibo and Boracay, which ultimately resulted in a lot of work piling up. I'll give a little story on Boracay this weekend.]

Deviations II: Touch the Sky

2006-06-11T00:10:00.000+08:00

[Remember the first Deviations? Again, not for kids. This piece is best read with Kanye West's Touch the Sky playing in the background. ]

Touch the Sky

"For the day you die, you gonna touch the sky"

Johnny Martires was a good guy -- all Johnnies are, of course. He was generous in patience, love, and other goofy-good what-not. But others weren't as generous to him; for example, his girl. But he wasn't crying, no, not all Johnnies cry. He was smiling from ear to ear, epilepsisyzing himself to Kanye West's tune loudly playing in his room, conquering every sound wave from there out to a one mile radius.

Johnny's girl had just torn him to tatters. She shattered him as brutally as gravity destroys a Superman toy dropped from a hundred stories high. But the song slapped his pieces back into place with P. Diddy's Mighty Bond. The song always put him in ecstasy. No -- the song itself was ecstasy. Kanye West was his prophet of salvation; Lupe Fiasco was the holy sidekick. Touch the sky, baby, touch the sky, yeah, sky high.

"Baby, I'm going on an airplane, and I don't know if I'll be back again"

Kanye West's groovy gospel was truly heaven-sent. Johnny was flying to the province in a week's time. He was leaving his girl behind, and he hoped, everything else. The song was his covenant with the Grim Reaper. Yes, Grim Reaper with the bling-bling hanging from his neck, shining angel wings sprouting from his back, bloody scythe traded in for a gold-plated one.

But Bad Luck was Kanye West's foe, and so a tormentor of his disciples. The plane didn't crash, and the return trip was equally uneventful. Johnny ended up safe and sound at his home, surrounded by Kanye's mesmerizing pontifications. He listened for hours, for days. His head swayed with every beat. Then he realized -- all hope wasn't lost. He can still touch the sky. Yeah, sky high.

"I gotta testify, come up in the spot looking extra fly, for the day I die, I'mma touch the sky"

He went out, took a ride to the University, to the hallowed, towering Hall where he and his girl first met. He showed his old faded ID to a yawning guard. As he went up the stairs, he passed by both young and old students, people still clutching to dreams of touching the sky, to snuggle into cubicle prisons of the skyscrapers of Makati and Ortigas. He sneered -- he'll reach the sky first.

The sun shone brightly on the rooftop. He walked to the edge, eyes fixed on the clouds leisurely sailing above.

"For the day I die, I'mma touch the sky"

He spread his arms, then jumped off the edge.

He flew.

"I'm, I'm sky high. I'm, I'm sky high. I'm, I'm sky high..."

Punctuationary Reunion

2006-05-22T17:35:00.000+08:00

I've just noticed that my last six entries all end with a punctuation mark -- We?, Wham!, Corsarius?, Order?, Anyone?, and of course, , (I've also just learned that placing a comma after a comma is an other-worldy experience).

Well well well, looky here...seems like we've got half of the family. The stepmotherly question mark, the fatherly exclamation mark, and the li'l sisterly comma. The stubborn period's not around, along with several others, but who cares. No one holds a family reunion just to celebrate the delinquents' (ingratos!) preposterousness.

More seriously though, this unconscious stream of punctuationary (stab me, English purists) titles leads me to think that they're the manifestation of my subsconscious -- subconscious hopes, subconscious fears, subsconscious everything-whatever-nothing.

Four out of six entries go to the question mark. This is the most nerve-wracking, and the most obvious. Anybody who's been keeping tabs on this blog will sense the uncertainty creeping into the mind of your friend corsair. I'm not sure anybody will understand me on this, but the sight of these question marks have a slight psychological effect. Just a little effect, i mean bxmplsdwflfrrksadewr!! (I'm foaming at the mouth! Graaah!)

Uh, just kiddin. Hope I didn't cause you to recoil in disgust. Does anybody know if insanity is a good cure to uncertainty?

Anyway, at least I've got one exclamation mark. There lies a sliver of the once-ruthless corsair. O tempora! O mores! O tinginingining 'yan! At least there's hope. The exclamation mark is hope. But let's not forget one thing.

The comma looms large in the horizon.

This is going to be exciting.

(Which leads me think, what about your recent entries? Noticed a pattern, an omen, a revelation, anything? Hell, we can even start a meme on this one! Hmm.)

Shall We?

2006-05-17T18:45:00.000+08:00

we dance
swirling like ballerinas
to a groovy disco tune
banging our heads
to the reggae, to the blues.
absurd, this dance
where you wear black lipstick and red gown
and I a glittering tightsuit,
pink tightsuit.
i've two left feet, you none (you float).
it's absurd, this absurdity
of making a playground of the floor,
sliding, swinging,
seeing stars,
sawing off limbs.
it's absurd, this dance.
but the music still plays,
your lipstick stays black,
my tightsuit glitters pink.
we dance.

4:00AM
May 17, 2006

Wham Wham!

2006-05-10T03:40:00.000+08:00

Every person has his set of favorite words. Yes, everybody — for all we know, your simpleton of a neighbor adores the word obfuscate, while that refined, glib-tongued politician gets a kick out of croc. Of the dozens of words I revere, only several come to mind right now — corsair, amaranth, coruscant, quintessence, sex. (You read that right.)

Oh and yes, double whammy. Recently it's become a favorite not because of its elegance (sex is elegant — speak it out loud in a public place and you'll get awed reactions, trust me), but because it applies to my life right here, right now.

In less than a month, I've received a double whammy of sorts. Last April 23, I finished the first half of the Race — my life as a student. It was a glorious twenty years. True, there were countless heartbreaks, lachrymose moments, and bouts of depression, but the triumphs and lessons learned along the way more than offset the failures. After three years of infancy, two years at St. James Child Care Center, seven at Lourdes School of Quezon City, four at Philippine Science High School, and four at the University of the Philippines Diliman, I can say I'm happy — nay, exultant — over how things turned out. (There goes the depressed facade!)

Modesty aside, the roll of years has awarded me a few choice descriptions — achiever, visionary, performer — along with a handful of titles, such as actor, game reviewer, programmer, journalist, scholar, editor, and tenuously, a writer. (You can also add in crybaby, delinquent, sinner, young troubled man, and sana cum laude, but cut me some slack just for this day.) It was a hectic and exciting twenty years, no doubt, and I'm proud to have lived through it.

But suddenly, there's a void.

There lies the first whammy. I have left school, and I am in limbo*.

Unemployment? No, that's not the problem. There have been offers from big companies, all of which I rejected. I've a weak spot for small companies that I can 'guide' to prominence (parallel to my experience with school organizations). It's either them or I do freelance work. My real problem is Where do I go? What path do I take? Will I entirely discard my strong background in computer science and write my way to fame? Will I abandon all sense of family responsibility and pursue my dreams in archaeology and history, dreams that I found within grasp in the University?

To these questions, I can offer no answer. And for someone who's used to finding answers with mechanical, scientific methods, that is so frustrating.

The second whammy's quite terse. It doesn't need much explaining. It's May 10 today — my 21st birthday (now you know why I asked you to cut me some slack). Today I am officially, semantically, undoubtedly adult.

It's quite a shock to wake up one day and realize that you need to ~~minimize~~ stop the baby talk. Adios to the freewheeling days of perpetual computer gaming and Net surfing. No free lunches from your parents anymore, just free pieces of advice.

Oh, why do these whammies come in pairs? Happy birthday to me. I never thought hitting twenty-one was cause for much disorientation.

*Credit goes to Ia. We're stuck in the same situation, and she coined the term.
**What did I write when Corsarius hit XX last year? Read.

Quo Vadis, Corsarius?

2006-04-24T15:30:00.001+08:00

The 95th General Commencement Exercises
University of the Philippines Diliman

Sunday, April 23, 2006
University Amphitheatre
Diliman, Quezon City

Congratulations to Batch 2006! Mabuhay ang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas!

U.P. Naming Mahal

U.P. naming mahal
Pamantasang hirang
Ang tinig namin
Sana’y iyong dinggin
Malayong lupain
Amin mang marating
Di rin magbabago ang damdamin
Di rin magbabago ang damdamin

Luntian at pula
Sagisag magpakailanman
Ating ipagdiwang
Bulwagan ng dangal
Humayo’t itanghal
Giting at tapang
Mabuhay ang pag-asa ng bayan
Mabuhay ang pag-asa ng bayan.

First pic -- From left to right, Geo, Jael, Jeric, bespren Ia, and (gasp!) yours truly. Second pic -- Me and Ia looking dapper (or so I declare) in front of the Oblation, UP's trademark symbol.

Update (4/28/06): My article on the sablay, a truly Filipino graduation garb, can be found at CCrux.

Ma'am, May I Take Your Order?

2006-04-09T01:25:00.000+08:00

That was a fast two months. Suddenly, free time is a reality.

Never mind the computer-less weeks. A good whack on the machine (along with a clean reformat of the hard disk) solves the problem.

The near-failing marks this sem are but a hazy nightmare. Miraculous high grades in the end jolt you to the reality of your marvelous, wonderful, oh-so-beautiful world.

The same goes for the dreaded thesis project. When two companies fight over your baby, you know you've got a good one.

Of course, don't forget the heartaches, those adorable little things we're fond of collecting. A kiss blows 'em away faster than pron.

Mid-life crisis setting in too soon? To work or to bum, that is the critical question. I guess marching might relieve some of the tension.

Finally, as for blogs effortlessly cast aside by their master, deus ex machina never fails to reverse the damage.

Hey, would you believe it?...I think I hear the corsair starting to unsheath his sword.

,

2006-01-31T02:00:00.000+08:00

The comma is a punctuation mark, mistress of the period, slave of the semicolon. It separates ideas within the structure of a sentence; it's a pause, a caesura. Or so the dictionary says.

The comma, like all symbols in the world, holds profound meaning for many people. Lawyers use it as a tool of mercy in their tortuous statements. The literati adore it, despise it -- why, wasn't, it, Jose, Garcia, Villa, himself, who, made, the, comma, famous? Optimists see the apostrophe as comma in transcendence; pessimists see the comma as apostrophe condemned to earthly life.

Me and Her hold the comma in reverence, too. We adore it, despise it, like we do with all our gods. Our ziggurat is the phone line, our ritual the conversation. Her comma is a brief moment of peace, a time to recollect thoughts scrambled by loud words and louder silence, an unspoken armistice.

My comma is an obstacle, a rage-inducing eternal pause, undoubtedly illogical -- why, every sentence must end in a period, an exclamation, a question! I want to get my point across, clean up the mess, and settle the matter. My comma is my foe.

Differing opinions, comma deified, comma vilified. But one thing is certain -- comma means one thing for both of us,

Twotties, Anyone?

2006-01-30T23:55:00.001+08:00

Can you imagine the Corsarius writing more than five posts a month? How about fifteen?

For the answer, click here.

Well, it just proves that blog indolence can be overcome by class requirements. For the month of January, we were required in our CW 198 class to publish 50 posts in a filtered blog. Hell, I'm way below that mark, but still, I got forced to blog more consistently.

Do drop by some of my friends' filtered blogs: Ia's Qwerky (notebook of the weirdest webapp names), Quel's Pornographic Sofa (home of harmless fonts that don't bite), and Jael's Reductio ad Absurdum (man's folly exposed through words).

My Octagirl

2006-01-24T22:50:00.000+08:00

Aside from physical features, there are eight essential traits I look for in a woman.

Looking for

Female Homo sapiens sapiens

Ingredients

I. Intelligence

It's Eisenhower!
"No, it's Napoleon," she says
But Aristotle...

II. Humor

"Haha that's funny!"
Sure it is. How about me?
"No!" And we both laugh

III. Understanding of Caesar

A supplication
For when the Corsarius fumes
Teardrops when he falls

IV. Height <= 5'5"

Holding hands is good
But arm over her shoulders
Is a blessing, too

V. Fondness for Babytalk

Pru pru chipop. Plitch?
Mou? Maw maw...mou. Byay! Kuku
Tseepap! Puu. Mou. Puyt.

VI. Apologetic

It takes more courage
To say one word instead of three
Egotists, sorry

VII. Constructive Critic

Scribbled in green ink:
"Hm. Wrong parallelism."
Fifth revision, then!

VIII. Adulthood

Some things can't be said
But know that when boy meets girl
Humans multiply

Tita Bing of Warmstone tagged me to do this. The haikus aren't required, I just spiced up the meme. Now let's see, can Jonas, Claudzki, Gari, Hera, Quel, Sunset Eyes, Vaninski, and Yayam answer the call?

The basic rules: The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.Need to mention the sex of the target.Tag 8 victims to join this game & leave a comment on their comments saying they’ve been tagged.If tagged the 2nd time, there’s no need to post again. Example here.

Old Clothes

2006-01-14T15:35:00.000+08:00

Thirty shirts and polos, five pairs of pants. They’re stashed unceremoniously into big plastic bags, to be taken by dad to the province, over the sea and the mountains, aboard the wind, soaring over birds and clouds alike.

Seems like a grand journey for little things disposed of without compassion, taken from my cabinet to be given to province folk. The moment the poor things were removed from their dark confines and tried on for the last time, only to be cast into the lot of undesirables, is a moment they could have exclaimed, “Oh, the injustice!”

Certainly, they have a case against me. For they were the clothes which people knew me for, the cover by which people judged the book. These were the clothes which absorbed the essence of their master and friend without a protest, even their fresh-from-the-store scent gave way to the odor of sweat, smog, and grime.

Some of them would be more vocal in crying foul than the others. They would be the two trusty pairs of cargo pants (my high school staples), the boastful ‘elephant’ pants of early college, and the humble olive-green polo I wore on my first day in the University.

For this felony I’ve committed, I can imagine hearing a few cries of joy, a few sighs of relief, coming from clothes who found themselves safely back within the cabinet — the faded, shrunken red pants I took to ABS-CBN for tapings and workshops, the innocent grade school intramurals shirt (which miraculously still fits me after eight years!), and, oddly enough, the orange-beige polo shirt I wore on the day my fairy tale with Her ended, a shirt I have no intention of wearing again.

Now, as I stare at the cabinet (slightly more roomy, bereft of a few years of life), I can picture other people gaily trying on the clothes, some branded, many bought from discount stores. Without doubt, the trusty cargo pants, boastful ‘elephants’, faded shirts, and rarely-used polos will be absorbing new essences, recording new memories, writing new histories.

Somehow, for a reason I can’t really fathom, I feel a little pang of loss. Not material, but of another form.

But then, c’est la vie — rediscover the old, dispose of the years, live the new.

Jupiter Falls Reloaded

2006-01-03T19:55:00.000+08:00

[Note: This is for my CW 198 online writing exercise (a single event told through different POVs). Classmates, welcome to my blog. Blog friends, enjoy if you do read these fictional accounts. Some lines here are in my native language, Tagalog. Warning: Explicit language! Explicit-ness slightly toned down by explicit asterisks.]

When Jupiter Falls Four Times

I. The 130-Pound Runt

(Read this part first: the original Jupiter Falls.)

II. The FX Driver

This is not my lucky day.

Passengers are nowhere to be found. I get two, and one of them is a Sumo wrestler! Sheer misery. I think I'm going to mourn for a car tire later. Malulugi pa ata ako nito e!

Everything about this day is bad. From the MMDA buwayas to that disrespectful street vendor, everything! And see -- look at the thunder and lightning. A storm's coming. Have storm, have classes suspended. Have work suspended, too. Have earnings, not!

We pass by Sto. Domingo Church. My right hand leaves the steering wheel to touch my old crucifix hanging from the rearview mirror. Lord, help me. I just want to have this day crossed off the calendar.

"Para!"

Ayos! My prayers have been answered. I slowly step on the brakes, and ease the FX onto the sidewalk. I eagerly whirl around to see the Sumo wrester finally get off!

But horror of horrors -- it's just the other passenger, the thin one who has been sitted beside Sumo all trip long. A disgusted look creases his face as he gets out of the taxi. I want to offer him my sympathies, but he slams the door before I'm able to. No worries, I'm not angry at the kid. But for Mr. Sumo here...

I fix an angry stare at him.

"Punyeta. Baket di na lang ikaw ang bumaba? Bakeeet?!"

Sumo snores.

III. The Fat Guy

Zzz.

IV. The Street Vendor

F*ck this world. If robbery wasn't a crime, I'd have done it. If suicide wasn't a sin, I'd have recommended it to Ipe and Johnno. (Useless tambays. At least I'm out here on the road from dusk 'til dawn.) Hell, you think I'd commit suicide? I won't trade getting laid with the sampaguita girl for hell. Hell no! Heben na nga, magiging impyerno pa.

Speaking of the girl, here's Inyang. "Hoy, 'lika nga dito! Malapit nang mag stop light. Baka di ka makabenta nyan -- kelangan ko pang bumili ng supot!" Why, you thought jologs didn't use condoms? Sosi ata 'to.

Awright, red light. The cars begin to pile up, heh, line up, I mean. Dammit, I love Quezon Av when it's not movin'. Every single driver needs five of my precious rags. Keeps their cars sparklin', keeps their manubelas steerin', keeps their kambyos shiftin'. Now, if only they knew that. Discounted na nga e!

Inyang slithers to a Ford Expedition. As for me, this FX taxi looks good. F*ck, the driver's even pulling out his cash. Jackpot!

I stick my handsome face on the window, and peer inside. Holi syet. That's a thick wad he's holding. All red paper bills! (Ipe told me it's not red, but pink. To hell with him. Si Osmeña, pink? Ano sya, bading?)

I tap on the window. "Bosing, basahan! Piso tatlo," I shout, heh, say. My eyes zip around the FX. Malay mo, may tsiks. But there's none. The only sight worth noting is a baboy, heh, fat guy squashing a scrawny dude against the car door. But even then, it's a ridiculous sight, not the sexy sight I was hoping to see.

Uh-huh. The driver's still not paying attention to me. I give the window a sharp, heh, soft rap. "Bos, basahan! Murang mura lang!"

Aba aba aba, dedma pa rin ang loko. I give his window a furious rappity-rappity-tap-tap-tap. "Bos, basahan! Pampunas ng mukha mo!"

The driver suddenly jerks to action. I step back as he opens the window and shouts something to my face. Thunder masks his words, so I don't hear him. But his angry face seems to be expecting something. I go, "Eh...", accompanied with my charismatic smile.

And he goes KABOOM! He curses my mother (no harm there, I know she's a b*tch), curses me, curses our whole lot of squatters, everyone! It's actually funny, but I do skitter away when he begins to open the car door.

Just before the light turns green, I hear him shout, "Gago ka!" Then in a flash the cars are gone. "Gago ka din!" I shout after the dust and smoke.

F*ck. I hate it when Quezon Av gets movin'. No chance for money now.

I stare at the vacant road, interrupted when a lightning bolt streaks down from the skies. Weird color -- gold? Gold lightning. Whoa.

I give the skies the dirty finger.

Gago! Magkakaron din ako nyan!

"Happy Blog Natale, or Sumthin"

2005-12-29T18:15:00.000+08:00

Those words came from the day's first well-wisher, Ia. She greeted my blog a happy birthday through SMS, at around one o' clock in the morning.

Yes, you read that right. Slip of the Pen turns one this day! Not that there are many people who'll care, but damn is December 29 a special day for this kid, er, corsair. This blog is my very first one, which means that Corsarius the blogger has also leveled up from infant to toddler.

The voyage began simply enough. (Now, that's dramatic.) I was looking for some place to 'self-publish' my written pieces, or at the very least, a place where I'll be forced to write regularly. (Unfortunately, 'regularly' can mean every other day or every other week.) Ia -- the mysterious lady who goes around visiting (nay, stalking!) blogs while not keeping her own -- introduced me to the world of blogging several months before December 29, 2004. At first I didn't give crap about blogs; heck, even the word "blog" is ugly. (Mabantot na salita, in Tagalog.) So it was a great moment of self-contradiction when I published my first post for my first blog, christened Slip of the Pen.

