While taking a bath today, I noticed this sparse area of hair on the medial side of my wrist running down to the dorsal aspect of my hand. I haven’t noticed it before, but probably because I was wet and it stuck on my skin that it looked unsightly. It almost made me feel like a wolf. I was thinking of changing my name to [i]wulfbites[/i], but it is just not the same as frogbites.
Speaking of hair, my brother and brother-in-law have been experiencing hair problems: the dreaded androgenic alopecia. My brother even went to buy horse shampoo—a tried and tested means, yet clandestine way, of making hair look voluminous. No taunting meant, after all vanity is no longer solely a woman’s sin: it is the age of the metrosexual.
As I look down at the shower sink and count the hair felled through the night on my pillow, I, too, can no longer hide this age induced debauchery. But then, all I have to think of is what my high school teacher once told us: she delights on seeing her former students who went to med school and now features a receding hairline… In other words, we should move on.
I have at last finished the website, probably now I can go to sleep as the excitement is slowly fading.
The Dingras site is now just waiting for content, content, content.
As I have told my sister who bugged me to do this project, it's easy to design a website, it's more difficult to provide content. Same thing with my friend who's been asking for a template for his website. When I asked what are the things to be featured in his website, he just said, "[i]Basta![/i]" -- so up to now, I haven't started on it yet, because I don't know what he wants with it.
There are just some people who wants to have a website for the sake of having one, hmp.
For the last few days, I’ve been busy and have incurred irregular sleeping habits. One is to push my bed time very late because I couldn’t make myself sleep early. But here’s the thing, I could no longer get a good 8 hours sleep even though I’m dog tired, unlike before. This could mean that something or someone won’t allow me to fall asleep. I hope it’s not my mother worrying herself.
As an Aquarian, I’m supposed to be eccentric, contemplative, orthodox, religious, and superstitious. So it’s only natural for me to find out what’s in store in the Year of the Wooden Monkey.
1978 was the year of the horse, but since the lunar year was still to start few days after my birthday, I got to be a snake. Snakes and Aquarians are almost alike in characteristics, so this explains my heightened eccentricity.
Like any other astrological and fortune telling machination, there are discrepancies. One geomancer said that snakes will be having “not so good luck” this year; yet another specialist says snakes will have a great year. But then I don’t blame them, because according to one website, this year will be good for male snakes but not for female ones.
So what’s with the hoopla on astrology? Should people just accept their destiny as written by the stars?
According to an astrologist, consider the moon’s gravity affecting tides, and same is true with the planets and stars on human beings, after all, humans are made up of 75% water. Of course this is a little bit way off to explain it scientifically. So I got to thinking (like any snake or Aquarian would naturally do!). Probably astronomy could be explained by chaos theory? The fluttering of a butterfly’s wings caused an eruption of a volcano in Hawaii, goes the example of the mathematician Malcolm in Jurassic Park. So could the explosion of a neutrino star cause your professor to give you a failing grade? Mars' near orbit caused you to fail in business? Etc.?
It is hard being an Aquarian and a snake. You have to think a lot.
I can't go to sleep. I blame it on my skewed circadian rhythm. Times like these, I suspect sabotage, but like always, I’ll tell you all about it some other time.
While waiting for the sandman to arrive and failed to do so, I fast flipped the pages of “The Satanic Verses” by Rushdie. Yes, sir. It’s my nth time to attempt to finish the book because I find it difficult read – too loquacious. I learned this word from one the book’s reviews. Anyway, the booked reeked of that standard book smell of non-chlorinated pages, and the smell reminded me of one of my first books – a choose your own adventure book about a purple monster named Gorgo (if I remember it correctly) which eats everything on its path, until it grew too big, that no one could stop it. Well, you have to choose the ending, whether you got eaten by him, or eats the whole planet and goes swimming through the galaxy with you on its back.
There’s nothing extraordinary in the story, it’s just that the smell of Rushdie’s book reminded me of this particular book and I don’t know why.
I’ve written today’s entry early because my sister will need the computer tonight to work on her alma mater’s financial report, and because I need to get some good night’s sleep, for I have a big day tomorrow.
Since nothing much happened today, might as well tell you my thoughts about yesterday’s episode of “As Told By Ginger.”
The story was that Ginger wrote a poem for a contest, but her poem was melancholic, so everyone thought that she was depressed and needed help.
