murmur

A love of classical music is only partially a natural response to hearing the works performed, it also must come about by a decision to listen carefully, to pay close attention, a decision inevitably motivated by the cultural and social prestige of the art.:)

mine

This is the shortest day of the year. I happen to feel it is the coolest day to be born on. The short, dark solstice here but it’s bright and long at the other side of the earth where its summer.

  

I'd like to think that my writing has matured, my content has evolved and my design style has grown. But above all, I know for a fact that I've learned the most about support. And I have definitely learned that from all of you! So thank you, my friends! Thanks to each of you for the sweet words, funny comments, true inspiration and overall support.

Knocked down ...

The spaces between my fingers are right where yours fit perfectly.

Starting off with the thought of holding hands with somebody, this gets a little bit nostalgic. I’ve held hands with people I cannot and care not to recall. It’s not like there’s anything wrong with that. People forget given a time frame but of course, people only forget those they want to forget and remember only the things that don’t hurt them. And maybe holding hands with somebody is one of those things we remember because it doesn’t hurt as much as its imminent and eminent aftermath. But it’s not like every time we held somebody’s hand, its context should romantic. Similarly, the context is not necessarily innocent to begin with. But it kind of feels good with the right person and it feels like death with another. Everything depends on the context.

Still, I’m like this right now because my hands feel lonely.

I’ve been holding your hands for so long; the duration being longer than anybody else’. And now it seems that it has become hard for me to let go. But I feel it slipping away. Gradually and expectedly, I’m letting it go primarily because it’s not mine to hold and secondly because you have to us for something else. It’s one of the hardest things I’ll ever do and perhaps you know but I’m betting on you don’t. Chances are, you’re a wall who’s unreceptive to anything.

I could’ve let you go easily. But now I doubt myself more because you showed me something I never thought I’d see. Rain fell from your eyes  and you caught it with your palms. I saw a man who’s tired. It made me aware of the gap we had between us. We live in different worlds separated by time. And I could’ve held your hand if I was brave enough. But no. when rain fell from your eyes during a summer afternoon, I stared, disturbed and mesmerized pretending that I understood. And now I think it would take a lot more than distance and time to make me let go of the hands that I held on for so long.

 D':

The Other Girl Nobody Noticed

I haven’t written anything substantial in a while.

This sentence has been an opening for one of my entries here. I forgot if I put it up for private or if I ever did put it up for viewing. All I know is that I know I wrote those words before. As for the time when I wrote them, it begins to go vague.

Looking back to my past entries, I can’t quite grasp how I had enough of myself to give during the times I wrote them. For one, during my most discerningly cheesy entries, I was being held by the neck by stress brought by academic work. That was well over a year ago. Furthermore, aside by being stressed by academic endeavors, I was being emotionally suffocated by some people I care not to mention anymore. Being that as it may, how did I squeeze enough emotion when clearly, I have already been exhausted beyond my limits?

I wrote plenty about love. Who else hasn’t written for that feeling – that young rush of emotion, of longing and impossible extents of passion? And who else haven’t been trampled by the pain it brings when the dream you had didn’t really turn out as well as you had hoped? Someway, somehow, somewhere, there has to be one person who thought that their first love would be their last. And I can continue to talk about this shit if you want me to but heck, we’re wasting brain cells on this. We’ve been through enough of this to know that yeah, maybe there are those people who found who they were looking for but as for us, we’re still at a lost.

I’m exhausted.  I’ve been talking about this shit endlessly. I’ve run out of words to describe it. It’s the tale we all know is as old as time.

Now we look at the three characters we know so well: Bryan, Diana and Amanda.

Once upon a time, there was a guy named Bryan. Bryan’s this guy who has the eyes you always dreamed of and the height you always desired. He’s great with people and he’s loved by some. And this guy, like all the normal guys who have good credentials when facing the adults, has his very own girlfriend.

And we know her as Diana.

He must’ve rescued her from a tower from a land far, far away. Or perhaps he battled the Lord of Darkness and carried her away towards the sunset with his armored white steed. Or perhaps he’s this typical guy with a celphone who texted her all night long. Eitherways, he got her to be his girl.

And yeah, they’re perfect. Everyone’s envious. You know the feeling you get when there’s a happy couple moving around – you ain’t exactly THAT happy for them. And as a bonus point for your ego, you have to suck it up and smile at them. You lavish them with affection because they’re happy and you can’t exactly do nil to break that up.

And maybe they would’ve lived happily ever after.

But before going to last colored page of their fairytale, right after the king gave Diana to Bryan and just before Diana got on Trevor (Bryan’s white armored steed), we see this girl who has, for so long, been kept out of the limelight.

You meet Amanda.

Amanda has hopes and dreams. She’s a good student. She’s the Mary Sue of all Mary Sues. She’s the one exception to every rule. By thunder, she’s the ultimate Deus Ex Machina if you ever saw one. She’s not the Amanda from “Someone Nobody Noticed”, not by a hick. She’s this other Amanda but just as equally perfect as the first.

What’s she doing in the ever after seen of Bryan and Diana?