To all the people who visited this blog, thank you very much. And I mean it. Thank you to the people who regularly dropped by in spite of my oft-mentioned delinquence (for the nth time, my apologies), thank you to the people who perused every entry and burrowed deep into my archives (come on, let the birthday blogger dream), and thank you even to those who only chanced upon this page then clicked on "Next Blog" in a jiffy (it's the thought that counts). I may have used comical wording, but the "Thank you" is serious. I'm dead serious about that.

To reach 10,000+ hits whilst only posting 62 entries (What's that, almost one post per week? Horrible!) is quite a source of joy and inspiration for me. And so are the precious tags on the chatbox and comments on every blog entry. I like hearing from readers what they think about this and that piece. Maraming salamat. (That's "Thank you" in Tagalog.)

Allow me to gratify myself, and present the choice picks for the year that was:

Sketch. In my own words, "For vanity's sake, here's a short vignette about this blogger."
Inseparable. My poetic attempt at doing justice to Pepoy's great pic taken in UP.
Five Acts of Valentine's Day: A Postmortem. Dissecting February the 14th has never been so fun.
The Fall. The Corsarius tries supernatural fiction.
Dead Cats. An old animal rights essay.
The Mighty Mouse. In the enigmatic Transience's words, "This is f*cking hysterical!"
Habemus Corsarium. I am who I am. Or am I?
Disjointed Prettiness Ahead. I am playing favorites by again quoting Transience: "Pure f*cking literature." F-words can be elegant, you know.
The Filipino Can Do It. My org, UP ACM, wins an international competition. 'Nuff said.
The Something of Nothingness. Writer's block obliterated.
Deviations. Fiction. Not for children.
Jupiter Falls. Gold lightning, baby.
Bottling Up the Ink. A good excuse for delinquent writers.
Poems: Madness by the Candlelight. A trifecta of senseless verse.

Fortuna dies natalis, Lapsus Calami!

The Monosyllable

2005-12-20T18:40:00.000+08:00

Phantasmagoria
is a big word, and so is
trepidation. Too big for me.
I know hallucination, even discombobulation,
but they’re long, unwieldy.
I’d prefer a single syllable,
the one which goes between
selfish I’s and demeaning You’s,
crafting a phrase entirely unselfish,
entirely exalting.

But I worry that one syllable’s too short —
too short! —
too short that it’s become
cliché.

04:09 AM
December 20, 2005

"Parameterized Abstract Data Type"

2005-12-07T13:17:00.000+08:00

Hell no, this is not a programming post.

Prof. Paolo Manalo, our teacher in CW 198 (Online Writing) is to blame for this gem of an idea. How many of you are aware of the 'Book of Answers'? A waste of good paper, I say, but still useful for the utterly bored and/or the utterly listless people. You know the drill -- concentrate until you feel you are the nexus of the universe's astral energies, ask a deep question extremely relevant to your life, then flip open the book. What you read first is what you get; question answered.

Prof. Manalo told the class that this 'activity' can actually give birth to a written piece (count the un-literary ones), so I gave it a shot. My Book of Answers: Concepts of Programming Languages, by R. Sebesta. My question (whispered to me by my astral alter ego): What is this blog? More specifically, what are the words which best describe my blog?

With a pompous jerk of my hands, I flipped opened the book. Ta da! The divine answer:

Parameterized Abstract Data Type.

Divine answer all right, straight from the geek gods. If the phrase sounds Greek to you, then take comfort in the knowledge that I, a programmer, was confounded, dumbfounded, and humiliated by the answer. What the hell does that mean?

Life poses many mysteries, and answers can only be found by delving deep into our subconscious and, yes, daydreams. And finally, after much rumination (10 minutes is lengthy prison time for the wandering mind), I have broken down the answer and arrived at the conclusion that this blog, Slip of the Pen, is indeed a parameterized abstract data type.

Parameterized. Everything is bounded, restricted, chained to some rule. Even the free wolf can only roam where there is prey. The corsair can only sail seas where the law doesn't hold; the cutlass can only remain unscratched when sheathed. Same goes for this blog. What I write here has limitations -- you haven't seen the worst of me, nor the best. You have seen the bad and the good, but not all. Knowing me only in person won't work either. I'm a writer, so part of me lives in the pedestrian world and another in the pen-world. Know both, know me all.

Abstract. Writers, insert knowing laugh here. Many artists proclaim their work as abstract, and love to hear others comprehend and imbue mystical meanings to their art. I guess the same goes for me (even though I write in relatively concrete images). This blog is an abstraction of its author -- it presents to you the Corsarius through a mishmash of vignettes which, oddly enough, have something in common.

Data type. What is a data type? According to E.P. Quiwa, it's the kind of data a variable may take on in a programming language. Examples are integers (9 and 23), characters (i and x), Boolean values (true and false). To put it more bluntly -- it's a category. And without trepidation, I can say that this blog is a category of its own. Why, every blog is! Each blog has that x-factor, that intangible something which renders it inimitable. My blog and your blog might have similarities, but they are not the same. Don't be misled by web directories which order you to "kindly place your blog under the most relevant category, e.g. literary, technology, showbiz, etcetera". They're only there to give some semblance of homogeneity amongst blogs. Use them, but don't let them dictate what your blog is all about.

So, there you go, my friends. Parameterized abstract data type. In short, Slip of the Pen.

I gave the Book of Answers a shot. Try it, too. Let me know what profound answer you get, so I can share with your delight (or misery).

(You might be asking: why this blog-centric post? Admittedly, I'm excited about this month. December marks the birth of this blog and my blog-life. 29 is the special day.)

Poems: Madness by the Candlelight

2005-11-29T01:19:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, frenzy can erupt even when only the most feeble of inspirations guide you.

Comfort Reek

the stench
of the cinema restroom
is overpowering,
so I pull my shirt
over my nose
and inhale
the faint scent
of my perfumed
body.

8:56 PM
October 24, 2005

Bilateral Talks

he puts a premium
on communication,
a way to transcend
his and her limitations.

so one day,
his hand vised around hers,
stressed by uneven sidewalks,
scorched by the midday sun,
choked by the jeepneys’ exhaust —

she tries to protest, but
he swipes her cellphone and
throws it down to the concrete.

he turns to her, saying:
“of course, the phone is smashed to pieces.”

09:57 PM
November 28, 2005

Typo

i have been pressing on i for some time now
(thirty minutes, i think)
but i is still not responding.
i is proving to be an irritant, and i
am getting irritated.
i can’t type, i can’t see i onscreen,
i is nullified.
finally, i grab the keyboard with both hands,
hold it above my head, then
hurl it across the room.
one plastic piece shatters to a thousand,
i flies to the open chamberpot
and sinks to the pee-pool’s bottom.
i versus i, i for an i —
like the whole keyboard,
i isn’t indomitable
but i am.

09:59 PM
November 28, 2005

Jupiter Falls

2005-11-18T11:00:00.000+08:00

Stuck in traffic, I stare outside the car window and into the lightning show illuminating the night sky. Oddly enough, the lightning bolts possess a certain golden hue, something I’ve never seen before. It has always been neon white and neon indigo, never neon green nor neon red, and certainly not neon gold. Even as I count the seconds for the complementary thunder to arrive, I see another golden bolt streak down to earth.

So, it’s real after all. My eyes aren’t deceiving me.

Gold lightning.

Actually, I can’t care less if it’s a freak of science, nature gone mad, or simply a portent of a coming storm. The only thing I care about right now – the thing eating up my thought and patience – is the 300-pound gorilla sitting right next to me inside the FX Megataxi. He arrogantly enforces the authority given – no, mandated – by his extreme obesity to take up every inch of seating space and crush a 130-pound runt against the car door. The runt, of course, is me. When I give him a side-glance, he drools saliva even while wide awake. He plumbs the depth of his nose with a big, fat finger with reckless bravery that puts Indiana Jones to shame. He clears his throat with such ruckus that you’ll think the taxi seat was his throne.

No bad blood between me and obese people, but this human being is as inconsiderate as one can get – his legs as huge as baobab trunks, he spreads them open at a ridiculous angle (yes, 180 degrees!), costing the FX driver two more seats worth of passengers, a flat tire (sooner than later), and a seething, disgruntled customer. The latter, of course, is me.

With every bump on the road, every bump of my head on the car roof, and every bump of my seatmate’s mammoth knee against mine, I can feel it building up inside me – that wonderful sensation which obscures my sight with a miasma of bloody red and causes my clenched fist to inexplicably quiver and shake and just plain look menacing.

The human beside me is sick; he makes me sick. He makes me mad. He makes me bad. And so did my scowling seatmate earlier on the jeepney ride. And so did the bus passengers looking down scornfully on the waiting commuters on the street, jeering at pretty boys and whistling at pretty girls. And so did him, and so did her, and so did everybody around me.

The crimson haze gets redder, and the clenched fist starts to drip imaginary blood.

The taxi screeches to a halt. Red light. A street vendor, a guy barely out of his teens, hastily approaches the FX driver’s window and peddles his rags. I can’t hear what he’s mouthing; the driver doesn’t roll down the window, looking straight ahead at the cars in front, fingers doing the counting of worn paper bills. The vendor continues to mouth something.

Suddenly, the driver rolls down the window with furious jerks of his arm. “What did you say?” he shouts to the face of the vendor. “You were going to wipe my face with your rags?!”

The boy vendor shakes his head in response, a little smirk imprinted on his face.

“You son of b*tch!” The driver motions to open the door even as he spews out some more cusswords. “Gago ka!” The vendor scurries away and disappears amongst the maze of cars, leaving the driver red-faced and short of breath.

I pause in my thoughts; my mind goes blank. I take a deep breath, so deep I end up gasping for air. Staring at the back of the irate driver's head, I try to think of something, to justify anything, to vilify everything. But there is nothing.

Car horns blare. Green light. The driver composes himself, and the taxi lurches forward.

My eyes wander to the swaying crucifix hanging from the rearview mirror. Its motion oscillates with the vehicle’s mood – one second, the crucifix threatens to subdue my senses with its gentle, hypnotizing motion; the next moment, the crucifix violently jerks from left to right, a frenzied dance for a frenzied night.

After a while, whether from strain or shame (or both), I shift my view from the crucifix to the dark, roiling skies outside the car window.

Watching the jagged, aurulent bolts strike down from the heavens, and hearing the Olympian rumblings which follow, it finally dawns upon me.

This world has too much thunder and lightning.

XX Things About the Corsarius

2005-11-13T22:00:00.000+08:00

Had there been another X in the title, this would've been a vulgar post worthy of being flagged as 'objectionable content'. However, the 'XX' merely stands for '20', that is, twenty things about this corsair. (You know my affinity for the Roman ways.)

Gari over at Bangketa Republique tagged me to do this thang. The Corsarius rarely does these 'memes', but I wanted to try this out. I've deciced to write this in Tagalog, and as such I'd redirect you now to Karimlan. It's my blog in the native tongue, rarely updated. Para naman magkalaman ngayon.

I'll more or less follow Gari's train of thought. I won't be tagging anyone specifically -- I don't want to burden busy bloggers; instead, anyone who reads the whole post over at Karimlan is automatically tagged. Fair enough, I think.

[Will be posting something later.]

Deviations

2005-11-06T19:45:00.000+08:00

[Note: This is a piece of fiction. Sometimes, a writer needs to challenge the readers' sensibilities (challenge, not offend). Otherwise he's a spineless writer. If you don't like pieces which aren't 'goody-goody', please skip this post. My next one's going to be tamer. Thank you, people.]

Sacred Vestments

Beatrice isn't one for Sunday dresses. She'd always show up for her uncle's masses in a black spaghetti-strap blouse which showed off her pierced navel, and a skirt three-fourths of a ruler above the knee. It made her mom furious, and her dad slightly amused.

This Sunday, in an unlit confessional box, she rips open a package given earlier by a parish acolyte. Armed with a few slivers of light, she finds a card inside, and a black thong with an imprinted bunny symbol. The card reads: “Hugs and kisses to my favorite niece this special day. Enjoy!”

PC Overhaul

“Your baby crashed because of Linux.”

Roger couldn’t believe what he had just heard. He wanted to look the damn PC technician in the eye, but couldn’t. The fool was staring at the monitor, chewing an (imaginary) piece of gum, pretending to make sense out of the Linux boot screen when it was obvious this git was a Windows-only git.

“You don’t tell me things like that. Linux won’t cause this kind of problem,” Roger said, grating his teeth.

The technician nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders. Chew. “You seem to know it —” chew “—so why go to me?” Chew, chew, chew.

Roger wanted to shout something cool and polite that was still shoutable, such as “I’m paying you to fix my machine, not teach me a lesson!”, but settled on punching the PC tower. The thing protested, sounding off a shrill beeeep, then promptly died.

The technician stopped chewing his (imaginary) gum. “What the hell are you doin’?!”

In response Roger seized the PC, walked to the cliff and hurled it down the staircase. The technician’s loud barnyard expletive wasn’t able to mask the crashing sound the PC made.

Roger turned and shouted in his face, “F*ck you!”

Finally, something cool and polite and shoutable.

Head Banger

They called him the proverbial black sheep of the family, a Satanist, a bastard, and sometimes even by his birth name, Damian. They never called him D-Maks, which was bad, because he’d forgive them if only they gave him that littlest and greatest of respects.

After all, being called by the name which lent him street cred is being called king.

“Damian!”

Turning his head to face his mom to the pace of a funeral song was already second nature to D-Maks. He gave her a blank, almost funerary stare to match.

“What time is it?! Why do you always come home when the sun’s starting to rise? You’ve been head banging again with your friends, haven’t you?”

“Well, you should be thankful I still came home, shouldn’t you?” Never mind that rappers didn’t do rock. He’d tried explaining that to her too many times.

“You rude bastard! And what’s that wound on your forehead? You got into a fight, you damn kid! You got into a fight again!”

D-Maks’ ears had enough, and he made his way upstairs to his room. A screeching ululation followed him with every step: Dontyouturn yourbackonmeohidontbelievethisyoubastardyousonofab*tchyou —

He closed the door. He sneered at the thought that she had actually cursed herself.

But then he saw the altar, and the sneer vanished. D-Maks hastily proceeded to prostrate himself in front of the table, bow his head, clasp his hands together. He took a deep breath, then banged his head on the altar.

The crucifix shook. The pain of the previous night’s confession resurrected on D-Maks’ forehead.

“Father, forgive me.” He banged his head again, the crucifix shook again. “Forgive me for my sins, save me from the fires of hell.” Bang, shake. “Forgive me for I do not know what I do.” Bang, blood, shake. “Forgive me…”

How to Dance With Your Soul

2005-10-31T03:30:00.000+08:00

[No, this isn't a Halloween post. Or Grim Fandango, for that matter.]

Writing is not at all dissimilar to courting a girl. You groom yourself with gusto, you bring out the flowers and sweets, and you arm yourself with the best words you can muster. But of course you can also end up downtrodden, you can curse the sun and earth, you can spew out the vilest of invectives. You try to make the right choices, but here and there you commit a few missteps — sometimes many — and end up back at square one.

Such is the intertwined fate of writer and suitor. They both learn to dance with life, to flow with its twists and turns, to value its nuances. They both learn to tap into the deepest alcoves of the soul, and dance with whatever they may harness from within. They can tango with anger, cha-cha with love, waltz with hope, swing with despair, jig with frustration, glide with joy.

If the physical dance — the one we see actualized everyday through sweating bodies and gyrating motions — is the dance of the body, then it’s not at all ridiculous to call writing the dance of the soul. Poetry and prose are how the inner spirit tries to express itself, be it through flamboyant weaving of words or no-frills use of language. The same holds true for music and the visual arts, and to a certain extent, the courting of a girl (especially if one claims to have a beloved girl as his very soul).

But of course, before one can easily flow into the motions of the dance, he or she must first learn its steps. Like the corporeal boogie, there are an infinite number of steps which one can take to master the groove. And so with writing. Every person to his own approach; after all, no two souls are alike. Maybe akin, but not identical. As long as it works for you, and after pursuing the steps your soul gets all fired up and restless to burn the midnight candle, then you’d have already mastered the dance of your soul.

One of Hemingway’s steps was to sharpen twelve pencils (I think). In all probability there exists a poet who needs to make torrid love with his wife before being able to rhyme, and maybe a fictionist who eats a whole large-sized bar of white Toblerone before penning a short story. For my part, because I’m just a simple writer with no acclaim to my name, my steps are terse and quick to perform. And because the same style holds true for my exploits in love — which are unfortunately unfortunate — I shan’t be able to resist the temptation to compare the two.

First and foremost before writing any piece, I turn on the PC, plop down onto my monobloc chair, and reflect for a moment, just as I would plop down on the bed and flick on the switch within my brain which reads “Courting 101”. Second, I’d read other works, be it a chapter from a Tolkien book, or a poem by Jose Garcia Villa, or even one of my previous attempts at literature. It’s not at all dissimilar to my getting inspired by my friends’ dazzling feats in love, or xeroxing my own patented ‘da moves’ which always fail to, well, succeed.

Having done that, I’d open a word processor, preferably MS Word, OpenOffice, or Notepad (my illegible handwriting is hardly conducive to my attitude of perpetual revising and self-doubt) and start fiddling with the margins, font style and size, and other minutiae, me being some sort of an obsessive-compulsive git. This resembles my fidgeting with my clothes, hairdo and perfume before making a grand salvo on a damsel.

Last, and of course ‘but not the least’, I write — rather, type — the first of my thoughts, which would hopefully be the birth of a good piece. This is the courting process itself, replete with the stammerings and sweatings, the furrowing of the brows, the puckerings of the mouth, the horrible speechless seconds, and of course the occasional heartbreaks. Alas for me, there is no ‘Undo’ option (ah yes, the omnipotent ‘Ctrl-Z’) in love.

You see, that’s a mere four steps in learning how to dance with your soul. Not guaranteed to produce the best results, or even have results at all, but hey, it works for me — these little shuffles I do before I get into the groove.

A Crimson Crux Interruption

2005-10-31T03:00:00.000+08:00

I must apologize to those who've patiently dropped by this space from time to time. I admit, the past months have not been the glory days for my relatively young journal -- I wrote ZERO posts for September and a measly FOUR pieces (including this one, which shouldn't be even included!) for October. Me bad.

While Slip of the Pen has been chugging along with scant fuel, Crimson Crux -- yep, that other tech-oriented weblog -- has been doing fine. In fact, I've actually managed to make a DOZEN posts for it this month.

Fear not, this imbalance will be soon rectified by the Corsarius, and blogging equilibrium shall be attained. For now, allow ol' thick-faced me to shamelessly promote my other blog, Crimson Crux. (Little boy voice: Do drop by, please? Haha. And if you do have the time to visit, just let me know so I can repay the favor.)

Poetry Written for Another Person

2005-10-24T23:15:00.000+08:00

is different,
a stark contrast to poetry
written for one's self
(poetry at its rawest harshest kindest
truest form).

the farther the person is from the heart,
the fainter the beat will be. faint
fainter faintest, until there is
nothing more
to hear
.

but when
the person is
close closer closest,
the beat gets strong stronger
strongest, and convictions ululations
salutations damnations gush out from pen
to paper, finally reaching a crescendo where
the moment is invincible and the spirit is unstoppable.

poetry written for another person
is different,
a stark contrast to poetry
written for one's self, as different as
gems in a pirate's chest for the foreigner,
stars on a clear night for those we hold dear.

