It’s been five months. I can’t believe I’ve been a college student for almost half a year. Five months back, I wouldn’t have imagined any of the crap (*muses* Guess that hasn’t changed to a degree) I’ve become accustomed to.

For the record, let it be thus said: I was made for college.

I guess I am lucky to have been one of the probinsyanas (I have to own up to that one — and with much pride, may I add. However, I do resent the whole caveman connotations that are suggestive of that label. That borders racism in my opinion — not that I take offense so much) who have well-adjusted to the hustle and bustle of life in Manila. This simple fact greatly fortifies my theory that God loves me with a passion (*laughs*).

Don’t get me wrong, I miss Iloilo. My continuing memories of a happy home remain as alive as high-order derivatives and its application to the invaluable world of business (Calculus metaphors. Good one, Kia). I do miss the comforts of a bed I need not fix every morning or the warmth of watching television until my eyeballs pop out of their sockets. I miss the luxury of not having to worry about where to scour for my next meal without depleting the source of my existence, my wallet. I miss the fact that everything is 15 minutes away from everything else. I miss the unbelievably cheap thrills my hometown has to offer. I miss the idiotic laughter I get out of my friends who I’ve come to know, love and laugh with for the first leg of my life. I miss my yaya and her incessant spoon-feeding. I miss her family especially her adorable daughter, Trisha. I miss my parents and the love I am certain I have forever. Heck, I even miss their nagging.

(Oh wait. That last bit was a big fat lie. I don’t know why I dared to say it, really)

But Manila is — there’s just no other word for it — cool.

I get to meet loads of amazing new people. I get to make my own mistakes and, after, figure out where the hell I went wrong. I get to live alone and realize that apparently bills don’t pay themselves by magic or that beds and closets don’t suddenly clean themselves spotless. I get to comprehend that, even if I live inside my school’s campus, going to Math lectures five minutes before class starts and going back to the dorm a minute after because I forgot a book or pen will constitute myself being terribly late for that class. I get to do far stupid-er things and get away with it. I get to break some rules and carry on others. I get to appreciate where I come from and apply all the seemingly useless lessons that were stuffed in my pathetic excuse of a brain for the past 17 years. I get to comprehend the reality of who I am and what I am capable of. I get a good grasp of my strengths and, more importantly, my weaknesses.

It’s a well-deserved dose of adventure.

So, here’s to college and all the crappy potholes I will fall into in the future. May the fall be long and painful, but may the landing end with an earsplitting bang.

My brother and I went jogging yesterday. I’m an athlete (Alright, so that’s not entirely true. But I was part of my school’s volleyball varsity. And I do go shopping on a regular basis), so that shouldn’t really be a big deal. Of course, Royce (that’s the devil’s name) had an entirely treacherous concept of what I thought was “easy jogging”.

I was actually tremendously excited when he suggested we go running after mass. I don’t exactly have the Kate Moss of bodies, so I have to watch my weight. I’m not fat though – not anymore, anyway. I used to be really really fat. In fact, I weighed 9 lbs. when I was born (I was heavier than my three brothers at birth). When I was in kindergarten, I was the biggest in my class – boys included. My mom was afraid I’d grow up and become a whale, so she gave me her “healthy diet” lecture, hoping that I’d mature into a normal-sized creature.

Anyway, we arrived at Sports Complex in high spirits. I was ready to do some laps and hopefully shave off a few excess pounds. Royce, the big buffoon, decided to make me his little project.

So he made me jog. 5 rounds. Straight.

Royce (R): Ok. We’ll do 10 rounds.
Me (M):  What??!!
R: Pila ka laps maubra mo straight haw?
M: Eh? Err. Two.
R: Lang?
M: Yeah. And I’m getting pretty tired.
R: Well, we’re doing… 5 rounds today.
M: Okay. But medyo kapoy na ko gamay.

(After 2 rounds)

R: Okay, you can do it. You’re going to be thinner. 5 rounds!
M: I don’t want to anymore! I’ll get liposuction.
R: You have no money.
M: I can’t do it. I have to stop now!
R: Kay, no! (He pushes me forward).
M: Sakit na kilid ko.
R: Pain is an illusion. It doesn’t exist. It’s an illusion. There’s no such thing.
M: It does to me. I feel it right now. I have to stop.
R: Hindi mag-untat. Go. Jog. Athlete ka.
M: I’m not an athlete! I’ll go shopping instead.
R: Naano ka man?
M: I don’t care anymore. I’m a wimp. I’m a wuss!
R: O sige. Slow jog na lang. Malakat-lakat ta after the 5th round.
M: I hate you’re stinking guts!
R: One more round to go.
M: Manong! Daw mahibi na ‘ko.
R: Ano mas nami pamatian? That you did 4 rounds straight? Or 5 rounds straight? 5 rounds eh!
M: Shut up!