It’s a bit funny, to the point of being tacky, to reflect on a cartoon show. But what struck me in that episode is when Ginger pondered: since she wrote a poem about a person contemplating suicide, does she have the tendency to commit it herself?
I’ve considered myself cyclothymic since I tried graphing my mood for a month in college. I always have this notion since high school that I have this propensity to feel contented one time then feel blue the next without any reason at all. But when I entered Medicine, when asked why I look pensive, I started telling them that “I just have low serotonin.” Things have become less complex, and more biochemical.
Looking preoccupied most of the time, a rather peculiar incident happened that enlightened me. This started the “You will never be happy” philosophy that I tried to propagate in jest during internship, which I think Alex feels guilty being a major contributor to the plot, but I’ll tell you about that some other time.
The thing is, I easily get bored, hence I have to contend myself on my ruminations or day dreaming. And Marie would say when we were much younger, that if I get bored, all I need to do is to look for a rope and a tree crawling with fire ants. --You get the idea of what she meant. And since then, when I am bored and someone asks what I’ll be doing, I say, “looking for a rope and a tree.”
I started coming up with quirky ideas, just to keep me occupied. One of them is the brown bag with the happy thoughts. But I will tell you all about that, some other time.
To go back, does thinking about suicide compel that person to commit it someday? I don’t know. I’ve always joked about it, to the point of scheduling it in on a friend’s mobile phone calendar. Well, she got irked. Even though I think about it on some nights, I don’t think I’ll be able to do it, probably because of my having a profound existential dilemma, or plainly my being a chicken. I don’t think I have the courage. I can’t even kill my 18 year old character with leukemia which I created with all intention to kill as a social experiment on the internet. Sigh.
One of the last poems I have written is the pseudo-sonnet “Eulogy.” I stopped writing poetry in my late teens, when I acquired the tendency of overanalyzing my work. It goes:
The erstwhile years when they come to mind, Like the wintry wind swiftly passing by, I ruminate upon a loss with sweet repine, Like a little child deprived of a jovial sky. I came to mourn the death of a brother, A brother bereaved, not of love, not of joy; I hurried to bury his remains in mock laughter, In tears of banter, in remorse without a soul. Curtains closing, his salvos have been executed, All jeremiads’ been sung and claims’ been done; He sleeps in all tranquility in his fastened bed, Deaf to my tirade, all hope emphatically gone; “Thee are unwise my brother, thee are numb, Such promise spent when dagger’s laid in thy hand.”
Does the poem explain something? That I find it “unwise” to kill one’s self because it is such a waste since there is “such promise” yet? According to one of his biographers, JRR Tolkien finds despair a sin. One must never loose hope…?
My sister has been hugging the computer for the last few days working on her high school’s financial books. This counts for the delay in posting my entries. I’m supposed to write a bit lengthy entry on this morning’s episode of “As Told By Ginger,” but I shall postpone that for some other time.
I think my sister’s having difficulty keeping her alma mater’s books straight. She’s been on it for three whole days now. She even absented herself from work today.
I’ve been jocosely telling her: where’s her ethics or religiosity in doctoring a parochial school’s fiscal report? She didn’t even go last Saturday to that Sunday Mass preparation stuff she always goes to --just to work on the school's accounts. But then, keeping books has been a problem since the time of the priests of Baal.
I was right about Coelho. I finished his [i]By The River Piedra, I Sat Down And Wept[/i] last Saturday and it was a bit didactic. Unlike Eco who presents his character’s beliefs without being pedantic or preachy.
I also finished [i]The Ringmaster’s Daughter [/i]today by Jostein Gaarder. It started great. The beginning of the book reminds me of the movie [i]My Life As A Dog (Mill liv som hund)[/i] by Lasse Hallström. But as the story went, it was easy to predict its ending. Although it was left hanging in the book, it was easy for the reader to surmise that the author had slept unknowingly with his daughter. Argh, that’s already been done by the Greeks. And the story was about a person who prides himself with fecundity of imagination.
While bumming around for the last many months, I go chatting on the internet. I hid myself as an 18 year old with an Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia and went to a Cancer Chat Room. What’s the reason behind it? I don’t know. I thought I’d make a character, put him in the [i]wild [/i]wide web, and then after he’s become regular in that chat room, kill him off, and see what the other regular chatters would feel-- a social experiment if you must. But no, I haven’t killed him off yet. He is still alive, and I didn’t unleash him in the Cancer Chat Room, either. I went into that chat room just incase someone placed my character on follow, which would then make my back story more believable. Anyway, that’s altogether a different story, and I’ll probably tell you the whole of it someday.