3:53 AM
The Day When the Person-Whom-the-Corsarius-Holds-Dear Celebrates Her Birth
Quezon City

Five Idiots Gasping for Air

2005-10-09T18:00:00.000+08:00

The Journalist

Stop the press!

Make room for this breaking news -- Corsarius Updates Blog, Readers Blast Delinquency. I want it in 72-point Palatino Bold and screaming all caps. Heck, make it the paper's banner!

If anyone thought The UP Parser was late in releasing its first issue of the academic year, then hang me twice. Even though problems outside of our control were the delay's reasons, I believe the weight still lies upon its Editor-in-Chief. Yes, yours truly. And though problems outside of my control were the reasons for this blog's nil output, I believe the weight still lies upon its author. Guess who.

This world should be sued.

The Student

Thesis year. Video streaming, the Rijndael algorithm, eigenvectors, laplace transforms, shift-reduce parsing, syntax-directed definitions, ubiquitous computing, wireless fidelity, binary exponential backoff, carrier sense multiple access, probability mass function, unbiased estimator.

I'm at a loss for words.

The Marketer

Good day, sirs and ma'ams! I am a reluctant technopreneur from the land of the tongue-twisted, fidgeting geeks (otherwise known as Computer Science), and I am here to promote our product, "S^infinity" -- S raised to infinity, Service raised to infinity. That sounds good, doesn't it?

Three "S" words are of chief concern to you, dear sirs and ma'ams. The first word for today is "Shoot". Shoot your videos using your cameraphones, while I'm shooting down my writing career. What the hell am I doing entering this and that marketing contest? And actually surviving them?

The second word for the day is "Say-what?" Third word is "Sanavagan!". Fourth word is "Sally-sells-seashells-by-the-seashore." Wonderful, no?

Sinfinity. S raised to infinity, Superficial Supereminence raised to infinity.

The Histrionicist

This still applies:

The Corsarius is stressed.

My threshold for pain and hardship is going way off the charts. Now I know -- I'm a certified masochist.

Right now, if Corsarius was a nation, it'd be ravaged by a plague, battered by typhoons, splintered by a civil war, and besieged by an ally state turned bitter rival.

I've been called many things in my life -- liar, defensive, good-for-nothing, belligerent, selfish, bad-boy. A few of these words have been thrown at me with more ferocity and frequency lately than ever before. I don't know if I'm all of these, some of these, or none of these. I can't tell, and I don't friggin' care.

The world can flaunt its eloquence by expressing its disdain of me in a thousand words. I can summarize all those words in one -- painful. But who am I to convince the inconvincible, to talk to the un-listening?

The mantra here is to accept. Pain is a wonderful sensation (as long as you're feeling it because of your own misery, not the ill luck of your close ones). Accept pain, accept it with exceeding openness.

Because deep down, I know I only wished for good things.

The Person With the Pen

Get these four blog-hogging fools out of the way, and let the pen speak for the Corsarius.

Bottling Up the Ink

2005-08-10T01:05:00.000+08:00

As much as writers are fond of making up excuses not to write, they're equally adept at finding ways to write and things to write about. Heck, they can even write something about nothingness. One can even say, Never underestimate the output of an inspired writer hurtling down the Creativity Autobahn.

But sometimes, they have to let their pens lie fallow, to leave the ink that is their lifeblood unused in the bottles of their own make-believe worlds. They have to let the emotions well inside, not allowing anything to leak out to a world alien to their own. They must allow the wounds to sting a little bit more, the stress to become a little bit more stressful, the troubles a little bit more troublesome. Don't write! is the mantra to follow.

They thus (un)willingly defeat, for a moment, the purpose of writing -- to express one's self, to provide an outlet for sick dreams and magnificent nightmares.

But in the end, when these writers decide to pick up their pens and start writing again, you'll know one of two things has happened: (1) They have survived the pain, the stress, and everything between heaven and hell (well, not everything) bereft of their most powerful weapon -- the pen -- and pulled through relying only on their own naked selves; or (2) they couldn't handle the pressure of the overflowing ink, and have let it all spill out.

Item one or item two, it doesn't matter. One only needs to know that Don't write! is synonymous with another mantra.

Know thyself.

[Now you know why the Corsarius' pen was inkless for two weeks.]

UP Diliman ICT Roadshow 2005

2005-08-10T00:55:00.000+08:00

ICT ROADSHOW 2005
UP Diliman
College of Engineering (Melchor Hall), 3rd Floor, August 9-11 2005

Three days jampacked with Exhibits and Symposia on exciting ICT Trends and Technologies! Freebies to be claimed, and prizes to be won!

For more info, visit this link. I'm one of the event's handlers, and so you can contact me at pykimpo (at) gmail (dot) com for inquiries.

The Something of Nothingness

2005-07-24T22:55:00.000+08:00

When I write, I write about something -– a day in a bastard’s life, a tragic comedy, a comic tragedy, a poem, an essay, a whitepaper, an emotion succinctly portrayed in polysyllable words. Today is different; I can’t find anything to write about. But that will not stop me from writing something, because when you think about it, I can write about nothing and you will see it as something. Here’s the something of this day’s nothingness, captured in less than a minute. Ready?

tick The blankness of the digital page tock staring at you from your monitor tick appalls you, rendering your fingers frozen tock above the keyboard in stupefaction. tick Face it –- you can’t write anything, tock much less a dazzling piece tick of literature (literature governed tock by you, omphalos of the world). tick After all, the cursor blinking tock on-screen is your Freudian id, insistent tick and irksome to an extent, prompting tock you to type something, weave tick something from nothingness. tock Heed your blinking id, gratify tick the primal writer in you, delve deep and type, tock type type type, then dress up tick your writing with fonts (times new roman tock or comic sans?), breathe into it tick red passion, green freshness, black tock simplicity, then decide if you’ll tick skew it to the right, to the left, or tock be page-centric as your egoist self. tick Take your time, decorate your writing tock as you would yourself (admit it). tick But when you’re done, better make sure tock it’s good without the appurtenances tick (blame your blinking id!), because tock the unadorned text is nothing but tick you. tock

[Adapted from my poem written this very day, entitled "i’m not going to name this poem "writer’s block” because it’s cliché"]

Corsarius: Self-Advisor

2005-07-19T22:20:00.000+08:00

Might as well put a marker below it: Since May 10, 2005.

Credit a close friend for this remarkable career choice of mine. The friend gave me as a birthday gift some sort of "Today's Advice" poster which neatly presents more than a hundred pieces of 'advice' in tabular form. The instructions say: "Close your eyes (no cheating!), turn around, and then point at this poster and follow the advice your finger lands on!"

Certainly for idiots and the cheesy-types. But then the Corsarius is prone to moronic and yummy-cheesy tendencies from time to time, so forgive me if I indulged myself with this self-advice poster. And guess what? It sure is one treasure trove worthy of a corsair! Here are some jewels for your perusal:

June 23: "Don't be Late"

My 10AM classes always suffer from my delinquence. Grooming myself takes about half an hour; the trip from Mabuhay Rotonda to UP Diliman is another 30 minutes. And I wake up at 9:30AM.

Solution? Ride a taxi. The catch? A hundred pesos down the drain.

My wallet goes kaput.

July 1: "Expect a Miracle"

Downstairs in the backyard, I know my favorite dog lies dying. But with this advice nagging at my mind, I hurry to the yard. Tough luck; the dog is still sprawled on the ground. Bleeding. Dying. I turn my back on him.

Suddenly, our maid lets out a cry. I swiftly turn around. Lo and behold, the dog is trying to sit up! He looks at me with glassy eyes, as if pleading for help. I rush and force-feed him another dose of medicines and nourishment.

Minutes later, our dog throws up all of his medicine and sustenance.

The next day, he is dead.

June 11: "Be Gentle"

Don't tell me I'm going to do it with an untouched lass. Uh, come again? Ah. So that's what the advice really means. Sorry for my greener-than-the-greenest-grass-and-greener-than-yours mind. But before you throw me out of my own blog for this overly "male chauvinist pig" paragraph, here's a last advice --

July 19: "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff."

Hear the Town Crier

2005-07-19T22:10:00.000+08:00

Here's a couple of announcements from the Corsarius:

1) My personal website, The Corsarius, has moved to http://kimpo.fil.ph. The same goes for the online version of The UP Parser, which you can now find at http://upparser.fil.ph.

2) The multi-awarded Association for Computing Machinery - UP Student Chapter (UP ACM) is now open for membership. The application form can be found here.

3) For those interested in the progress of our thesis -- secure video streaming from a server to a mobile device, both real-time and non -- you can visit our group blog, The JSP.

4) Lastly, Slippy* now has its own WAP companion site! For more details, visit my other blog. Here's a few screenshots to sate your interest:

*My nickname for this blog, Slip of the Pen. Catchy, I think.

Boy Angas

2005-07-15T22:20:00.000+08:00

I was disgusted by my writing. The words didn't flow freely, the hand didn't move an inch, and the mind had the creativity of a cadaver’s.

So I left my 'writing mode' -- sitting in front of the PC, fingers poised above the keyboard, eyes staring at the blank digital paper flashed on the monitor -- and went down to the living room.

By chance, a big-time, Las Vegas boxing match was playing on TV. The bout was furious and vicious. Oddly enough, I somehow imagined myself as a boxer pummeling his opponent. My foe was a collection of papers bunched together in the shape of man; credit my deprived my mind for that. He trash-talked me with phrases, “Write something, you fool!” or “CW 10! CW 10!” (I had a not-so-pleasant experience in my Creative Writing class, or CW10, last summer). I retaliated with a mighty arsenal of Pacquiao moves: left-hook, right-hook, uppercut, straight punch. Bam-bam-BAM!

Weird? I concur. That's why I said 'my deprived mind'.

But I couldn't knock-out my paper adversary. It was resilient, just like the two pugilists battling it out on TV. Neither one kissed the canvas. The match was in the tenth round, and the commentators still had it tied for both boxers.

The bell rang, marking the round's end. I snapped out of my bizarre reverie. Both pugs trudged to their corners with bloody and swelled faces. As commercials began to flood the TV screen, I looked out of the window beside the TV.

A child (let's call him 'Boy Angas') was making his way to the front of our miniature gate. At first, I thought he was going to buy ice from our maid (you know, those two-peso frozen blocks in plastic bags, thirty of which you could pack into a small freezer). Boy Angas was a suki, and when he bought he would yell in the loudest of voices his young throat could manage: “Bibili ako ng yelo! Yelo! Yelo! Yelo nga!” He wouldn't stop until someone showed up at the window and take his 'order'. And when someone did, even if that person was my father (who is a government official, proudly middle-class because he doesn't practice corruption), Boy Angas would talk to him disrespectfully. He didn't use po or opo, he spoke in bossy tones, he didn't use the word 'please', or the Pinoy equivalent of that (to illustrate: “Bibili ako ng yelo!” instead of “Pabili po ng yelo”).

At his young age -- I guess ten years -- Boy Angas was, well, a little too boastful for his own good, maangas so to speak. And that irritated me to no end.

And so when I saw him by our gate, I was determined to give him the cold shoulder, never mind the two pesos. But then he sat on the concrete sidewalk and began to rub his eyes, which I belatedly noticed to be wet, a little red, and slightly swollen. Boy Angas was crying!

I didn't know whether to be glad or sympathetic. I didn't like seeing people cry, but here was the bossy dude, king of Cordillera Street, emperor of yelo...in sorrow!

Boy Angas was sobbing as he rubbed his eyes. Picked upon by children bigger than his size? Possible. Received a monumental scolding and spanking from his parents? Who knows.

But as I heard the sounds of the boxing match return to the TV, Boy Angas stopped rubbing his eyes. He had stopped crying. He wiped his nose. He squared his shoulders in true maangas fashion. He let out an unreal, furious “Hah!”, then loped off to the street, vanishing from my sight. I think he didn't even see my observing him.

I was duly impressed. To think that when I was a child, I used to cry for an hour, until the tears dried up or I fell asleep! Truth be told, how ill mannered he might have been, Boy Angas was also Boy Astig. The kid had come in crying, but after a minute, he left with a smirk plastered on his face.

Somehow, his brief act stirred something within me.

I suddenly felt that I needed to overcome my own adversary, that I needed to knock-out the paper boxer who was cadillacing around the ring's mat, trash-talking me, waiting to be thrown down. Crying and writing are two different things, but my deprived mind seemed to find a thin string that connected both. As the saying goes, “Fight your own dragon.”

And so I turned off the TV, never bothering to finish the match. I had a bout of my own to decide. I went up to my room, returned to writing mode, and buckled down to work.

Siste Viator*

2005-07-10T18:25:00.000+08:00

[In memoriam.]

We weren't supposed to give them names.

Of the eight dogs of the Zoo on Cordillera Street, four were puppies. Three 4-month-olds belonged to the same litter, waiting to be given/sold to people looking for free/inexpensive half-Dalmatians; one was nearing his first birthday. The last one was Elvis (yes, I know -- dad is such an Elvis Presley fan), while the little ones were affectionately called Kambang, Tisoy, and Tisay. Funny nicknames, no real ones. The reason? We didn't want to get too attached to pups which we'd be disposing in few weeks time. Disposing -- some silly term always used by my dad.

If only we knew what was in store for us.

*****

I was the first to notice it. One morning, Kambang (named so for her black patch on the right side of her head and ear) had a fever. Aside from her high temperature, she seemed lethargic, didn't want to eat, gave no reaction to my whistles and gentle coaxing, and occasionally vomited small amounts of fluids. Though alarming, we've experienced those clinical conditions before with other pups, and so I didn't really worry too much about it. All she needs is rest, I thought.

Just before I left for UP, I checked up on her. I was slightly surprised when Kambang, in her illness and all, wagged her tail as I patted her on the head.

That was about nine in the morning. Less than twelve hours later, I arrived home from school, and the first thing I looked for as I opened the door was Kambang. But it was my Dad who greeted me with the simplest of greetings.

"Kambang is dead."

*****

I found her in the backyard. When I got over the disbelief, I spent some time observing her before she was properly "disposed" of. Her face was contorted in pain, with her blue eyes and jaws half-open. Wet, blood-stained stool stained her tail and the ground. Certainly a violent death, from within.

Right then and there, as I squat beside the stiff body of Kambang, I gave her a name. "Espy", short for Esperanza, Spanish for hope.

Why?

Because two of our puppies were already showing Espy's symptoms, and I was fervently hoping that they wouldn't end up like her. Elbits, as I fondly called Elvis in "baby-talk", was the adolescent "successor" to our true-blue Dalmatian. He was already having liquid feces with high concentrations of blood, which was of course very, very bad.

Panicky, we called up our local vet, and she gave the necessary (and expensive) prescriptions, not to mention injecting 'something' into Elbits and Tisoy. The latter was still alright to an extent -- Tisoy even yipped loudly when the vet stuck in the syringe. It was Elbits who was in a dire state -- laid out on the ground, glassy-eyed with breaths coming in deep, rib-shaking heaves.

And so Elbits was given medication -- anti-diarrhea capsules, antibiotic syrup. Because he wouldn't eat and was losing body fluids quickly through his feces and occasional vomits, we force-fed him with water-and-sugar solutions. This went on for several hours, with the family hoping that Elbits would stop vomiting, stop defecating blood, and simply recover. We even brought him out to the backyard so that the other dogs couldn't bother him in his ill state.

But the situation worsened. Elbits' jaw began to resist our attempts at force-feeding, snapping together with unnatural ferocity. He threw up virtually all of his medication and the remaining fluids in his body.

I ran upstairs, opened the PC, did a quick scan of a dozen websites, and found the culprit -- Parvo, the feared virus fatal to most untreated dogs below the age of one. The clinical symptoms were the same; more frighteningly, it often kills within a day or two after the onset of the symptoms. We were asking then: What could we do? We couldn’t bring him to an animal hospital. We didn’t have the money.

But damn, there was still hope. Espy, no, Elvis won't end up like her. This dog was a fighter; he was the sole survivor of a whole litter which died. He was our Dalmatian’s heir apparent, with the excellent tell-tale spots and lean and mean body. Most of all, he was the wackiest of them all, and as such he was my best friend.

That's it. He was my best friend. And I was not going to lose him to some devil-kin, unintelligible life-form.

I was patient in administering the vet's prescriptions; sadly, the virus wasn't. By 2 AM Elbits' mouth was tightly clenched, and two grown-up men (me and my dad) weren't able to force-feed him anymore. His stomach, which was convulsing from time to time, obviously caused him a lot of pain (Parvo causes the intestines to slough, thus the bloody stool). I spent some time talking to Elbits, scratching his head (especially the prominent black spot right smack on his forehead) and even picking off some mites and ticks. Later, I left him to my dad's care and hesitantly went to bed, fatigued beyond expression, both physically, emotionally, and mentally.

*****
Unbelievably, I was able to have a wonderful dream.

I was standing in the backyard, looking at Elbits perched upon some platform. He seemed to be alright; after all, he was sitting, not sprawled on the ground!

But in the most painful of moments, I suddenly heard our maid’s voice in the background, saying, “Elbits has passed away.”

I woke up, shaking off the drowsiness and headache. I slowly made my way down to the ground floor, opened the door to the backyard, and knelt in front of a friend.

Amidst the strong stench of bloody stool and the buzz of flies, I paid my last respects to Elbits. As I ruminated over what could have been and what would not be, I patted him on the black spot on his forehead.

Moments later, as I readied to leave the house for UP, I paid a last visit to the backyard. There, I laid my hand on Elbits’ head for one last time, and said, “Goodbye, dear friend.”

At the same time, I silently apologized to him, and cursed and damned myself for letting him die.

*****

While I was away at my thesis class, they buried Elbits in our small garden box (garden box, not garden). True, it was an unprecedented move to assure the virus' survival for months to come, but we had to give him a decent burial, not throw him and leave him to rot on some vacant lot.

By evening that day, Tisoy (with his blue eyes, beige nose, and chocolate-brown spots) became more sick. His frame degenerated into almost a skeleton. We brought him out to the backyard to isolate him from the other dogs. Hours of force-feeding again took its toll, and I slept early that night, still not having recovered from the previous night’s ordeal.

Again, I had a wonderful dream.

The dream-state Corsarius opened the door to the backyard, and Tisoy came rushing into the house, galloping and yipping like crazy!

When I woke up, they told me Tisoy had already died when I was asleep.

*****

Tisay, as she was called (she really looked like a Dalmatian), was A-OK the day her sibling died. She was as ravenous as a tiger, and as active as a tadpole. But the following day she showed the symptoms of Parvo -- lethargy, depression, bloody stool, vomiting.

For three days I patiently force-fed her with Gatorade (to supply her with electrolytes) and medicine. She was a strong pup, able to survive longer than her buddies. But as her illness progressed her condition swiftly regressed -- she was having liquid feces more bloody than those of the other pups’.

Morning of the fourth day of her sickness, I was horrified to Tisay discharge a pool of reddish, liquid stool, feebly walk towards my direction, and collapse to the floor.

More than an hour later, while I was in a distant library in UP preparing for an exam, the last of our puppies died.

*****

It is always hard to lose a friend to the shadows. More so for four friends.

And as always the case, God has a reason for all of these. A mysterious reason, that is, one which is worth a million crap-ollars for many of us, including me. As church doctrine goes, we should soul-search for this reason; it is our responsibility as children of God.

But if I need to oblige with this, then I've got a request for Him in return, a little plea of a corsair who isn't accustomed to pleading with people at all. I will plumb the depths of my soul to find Your reason, but give Elbits and the rest of all departed animals their own souls. Make every crying kid's animal heaven a reality. With that mountain-moving, sea-dividing might, give them this simplest of requests, the greatest of dignities. Give them their souls, so they can meet their masters in the end, and blissfully frolic in the fields of Elysium. Please. For me, and for the millions of people who, at one time or another in their lifetimes, mourned beyond mourning for their dear friends.