To add to my misery, he made me do 3 sets of 12 sit-ups (That’s 36 crunches!), 3 sets of 10 leg-raisings (I forgot what it was called because of the gut-wrenching pain), and 3 sets of  10 “lady push-ups” (I can actually do “fake push-ups”. But it wasn’t enough for Mr. Look-I’m-A-Trainor).

I was seriously contemplating punching him in the face. I’d knock his nose right off and send it flying to Somalia where pirates could turn it into stew. Then we’ll see how good an athlete I am.

I’m sore all over now. I can’t feel my arms. My legs have gone numb. My stomach feels like an elephant stood on it.

Royce is a pig. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat.

I think summer is that time of year when one’s sole existence is dedicated to sleeping until noon and obliterating all useful information you’ve learned the past school year. But while that sounds like a capital idea, I’m tired of being completely useless around the house.

1. Read/research on Romeo and Juliet.
   

   I really don’t know anything about these two epic lovebirds except that they ended up dying “because of their eternal love each other” (How disgustingly romantic) and that their families were the biggest of mortal enemies. Then what?

   (What is up with their names? Juliet Capulet? Romeo Montague? It’s like naming me Kia Banana.)

2. Read the newspaper. Bask in the warmth of current events.
   

   My mom nags like the plague. She thinks I don’t know who the president of the United States is. I’m perfectly aware that it’s Oprah.

   No?

3. Take up an instrument – any instrument.
4. Watch Discovery Channel for a change.
   

   My brother and I watched this documentary called Man vs Wild. It’s about learning to survive when you find yourself in a rut away from the comforts of home and a decent bathroom. The guy ate goat testicles, drank elephant dung juice (He squeezed the water out of elephant droppings) and  jumped into a bog (which he said smelled and tasted like a thousand cities worth of sewage) voluntarily. What say you?

5. Research on the holocaust. Get a decent WWII movie while you’re at it.
   

   Would it be totally inappropriate if I said I loved that part of history? What I mean to say is that I like reading or watching films about the second world war. Hitler’s anti-Semitism movement and supremacy propaganda were the most inhuman undertakings the world has seen. At what point does a man lose all sense of compassion and humanity?

6. Learn more about photography.
   

   I started taking up lomography last year and have become a proud lomo junkie. It’s costing me a fortune, but as I always say: It’s worth every penny.

   I’m still dreaming of an SLR though. I’m thinking a couple years of starvation will do it. My parents are having trouble swallowing the amount of dough it will cost to buy me one. But I’m keeping my hopes up.

7. Listen to tunes aside from rock music. It doesn’t even have to be classical.
8. Learn to cook. Dumping leftovers in a pan does not count.
9. Get some exercise. I’m serious.
   

   Okay. I’m getting miserably bloated. All I do is look forward to the next meal. I’m starting to miss volleyball practices. I even miss being sore from all the running and crawling.

10. Get some sleep. You look like the walking dead. It’s unbecoming. Stop sleeping after midnight.

To my first list, Folks. Wish me luck.

Remember that off-the-hook idea I was talking about a couple of days ago about making lists? Well, I decided to power through with it. This is an introduction to the experiment which will be known from then on as:

The Moppet Lists (A Social Experiment)

I plagiarized this from the movie The Bucket List (starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) with a few quirky changes. I’ve watched it four times in the last two weeks and have become hopelessly addicted (It has been recently awarded a spot in my Fab Movies Hall of Fame). The concept is more or less the same.

Rules

1. I will make lists of the things I plan to do, need to do, want to do, etc.
2. In this experiment, nothing has to make perfect sense.
3. Also, I am not compelled to follow the list.
4. However, it is preferred that I do.
5. This is purely recreational. No one (the author and the reader) is allowed to get a hemorrhage over it.

Etymology

• The Bucket List

• Did you know that the word moppet means young child?

• I read The Story of Miss Moppet (by Beatrix Potter, the author who wrote The Tale of Peter Rabbit) on the internet.

Miss Moppet is a cat trying to catch a mouse. She hits her head on a cupboard and ties a duster in her head. The curious mouse comes near a hurt-looking Miss Moppet. But apparently, that was all a ruse. Miss Moppet wraps the duster over the mouse and tosses it like a ball. But there is a hole in the duster! The mouse wriggles its way free, and does a jig on top of the cupboard.

(I don’t know how to explain to you the relevance of this story. In fact, I think it’s best we not think about it at all)

Stay tuned.