So anyway, on that time that I went to the cancer chat and started talking with a regular, she was pleased to find out that my character likes Gabriel Garcia Marquez, because she was a Latina herself. And then she told me that Marquez has this lapse to repeat himself in his works. At that time, I have only read his [i]One Hundred Years of Solitude[/i].
So I got to thinking, Jostein Gaarder does the same thing. I’ve been following his work since [i]Sophie’s World[/i], and he does have a tendency to repeat himself: play with names, the Joker, the Metre Man… among other things.
So authors have a tendency to repeat ideas, is that bad? I think Gaarder answered it himself in [i]The Ringmaster’s Daughter [/i]when the character of Petter said that it is difficult to write something down permanently, because sooner or later, another inspiration will come along and will make the first idea better.
I saw FPJ in the news few minutes ago where he was made into an honorary leader of an Igorot Tribe. And now, I'm honestly contemplating on voting this guy for president.
What prompted me to do so? Not because I came from the North, but because he was offered by the tribe leader a cup of rice wine ([i]basi[/i], I presume), and he drank it all in one gulp. He knows his “graces.” I believe if it were Gloria, she would just take a sip -- a faux pas, and the elders would be disgraced. Of course, this is just a supposition.
If you say that my criterion seems shallow, I think not. Probably his supporters are right to think that he is The One – the one who could unite this country, a charismatic leader, the modern day Bernardo Carpio, the Tagalog’s deliverer. As Rizal have noted, in great despair, the Filipinos shall adhere to Messianic incarnates. But then I believe that it is only but natural for Filipinos to be disunited as we are scattered in 7,107 islands. Which reminds me of the story of the Giants living in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao… but I’ll probably tell you the story some other time.
So who cares if the masses are in a piteous hole of troubles, as long as you got someone like FPJ to entertain them? FPJ would surely become their opium. After all, it’s perception, perception, perception. Didn’t the ancient Egyptian slaves chant as they work on the pyramids to keep their minds off their toils? And those slavery ships from Africa had in them a fife master? Of course the reason was to make the slaves dance, in order not to let their muscles atrophy during the long voyage to the Americas.
Later on in an interview, FPJ was asked if he were to follow Erap’s footsteps – or downfall, he cockishly replied that he and Erap don’t have the same DNA.
I got myself a brain freeze. Aren’t all living things share the same DNA? That humans and monkeys are 98% alike, and we only differ on its sequence? My brain must have atrophied from non-use, because I am not sure anymore.
I know what FPJ meant, that he is not a clone of Estrada. But then, I also doubt myself if I would be able to subjugate myself to be lead by someone like FPJ.
After hacking my brains out while rewriting and editing this entry, I got to the conclusion that FPJ was indeed right. Unless you’re a clone or have a twin, you won’t share the same DNA with anyone. I was thinking more about base pair sequences. Sigh, my shame. Vote FPJ!
This week, I was able to finish two books: [i]Inkheart[/i] by Cornelia Funke and [i]Baudolino[/i] by Umberto Eco, and I am currently reading [i]By The River Piedra, I Sat Down And Wept[/i] by Paulo Coelho. Although I haven't finished reading it, and although I enjoyed Coelho's [i]The Alchemist[/i]... on the process of reading [i]Piedra[/i], it seems that what I initially thought of him is true -- that he is a pedantic preacher, like those guys who wrote [i]The Celestine Prophecy[/i], which I were not able to finish because my sister "borrowed" it without my consent and took her years before she got it back from her friend, and am sorry that lately, after reading [i]Maya[/i], I now find Jostein Gaarder joining the list.
You must have noticed that I love books -- not that I love to read, but that I just love the sight of them… to own them... to a point that I cannot go into a bookstore without buying one. My weakness as you will, for I have a pile of books on my bedside that I have bought years ago and still haven't read. I've always geared for a "zero back-log" on my readings, but failed miserably.