I'm not sure -- heck, no one's sure -- if this small request of mine will be granted. But one thing's sure.

The Zoo on Cordillera Street is a much more boring place now.

Farewell, Elbits, Espy, Tisoy, Tisay, and the others. Wherever you are, know that you'll be fondly -- and lovingly -- remembered.

Till next time then.

July 1, 2005 (Evening) - Espy ("Kambang"), 4 month old half-Dalmatian
July 2, 2005 (Dawn) - Elvis, 8 month old half-Dalmatian
July 3, 2005 (Early Dawn) - Tisoy, 4 month old half-Dalmatian
July 7, 2005 (Morning) - Tisay, 4 month old half-Dalmatian

*Stop, traveler. Latin. Used on tombstones.

Vae Victis

2005-06-25T01:19:00.000+08:00

Have you prepared your victory speech? The one trumpeted after your graduation, your promotion, your humble acceptance of an award. It's the speech everybody wants to write, to deliver with élan, to be immortalized in some history book, to be worshipped by the inferior people looking up at you on your pedestal. So, have you already prepared your speech? Because I have prepared mine.

Cut to the chase. No funky perfunctory greetings here. Only self-adulation. Because if I'm to thank one and only person, that would be Me. The Me who resisted failure when failure was but a certainty, the Me who defeated defeat when defeat wasn't a possibility but an inevitability. The Me who stood by Me when all others' support wilted in the face of the all too human Ingratitude. The 'alpha male' Me who through the years finally believed in himself because nobody else believed in him. The Me who forged the best in Me -- the Corsarius -- even when all others thumbed their noses and stared their most disparaging stares at Me. And so I don't thank the unrewarding parents, the fair-weather friends, the royal-righteous-popular-heroic enemies of the maligned corsair, the blind fools who see the villain and not the innocent, the spurners, the skeptics, the critics, and the dogs which bite their feeder's hand. I thank only one person. I thank Me, I thank Me, I thank Me. Thank Me, and thank Me all. Thank you.

That's it. Others may write their own speeches. If they need to spend hours on it, it's fine. I'm done with mine.

It only takes ten minutes to self-adulate.

Disjointed Prettiness Ahead*

2005-06-19T10:00:00.000+08:00

Philcoa, near UP Diliman campus

The pitter-patter of the rain is a treat to my ears. They sound like Gaia's symphony, the right music to drown out the unnatural honks of jeepneys and the barks of bus conductors. The biting-cold droplets falling on my cheek are also heavenly; they make me feel as though I'm being kissed by a cadaver.

This is Philcoa at its finest. I never imagined this dingy terminal to be so elegant when covered in rain and night.

I can feel the incredulous and mocking eyes of the couple behind me. They might be whispering to each other, What's wrong with this guy? This waiting shed is big enough for the three of us!

Oh yes, I can tell you how tempted I am to pull out my umbrella from my knapsack and shove it down either of their throats. But then the lovebirds would chokingly ask each other (yes, with umbrella in either of their throats), I told you this guy is crazy. Who brings a perfectly-working umbrella in his bag and doesn’t use it in a storm?!

No thanks. I’d rather not add to my disgrace today.

Then it hits me. Again. The memory of her. With the cold eyes hiding a pained look which I can’t fathom.

I am such an inutile being. Inutile beings deserve being rained upon on their parades. Thus, this umbrella-less penitence.

I suddenly realize that I’m in the perfect setting for a tragic soap opera.

Damn, is this scene beautiful.

*****

Corsarius’ Abode, the Dog-Zoo on Cordillera Street

Any moment wherein yours truly, the Corsarius, is eating Nissin chocolate wafer sandwiches is hands-down one of the most beautiful moments of my life.

I just fall for the sight of the palm-size brown square of goodness, already naked of its plastic wrapper. When the scent of its chocolate filling wafts to my nostrils, I am disarmed of my rational thought. Only tummy thought runs this body. And when my teeth bite into the soft sandwich and my ears hear the complementary crunch and the tongue tastes the mother of all tastes, I am rendered speechless.

Because right this minute, yours truly, the Corsarius, is eating a Nissin chocolate wafer sandwich, this moment is hands-down one of the most beautiful moments of my life.

Nothing can destroy this moment. Nothing. I’ll throw back whatever Cruise missile you fling here to interrupt my feast. And I’ll throw it back with Nissin plastic wrappings strung around the empty shell of your malice just to spite you.

But as I enter the living room, I stop my nibbling at my beloved Nissin and stare at the big mound of monstrosity on the sofa.

One of our eight dogs crapped on our precious, ramshackle couch. Crap color: Nissin wafer chocolate. Crap smell: not good. Crap taste: I’d rather not know.

The sight almost makes me throw up. I quickly leave the living room.

Even then, the moment is still a beauty. It has a Nissin wafer sandwich in it, after all.

I finish off the Nissin and munch on another pack.

Small pleasures are for the big boys, too.

*****

UP-Philcoa Jeepney, en route to Philcoa

The jeepney is full, but I managed to fit in. The chitchat noise of the people around me is drowning the pitter-patter of the rain outside.

I want to jump out of the jeep. I want to fall hard and roll on the wet asphalt, lay prostrate on the street, and let the torrent of cold drops dissipate the sting and wash the goodness left in me. And when a vehicle runs me over, I’ll have the most beautiful funeral tale of all.

But it’s all talk, no action.

Instead, I just smile. Yes. Simply, smile. Smile while the people in the jeep carry on with their conversations and don’t mind this Soujiro**-wannabe, while the rain outside gets more furious, while the memory of her cold eyes pierce my heart.

*****

Some Nondescript Taxi, Quezon Avenue

As the city whizzes past the car windows, I am left to my musings.

Nighttime Metro Manila is more beautiful than the daytime one, I think.

It’s in these hours when you’ll really appreciate the urban setting around you. In the day, the metropolis is a choking cesspool of humanity, iron horses, and smog, but in the night, it’s far more civilized.

The bright lights of the city are marvelous. For example, the neon signs of classy whorehouses along this avenue are, well, pretty and bright. Rather brings to mind pretty girls and shining bright eyes of rich, dirty old men.

And yes, the traffic enforcers. Their absence late at night makes too many a driver very much pleased. Not that you need the enforcers at night; Q-Ave traffic is smooth at nine in the evening. The only ones you have to contend with on the streets are little innocent girls in tattered clothes peddling garlands of sampaguita whilst their adult ‘guardians’ rest easy several sidewalks away.

Truly, Metro Manila in the dark is a thing of beauty.

*****

MH219, UP Diliman campus

I try to hold her hand, but she swiftly jerks it away from my grasp. She leaves the room, but not before casting me a glance with her cold eyes. I can imagine seeing a pained look on her face, but I can’t fathom the reason for it.

I sit on an office chair and hide in a small corner. Something in my chest feels very very painful. My mind is in chaos. Amidst the soft hum of the room’s air conditioner and the chilly air, I can already hear in my mind’s ear and feel in my mind’s touch the pitter-patter of rain and zombie-kiss droplets falling on my cheek.

Then I hear something else. A cacophony of voices, hissing, baiting, inviting.

It's as if I can hear the other side calling me. The images conveyed by its sibilant whispers can be described by only one word.

Beautiful.

*Phrase adapted from my best friend's.
**Soujiro –- a fellow with a tragic tale in the anime Samurai X; yes, he always smiles in the face of tragedy.

The Filipino Can Do It!

2005-06-07T19:20:00.000+08:00

Out with the angsty Corsarius, usher in the exuberant one.

WE DID IT!

Imagine this scenario: a newly-reinvigorated Filipino student organization based in UP Diliman's Computer Science Department, struggling to pool enough funds in order to hold its activities. It's just one of 750 international student chapters of the prestigious US-based Association for Computing Machinery, a Third World chapter at that. It joins the annual Chapter Excellence contest composed of five categories. With last year's winners all hailing from the USA, the Philippine chapter's members are just pleased to have done many things for the school and community, never mind the impending loss. And so a month of intensive evaluation within the ACM International HQ passes. The Filipinos are already looking forward to another productive year, again, never mind the impending loss.

But it wins. Not just one, but two categories. Two out of five. One Filipino chapter, three North American chapters. David and the Goliaths.

Implausible? Look at the image below.

Well, the UP ACM proved otherwise. The UP ACM proved that the Filipino can.

We in the Executive Council of the UP ACM -- Association for Computing Machinery University of the Philippines Student Chapter -- was informed just hours ago of our triumph. I tell you, it was a moment of ecstasy. A totally unexpected moment, that is. Chapter members were shaking hands, making high fives, screaming (shrieking?), even becoming teary-eyed. Professors were congratulating us. All were smiling their lips into kingdom come.

I can't write into words the emotion -- amalgam of emotions? -- I feel right now. Basta. All I can say is that I am so proud to be a Filipino. I am so proud to be a UP student. Those sleepless nights filled with the furious sound of my fingers assaulting the keyboard have paid off. Having written the majority of the essays (winning essay 1 | winning essay 2) we submitted to the contest, I feel like I've won a Palanca or an Olympic gold medal. And I'm sure all of us are feeling that way.*

Congratulations to my fellow Executive Councilors (Chapter Chair Ardee Aram, Vice-Chair Mai Sibayan, Treasurer Jonas Roque, Externals Head Jeric Cantos, Education Head Ma'am Riza Batista, Ex-Officio Members Ma'am Joyce Avestro & Kuya Harvey Viray, Sponsor/Adviser Prof. Rommel Feria), UP ACM members (yes, all 90+ of you), and last but not the least Secretary Sophia Lucero (who shared my duress during the homestretch of the essay preparations). Certainly, a job well done -- kudos to you all!

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! Mabuhay ang Unibersidad! Mabuhay ang UP ACM!

[UPDATE: UP ACM's victory has been published online in INQ7.net! For more updates (plus UP ACM's 'official' press release), please read my latest post in Crimson Crux.]

*And why shouldn't we? Bagging one category = 500 US Dollars. We got two categories. Now, that's some dough!

Summer, Sex, and Self-Immolation

2005-05-31T18:42:00.000+08:00

[Warning: Not for children.]

Summer came, summer left. Like a steamy, five-minute quickie (you know what I’m talking about), the passing of summer has left me fatigued and short of breath, yet extremely gratified. Though I must apologize for the rather obscene comparison I’ve used, I won’t take it back for a Pulitzer. No other act in the world can offer such a faithful embodiment of my summer experience than a speedy act of making love. Yep, sex and summer are both hot; however, the similarity ends there.

You see, I had two things officially going on these past two months –- my OJT work and STS class. But a closer look reveals that I was actually doing three more off-the-record tasks –- taking charge of UP ACM’s bid for the ACM International Chapter Excellence Award, writing articles for SUMS+UP’s Substance and Simulacra magazine, and planning a better UP Parser for the incoming academic year. Not to mention coming up with my second blog and personal website.

I’m actually surprised I was able to survive summer without falling ill (sue me, but I say this is akin to surviving an ‘encounter’ without suffering from, uh, impotency). Yeah yeah, ‘tis good I got through with it. And I did it with style. (If you’re someone I personally know and you tell me otherwise, I’ll kick your arse.)

So that’s it, it’s over; the fat lady has sung for summer. Two months burned by the Corsarius’ blazing might. Come to think of it, it’s not just a couple of months which went by in this fleeting, blistering fashion –- it has been three years! A trifecta of mindless, drudgery-filled years in a course I simply don’t love.

I didn’t stay in my course to emerge as a world-class computer scientist; I stayed to prove myself. I stayed to prove that I can perform well in one of UP’s toughest courses. As a result, I didn’t just burn away three years of my life. I burned away the potential to become a good journalist, full-fledged writer, or historian –- these are the careers I would’ve liked to have.

In fact, I may have just burned myself.

This minute, even as my mind conjures fantastic analogies between summer and sex, I’ve realized one thing.

I’ve become Corsarius the Self-Immolator.

It’s too late to change courses now. I’m entering my final year in ComSci, I have part-time work at the CS department, I have positions in CS student organizations, I handle the CS publication, and my CS grades are pretty decent just to trash. All of these things have become too important to throw away. If I were to shift, I should’ve done it years ago. So now the only thing I can do is look back at what’s happened, go through the five stages of mourning, and then ponder my next move. A waste of time, isn’t it?

I hope you guys don’t have these same regrets. If you don’t want to have them, plan ahead. Chart your life. Place your hand upon your chest, feel what’s beating inside, and follow that same beat, that strong dub-dub-dub. It’s corny, it’s passé, it’s cliché, but follow your heart's desire.

And if you do have these regrets, come join me. Let us join forces and burn the world with our combined frustrations. Or die trying.

Till next quickie, er, summer then.

Habemus Corsarium

2005-05-24T23:20:00.000+08:00

I am all of these names. I am none of them. I am a multifaceted gem sparkling a thousand dreams, a thousand nightmares. I am your buddy, your adversary, your comedy, your tragedy, your prose, your poetry, your life, your death, your unlife.

I am Phillip Yerro Kimpo Jr. A typical complete birth certificate name -- a first name, a mother's maiden name, a surname. And a Jr. to mark me as a successor to some throne, a nominal rip-off even. To my utmost joy, there is no second name attached to Phillip, the ones generously given by the queer parents of my generation. Luckily I didn’t end up as Phillip Alexander (which would’ve been bad, considering I want my son to be Alexander the Great and me Phillip of the Philippines), or Phillip Paul (which would’ve been bad, because that’d mean I was just another Christian name-clone, and of course, Phillip Paul simply sounds awful), or even (heaven forbid) Phillip Giovanni. Without a second name, this chap’s truly inimitable in his generation -- Phillip Jr. Wait, does Jr. count as a second name? Damn.

I am Philos Stormblade. The hero of my swords-and-sorcery fantasy saga. You’re thinking, what an insipid name. But isn’t that the case with your name? Or mine for that matter. Philos means love; Phillip means lover of horses. Stormblade is a pedestrian high-fantasy surname denoting a, yes, blade of the storms; Kimpo is supposedly Korean for port of gold. What’s the diff? Absolutely none. It’s not in the meaning of the name; it’s in how you put meaning into it. It’s not about carrying the name; it’s about living it.

I am Phillip Kimpo Jr. A name without a middle name. There's no reason to put it there, for she is not here. Give explicit credit where credit is due, and implicit discredit where discredit is due.

I am Kidlat Karimlan. The Dark Lightning. The hero of my Tagalog short story for social change. The title is a paradox, lightning is chaos. Enough said.

I am Phillip Kimpo II. The II makes me an Emperor. Didn’t you know? Philip of Macedon was Philip II. Told you, my son is going to be Alexander the Great. And do you actually think Emperor Phillip Jr. is going to strike fear into the hearts of my foes? Jr. is for the boys. I am a man.

I am P.Y. Kimpo. A dreadful, uncalled-for imitation of T.S. Eliot. Makes me feel like a famous writer already. And yes, it is a nifty shortcut. Downside? My mother’s partaking of the fame.

I am Kimpo. To my friends, there’s no Phillip; there’s only Kimpo. Good morning, Kimpo! O Kimpo, kamusta na? Bwiset ‘tong si Kimpo e! It’s alright; after all, I am my family. I am the Clan within the Man. Kimpo -- Korean or Filipino, it matters not. I am a nation of my own.

I am the Corsarius. Simply, a corsair. Captain of my own ship, terror of Life’s seedy ports. Tavern of preference -- The Crimson Pen. Barmaid of preference -- any of the Greek Muses. Molded by twenty years of pain and hardship, and prone to moments of deep angst. I do throw tantrums, but tantrums of the pen. I am a corsair, not a pirate. I am a swashbuckler, not a buccaneer. I express my angst with panache and wit, not with demented aggression. With the pen as my cutlass, I will set sail and claim the seven seas as my own.

I am PYKJ. I am Phil the Insipid-titled. I am the Junior. I am Light Darkning. I am the Second. I am P.Y. Eliot. I am Kimps. I am Cors. I am all of these names. I am none of them.

I am who I am. I am who I! I am who? I am.

I.

The Corsarius Expands

2005-05-24T23:00:00.000+08:00

No, I'm not getting fat! Rather --

It's official. The Corsarius, yours truly, now has his own website.

Curtains up!

Though up and running for several weeks now, I wanted to tweak the site until I was satisfied with it. Now, I believe it's ready for full public 'consumption'.

But that's not all. Very recently, I've started a second blog, christened the Crimson Crux. It will house my 'serious' writings and papers. Don't worry. Slip of the Pen will still be my darling.

So if you have the time, please drop by these two sites. I'd really, really appreciate it. Thanks!

[I'd like to express my deepest gratitude to my bestfriend, Sophia, who designed these two sites. She is what I'd call a webmistress extraordinaire. I'm just the content guy. I've got near-to-nil layout and graphics skills. Again, thank you so much, Ia-chan!]

Criticism

2005-05-18T23:00:00.000+08:00

[Another old post -- I hope you won't take my indolence against me. Written almost exactly a year ago. This essay's theme fits one of my recent moods. I'll post something cheerful and spanking new next time, when my body feels better.]

I’m not supposed to write anything today. I’m dead tired, having had to enroll in the morning for my third year in UP. I’m double dead tired, having had to stroll about SM North Edsa in the afternoon with my ComSci ‘gang’. As soon as I got home, all I planned to do for the evening was to have a good supper, plop down in front of the TV and watch Game 5 of the Lakers-Timberwolves playoff series, take a quick face-wash, then finally catch a six-hour sleep to prepare myself for another grueling enrollment day. Yet something happened along that planned schedule, something that even in my enervated state the ‘writer’ in me still wanted to scribble.

Something which they call criticism.

They say criticism is all about weighing the merits and demerits of a certain topic, person, work, or object. But let’s face it; for many of us the word ‘criticism’ carries sinister overtones. No merits, only demerits. For the layman, criticism is crap, or I’ll eat my pen. But I digress.

Half-asleep on the sofa, watching the first half of the Lakers-Timberwolves game tick down to the final seconds, my father arrived from office amidst the fanatical yips and woofs of our four dogs. As I opened the door to let my dad in, he laid his eyes on the TV, and it all began.

“What’s this?! All you watch is basketball, nothing but basketball. You’re such a useless kid,” he growled.

Huh? So what? Give me my short summer break. After surviving a semester of hoop abstinence (resulting in my being a Dean’s Lister for the first time) and a grueling summer of Math 55 classes, I only had two weeks to reward myself for my perseverance and small triumphs. And now I get this from my dad, who of all people have seen me disappear from the world for several whole days (locked in my room studying for every big exam), who have shared my passion for Michael Jordan’s sport (though he dislikes the Chicago Bulls), who have known and claimed to be proud of my victorious semester?

But no, I wasn’t angry with him –- at least not yet. I was ready to let my dad’s comment pass, just to keep my promise to our parish priest that I’ll practice restraint and calm. But lo and behold, my father followed up his jab with a furious uppercut, sending any Christian tendencies of mine out of the house.

“What you should watch is the ANC interview with Patricia Evangelista. Imagine -- the best English speaker in the world! You’re nothing compared to her,” he snickered while trying to keep our big, wacky Dalmatian from toppling him over.

That ticked me off. Hell, I didn’t even know Ms. Evangelista was to be interviewed. I’ve read and watched about her dazzling triumph as the world’s best English Public Speaker in the news tidbits on TV and dailies, and I have nothing against the girl, who’s a fellow UP student, a batchmate even. I’ve seen her quite a lot in the Palma Hall lobby. She’s a pretty lady, and I only have admiration for her world-class feat.

There was nothing wrong about her being brought up. What my dad was insinuating –- there’s my big problem.