Hey, a little heads up. I just graduated from highschool (I do a little jig here). It’s absolutely liberating. Don’t get me wrong. I feel quite sad about leaving my home outside of home (school, I mean) after 13 years, but the fact that I actually braved through that teenage jungle is amazing. I feel like I should be given a title or something.

For the record,  I graduated on a Saturday, March 28, 2009 at about 6:00 in the evening in our school’s chapel.

And after we made our exit from the chapel, when all my batchmates were breaking down and hugging each other as if someone was dying of salmonella, I did not cry – or so I’ve convinced myself. I dare anyone to challenge that (I can be a total jerk/bad-ass now that I’ve graduated. It’s not like they can take back my diploma or something. Brilliant, no?)

I’m going into the third week of summer vacation and I am positively bored out of my mind. There’s nothing else to look forward to except Facebook (which, let’s face it, is nothing more but a direct consequence of the boredom I will be dying from). I have read and reread all the books I have. I feel like a sack of potatoes, and no one wants any more french fries.

It’s not like I’m not trying. I just finished To Kill a Mockingbird – again – which is a marvelous book but I’m not going to read it another fifty times. The first week after my “apparent” freedom I decided I’d become minutely productive. I was going to take up piano again. I downloaded all the piano pieces I could get my tiny fingers on. Halfway through Alanis Morissette’s Ironic, I chose to start learning John Vesely’s Fall For You. I went as far as the Intro when I realized that my butt was dying on the piano seat. So, I decided to stretch my legs and fingers for a moment or two. Two weeks have passed and I haven’t been in front of the piano since.

I bought a couple of DVDs hoping to have something remotely exciting to do. I watched a couple or so and had a few good laughs, but then suddenly the whole thing lost its touch. I settled on playing guitar to kill time, but I’m not half as good as my brothers, so that died down after a while. I went back to good old regular TV programs, but then flipping channels all day was giving me a tiny embolism. I sought refuge with the scientific breakthrough that is The Internet. I downloaded this and that. I played Mafia Wars in Facebook. I watched a few videos in Youtube. I answered quizzes in Facebook. I thought of making a new layout for my sites, but I never got round to starting. I played Fashion Wars in Facebook. I’m on the verge of marrying Facebook. It’s disgusting.

But then, like an epiphany, it came to me.

I have this excellent idea of making lists. You know, like Books to Read this Summer, Friends to Strike a Conversation With, Food to Stuff Down My Throat, etc. Normal stuff, really.

I’m thinking of making my first list a bit on the scholastic side, because I don’t want to start on the wrong foot and make you think I’m a madcap fool. The thing is: not a lot of people know I’m a bit eccentric, to say the least. I’m trying to be subtle about it. I don’t know if it’s working.

Here’s a toast to summer. I hope it doesn’t kill us all. And I’m not just talking about the heat.

Cheeehrrs.

P.S. Happy Lenten Season to one and all.

P.S. (The Sequel) I’ve finally decided that I’m going to Ateneo for college. You wouldn’t understand, but this is such a great achievement for me to be making decisions like this. Unfortunately (or fortunately for me), I never plan on telling you how I came to this decision. Needless to say, I have a tendency of blocking very painful memories at the point that I’ve become rather exceptional at it.

My uncle died last Wednesday. He was 50 years old.

A massive heart attack – that’s what the doctors said finally got him. It was a big shock for the family. We all knew Tito Boy wasn’t doing so well these past few months (In fact, he was released from the hospital just  last Sunday). But I don’t think any of us counted on him to say his goodbyes early. My dad’s taking it like a man, but I think he feels much worse than he’s letting on.

I was never as close to my Dad’s younger brother as compared to his other siblings. My titas were an ecstatic bunch, and I was drawn more to them and their jolly (and - may I add - generous) habits. Tito Boy usually kept to himself. He said very little, and so I never really got to know him. He used to remind me of Eddie in The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Now, I wonder if he ever felt the same way Eddie did – insignificant and unimportant.

Death always reminds me of how fleeting everything is. The great equalizer. You can’t buy your way out of it, that’s for sure. I guess the lesson here is to live while you can and love while you have a reason to. We’ll miss the people who have taken an earlier flight than us, but we can appease ourselves with the thought that they’re having one hell of a vacation – and a permanent one, at that. And if some of us are still terrified out of our wits of the inevitable, think of the reunions we’ll be having. It’s the next great adventure.

I’d like to think Tito Boy is in a better place. No, scratch that. I know he’s quite happy where he is now. If there was one thing my tito loved, it was chickens and cock-fighting. So, my idea of heaven for me is in some manokan up in the clouds.

We’ll miss you, Tito. We’re praying for you. Most of all, we loved you, still do, and will continue doing so.