So finally I've read [i]Inkheart[/i] by Funke, after three months. Though she's publicized as the next JK Rowling, I don't find her work that much entertaining. It was a difficult read in a sense that the action was long (monotonous) or rather was it the lack of action...? It was like she doesn't know where to go with the story (which she admitted in an interview). And what's with the quotes on every chapter? At first it was okay, welcoming something different from a children's author, but in the end it came to a point of vexation. As one of the school editors once told me, writers who quote other authors lacked the creativity to make their own words. At least JK Rowling, though some consider her [i]Harry Potter[/i] as a rehash of already published works, it was an easy read and entertaining. Though I am quite disappointed with the fifth book, but that's another story.
[i]Baudolino[/i] is a different book altogether. I haven't enjoyed such a book since... since... hmmm... I can't remember... oh, wait... since [i]The Order of the Phoenix[/i], but Eco's book is very much different as it is not a children's book. It is funny and thought-provoking. Though the first chapters were difficult because of its pidgin Latin and English, but later on you'll understand why. Sad thing on my part that I've resolved to write about a court liar/scribe someday, but Eco beat me to it with Baudolino -- faker of relics.
And I haven't read a good ending in years. As they say, you'll know a great book by its memorable ending: "It is a far, far better thing that I do..." from A Tale Of Two Cities; then there's The Count of Monte Cristo: "...Has not the count just told us that all human wisdom is summed up in two words?-- `Wait and hope.'" and even Rizal's Noli Me Tangere: "I die without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land! You, who have it to see, welcome it -- and forget not those who have fallen during the night!" For Baudolino it goes: "You surely don't believe you're the only writer of stories in this world. Sooner or later, someone--a greater liar than Baudolino--will tell it." You have to read the book to appreciate the ending.
Meanwhile, [i]Inkheart's[/i] characters always has something to do with books, for example Mo is a book preserver and Elinor, a rare book collector. And to think of it, the bulk of the characters came from books. After all, the story is about the characters from books who came to life when they were read aloud by Silvertongue. In the book you’ll find a cameo of Tinker Bell and the Tin Soldier.
In a sense, I feel like I'm an Elinor. Not that I have rare books to show off, but because we both love books. She wailed when her collection got burned, although I'm not saying that I'll also cry when my books disappear, but we are both stingy in lending books. I take good care of the books that I like, that's why I was a bit infuriated when my sister gave back [i]The Celestine Prophecy [/i]in an unhealthy condition. Which reminds me, I don't usually highlight or write anything on my textbooks, so just imagine my surprise when I lent to a dormmate one of my books and it came back in poor condition... loose pages, doodles on margins, underlined, highlighted sentences... argh! But I didn't show him my malcontent. (Sigh.) And last weekend, I lent the same book to a friend.
I got this peculiarity of treating books from what a classmate in kindergarten told me. Yes, in kindergarten! Our assignment was to make a collage, but since there was lack of good materials, I cut pictures from books. When she saw what I did, she said snottily (you know the lot in kindergarten) that her mother wouldn't let her cut pictures from books... because they were... [i]books![/i] And that has been imprinted in my memory since then. [i]Because they were books![/i] It is almost sacrilegious for me now to even fold their pages or break their spine. Truly, all you need to know, you have learned from kindergarten...
On the way home inside the commuter taxi last Saturday from watching Return of the King, my friend asked what causes kidney stones -- he was making a report. I said, a lot can cause kidney stones. He told me to give something specific... I hesitated.
I felt quite silly. There were lots of causes I can give him during that ride, but I didn't give him any. I felt uncomfortable giving away information in public-- I feel the people in the taxi were eavesdropping and I don't want to give a false information.
False information -- was I not sure about the thing inside my head, lacked the confidence to tell it out loud, or worse, ashamed that I could be wrong?
It rained a bit this afternoon... and old people say that since the first rain fell on the 6th day of the year, which corresponds to June, the rainy season will start during that month.
My mother also told us, her children, that the first rain of the year is a blessing... You only have to collect rain in your palm, then apply it on your stomach [i]("isapsapu't buksit")[/i] to ward off sickness.
Don’t you just hate it, when playing strategy card games, and out of nowhere, your opponent sends you a trump card, which whirls you out of your seat?
I just got a miss call from a doctor from the hospital. It was innocent, true, but the effect’s the same. I was caught off guard, for it was timed in the eve of my going back.
Just when you thought you have your defensive and attack positions all figured out, suddenly someone sends you a trump card. And with the smokes and screens obscuring the other person across the room, the problem lies where you don’t know who you are playing with.