I’m not trying to be a paranoid git here, but I know my father. Yes, he loves me, but he also likes to point out that I don’t aspire to be the best. He always does that. Maybe he’s doing it for my own good, but hey, too much of a whipping tongue makes a child grow angsty and foul-faced, especially if what the tongue’s saying is just not true.

Contrary to my dad’s estimation, I want to be the best in the disciplines I’m fondest of, or at least one of the best. The best in basketball? No chance. I’m too short and scrawny. Asthmatic too. The best in Computer Science? I did get good marks in my classes, but I don’t love my course. I like ComSci, yet not enough for a heartfelt pursuit of excellence. I don’t see in myself the vaguest shadow of Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds, or even the Pinoy programmer who supposedly wrote the love-bug virus. The best in writing? I’m truly, madly, deeply in love with writing, so I should be well-nigh proficient in this art, right?

But no. Problem is...writing’s not enamored of me. I’ve got a great deal of troubles in my writing; I keep producing pieces whose quality I doubt. If it takes me an hour to finish an essay, I can likewise waste a whole day of reading, re-reading, and revising it. Nevertheless, I still write. I practice, because it’s the only way I’ll improve. Who knows? Maybe someday the line ‘I am the best’ will cease to be a silly, delusional claim and turn to reality, and then my father would be mightily pleased.

So in the end, unable to restrain myself, I shot back at my dad (I forgot what I said verbatim) and went up to my room stomping, the combined might of his two criticisms making a mess out of my manly composure. I know my English is flawed, my speech isn’t to be emulated, and my writing is run-of-the-mill, garden-variety stuff. I know I won’t win any Pulitzers for essays like this. So dad, quit rubbing salt in my wounds, okay?

Damn. Criticism can really cut you to ribbons with its razor-sharp truth.

Spurned

2005-05-14T22:55:00.000+08:00

How do I get spurned by thee? Let me count the ways:

The Immaculate, circa 1997

Over the phone line. "I'm sorry, Corsarius. You see, I've got a guy friend. He's so kind to me. He buys me ice cream everytime."

I say, "Aw, shucks."

The Angel, circa 1999

Written on perfumed stationery. "I'm sorry, Corsarius. I never thought you had those intentions for me. I just want to be your friend. I mean, we can still be friends, right?"

I rip the letter to shreds.

The Princess

Strike One, circa 2002 - Dark hallway in PSHS, half-wishing something nasty would happen between us. But -- "I'm sorry, Corsarius. I just don't want to have a boyfriend, and you're not of my religion."

Wish not granted.

Strike Two, circa 2003 - Araw ng Kagitingan, UP Diliman. On the main library's steps. Sunset. Romantic. But -- "I'm sorry, Corsarius. I should've told you this a year ago. There was no spark. Nada. Nunca. Wala. Now get out of my sight, you sorry git."

I get out of her sight. Head unbowed, chin up to the dying sun.

Still romantic.

The Corsarius, circa 2005

"I'm sorry, too, Corsarius, for having been a lousy suitor unworthy of your swashbuckling title oozing with machismo -- or so I imagine."

Oh joy.

And it's not even Valentine's Day.

At least, it's the fourteenth.

[A crap of a space-filler, methinks. Rummaging my mind for some bright idea. Till then.]

Corsarius XX

2005-05-10T20:52:00.000+08:00

1985. People have written about their visions for the roll of years. Take Orwell’s 1984 for example. Well, they should’ve written something for 1985.

May 1985, to be exact.

It’s the tenth day of the month. Some hospital in Quezon City, the Philippines.

Amidst the tension in the ER, the silent apprehension in the mind of a thirty-something man, and the shrill shrieks of a thirty-something woman, a new Filipino is added to the Swarm.

But God decides to make him stand out from the rest.

He says, “Give this boy some spunk, some funk, some luck. It will be a good brew. Then give him a cool weapon, let’s say, a flaming cutlass. In that way, he can set sail and conquer the world in his own little raiding ways.”

And so —

“Wait, let’s give him one more thing,” God adds. “Give him some angst. Yes, angst. A little angst along the way goes a looong way.”

And so at 8:52 PM, it becomes official.

The Corsarius is born.

*****

I've come a long way.

First, I had a single-digit age. Then I went on to 10, 11, 12. Finally, I became a teenager; this-teen, that-teen. I technically became an adult when I hit 18. Nineteen, that's a transitory age; I barely had enough time to realize that I was 19. I know, I know -- I had one whole year. But a year can zip past you faster than a Maglev train.

Now, the '1' has been replaced by a '2', and the suffix 'teen' casually dropped.

The Corsarius is now 20.

I've come a long way.

Many events have transpired, especially in the last three years -- my stay in college. Those events are so abundant, that they’ve made me forget all those childhood memories.

Yes, the Corsarius is an asshole. He shrugs off the past, to ruthlessly focus on the present.

But God always finds a way to make a person touch base with his past.

An hour ago, I attended mass with my dad at our parish church, Our Lady of Fatima. Being the one-week fiesta of our parish, the song for the Virgin Mary of Fatima was sung by the choir at the mass’ end.

As soon as I heard the first note, my heart started to melt.

That song, the one which I haven’t heard for several years until now, was my perfect childhood song.

When I was in my mid-elementary years, my neighborhood ‘gang’ used to attend the daily summer catechisms at the same church. Before the day’s catechism, we would go around Barangay Don Manuel, picking the best flowers to offer later to the Lady of Fatima (at the catechism’s end). Yes, we were all little boys, carrying around bougainvilleas from street to street, but so great was our respect –- not devotion, that’s for adults old enough to understand its true meaning –- for Mother Mary.

At the day’s end, while we gave Mama Mary our day’s collections, we would sing a hymn for her -- yes, that very same song.

So you didn’t expect the child Corsarius to be this cheesy?

I didn’t, too. That’s why as I sang the hymn, I struggled to keep my voice from breaking.

This day, as I truly become an adult, I find a young Corsarius tucked inside the old -- happy, innocent, and unperturbed by the harsh realities of life.

*****

There. It’s 8:52 PM.

It’s official.

The Corsarius is now twenty.

UP Parser Website Resurrected!

2005-05-10T20:50:00.000+08:00

Finally! The website of our paper, The UP Parser, the first and foremost publication in UP Diliman's College of Engineering, is alive and kicking once more!

After a century of technical problems, The UP Parser now has a dual presence on the Net -- the main site, and the Parserblog. Please do visit both sites; the latter has recently become a head-turner.

Kudos to the Parser webteam!

Happy _others Day

2005-05-08T18:45:00.000+08:00

You, yes, you, you who have her, greet her. Give to her what's due her -- a kiss, a hug, a Hallmark card. Bake her some cookies. Wash the dishes. Take her to the movies. Spare her your irksome, childish manners, even for a day. Better yet, give a simple, heartfelt thank-you for all that she has sacrificed for you.

Ask yourself, How old am I? Don't add, don't subtract. Keep that number exact, keep it in your mind. For that's the number of years she has cried, toiled, and felt happy for you.

Be grateful. Feel fortunate that you can greet her today, unlike some others. You, yes, you, you who have her.

After all, the 'you' isn't a mere literary device.

It's a revelation.

[Look for the revealing line here.]

A Slice of Eng'g

2005-05-06T01:39:00.000+08:00

[Eng'g (pronounced "eng") is of course UP Diliman's College of Engineering. This old piece, meant to be published in the college paper but cut due to space constraints (and some say, controversies), is some sort of tribute to my college of three years running. Is the main character in the story yours truly? Partly yes, partly no. Non-Tagalog readers be advised: the dialogue is in my native tongue.]

10:17 AM

“Oi una na ‘ko, may klase pa ako sa Eng’g,” you tell your friends. The group’s conversation breaks up as you start to descend the AS steps.

“Hey, wait lang! You naman o, basta na lang aalis,” Ciara says in between puffs of her cigarette.

“Late na ako e,” you say, scratching your head.

“Why, what’s that ba, majors?” she asks. You nod in response.

“My gosh, i-cut mo na ‘yan! It’s more fun here than in Eng’g, no! Bulok dun, and you don’t get to see girls like me there, di ba?” Ciara giggles, and your other high school buddies follow suit in enticing you to stay. You think it over for a while, but in the end you reach a decision.

“Sorry talaga...di ko ‘to pwedeng i-cut. Alam niyo namang second take ko na, at ayokong ma-dehado ulit. Bawi na lang ako sa inyo sa susunod,” you tell them with a sheepish grin on the face. Without waiting for their consent, you sprint down the stairs and bolt for the Beta Way.

Walking briskly towards Eng’g, your mind can’t stop chewing over Ciara’s words. She and the others have always had a biased view towards your college. How could they judge Eng’g without having experienced Eng’g life? You can’t understand their love for the crowded corridors of Palma Hall, where unknown, hostile faces blend into a single nebulous mass. The building they fondly call ‘A-S’ isn’t your home; there you’re a mere a tourist in a distant land, out to make new acquaintances, out to plumb the mysteries of philosophy, history, geography, name it -– subjects which are mere child’s play compared to what you’re wrestling with everyday in Eng’g.

But now, walking across the Academic Oval, far removed from Palma Hall, you can make out the imposing figure of the home of UP’s best minds -– your home. In paper it’s called Melchor Hall, but to you and many others it is simply...Eng’g.

12:24 PM

You storm out of the classroom, spewing out curse after curse. “Punyeta namang test ‘yan o,” you hiss.

A girl at your side sniggers. “Magmumura-mura ka ngayon, e sino bang may kasalanan kung bakit ka bumagsak?” She frees a piece of crumpled paper from your clenched hand and un-crumples it. A 27% encircled in bright, red ink stares out at you.

“Ayan, Eng’g Cup pa kasi inuuna,” she softly says. “Aral muna sa susunod, ha? Saka na yang basketball.”

You sigh as she hands back your creased test paper. “Opo, sige na po. Kung di lang kita bespren...”

“‘Yan naman gusto ko sa ‘yo eh...madali turuan. Uy, di pala kita masasamahang kumain ngayon. Pupunta pa ako ng tambayan. May ExteCom meeting e.” She presses your hand and flashes a smile. “Sorry...”

“Okay lang no,” you assure her. “Sige, kita na lang mamaya.”

With that your bestfriend leaves and disappears amongst the throng of people flocking towards the stairs. Hunger threatening to make you keel over and die, you hunt the hallways for a monay vendor. You find one, and for ten pesos your mutinous tummy is calmed down. You can imagine Ciara telling you, ‘Monay?! How cheap! Don’t dare go out with me again!’, but your wallet is a lean, worn-out thing and the sizzling tenderloin at the Eng’g Caf is something which you reserve for merry occasions, such as a 3.0 classcard in any ES subject. Besides, monay tastes fine. You don’t need beluga caviar to make your day.

It is in this time of munching your ‘cheap’ meal that you walk around Eng’g. Unlike in Palma Hall, the corridors here are decked with familiar faces, smiling, winking, and sticking out their tongues at you. Friends, coursemates, even people whom you’ve just been classmates with for one semester –- all of them, you consider to be family. They’re all around you, and their mere presence eases the pain of a flunked exam.

01:53 PM

You can see your classmate Marvin rushing towards you. He’s shouting: “Yahoo! Tara na tsong, basketball tayo!”

“Ano? Basketball?”

Marvin nods giddily while befuddlement sweeps over you. “Ha? May class pa tayo. Wag mong sabihing mag-ka-cut ka?” you say in a reproving voice.

“Timang ka talaga. Wala si Sir ngayon, naka-post sa dep’t na may sakit siya. O ano, sama ka na! Pang-practice na rin ‘to sa Eng’g Cup. Andun na sina DJ sa Molave.”

You shake your head and wonder why no week passes in Eng’g without any of your professors missing their classes. You’re about to take Marvin’s offer, seeing basketball as an ephemeral escape from acads, but suddenly the memory of your bestfriend’s gentle scolding jolts you back to reality.

“Naku tol, pasensya na. Punta akong library sa baba, medyo kailangang kong mag-aral...pramis ko kay Bea ‘yon e,” you grudgingly admit.

“Bea? Ikaw ha, di pa nga ‘kayo’, e ander de saya ka na,” Marvin jeers.

“Sira!” You punch him on the arm.

03:24 PM

Somehow you feel good that, for the first time this semester, you’ve managed to study in the Eng’g Lib for at least an hour. You proudly walk up the stairs and pass by your bestfriend’s tambayan, merely wanting to boast that you had kept your promise. But Bea has other things in mind, and she drags you into a three-hour ride with her org. At first you have misgivings, but trepidation soon gives way to delight as you find out how fun it is to be in an org. Laughter, jammings, gossips and new persons to include in your Eng’g ‘family’ –- you’re surprised at what you’ve been missing. You’re already in third year and have steered clear of organizations, all because you’re too lazy to undergo those hellish application processes. But now it seems your outlook is changing.

During a short lull in the tambayan, you whisper to Bea, “Huy, pwede pa bang mag-apply?” to which she gives you a quizzical look.

“Malamang oo! Teka, ano bang nakain mo’t gusto mo na ngayong magka-org?” she asks.

“Wala. Monay lang naman.”

06:30 PM

You stand beneath the waiting shed near Eng’g. Every UP-Philcoa jeepney you flag down is brimming with passengers. Bea and her orgmates are still in the tambayan; her dad’s going to pick her up late. Ciara of your HS-buddies had texted you a message: “dearie, go hir nman s haws ko, d2 n lhat ng guys...club-hoppng l8r”, and so you forced yourself to leave Melchor Hall.

But now, your eyes can’t stop darting from Eng’g to the approaching jeepneys. Something just doesn’t feel right.

Your thumb hovers over your cellphone’s keypad. “Erase message?” the display asks. You press “OK”. Ciara and her club-hopping escapade vanish into electronic nihility.

You walk back towards Eng’g. You walk back towards home.

Ang Alamat ng UP ACM

2005-05-06T01:25:00.000+08:00

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is the world's oldest and largest educational and scientific computing society, having over 80,000 members. Based in the USA, ACM International has 750 Student Chapters spread over 27 countries. The Philippines is home to only one chapter.

It is the UP ACM.

Now stronger than ever, the Association for Computing Machinery University of the Philippines Student Chapter (UP ACM) launches its website, which is uniquely Filipino and uniquely UP.

My friends, I tell you, I am very proud to be an officer of this organization. A peek into our website will show you why.

Dead Cats

2005-04-28T01:20:00.000+08:00

[As promised, my old animal-rights essay.]

As I commuted to UP today, I saw two dead cats by the roadside.

The first was just about five blocks from the apartment we’re living in. I was aboard one of those boisterous, tin-can tricycles that zipped through the narrowest of streets like an F1 racer with utter disregard for life. Crossing E. Rodriguez towards Quezon Avenue, the speed-obsessed driver overtook an SUV with a swift swerve of the motorcycle, nearly throwing me off my seat.

Amidst the rushing wind which turned my hair into a sight-hindering mop, I glimpsed what seemed to be a piece of orange carton strewn on the asphalt. Even as my ride threatened to pull away from the thing with dizzying swiftness, I insistently stuck out my head (at the risk of getting my brains splattered by an incoming car) to see if my suspicions were true.

They were. With my uncanny knack for seeing the morbid, I broke my heart. It was a cat, flattened as if a tank or a pison rolled over it. In all probability, the poor thing may have been made road kill nights ago by some speedster fool at the helm of this very tricycle, and since then no soul took the liberty of giving it a decent burial (not even the ubiquitous, blue-clad street-cleaners of Gloria), all whizzing by too busy with their business meetings or wild bar-hopping parties or exams in college, just mouthing “poor cat!” with a feigned shocked expression, then completely forgetting the incident minutes later. All the while the dead feline is run over three or ten or a hundred times again and again, driving out its innards through its agony-frozen mouth and into the cold, somber road while its skin ends up a carpet for the endless parade of men and cars along the street.

And so I forgot about her (or him) as I went on with my commute. Arriving at Philcoa, I boarded a jeepney which would take me into the country’s heart of free thought and free will -- the Diliman Republic, UP. As the jeep turned right into University Avenue, I saw the second cat.

Compared to the first casualty, this one was quite a bit more fortunate -- it wasn’t flattened as thin as cardboard. Lying on the street, it boasted of plumpness uncommon in stray cats. It had a white, seemingly pristine pelt, though I fancied seeing red on its head. If I were to judge, I’d say a speeding car gave the cat a glancing hit on the skull, and by the sheer velocity of the impact it was sent flying to the sidewalk. Absurd, but possible.

If you fancy another speculation, I can offer another; maybe the cat was brutally kicked in the head by the merciless, drug-induced youth frequenting the many nooks and crannies of UP Naming Mahal. But it doesn’t matter which inference you accept. The second cat remains dead and not a bit more animated than its carton-thin fellow, so I guess it’s not really any luckier than the first.

*****

The sight of animals lying dead or dying has never failed to wrench my heart and render my eyes brimming with salt (an exaggeration, but you get my drift). Those two dead cats triggered a surge of miserable memories, from a dog being run-over right in front of my eight year-old eyes (then being carted off to be served as asucena, so ‘it won’t go to waste’), to a goat being slaughtered at the sidewalks of Quezon Avenue with its vibrato shrieks of terror slowly turning to a liquid gurgle, to countless more cats frozen in their moments of last breath.

I don’t know why I feel distressed when I see animals in agony or death; even a catfish twitching while caught in a hook is a difficult sight for me to bear. Maybe it’s just because they seem defenseless, suffering and dying at the often-inane whims of men. Put yourselves into these animals’ place even for a jiffy, and try to imagine the terror felt by a stray dog or cat a split-second before it is run over by a monstrous, speeding car. Try to imagine how a group of snarling men with long, thick, blood-stained knives would seem terrifying to a goat.

Animals live to survive, nothing more, and they don’t know crap about the concepts of hate, revenge, anger, and sin that makes the death of telenovela villains pleasant to watch. The Corsarius, yours truly, didn’t feel the tiniest bit of joy when the Hollywood-version of Godzilla was finally felled, even after it devastated the Big Apple, squashed men like ants and swatted Apache helicopters like flies. I actually felt sad when the big reptile kicked the bucket; I detested the people who killed him. After all, the plot dictated that men were to blame for the poor beast’s mutated existence, with the nuclear radiation and all. But of course, that was just a movie.

Most city animals whose deaths I’ve witnessed -- stray dogs and cats -- live a very hard life, which makes their violent deaths more pitiful. If in their infancy Death doesn’t fetch them, they go on to suffer for many years, scouring for food in garbage dumps or a carinderia’s outskirts and lapping up water from street canals or puddles of rainwater. When a storm hits the land, where would they go for cover? If they do find one, it’s still no house to shelter them from the biting rain and wind. This cycle goes on excruciatingly until some nice family adopts them or a kind soul from PAWS** picks them up. But most likely, they’ll be made roadkill or asucena, and when that happens, it’s the definitive end to their heartbreaking lives, an almost perfect conclusion to a drama that unfolds everyday around us, unnoticed.

*Ever eaten a poor doggy? Not me. Unfortunately, millions of Filipinos have tasted the meat.
**Philippine Animal Welfare Society.

For the Pinoy Bloggers Out There

2005-04-28T01:07:00.000+08:00

This is for you.

iblog, the Philippines' 1st Blogging Summit will be held on May 7, 2005, 9AM - 5PM at the NISMED, UP Diliman. Attendance is FREE but online registration is required. (I'm registrant #15.)

About time! Yeeha!

Two Tongues Twisted

2005-04-19T12:04:00.000+08:00

[Don’t mind the picture. I’m opting for a tamer post this time around, after that ratty debacle, haha.]

If you’re a writer, and English is just your second language, do you play favorites?

I did, once. I almost never wrote in Tagalog. A great shame, considering I am Filipino. But it just seemed like I was more comfortable weaving stories in English than in my native tongue. Add the fact that I knew more ‘big’ (read: polysyllable) words in English than in Tagalog, and you have a writer filling up pages and pages of pompous, highfalutin text.