She’s the other woman; the future home wrecker of Diana’s household, the future paycheck muncher of Bryan. And the one who must and will always be the secret of every other men of this planet. She’s their most guarded secret. She’s the trophy of every underlying bet.

She’s the other woman.

But you’ll never really know how it feels to be the other woman. Their reasons will always remain a mystery. And maybe that’s what keeps the men going for their charms – the enigma and the thrill behind the labyrinth of unsaid emotions. It must be fascinating; truly and irrevocably fascinating that the want of an Amanda becomes all the more overwhelming.

To be the other woman. To be the butt of every femme fatale line. To be able to relate with every curse phrase with bitch in it. To be the Amanda to a man who has a Diana.

And you thought this was a tale as old as time.

Be still, my heart, I’m hardly breathing.

The ‘invisible religion’ of the grade-conscious

By Gerry M. Lanuza
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:48:00 04/13/2011

Filed Under: Religion & Belief, Education, Schools, Children

SO YOU think that student with lower mental abilities are the ones who usually cheat in school? You’re wrong! Researchers have suggested that students who have higher goals and experience higher pressure to succeed are more likely to cheat.

Cheating in itself is a form of religion if one follows Kierkegaard’s definition of the “religious.” For cheating suspends the ethical demands of a student in the name of a higher “cause.”

Of course, that’s a perverse rendering of Kierkegaard’s analysis of Abraham’s faith. But cheating is just the tip of the iceberg. For it is being grade-conscious that is the “true” religion.

If we define religion, in the manner of Paul Tillich, as “the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life,” then, indeed being grade-conscious is a form of religion. (This is just the existentialist way of paraphrasing Matthew 6:21: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”) Religion demands martyrdom. Students are willing to commit suicide because they would rather be dead than live a meaningless life with a grade point average lower than 95.

Like any religion, being grade-conscious has its doctrine: Grades are objective, and a teacher’s personality does not count for she is just an instrument for dispensing the sacrament of grades (Catholic doctrine of ex opere operato).

It has also its myths: Grades are the ticket to success, grades define one being, and they predict one’s income later. Next, rituals: Students collect their class cards, compute and compare it with others, and they are signed by parents.

Prayer is the most important element of ritual. Students offer supplications to their teachers and school administrators. Countless letters and appeals pile up in the principal’s office before graduation. Why? Because students believe that miracles can happen (who knows whether the graduation committee will allow a student to graduate with honors even if she has a grade of 3 in PE or if it will let a pregnant girl graduate with honors?).

Grades also have an experiential dimension, transforming the lives of students and making them competitive, aggressive and ever watchful of the behavior of their classmates and teachers. It affords them what Abraham Maslow calls the “peak experience” or ecstasy.

Grades can either be depressant or stimulant. But like any other entheogenic drugs that induce a religious high, they can become addictive as a stimulant. Their depressing effects usually lead students to detach themselves from the rat race of the academic jungle to avoid further pressures (the nominal or the ritualist students). The grade dependents or the “religious” however cannot live without the competition and the rewards.

Finally, grades have their own community dimension: families celebrate their children’s success, special gifts are given to students with honors, trophies and medals are dispensed sacramentally, and the “chosen ones” are recognized through elaborate rituals at the end of the school year.

All religions have an Apocalypse or stories about the end times. Students only find out about the true meaning of grades when they graduate and they are already working. They realize, quite painfully at first, that grades are not as important as the skills they have, the social networks they are connected to, and of course the kind of schools they went to. And yet, ironically, these same students who have gone to the other side, who have seen the obnoxious face of the promised “beatific vision” continue to indoctrinate their children into the “invisible religion” of their great ancestors. Thus, passing successfully the “memes” of the grade-conscious.

As a Marxist Christian educator, I have to struggle against this kind of idolatry that obliges students and teachers to embrace this false “invisible religion.” But as a Marxist, I see this “invisible religion” as a mere “imaginary flower” in the chain of contradictions that is generated by the primary contradictions in our society. Our competitive society is becoming more and more obsessed with being on top so that many young people are very willing to make the “leap of faith” to any religion that can promise them “cheap grace”!

my temperament to trees

I have been looking at trees for years, yet had never

seen them so beautiful. It was, of course,

that conspiracy of light and cold which rendered them so,

and it was serendipity that sent me out for wood

at the exact moment of their peak appeal.

took these pictures when i decided

to go with dad to send mom to her work.

Let me start out by saying I love trees. I love the way their branches seem to hold up the sky with nimble fingers. How they pull the colors of a thousand sunsets into their leaves come fall; love the way they feel, rough or smooth. Most of all, I love to hear them whisper amongst themselves when the spirit of wind moves them. They sway gracefully, bending, reaching to touch each other and sometimes, if we're luck, to touch us.

There are many past and present,
who believe trees are old spirits,
old souls, here to comfort us.
I can believe that. I have always felt safest
amongst forests thick and thin.
My favorite place in the world is a place up in the
mountains where I've been going since
I was a child, my parents since long before then.
 

Trees are a huge part of my past and my present.

I sit under a tree and within moments feel centered and quiet;

am able to let go of all the noisy hectic
mayhem that is my everyday life.