I think this more often than not: I am graduating in less than two months. Most people (meaning every adult I or my parents may know) get all wound up and animated at the mention of that fact. I, on the other hand, cringe to the pits of Hades. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the sentiment people extend (although somewhat forced) to my life, but the conversations I have with these people are quite exhausting. And frankly, they’re all terribly awkward and embarrassing.

This is how every (friggin’) dialogue goes:

Random Adult (RA): Ano ka na nga year, Day?
Me: Ahh. Fourth year na, Tita/Tito.
RA: Teh, ano na nga course kwaon mo?
Me: Ha? Wala pa ‘ko kabalo.
RA: Diin ka ma-school haw?
Me: Sa Manila na siguro.
RA: Diin ‘to nga school?
Me: Wala pa man gid ko kabalo. Depende pa.
RA: But, ano gid plano mo maging mag-dako ka haw?
Me: Ha? Uhh. Hindi pa ‘ko sure.

By the end of our little tête-à-tête, I’d be desperately wishing for God to strike me with a really strong blast of lightning. I’m not the blushing type, but I swear my face turns into a pitiful shade of scarlet. That’s why I try to steer clear of adults whenever I attend social gatherings. I think it’s the bright thing to do, sparing people from unwanted uncomfortable situations. Of course, it would be so much easier if they’d just butt out of my existence.

Okaaaay. That was mean.

The more accurate thing would be to wish for wisdom and insight. You see, I passed all my college entrance exams (which, God knows, I’m profusely thankful for). Now I’m at a dead end. Or an impasse, I should say. I don’t know what to take up. Hell, I don’t even know what I want to be when I grow up. This wasn’t such a big problem a year ago. This is exactly why you shouldn’t put things off (Even as I’m saying this, I know I won’t change).

The worse thing is that people expect me to know what I want – which, as I said, I don’t. I’m not going to rant about how other people’s expectations are weighing me down and all that psychological drama, because I don’t really care about what they think. If I’m being honest, it isn’t as much as it is their fault as it is mine. I’ve never been passionate about anything (unless you count the more shallow levels of my being). I do stuff because it is expected of me. There may have been a time when I wanted to reach spectacular heights, but I think I’ve been running on this mode a tad bit too long to care for anything else.

What is wrong with me? — Don’t answer that.

I can’t believe it. I’m operating on fear after all.

But then again, that shouldn’t surprise me one bit.

P.S. We have a soiree (pre-prom activity) in three weeks time and I still have no inkling of a partner. I go to an all-girls institution (if it helps you understand why this is such a dire drawback). I’m not socially incapacitated that I don’t know enough boys. It’s just that I don’t really know who to ask. And FYI, I’m not being picky. Okay. So, I am being picky. Dammit (Excuse me).

Here we go.

This is my first official blog, ladies and gents. I deleted my old (WordPress) blog for this. I thought it was about time I scrapped the old material with something fresher and less juvenile. I saved all the files in my hard drive though. I’ll be looking back at them one day, and I’ll realize how ridiculous I used to be – or still am, for that matter.

It feels great to be blogging again. By the time I got to high school, I completely lost all ounces of patience with diaries. Manual writing was a chore. That’s why I seek refuge in modern technology which has yet to disappoint. Besides, the good thing about blogging is that you don’t have to deal with illegible scribbles later. My spiky handwriting may be appealing to some people, but, in truth, is actually nothing more but a botched form of “art”.

English class was interesting this morning. We talked about Virgil’s Aeneid and how similar it really is to Homer’s Illiad and Oddyssey. From there, we went through an overview of (the Glory that was) Greece and (the Grandeur that was) Rome. We then had the discussion of how the Romans were a bunch of copycats, and how the Greeks were a race of push-overs. Miss A then posed this question: “Would you rather be Greek or Roman? Why?”. To me, it was a question of whether you’d rather be the artist or the businessman. On one corner you have natural ability, classic taste and brilliant talent. While on the other you have skillful ingenuity, cool tact, and cunning sensibility. Personally, I’d rather be Greek. No offense to the Latins, but I find it extremely tacky having to exploit another peoples’ culture to create yours. Also, I’m an individualist. I refuse to be subject to popular culture (Of course, the Greeks got the the other end of that bargain). I want to be the one setting the trend, not the one following it like a lost puppy.

Hmm. Look at me, all academic. It’s a good thing you guys don’t know me. If you did, you’d probably realize how parallel I am to a teenage imbecile.

That’s about it for now. See you around, folks.

P.S.

NO CLASS TOMORROW. La-la-lovely. Oh, and try listening to Cute Is What We Aim For and Metro Station. They’re my Artist/s-for-the-Week. If we have the same flavor of music, they’ll be a nice addition to your growing list of “Bands to Watch Out For”.