If you’d allow me to make one ridiculous analogy, then let’s just say one tongue was drenched in saliva, and the other was as dry as the Sahara baked to the fullest.

But of course, the times have changed. Eventually, the spit of life found its way to the other tongue, nourishing it, allowing it to smoothly lave and lick at the victuals it desired to consume. These victuals were, of course, your usual yummy morsels of prose and poetry fodder.

To make the poetically abstract lines above clearer –- my ardor of English gave way to my ardor of Tagalog.

Want to really know why I left my blog for a month? Well, this web journal is in English, and I wanted to keep it that way. Unfortunately, I almost abandoned writing in that language. At least for a month.

I found Tagalog better suited to express my recent ‘musings’, which leaned towards Filipino societal concerns and manifested in poems. And what better tongue to use for these ‘nationalistic’ ruminations? Certainly, a Filipino tongue -– Tagalog.

For one whole month, I demoted English to school papers and system documentations. There was no room for creative writing in English.

But now, I want to strike a balance. These two tongues need to share the spit of life. For ridiculous analogy number two, I’d say these two need to finally French kiss.

I began with English. I swung to Tagalog. I will end with both English and Tagalog. That’s what you call having the best of both worlds, er, tongues. For my prose, which consists of my journal writings and –- this is a hush-hush thing between us, okay? –- fantasy ala “swords and sorcery” novels, English is my baby. For my poetry, Tagalog reigns supreme.

So in effect, my escapist doppelganger speaks English, and my serious, patriotic self is fluent in the native speech (did you actually think the Magdalo flag in my Blog Profile was only for decoration?).

As I begin my third year* of ‘true writing’, I guess I have another challenge to face. No more playing favorites.

Dammit Corsarius, enough talk -– let’s get these two tongues tangled up right now.

*Another hush-hush thing of mine. I only began writing for leisure in second year college. Before that, I used my decent command of the two languages only for school requirements and journalism work. Absolutely no self-initiated creative writing. I didn’t even bother to have a diary. Ah, tempus fugit.

The Mighty Mouse

2005-04-14T01:42:00.000+08:00

If you abhor stories with mice and chamber pots in it, then skip this one.

It all began when I woke up one day all woozy from my staying up late the night before. I headed straight for the chamber pot, as the call of nature was exceedingly unrelenting.

[At this point, you might be wondering, why the hell do I keep a chamber pot? (Of course, you know what a chamber pot is, right?) Well, first, rest assured I keep the malodorous vessel as far away from my bed as possible. Second, the nearest restroom in the house is a good floor away, and as a person with slight bladder problems, I need to, yes, pee in the quickest time possible. Chorus ala Catholic responsorial psalm: Ooh, this is humi-liaaa-tiiiiing.]

Anyway, back to the story. So there I was, relieving myself of the burden, when I caught a glimpse of something black and round in the, uh, ‘liquid’. Being lightheaded and all, I absolutely disregarded it, replaced the lid on the chamber pot, and staggered to the bed.

That was 11:30 AM.

Fast forward to late evening. I was preparing to go to bed. I opened the chamber pot to relieve myself one last time before eight hours of sleep filled my bladder to the brim. The noxious smell which greeted me enlightened me to the fact that I had failed to, uh, ‘empty’ and ‘clean’ the notorious chamber pot (or at least, tell the maid to replace it with a second one).

But before I could, um, ‘perform my act’ (repeat chorus: Ooh, this is humi-liaaa-tiiiiing), I noticed something black and round in the ‘liquid’ move. I peered more closely despite the lethal odor.

By Jove, it was a snout of something, rather, some animal, breaking through the surface of the ‘liquid’!

That was 11:45 PM.

Disbelief swamped me. My puny mortal logic told me that whatever the poor thing was, it had been drowned in urine for more than twelve damn hours. I thought the thing was already dead, but then it moved again.

And so then awakened Corsarius the Animal Rights Activist, the noble one who lets cockroaches live, the noble one described by friends as “the fool who loves animals more than he loves humanity; ergo, he is a base animal unworthy of being called human” or something to that effect.

Corsarius fished out the poor thing with something OTHER than his hands (that I assure you; repeat chorus: Ooh, this is humi-liaaa-tiiiiing), and laid it gently on the wooden floor.

Guess what the poor thing was? A young, little mouse, its fur really really soaking wet with my pee. (Come on, sing to him: Ooh, that’s humi-liaaa-tiiiiing.)

And what’s cute is that the first thing the mouse did was to clean itself, sitting up and rubbing his tiny hands onto his nose. I nudged it away from the chamber pot, and patiently waited until it skittered into its shadowy domicile (which I believe was under my bed). Better that he grow up to nibble at my shoes than being dead and floating on an unforgiving sea of urine.

*****

Now, that’s one Supermouse. Twelve hours with the lid closed and your nose barely breaking the amber ocean’s surface? Panalo!

Here I’m supposed to give some moral of the story, but I don’t actually know if this anecdote has a lesson to it. Oh well.

Final chorus: Ooh, this is humi-liaaa-tiiiiing!

Adieu for now.

*image from Neil Beck's Mighty Mouse Home Page.

Stream of Unconsciousness

2005-04-09T02:07:00.000+08:00

Whew.

That was some break.

But definitely well worth it. Imagine -- during my despicable one-month abandonment of this blog, I even garnered an award. A great, great weblog award. Heck, it's so great that I can't even write the words to properly exaggerate (or poetically understate) the honor bequeathed upon me. If you don't want to be stricken with sheer envy, then hit the "Next Blog" button on the Navbar above, or just smash your monitor with your keyboard and hear the sibilant ssssssssss that marks the death of your computer life (er, at least until you buy a new monitor).

But if you insist…

The joys of being a blogger! Thank you, www.corsarius.tk!

But of course, I'm not really the World's Lousiest Blogger. Hell, I can name at least one more guy out there in the blogosphere who hasn't updated his blog for a century!

And yes, if you had clicked on the link above, then you'd have been taken to none other than this very same blog. And yes again, that sexy-gurrrl image is nothing but a roughshod piece of art by yours truly, surreptitiously ripped from LevelUp! Games' Ragnarok Online and edited in MS Paint (of all programs).

Which kind of tells you that my one-month absence has done more to unscrew a few nuts and bolts in my head rather than grant rest and peace of mind. Corsarius the Lunatic, anyone?

Actually, it's quite hard to type in a straightjacket.

*****

So, what the hell am I supposed to say now? "I live"?

No, my friends. I believe it should be, "I apologize."

I apologize to myself for having neglected my duties as a Citizen of Blog-Nation. I apologize to my blog for having seriously threatened the short life of Slip of the Pen, born December 2004. And most of all, I apologize to all of you, those who came back from time to time to catch up on my posts, only to leave inconvenienced and disappointed.

I am sincerely sorry.

I will make it up to you, guys. I will.

*****

So what happened?

Well, I had actually planned to leave this blog for only two weeks, which was the time when I was battered by final exams, project deadlines, paper submissions, and the like. All in a quest to, yes, scratch another itch. And believe me, I did scratch that one.

And so when the time came to unwind, I...unwound, what else. I immersed myself in the Playstation, WWE mania, Dungeons & Dragons, and basketball. Heck, that was some chilling out, because my writing hand really froze and my creative juice congealed. I forgot my poetry, my novels-in-progress, and most of all -- my blog. I just didn't want to have anything to do with writing for the moment. I wanted to play.

That moment lasted for another two weeks. Hence, the one whole month of absence.

But as they say, you can't keep a good thing down for so long. And so, here I am once again.

Presenting, Slip of the Pen Phase 3: The Resurgent Corsarius.

*For those of you who might be wondering, Phase 1 was The Bare Corsarius (yeah, the usual Minima Black template) and Phase 2 The Brooding Corsarius (red and black, baby).

*****

It's April 9. Araw ng Kagitingan. And you know what that means.

In commemoration of this deified (reviled) day, I shall allow my face to be finally revealed to those who have not yet seen it.

Ready?

I'm the one on the right.

Yeah, I wish. I'm just freakin' glad to see the Chicago Bulls back in the playoff hunt. It pays to be a loyalist, I tell you. With the Jordan and Pippen Era long gone, they have managed to charge into the upper echelons once more.

Go Bulls!

*****

Ah well. Enough for now. Good day to you, my friends.

I'll be back. I promise.

The Fall

2005-03-10T16:15:00.000+08:00

Gaze out of the window and into the moonlit night. Forget the boyfriend who left for another girl, forget the university which kicked you out, forget the parents who left each other and you as well. Forget them all; while away your grief by gazing at the abandoned building across the street. Stare at its dark windows like black holes, consuming the silver light and giving off none. Gaze into those cavities. And see — there she is, the teen-aged girl standing by a third-floor window, her white nightgown a beacon in the shadows. She’s peering over the street, staring at your house, looking at you. She disappears; a minute later, you see a white blur on the rooftop, see it fall off the edge, see the girl plummet to the ground.

Leave the house in your bedtime dress. Cross the street, enter the forsaken edifice, satisfy your curiosity. Go up the floors, stop at the third. Take hurried steps, then more, knowing that each one brings you closer to her. Enter a room — she’s not there. Look out of the window, see your house across the street. Leave the room, go upstairs, up to the rooftop.

There she is — see the white-dressed girl fall off the edge, run to her, run run run, run to the edge, trip over a jutting piece of tile, and fall off the edge, fall, plummet to the ground as a teen-aged girl in her white nightgown, a wishing star blazing through the moonlit night.

[I think I wrote this one a long long time ago for a sudden fiction writing contest (max 250 words). Of course, I lost. Harhar.]

Tidbits

2005-03-04T01:50:00.000+08:00

Just this morning, I passed by a public elementary school on the way to the University. Posted on its gate, an official barangay notice read: "Babala. Mapanganib ang lugar na ito."*

And to add to the stupidity of it all, the school was directly in front of a church.

*In English, "Beware. This is a dangerous place."

*****
Humans are inherently selfish.**

"Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you." We refrain from inflicting harm upon others just because we're afraid. Afraid that the all-reaching hand of Karma will seek you and smack down its massive fist on your silly, wicked head as retribution. Afraid that you'll really pay for that 'evil thing' you did. And heck, the concept of Karma itself is both a whip to instill fear into the innate human wickedness and a candy-treat dangled for the pithy human goodness struggling to get out.

Why do you play the part of Mr. (or Ms.) Goody-Two-Shoes, even just from time to time? Oh, I see. So you can get into Heaven or Nirvana or whatever-Elysium-paradise-you-want-to-name. So you can save your ass from the Fires of Hell.

Or being reincarnated as a cockroach.

**Sorry guys. Mebbe I'm wrong here; I'm not out to start a moral (immoral) debate. Just feeling a little nasty today.

******
Bloody scratches.

I'm your typical unsure-if-I'm-an-alpha-male-but-heck-it's-good- if-I'm-one that perpetually feels the need to have an itch scratched.

I was itching to rise from the murk of my academic performance in the University. And so I strained my arm and scratched my back.

I was itching to live out my passion in journalism amidst computers and mathematics. And so I scratched.

I was itching to be productive and earn a few bucks in my free time. And so I scratched.

I was itching to be finally part of a family, a potent organization in UP. And so I scratched.

I was itching to take a stand in the trends and issues in the IT world -- open sourcing and related matters. And so I scratched.

I was itching to mold a brave, determined academic association in its infancy stages. And so I scratched.

Six scratches in one year. Quite a feat, actually.

But the last time I looked at my back on the mirror, I saw blood.

Yes, blood was seeping from my scratches -- crimson lacerations inflicted by eager nails, driven by an all-consuming desire...to scratch the itch.

Self-mutilating bastard.

[I want my free time back.]

Inseparable

2005-02-27T02:25:00.000+08:00

Inseparable
by Phillip Kimpo Jr.

The morning mist
Sends shivers down my spine
My hand trembles in the cold
Even as I hold yours,
Yours grip mine.

Both hands shiver
As we wait to cross the street.

Light turns green. Go, walk! – is your cheerful
Shriek.
The morning mist
Numbs my feet. Drag me
To the middle of the street
Where two sides meet
Dangers peak
And the road is
Split.

Your feet walk miles, mine an inch
Hands shiver.
Soothe me. Whisper
Those three words
Now foreign, now dull,
Fire dampened
By the morning mist.

Whisper, whimper
Tug at my hand
Pull me over, cross the divide
Pull me to the other side.

But my hand
Pulls otherwise.

1:30 AM
January 23, 2005
Quezon City

[Yeah, a month-old poem. Picture courtesy of one of my closest buddies, Pepoy. Taken in UP Diliman. The low-resolution scan does great injustice to his superb photography.]

Bestfriend Ventolin

2005-02-22T14:16:00.000+08:00

Without him, my life would've been in tatters. He is my comrade extraordinaire, having saved my life a thousand times. You'd think I'd be eternally grateful to him, but to tell you the truth, I'd rather live my life without his company.

I call him bestfriend Ventolin. Yes, that Ventolin Inhaler. A certified object of idolatry for asthmatics like me.

I think my asthma has progressed, er, worsened these past years. It all started when I abandoned NBA Live on PC for the real, gritty, hardcourt game of basketball. I'm not that tall, but I can dribble and shoot my balls (damn, what balls?). Then I'd do weights every other day, just to have that Greek masculine physique that completes an athelete. The reason?

Checklist for Vainglorious Human #1292348916:

1) Face -- "Mukha ka namang pang-Starstruck eh." Actually, what they're insinuating is that I resemble one of the teen idols from that GMA-7 flick. I object. But still...CHECK. (After all, when I was all chubby and silly in my grade school days, I appeared on several ABS-CBN kiddie shows. Don't you tease me about it!)

2) Intelligence -- Although I boast of several failed subjects in my early State U days, I'm still surviving, even grabbing a spot in the Dean's List one time, so...CHECK.

3) Arts -- I'd like to trample my self-esteem and say that I can't write, but for the sake of getting a passing mark on this checklist...CHECK.

4) Sports -- Scrabble? Game of the Generals? Ehehehe. Ah! Sports on PC and the Playstation! Not counted? Shit. So please excuse me while I leave this item UNCHECKED.

5) Physique -- Wooow. My eyes see a vast, infinite blank for this item. What glory.

See?

Oh yes, I was on the road to transcendence....rather, checking the last two items off the list. I was becoming a fast learner on the court, with my shooting emerging as my strength. My dreams of rippling muscles were slooooowly becoming reality. But in true tragic fashion, Fate handed me the sweet gift of asthma. Add to that my benevolence in keeping FIVE dogs inside our house, and soon the Ventolin Inhaler became my bestfriend.

Even now as I type this post, my lungs are pleading for another puff of the inhaler. I missed my classes this day as asthma got the better of me. Wait...

::puff::

There you go.

Now, I believe I must excuse myself. I need to rest.

Tomorrow's a day I'm not going to hand over to bestfriend Ventolin.

Five Acts of Valentine's Day: A Postmortem

2005-02-18T01:53:00.000+08:00

[Better late than never.]

Act I

February 14, 2001.

Valentine's Days in high school are fun. As fun as a jackhammer pounding your heart. As fun as your self-humiliating exercises in stupidity when courting a loved one.

And the only people who understand this perverted 'fun' are those who will kiss Cupid's ass for her (or his) love. Funny.

I submit to you this pathetic excuse for a suitor as Exhibit A. Yours truly.

Two bouquets. One barely surviving. One already wasted, its petals trampled by similarly-eager lovestruck students at the PSHS lobby. And of course, the insanely-expensive Ferrero Rochers, ubiquitous this romantic season. Ready to be sampled by her dormmates.

Valentine's Days in high school are fun. Waiting for her for three damn hours at the dormitory is fun.

Hey, no problem. Anything for her. Even a kiss on Cupid's butt (told you so).

And in a few days, the prom. Unlike the more pathetic guys around me, I've got a date. The Princess. (That is not her name, commoner, but a true sultanate title. In romantic, fairy-tale fashion.)

"Love is as much of an object as an obsession, everybody wants it, everybody seeks it, but few ever achieve it, those who do will cherish it, be lost in it, and among all, never...never forget it." -- Curtis Judalet

Act II

February 14, 2002.

Love is a luxury. But when your head is all inflated and you're feeling mighty, it's an afterthought.

They already call me the 'King of the Philippines'. A week ago, General Santos City became my throne. Of the thousands of high school campus journalists, I emerged on top.

I don't need love. My pen is the only thing I need, baby.

Eat my exemplary journalism, Cupid.

Oh, yes. Prom is -- again -- a few days away. No promdate. Don't want to have one.

Actually, it's the Princess who wants to go 'stag'. Not me.

Hah. Her loss.

Er...

Please take me back, Princess!

I am a triumphant loser.

"Do you believe in love at first sight? Or should I walk by again?" -- Jane Seabrook

Act III

February 14, 2003.

Third year of proudly exercising my right to become a woman's slave.

Nick Joaquin would be proud. Imagine -- Corsarius, new hero of The Summer Solstice. Tadtarin Part 2.

High school Valentines are over. The University is the new battleground. But yes, same girl. Same Princess.

Three roses. A poem. This'll do. Though I've heard her bestfriend's going to shower her with bouquets upon bouquets.

To heck with it.

I will NEVER lose.

After all, have you ever heard of a peasant failing to win the princess' heart? No. It always ends up nice and pretty in fairy tales.

Imagine. THREE YEARS. Sa'n ka pa?

The ending of this tale is going to be perfect.

And yeah, tried to give my own bestfriend a blue rose. Failed. She said her mom and pop would get suspicious.

"I ran into my ex today...then I hit reverse and ran into her again." - Unknown

Act IV

February 14, 2004.

Bestfriend Sophia is with me. McDonalds Philcoa is our haven.

Minutes ago, we were cavalcading ourselves on the Palma Hall steps. Fighting over what were the correct answers to the Physics exam.

Eat magnetic induction, Cupid.

I wonder how the Princess is faring with her 'bestfriend'.

"I'm not rushing into being in love. I'm finding fourth grade hard enough." -- Terra (10 yrs. old)

Act V

February 14, 2005.

No money. The bank is brimming with people changing cheques to bucks. I'm not one of them. I'd be nowhere near the middle of the queue when the bank-tellers pack up, presumably for their own Valentines dates.

My salary's going to be for nuts, after all. Goodbye, Valentine's Day.

Love's commercialization is sickening.

That's why bestfriend Sophia and me are sitting here in a dingy restaurant in UP Diliman's Shopping Center. Breaded porkchop for me. Icky squid for her.

No roses. No red-pink-rosy Hallmark cards with center-aligned rhyming 'poetry'.

I said: No money.

Commercialization is optional.

To paraphrase the late and the great Jose Garcia Villa*, "Always and always the Cupid astir / Ages and ages assailing man the fair / Assuaging now afflicting now man the alone / Stuff that rubber arrow into your fat arse!"

Belated Happy Valentine's Day to y'all.

*Please, esteemed poet, do not go a-rolling in your grave. Please.

Let It Burn

2005-02-12T23:42:00.000+08:00

Who loves fire?

No, not me -- you won't find arsonist tendencies within this writer. Well, I admit that maybe as a kid I had; after all, I used to re-enact the destruction of the Spanish Armada in my bath. I neatly arrayed tens of paper boats into two sides facing each other in the tub. I would then get into a matchstick-lighting spree, throwing the flaming sticks at the boats as if they were darts (Exocet missiles, baby!). In this way I simulated a naval 'battle', which only ended once both 'fleets' were burnt to the water. I guess who ever emerged 'triumphant' in such a battle would've had a decidedly Pyrrhic victory.