A breeze blows across my skin and runs its fingers

through the leaves over my head and I listen. Try it sometime.

You never know what you might hear

  

<3

fleeting at the hardware

Wondering where we were? 

ehh, mom and dad was planning to buy a garden hose and we ended at this place.

It was fun looking at those stuffs imagining what would my dream house look like.

 

Who could imagine my dream house would correspond to a picture from an interior design magazine?

You may imagine my house somewhere in the sky, among the clouds, or it can be a small hut near the sea. 

haha. just kidding.

better to not limit your dreams, just plainly be creative.

[some of the pictures to share] 

 @ citi hardware

 

going there taking few miles having this weather.

such a noteworthy experience.

 this picture makes me dredge up my pre-denstistry days.

my classmates laughs at me cause everytime i saw buttons, i play with it.(on&off)

[GAWKY ;')]

 found this petite cute trifling cart. worth 1k plus.

[forgot the exact price]

i can picture out a toddler playing this cart.

[oooh, ill be jealous if it would happen. hihi]

this cubicle also caught my eye.

my sister tries if she fits evenly. dont mention if it cracks. lols

infairness, i super like the design

 what do call these things? telephones? haha

i named it myself.

conjuring how many blocks would take if i build a mansion?

hmmm. better plan my trance house earlier. ;DD

If I were to build a house it would be a house having American style appliances. The house would be on a hill, so I could look over the country side without interference from trees and plants. Another option would be to have the house right by a lake so I could build a miniature theme park in it. There would be a ride that I would have around two G's worth of force applied on me as I twist through the course. It would also have roller coasters that would travel through the water at high speeds and soak everything that rode on it. My house would also have a pavilion that would sell everything from candy to beef jerky. Last, but not least, it would have a cannon that would shoot me up into the air at extreme velocities and then plummet me back into the lake. [possible!! haha]

When flame flowers begin blooming,

it is the time for me to stop schooling and expect the

“summer vacation” which is very important to my family.

After 9 months of hard work, i also need time to relax

before continuing my studies at a higher level.

So, how can I have a useful and meaningful summer vacation?

  As we know, students have been taught a lot from books,

but in reality, many of them have never seen a live cow,

a live buffalo or they cannot imagine what a rice field is really like.

They also learn a lot about the country and people,

historical vestiges, ancient temples, mausoleums or beautiful places,

but they have never seen these with their own eyes.

So trips on summer days to the countryside,

to a mountainous region, to the historical sites

or famous places in the country will help them.

do you know what activity I joined to spend the 1st weekend

on my summer vacation?

it was at Camanga, Tukuran

Zamboanga del Sur.

it was a leadership training retreat wherein I was

one of the first timer delegates ;)

why so much competition?

I think it is sad, but I feel like I don't want to get too close to anyone in my class before. I have noticed that everything seems like one big competition with people, and I hate that. I'm not here to compete with anyone. I remember when friends used to be happy for one another if they did well on something. but there have been one too many times that I have gotten a reaction that i am not happy with.

i usually don't go parading around telling everyone when i did well on something. one time, someone had told another group of people about how i did on an exam and one of them looks over in SHOCK and says "REALLY?!?!?!?!" as if it was a huge surprise to them. and then just recently someone had asked how i did in a class this semester because they got a C and when i told them i got a similar reaction as the above. geeze... don't act so surprised :( doesn't make me feel good. like i'm not capable of doing well on something and you're in awe that i did.

anyway. those are just a few instances among some others. i just don't get it though... i know everyone is here working hard to do well and it bothers me that people can be so jealous or competitive about it. we're all just here trying to do the best we can and sometimes we will have triumphs and other times we will just squeak by. but don't make it seem like so and so didn't deserve the grade they got just because you did worse.

life as i make it.

“Life is beautiful and yet life is not a bed of roses.

Though it is full of ups and downs it has many facets of blessings and successes."

To some people, life is hard,cruel and merciless.

These set of people see life as punishment

throughout their entire lives. They therefore resigned

themselves to fate, believing all is finished. To them, nothing

that they do can ever be good. They take delight in committing

crimes and maiming others to avenge their ill-fortune.

They lost every sense of direction and most times,

some of them go as far as committing suicide,

just to escape the injustice life has meted out to them.

But there are those who see life as a challenge,

a channel of discovery and innovation,

a prospect for success and a gateway to wealth.

To them life is sweet, colourful and kind.

No matter the situation these people find themselves,

they keep pressing on, believing in a cause,

a cause to succeed and get the most out of life.

No wonder an adage says,

“Where there is life, there is hope.”

 

being a dental student, what other thins can i do to make this easy?

 

hmmmm...studying is a part of it, and doing these stuffs

can escape me from drowsiness and boredom.

 funny images ;)

 

 

ugh, names as usuall

  

and some abstract thingy

haha, these are just my diversion buddies.

Anyway, one of the things that made me surge to look thought-provoking

are my creations.

wuhlaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

   

these are impressions made from alginate

and this is the last out-of-ordinary laboratory

activity i did with many complains.

 well,  you can even envision how many time

wasted and pains i had on my fingers.

[that was due to the wire-bending].