But when I grew up, here in the urban sprawl where buildings catch fire as easily as men catch the cold virus, I came to fear fire. I came to shun its gleeful destructiveness.

Who loves fire?

I don't. But I grudgingly respect it. I am in awe of its searing, blazing fury.

An ancient Greek thinker once held fire in the utmost esteem, viewing the element as the origin of all things. Every other substance in the world can be exchanged for fire, and vice versa. If fire can destroy, then fire can forge as well. Out of the crackling, chaotic, eternal flux of the burning flame, order arises.

Quite similar to my personality, as the blog quiz below justly presents (from Blogthings.com):

Your Element Is Fire

Your passion and emotion are as obvious as the brightest flame.
You make sparks fly, and your passion always has the potential to burst out.

You are exciting and creative - and completely unpredictable.
You sometimes exercise control, and sometimes you let yourself go.

Friends describe you as sensitive, spirited, and compulsive.
Bright and blazing with intensity, you seem mysterious and moody to many.

And, if you're a role-playing slash fantasy junkie like me, you'll be interested in the following test:

Find Your Element
mutedfaith.com

[In Tagalog: Sakto!]

Another Dog Died This Day

2005-02-10T21:41:00.000+08:00

Another Dog Died This Day
(in memoriam)
by Phillip Kimpo Jr.

all this I saw
as the jeepney passed him by:

the blood wasn’t as crimson as I thought it would be
it had a purplish tinge, but
blood nonetheless.
the dog wasn’t as dead as I thought it would be
he was twitching spasmodically, legs sticking out into the air,
broken, twisted in a macabre moment, but
dead nonetheless.

carefree and carefree he must’ve been, running through the street
careless and careless was the man behind the wheels, who
slammed his car into carefree dog.

even as the dog’s life twitched away
his red snout pointed upwards, his eyes pierced the skies
his head shook convulsively, as if
laughing.

this pleasant, sunny day
another dog went to heaven
laughing at men’s
frailties.

10:18 AM
February 10, 2005
Quezon City

[God, I shouldn't have peered outside the jeepney.]

The Villain

2005-02-07T01:33:00.000+08:00

What makes a villain?

I believe it's all relative. There aren't any clear, delineating marks between what we usually brand as 'villainous' traits and the 'saintly' ones. Decreeing a definition of what is wicked or not for the whole of humanity is like having faith in the existence of the amaranth; it simply doesn't exist. For example, people like to think (myself included) of Hitler as the penultimate villain in history, but in all probability he might be condescendingly regarding all of us as miscreants in whatever afterlife he's dragged himself in.

Absurdly enough, talking about 'villains' brings to mind the girl which I courted for three years, centuries ago (see my related post). During that awfully-long time, I placed her atop a pedestal, a princess worth my life and much more. (Uh, I guess the 'much more' means dozens of short stories and poems, one of which was a five-page ode for her 18th birthday.) But as is cliche for love stories, the pedestal came crashing down one day.

Don't hate me for this, but I'd be more of a jerk if I won't admit that she instantly became a villain in my life. At least, just for one or two weeks after she spurned me. And hey, it wasn't a one-sided deal -- I learned that she was growing close with another guy all the time I was trying to win her heart. I unknowingly fulfilled the role of a pest, a devourer of her time, time which she could've blissfully spent with the other guy. Maybe I was a demon in her life, too. (Not that it really mattered, because they ended up lovers in the end.)

The day we parted ways was a nadir for our friendship, and at the same time a pinnacle for marking each other as 'villains'. The villain-stuff wore off as time passed by (at least for me), but unfortunately we haven't really talked much after that day. We still catch glances of each other in UP, but absolutely no exchange of words, no perfunctory how-are-yous. She only greets my bestfriend, Sophia, who's with me most of the time.

I tried chatting her up for the first few months or so, but when she wasn't responding, I quickly got tired and gave up. I've moved on, so there's no reason to waste time trying to initiate a healthy conversation with a person who wants to keep her mouth shut. My friends hazard this silly guess that maybe she's finding herself guilty for being a one-time villain in my life. They say, after all, she made you cry for three damn years. They say, that's why she can't look straight into your eyes.

Really now. I love being the guy that everybody loves to hate, and so I must discard their notion.

She was the heroine, and I was the villain.

*****
And if I'm right about that, then I'm a...

What Type of Villain are You?
mutedfaith.com

A Day of Infamy

2005-02-03T23:00:00.000+08:00

Corsarius: A Self-Proclaimed Jaded, Unfeeling Bastard. But still, this happened to me.

*****
It was supposed to be another humdrum day.

It all began with another boring commute to the university, aboard an FX taxi*. A half-hour spent on the road, listening to the radio, looking out of the window and seeing the stories of humanity unfold around me. Only my musings kept me company -- the driver was muttering a curse about traffic policemen, another passenger was humming absently, and to my left sat a young woman (I assumed she was young), all complete strangers.

I didn't bother to even give the girl a sideway glance. It isn't my nature to go staring at people, especially at women. I guess I'm a shy boy, your quintessential torpe; I sat there benumbed, unable to observe her from the corner of my eye, even if the sweet, hypnotizing scent of her perfume was all-too tempting.

Believe me, the only thing which kept me from going crazy right there in the FX was the thought that she: 1) wasn't a beautiful girl, 2) didn't have the soft, angelic, ivory features that accompany the stereotype of a "beautiful girl", 3) and if she was that pretty, she was a spiteful lady with demonic sneers that starkly contrasted her angelic face.

The FX taxi trudged along, and the girl went out of my mind, until --

"Sa tabi na lang po." The vehicle screeched to a halt, meters away from the escalator ascending to the Quezon Avenue MRT station.

It was her. She actually spoke! What. A. Sweet. Wonderful. Voice.

She shifted towards me. "Excuse me," she softly whispered. I suddenly realized that I was the jerk between her and the car door. I opened it, and got out to let her pass.

We came face to face with each other.

1) She was a beautiful girl. I WAS WRONG.

2) She had the soft, angelic, ivory features that made her a true stereotype of a "beautiful girl". I WAS WRONG.

Cross Items One and Two. Item Three was still a mystery. But I WILL BE RIGHT.

I stepped sideways to let her pass. She did likewise. We ended up face to face once more.

Repeat the above routine for fifteen damn seconds.

Unbelievable? Believe it. Surreal? It happened. Stuff of pulp fiction? I ended up like pulp, after this:

"Ah.." her voice trailed into uncertainty. Her lips started to curl into my great prediction -- a spiteful, demonic sneer. I waited for doomsday to smack down upon me.

She smiled. In stupefying, heavenly fashion. "I'm so sorry," she said in the sincerest tone you will ever hear.

Chuck Item Three into the waste bin. I WAS WRONG.

"Ah." It was all I could manage. She stepped sideways one last time, and walked away towards the direction of the train station.

*****
The FX taxi whizzed past the MRT escalator, even as I craned my neck in a futile attempt to see the stereotypical-girl-with-angelic-features-and-heavenly-smiles for one last time as she ascended into heaven, er, the station.

A day after, I'm still having trouble twisting my neck. The pain is unbearable.

February 2, 2005 is a day which shall live in infamy. Stupid day.

*FX taxi - a Toyota Tamaraw FX used as a public transport vehicle. Slowly taking over the streets of Metro Manila.

Reloaded

2005-01-31T18:36:00.000+08:00

You know you've spent too much time on the computer when you spill milk and the first thing you think is, 'edit, undo.' --- some wise guy.

Have you ever wished that a new life was one click of the button away?

No, don't get me wrong. I'm not having any of my "please God let me die, reincarnate me as Brad Pitt" days. At least, not now.

I just think I'm getting too much of computer stuff into my system.

When you're writing something in MS Word (or OpenOffice for ye anti-Microsoft pundits), it's child's play to 'undo' your mistakes. Press CTRL-Z, and voila! Your sin's cleansed. It's the same when I'm typing Java or LaTeX code in Crimson Editor; CTRL-Z is your ticket to a peaceful mind.

Arguably, the most wonderful example of all can be found in PC games. Your character just got split in two by that uber-powerful Celestial Sword of Ultimate Death brandished by the Evil Dark Lord of Slaughter? Don't fret. Just press 'Reload', and live again. Your virtual Kobe Bryant scores 100 in a triple-overtime Game 7 for the NBA championship, and he just missed that easy, game-winning buzzer beater? Reload, and better make that shot next time.

It's so damn easy, right? So easy, that I'm getting really used to it.

So, in real life, you're all alone in a room with this bombshell, humping away to a steamy kingdom come, then notice a hidden camera blinking and grinning at you. What do you do? You and you're buddies are having a wicked time backstabbing this certain professor, then you suddenly feel his eyes stabbing you from behind, and when you turn around -- he's there! What do you do?

Simple: reload!

Or maybe not.

This may sound unbelievable, but when I encounter scenes in life similar to those above*, my first reaction is to reach out and press some imaginary 'Reload' button in my mind. I know, it's weird...even I am unnerved by my own response. It's a surreal experience; so surreal, in fact, that if you were the one telling me you were having this similar oddity, I wouldn't have believed you.

Maybe I should go out more often. You know, from time to time, get in touch with reality. So I don't end up like this:

You know you're obsessed with computer graphics when you're outside and you look up at the trees and think, "Wow! That's spectacular resolution!" --- another wise guy.

*No, I regret to inform you that both scenarios were from someone else's life, and not mine. Really, guys.

The Loss

2005-01-30T04:00:00.000+08:00

Ever since that day, when she pranced laughing into the sunset, leaving me to pick up the pieces, I have remade myself. I've become the second coming of Corsarius -- more complete, more unforgiving, more efficient than ever before. Focused. Driven. Invincible.

Or so I thought.

Ever since that day, when I began my odyssey of resurgence, I've sifted through the rubble, enhancing the strengths, pruning the frailties. All in a quest to become the greatest person one can be. All in a quest to be rid of self-inflicted tragedies. All in a quest to be a bastion of cold, merciless success.

But I lost something in the way.

With the heart in frigid waters, the soul was encased in slumber.

Some people call me a writer. A poet. A weaver of words into vast, majestic tapestries of life's nuances and life itself. But it is all a lie. A great, cruel fabrication. My words don't flow freely from the heart. How can they, when their receptacle -- the heart -- is frozen in some distant universe of false hope? I must force myself to break open the ice, enough to let a trickle of emotion seep through, enough to write a senseless piece of 'literature', a mere shadow of past dreams.

True writing isn't forced, true poetry isn't a trickle.

Ever since that day, when she pranced laughing into the sunset, when I began my odyssey of resurgence, I lost the power of my soul.

I lost the power of my writing.

And that is the most miserable thing a 'writer' can admit to himself.

All because I rid myself of pain. I shielded myself from tragedy. That was my own undoing.

I forgot that with pain comes blood, and blood enlivens the heart, allowing it to be the hearth of dreams, dreams born of tragedy.

This Blogger in a Nutshell, Er, Make It Three

2005-01-27T01:15:00.000+08:00

Agenda for today: a drawing, a sigh, and a silly me.

First off the list, here's a cute rendering of this blogger, done cartoon-style. It was drawn by Mai Sibayan, our talented Head Artist at The UP Parser. Thanks, Mai!

Next in line, a sigh. A sigh of relief. Finally, the first wave of exams has passed into the history books. I've emerged from the rubble of a quintet of killer tests. Only time will tell (time, as determined by the professors) if I've hurdled those challenges and merit passing marks. (Crosses fingers.) I hope that cramming - a habit of yours truly - is still the way to go in studying.

Lastly...I'm feeling the need to scratch this itch of mine, an itch that pesters me to humiliate myself in front of my blog readers' eyes:

[one morning, before the CS133 Exam]

Me: Don't tell me it's not allowed!
Friend 1: What? What's not allowed?
Me: I mean, I always feel the need to answer nature's call at least once an hour, and the exam's two hours long. Dammit.
Friend 2: I regret to inform you...our teacher herself said that we can't go to the restroom during the test.
Me: What the f*ck? I have kidney problems!
Friend 1: No, seriously?

[dramatic pause]

Me: I should be allowed to pee during the exam!

[deafening silence]

Me: (looks around, puzzled at friends' blank stares) Uh, what?

[a dreadful, pernicious burst of laughter from a hundred people]

There. Itch scratched.

Flash Drive or CD writer?

2005-01-22T18:54:00.000+08:00

I've finally clamped my hungry mandibles on my own USB Flash Drive. Two thousand plus pesos for this sleek thing of beauty jampacked with 256 MB. Of course, the money came from my meager salary as a Student Assistant. The days of pilfering from my dad's wallet are over.

I guess it's about time I treated myself to a gadget which I have long considered to be a 'luxury', though being a CompSci student and editor of two publications makes it a 'near-necessity', if such a term is allowed. On one occassion too many, I needed a file presto, but it simply wasn't there; it was tucked away in the hard drive of my home PC.

I wouldn't have bought a Flash Drive if I already had a CD writer, but because my money's just enough for a USB drive and I'm afraid of installing new hardware on my undependable, years-old wreck of a computer, my dreams of having a vast library of CD-RWs went pffft.

Which brings me to a question. Where would you opt to spend your bucks more (okay, just assume you had any), a USB Flash Drive or a CD writer? A silly and altogether useless question, but if you have the time it won't hurt to drop a comment.

Sorry, but the Apple iPod isn't one of the choices. (Argh! iPod! Gotta get one..gotta bet in the lottery..)

Calle Street

2005-01-20T21:00:00.000+08:00

I’ve always enjoyed riding the red tricycles plying the streets of my barangay*. And no, it’s not the exhilarating speed which makes me feel like Schumacher in his equally-crimson Ferrari. Rather, it’s the unique scenery whizzing past my eyes, which - weirdly enough - provokes deep, ‘socially-relevant’ thoughts.

You see, there’s this road called Calle** Street. Obviously a repetitive name, but that’s where the redundancy ends. The two sides of the street are not replicas of each other; the houses, parked vehicles, and even the pet dogs of each side are strikingly different.

When I ride a tricycle and pass through Calle Street, I can’t stop comparing the old, ramshackle, wooden houses of the left side of the road to the palatial, concrete mansions of the right. Parked on the left side are several FX taxis, a jeepney, and a dented Volkswagen Beetle on its last wheels. On the right, Ford Expeditions and top-of-the-line sedans charge forth from the mansions’ gates. The left sidewalks are home to emaciated mongrels, while the right-side Dalmatians and Rottweilers chase them away when the latter's masters take them out for a walk.

In this little swath of our barangay, a famous expression is given new meaning.

Two sides of the coin, two sides of the street.

*In the Philippines, some sort of 'community within a city'; an administrative subdivision. Visit this link for more.
**Spanish for 'Street'. Spanish ceased to be an official Philippine language in 1973.

Birds of Santo Domingo

2005-01-15T22:21:00.000+08:00

In front of the Santo Domingo Church along Quezon Avenue, I was quite surprised at a familiar sight so unfamiliar.

A pair of young boys was braving the noontime sun on a crowded, open footbridge which spanned the road. Unmindful of the traffic below, they intently tugged at the sky with invisible strings, pulling this way and that. Even as a hurrying adult crashed into their frail bodies clothed in tattered sandos and shorts, their eyes remained glued to the heavens and their hands steadfastly gripped and yanked the unseen strings.

Squinting my eyes against the glaring light, I finally saw two small kites soaring above the road, casting their measly, dancing shadows on the vehicles below. Grey gusts from countless exhaust pipes powered the kites' flight. Again and again the paper birds darted left to Sto. Domingo's direction, right to an abandoned building fronting the great church, then upwards to the sun. Left, right, up. But never downwards.

I fancied seeing some words scrawled on the flimsy kites. One prayed: "God gimme a jeepney*, and I'll earn many coins to buy a red, shiny car." The other kite simply pleaded: "Let some coins drop from a pocket's hole so I could eat kikiam** today."

Suddenly, one kite crossed its partner's path, then wavered in flight. The other kite followed suit and lost altitude, its diamond frame faltering. Finally, both spiraled downwards like birds shot from the air.

The kites' unseen strings had caught each other.

[recently published in INQ7.net's Expressions]

*jeepney - the Philippines' King of the Road. Public utility vehicle wherein 18 people can be jampacked. Ultimate polluter of the skies. Visit this link for more.
**kikiam - cheap but sumptuous cuisine (at least for me) sold by mini-food stalls dotting the Philippines' streets. Spend a few coins, and your tummy's pleased.

Inkless Pen

2005-01-15T01:00:00.000+08:00

Inkless for five days.

I must apologize for failing to publish even a single bit of rant these past days. Illness, school work, job hours, and applying for a summer OJT have all taken a toll on my young blog-life.

And the next week looks grimmer than the last. Four exams spread over five days. A new organization to join. A database to be designed. A problem set to be demystified. And above all, a dozen blogs to be visited regularly! (Drop by the Links sidebar.)

Needless to say, I must post something before Monday swallows me up again and threatens not to belch me out until Friday. Maybe later in the evening, or tomorrow, I'll be squeezing out some juice from my brain. Or what's left of it.

But not now. My eyes are drooping, the lids as heavy as lead. My head throbs with a dull ache. It's one in the morning, and I've got to heed the alarm clock at 6:30 AM. Wish me luck.

See you later.

Silence

2005-01-09T16:40:00.000+08:00

Silence.

This is what she perceives.

For the nth time this month, the phone line is a battlefield. All she's been doing for the past hour is to preach. Preach about my shortcomings. Preach on how she's been working her ass to save our relationship. Preach on how my Silence is hurting us both.

She says she's been doing all the talking.

What are you, mute or something?

Sure.

Why can't you talk about it?

Talk?

You're not helping me. Can't you even defend yourself?

The agony goes on.

...

After a while, I give up on her. It's then I stop talking.

I realize that Silence isn't in the absence of speech, but in the absence of hearing.

[inspired by a true event which happened months ago]

My Two Cents' Worth, a Two Cents Poem

2005-01-08T03:17:00.000+08:00

First Cent:

There's no way I can describe the utter shock which swept over me when I received the word.

I've been writing my name wrong for 19 years.

It's actually trivial. On the thousands of pieces of paper that I've been submitting to school and hundreds of article bylines, I am "Phillip Kimpo, Jr."

But according to Strunk's The Elements of Style, it should be "Phillip Kimpo Jr." See it?

Yes. There should be no comma.

I have been rendered incomplete.

**************

Second Cent:

If you've been watching non-primetime TV shows here in the Philippines, maybe you've chanced upon those second-rate advertisements about pig vitamins and stuff. Well, it happens that I did come across one, an ad with talking pigs rendered ala Squaresoft/Pixar (albeit a lot lot uglier).

One pig was being fed the 'ordinary' brand of vitamins, while another was pigging out (pun intended) on the 'superior' brand of supplements. Here's a snippet of the conversation between them, with the oinks discarded (they had female voice-overs):

Forsaken Pig: You're nothing but a trying hard pig. No one will even think of buying you and your piglets! [munches on dirty food]

Blessed Pig: With the [insert brand name here] vitamins our owner has been giving us, I'll be fatter than ever and they'll buy me, not you. [smiles ridiculously]

Forsaken Pig: Tse!

Next scene: the Blessed Pig is aboard a truck, jeering at her less fortunate rival, who is understandably upset. The advertisement ends here, but we can presume that the truck will deliver the Blessed Pig to the vicious, unregulated slaughterhouses dotting the Philippines' animal-rights-violations map.*

And she's blessed. How's that!

Will someone please knock some sense into the ad designer's noggin?

*in this country, dogs are eaten and pigs are mercilessly, inhumanely whacked on the head until they die. Hm. Let me post my pro-animal rights essay in the future.

**************

The Two Cents Poem:

[It's in Tagalog. You can also find it in the Expressions section of the respected INQ7.net website. It's dear to me -- it's the first poem I've submitted to a reputable institution, and also the first to be published (on the said site, a week after I turned it in).]

Barya
ni Phillip Kimpo, Jr.

Habulin,
habulin!

ang baryang gumugulong
patungo sa kanal
na kanina’y nadulas
mula sa munting palad,
ang baryang limos
ng mga nagdaraang tao
na sana’y iaabot
sa mamang fishball sa kanto.
Kalam ng sikmura'y
sasagutin ng gumugulong na barya,
habulin…

at panooring mahulog sa estero.

02:46 NH
Agosto 26, 2004
Lungsod Quezon

**************

It's three in the morning, and I'm taking a break. Tune in next time for more of this incoherent talk.

Cyborg for the Day

2005-01-07T23:57:00.000+08:00

No, this isn't a tech-savvy article about artificial intelligence and robotics. This isn't a rant about me being a cold-hearted, thick-skinned disguise of a human male. Er, although the description below may indicate otherwise:

Courtesy of the cyborg-name generator at http://www.cyborgname.com. And yes, you can customize the iconic avatar in the above image to suit your 'cyborg alter ego'.

The Week After

2005-01-06T23:20:00.000+08:00

Tempus edax rerum.

The week after, and I'm still getting a kick out of it.

I never imagined blogging to be this fun. This...addictive.

(As if you've never heard someone say that before.)

But believe me. For every million blog-lovers in the world, there exists another million blog-haters and blog-don't-cares. I was one of the latter. Was.

That past self has been eaten away.

Tempus edax rerum... Time, the devourer of all things.*

**************
Because I'm feeling geeky and stat-oriented right now, here's a rundown on what's been happening on my blog's 'Inception' week.

[Tallied by StatCounter, as of January 5, 2005 (yesterday)]

>> There have been 176 unique visitors, making 590 page-loads.
>> As usual, Windows XP users have it going (88% of my visitors). Linux is second with eight percent.
>> The most welcome stat of all: Firefox users, 83%; Internet Explorer, 12%. This blog is best viewed in the first browser. Feed the fire(fox)!
>> Of course, 77% of visitors came from the Philippines, while four percent came from the US of A. Three percent were Malaysians, while 11% were listed as "Unknown". A new constituent of the United Nations!
**************

'Nuff said. For now.

*slipped from the great Ovid's tongue

The Deep Breath Before the Plunge

2005-01-02T19:48:00.000+08:00

The hours are ticking away. I'm feeling a great urge to rip out the clock's hands and stop the march of time.

But of course, dropping a pebble into a raging river doesn't stop the torrent. Sending one clock to kingdom come doesn't impede the roll of years. Hell, even if you destroyed the gajillion clocks in the world, time would go on.

Damn. Christmas Break is over!

Tomorrow, thousands of students will be trudging back to the hallowed grounds of UP. Unfortunately, I'll be one of them.

The immensity of what needs to be done in the months ahead is already chipping away at my morale. Before April arrives, I would've helped in the publication of four school paper issues (two for Parser, two for Logscript) and the completion of two pseudo-theses (Software Engineering & Database Systems). Six courses would've been (hopefully) passed, and 300 hours would've been spent in my part-time job. That's not discounting two websites up and running (one for my organization, another as a sideline). All the while, this blog would've been constantly updated! Sana.

Man, I'm already looking forward to summer.

Musings on Love

2005-01-01T02:40:00.000+08:00

One hour into the New Year, I spent a few minutes blog-surfing, and came across a male blogger whose most recent post was about his undying love for a girl.

My first reaction was to click on the "Next Blog" button on the NavBar. But I then noticed the "150 comments" strewn below the post, and so my interest was piqued. Damn, 150 comments?! Love?

I viewed the comments, expecting them to be full of derision and humor (humor stems from another person's misery, you know that). But glory of glories! The comments were in support of the blogger. They appreciated his eternal, undying, unparalleled, ultimate love for the girl. Not a single negative comment was to be found.

I was shocked.

It was then that I realized that I was truly jaded.

Don't mistake me -- I'm no love-hater. I'm no cold-hearted bastard. I'm still touched by scenes and stories of affection and warmth. I still appreciate love. But that appreciation was, I admit, lessened a couple of years ago.

There was a time that this boy courted a girl for three years, you know. That this boy also fell deeply in love with a girl. That this boy unabashedly professed his eternal, undying, unparalleled, ultimate love to her in more ways than one. That this boy believed in fairy tales and happy endings.

I think you could guess what was the end of that fairy tale.

About those comments mentioned earlier, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised by them. After all, when I wrote a vignette on my own love story (for a Creative Writing class), packaging it as a fairy tale with a 'happy' ending, the reception was the same. My classmates -- especially the girls -- and the instructress were really touched. They liked the piece. Uh, because of the overwhelming literary talent? Nah. Because it was about love -- a resounding, powerful, completely human theme. They even urged me to publish the piece:

"Oh, you're such a good boy! So traditional, so endearing!"

"Man, you're the type of guy my girlfriend would leave me for!"

"If you publish this, girls will come flocking to you, asking for your hand!"

Eherm. As you can imagine, some of these quotes are a little bit embellished. But the last line carries the original essence of what my teacher said. Yes, she was the one who uttered that.

Maybe someday, I'll post that love vignette slash fairy tale here on this blog. I wrote it a year after my love story's end, just for that writing class. It carried no bitterness, it carried no angst, it just narrated what happened: simple, straight-up, journalistic-like story-telling. And they liked it.

And so in the end, armed with this memory, I decided to write in my own comment for that poor lovestruck guy, to pitch in some advice, to sympathize. What a turn-around! Maybe I'm not so jaded after all.

But his blog didn't accept anonymous comments, and I wasn't logged-in at that time (and had no intention of doing so). I lost the urge.

Oh, the nasty tricks Fate plays on us.

I Know Christmas is Over, But....

2004-12-31T19:45:00.000+08:00

With a few hours left before we usher in the New Year, let me share with you some of my thoughts regarding the recent Christmas season (it ain't over here in the Philippines, where the Yuletide fever begins on November 3 and fizzles out on February 13).

I've decided to write this personal essay in my native tongue, Tagalog, because the topic is about a uniquely-Filipino Christmas tradition (finally, my first Tagalog post). If you can't understand Tagalog but suddenly has a pressing need to know what's the essay all about, then drop me a comment and I'll translate it in my free time (yeah, I wish).

Happy New Year, people!

Ang Kulang sa Pasko Ko
P.Y. Kimpo

Hindi ko ramdam ang kumpletong diwa ng Pasko.

Ilang tao na kaya ang nagsabi ng ganito? Libo-libo? Milyon-milyon? Marahil narinig mo na ito mula sa ‘yong mga kaibigan. Mga kaanak na baon sa problema. Mga tambay sa kanto na pulos toma ang inaatupag. Mga manunulat na madrama (gaya ko). At kung alam ko lang, baka ganito din ang nararamdaman mo. Siguro'y sawa ka na sa mga taong nagrereklamo kung bakit hindi sila madapuan ng sayang hatid ng Disyembre. Siguro'y iniisip mo ngayon kung bakit nakukuha ko pang magsulat tungkol sa isang paksang gamit, laos, cliché.

Pero ano bang magagawa ko? Kasalanan ko ba na ako'y makulangan sa nagdaang Pasko? Alam ko, ang diwa ng Pasko ay ang pagsilang sa ating Panginoong Hesukristo. Hindi naglaho ang saysay ng Pasko para sa akin; may kulang lang. Kulang — hindi dahil sa...

1) mabibilang ng mga daliri sa kamay ang mga regalo kong natanggap

2) nakaligtaan naming magtayo ng Christmas Tree at magsabit ng mga palamuti

3) hindi ako nakadalo sa Midnight Mass o kahit isa man lang Misa de Gallo

4) hindi kami nakapunta ni bespren sa peryahang Paskong Pasiklab dito sa QC

5) masiklab na pagtatalo ng aking mga tito na sumira sa aking Noche Buena

6) mga alaala ng UP Lantern Parade 2003, na hindi napantayan ng parada ng 2004

7) nagkaroon ako ng lagnat at sakit-tiyan mula Disyembre 23 hanggang 26 (ngayong araw).

Hindi ako dismayado dahil sa mga rasong ito. May napansin lang akong nawala sa nakaraang linggo.

Nawala ang ingay sa labas ng aming bahay, ang ingay na bumabaha sa Kalye Cordillera tuwing mga gabi ng Disyembre, ang ingay na kinaiinisan ng ilan at kinatutuwa ng marami. Para sa akin, ang ingay na ito ay ang boses ng diwa ng Pasko.

Ito ang boses na bumibigkas ng mga pag-asa sa buhay, bata man o matanda. Ito ang boses na nagdarasal sa langit, humihingi ng tulong sa sanggol na Tagapagtanggol; ang panalanging ito'y ikinukubli sa masasayang awit tulad ng Joy to the World at Pasko na Naman.

Tahimik sa labas. Iilan na lang kasi ang nag-karoling sa amin ngayong Pasko.

Hindi ko alam kung ganito ang naging siste sa lugar ninyo. Pero nang magtanong ako sa aking bespren, pareho kami ng natumbok — talagang naging Silent Night ang bawat gabi papalapit ng Kapaskuhan, at ito'y para na rin sa ikalulungkot ng pagdiriwang.

Pagdiriwang. ‘Yon ang magic word. Anong klaseng pagdiriwang meron tayo kung walang mga batang umiikot sa baranggay at kumakanta sa kanilang maliliit at matitinis na boses? Masayang pagdiriwang ba kapag wala ang mga bagets na pilit kumakanta ng Jingle Bells kahit sintunado? Kapag hindi rumoronda ang kayganda't kaygaling na all-girls choir ng inyong parokya para magbigay ningning sa gabi? Kapag wala ang mga harana ng "Tenk yu, tenk yu, ang babarat ninyo, tenk yu"?

Naaalala ko pa, may sandaling panahon sa buhay ko na ako'y nagkaroon ng oras at tapang para mag-karoling. Oras, dahil iyan ang nauubos sa atin kapag tumatanda. Tapang, dahil hindi ko lubos maisip ngayon kung paano namin nakuhang magkakabarkada na magbahay-bahay nang alas-diyes ng gabi at tumahak ng isang dosenang kalye. Mga pito hanggang trese anyos lang kami noon. May mahirap, karamihan middle-class, pero walang mayaman sa amin.

Mga alas siyete ng gabi, tutulak na kami sa aming munting abentura, kaming limang bubwit. Balot kami ng mga jacket, dahil kapag pumatak na bandang alas-nuebe, giginawin na kami. Kumpleto din kami sa gamit — nariyan ang maliit na lata ng ice cream (siyempre wala nang laman) para paglagyan ng salaping maiipon. May bitbit din kaming maraca bilang pangalawang instrumento (ang pangunahin ay ang latang-alkansya, na kapag may lamang barya ay siya namang nakatutuwang ugain). At hindi nawawala ang aming ‘kuwintas ng Coke’ — mga pinitpit na tansan ng softdrink, binutasan sa gitna at nakasabit sa isang piraso ng alambre. Ito ang karagdagan naming ‘sounds’, o ‘props’ kung ‘yon ang mas gusto mong tawag.

Kung nitong nakaraang linggo, marami na para sa isang gabi ang limang grupo na makapag-karoling sa isang bahay, dati’y napakababa ng bilang na ito. Marami kaming karibal sa paghingi ng pamasko noon. Sa kahit anong sandali, meron kaming kaagaw sa isang linya ng mga bahay. Pinuputakti ang aming barangay ng mga nangangaroling!

Kanya-kanyang gimik, ke bata o teen-ager o matanda. ‘Yong ibang grupo, may nag-se-second voice. Meron ding nagko-costume ng Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (ayaw mong maniwala?). Kami, umasa na lang sa pagiging gwapo at mukhang inosente (umasa, sabi ko). Ang pinaka-kinakatakutan nga naming makasabay noon ay isang grupo ng mga magagandang dalaga. Kapag naunahan kami ng mga ‘yon sa isang bahay, wala nang aginaldong maibibigay sa amin ang mga nakatira. Nahalina na kasi sila sa mga naunang dilag.

Iniisip ko, bakit umonti ang bilang ng mga nagka-karoling ngayon? Dahil ba sa hirap ng buhay, at pagliit ng mga bulsa ng mga tao? May katwiran ang pag-iisip na ito — kung wala nang magbibigay ng pamasko, wala nang mamamasko, ganoon kasimple. Ang mga dating nagbibigay ng papel de bangko, ngayon barya na lamang ang handog. Ang dating kinakantahan namin ng ‘Ang babarat ninyo, tenk yu!’ ang kakanta pa sa ‘yo ngayon ng ‘Patawad!’

Sa katunayan, wala akong narinig na umawit ng ‘Ang babarat ninyo’ nitong Disyembre. Bakit? Swerte na nga sila kung mapamaskuhan ng onti e. Napansin ko rin na ang mga bata ngayon ay hindi na nagdadala ng lata (katulad ng bitbit namin noon). Sa bulsa na lamang isinisiksik ang koleksyon nila. Lahat, kasya na doon.

Dati, wala kaming problema sa pamamasko. Kaya nga naimbento ang awit para sa mga barat magbigay. Madali naming napupuno ang lata. Binabalik-balikan pa nga namin ang mga bahay ng mga sarili naming pamilya! (Bata pa lang kami noon.) Limang araw bago mag-Pasko — Joy to the World ang aming inawit sa tapat ng apartment unit na tinitirhan ko, kapalit ay si Mabini. Tatlong araw — Jingle Bells para sa dalawang Quezon. Isang araw (bispiras ng Pasko) — Pasko na Naman, Roxas naman. Jackpot!

Dati ‘yon. Masaklap ngayon.

Pero hindi ko masisisi ang mga tao sa paghihigpit sa kanilang gastusin, sa kanilang pagiging…kuripot. Kahit dito sa aming tahanan, damdam ang kahirapan. Mas simpleng handa sa hapag-kainan, mataas na bunton ng mga credit card bill sa isang sulok, nabubulok na second-hand Lancer sa labas. Ang latang ginamit namin dati sa pangangaroling, nakapatong sa istante, nagsisilbing lalagyan ng perang ibibigay sa mga namamasko. Ilang piraso ng bente-singko sentimos na lamang ang natitira. Madaling naubos ang laman kahit iilan ang humarana sa amin.

Sana, sana lang, umunlad ang buhay. Napaka-orihinal na mithiin, di ba? Pero sino bang ayaw ng masaganang buhay, at ibahagi ang kasaganahang ito sa mga kababayang nakikipagdiwang sa ‘yo ng Pasko? Sino bang gustong maging kill-joy, maging Mr. Scrooge? Sino bang gustong makaramdam ng pagiging kulang ng diwa ng Pasko?

Ako, ayoko. Marahil, ikaw rin—

Teka, ang ingay sa baba. Umaalulong ang mga aso namin sa sala. Bakit kaya?

“Sa may bahay, ang aming bati, Merry Christmas na maluwalhati…”

Ayun. May nangangaroling pala. Tapos na ang Pasko, pero may naglakas-loob pa ring mamasko.

Sumilip muna ako ng sandali mula sa mesanin. Kita kong humahangos ang aming kasambahay mula sa kusina. Patuloy ang pagkanta ng mga bata sa tapat ng munti naming tarangkahan. Patuloy rin ang pagtahol ng mga aso.

“…ang pagibig ang siyang naghari, araw-araw ay magiging Paskong lagi!”

“Patawad!” sigaw ng kasambahay. “Tapos na ang Pasko e,” dagdag pa niya.

Tsk. Sayang ang natitira pang barya sa lata.

[Originally written on December 26, 2004]

A Little Bit of Feynman

2004-12-30T22:34:00.000+08:00

Skimming through my readings in Natural Science II, I stumbled upon a little gem written by Richard P. Feynman, in his The Value of Science:

"Deep in the sea, all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves...and a new dance starts.
"Growing in size and complexity...living things, masses of atoms, DNA, protein...dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
"Out of the cradle onto dry land...here it is standing...atoms with consciousness...matter with curiousity.
"Stands at the sea...wonders at wondering...I...a universe of atoms...an atom in the universe."

Nice. Maybe a little overboard on the ellipses, but who cares. I get the message.

Remembering Rizal

2004-12-30T22:10:00.000+08:00

Filipinos all over the globe should feel especially proud of this red-letter day.

On this date, Dr. Jose Rizal, the Great Malayan, proponent of non-violence even before the revered Mahatma Gandhi's time, died for a nation.

**************
Jose Rizal's Death Sentence (taken from Philippine Headline News Online)

"In accordance with a previous resolution, I approve the sentence dictated by the regular War Council in the present matter, by virtue of which the death sentence was imposed on the felon Jose Rizal Mercado, which shall be carried out by firing squad at seven in the morning of the 30th instance on the field of Bagumbayan and with the formalities prescribed by law. For carrying out the sentence and its corresponding details, refer to the instructing Judge, Captain Don Rafael Dominguez."

SGD. Camilo G de Polavieja, Governor General of the Philippines
**************

Several nights ago, I chanced upon on TV a Belgian national who has been admirably spreading Dr. Rizal's legacy outside of the Philippines for so many years now. Thoroughly knowledgeable in the National Hero's life and works, he recently received an award from no less than President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, right there in Malacañang Palace. Through the graces of my unreliable mind, I forgot the good European's name. But rest assured, that man has my prayers and good wishes. May he succeed in making more non-Filipinos aware of how great Jose Rizal is.

Mabuhay si Dr. Rizal!

Sketch

2004-12-30T03:19:00.000+08:00

For vanity's sake, here's a short vignette about this blogger. It's a bit angsty, a bit silly, and a whole lot messy and disorganized. I'd be the first one to label it as non-sense rambling rather than as a true person's snapshot. But hey, my whole existence has been based on chaos, and so it reflects on the writing. Here goes:

I’m slim as a whole, yet my tummy bulges. I can’t sing a tune, I can’t dance a jig. I’m an aspiring yet unfortunately humdrum writer, a poet who dreams he is one. I love basketball, yet when I play my lungs give out every thirty minutes. I still can’t drive our second-hand Mitsubishi Lancer. I dream of winning a Palanca, but in all probability they’ll just burn my submission because of its revolting mediocrity. I do weights, but no more than twenty pounds per arm. I puff my Ventolin inhaler at least once a day. I desperately want to be published, but they don’t accept shit like this. My Chicago Bulls are cellar-dwellers, and Jordan’s gone for eternity. Every morning when I wake up, I suffer from a mild bout of asthma. I have an eye (and more) for beautiful women, but have never made love to any of them. My finicky computer tortures me as I type this vignette. Two years since graduating, I still haven’t received my high school diploma. I courted a girl for three years, but she busted me on Araw ng Kagitingan*. Last night the Purefoods TJ Hotdogs lost by thirty to Ginebra. I worked my ass off to be a Dean’s Lister this semester, while my effortless UP varsity friend is a consistent President’s Lister. Every time I call my girl best-friend, we end up fighting for an hour or two. My siblings are four dogs, and the Dalmatian growls every time I pat his head. My only literary piece about my beloved Fire Tree got massacred in a writing workshop. I have no mother, she said she loves me but I think abandoning your son is not and will never be motherly love. Tomorrow, the Philippine’s National Election Day, I’ll be celebrating my birthday.

*in English, Day of Heroism
[Originally written on May 9, 2004]

Newbie Blogger

2004-12-29T20:46:00.000+08:00

Well, look who's blogging.

Let's see what comes out of this weblog. Angst? Tragedy? Comedy? Pain? Ecstasy? Stupidity? Unlikely displays of writing prowess? High-falutin speeches? Silly mumblings and ramblings?

I don't know for sure.

But in the end, I think I can wager on a guess on what comes out of this blog.

It's simply...me.