best advice i’ve ever gotten.

the first days after a long climb are always disconcerting.

like how disoriented i was, given my first full dose of light and electricity i had when i stepped into sm davao fresh from the mountain.

like how i felt i was drowning in pillows during that first night back at home (that was a nice feeling, actually).

like how strange it seemed when i woke up and saw no mud or twigs, not even the roof of a tent; how weird it felt that i wasn’t to spend my whole day trekking with faces that had gotten familiar.

like how odd it was that i was actually getting food and water from the ref. on a whim.

like how i felt i was still cruising through the streets of davao the first night i went out of the house (good thing i’m on night shift this week; the makati rush may actually succeed in driving the still-unprepared me nuts).

i actually don’t know if i feel good or not.

how apt it is that on the exact date of my stepping into the rat race (happy may 15th, everyone!), i took the day off. i dropped by UP to finally submit my MS application, was delightfully surprised to meet Jan there, and then spent the rest of my day at my favorite mall (Divisoria’s 168, of course).

in exactly 6 hours and 21 minutes, i’ll be heading off to Davao to do what I guess every mountaineer has thought of doing some time in his life — climb Mt. Apo. and yep, it has dawned upon me that this may be my last post ever, due to two possibilities:

(1) once i meet the boulders of Mt. Apo, i might not be able to come back,

and

(2) once i blissfully take a break from reality, in exchange for the terrains of Davao, the sands of Camiguin, and the rapids of Cagayan de Oro, i might not want to ever come back. mwehehe.

wish me luck! (jan, hinabilin ko na sayo password ko ha? 🙂 )

——————

took ikay to her first wall-climb last saturday:

sometimes, there just comes a point wherein we just want to throw all caution to the wind and see exactly how high we can reach. of course, when frustrations surface, you can always delude yourself in the mean time and do it literally. 😛

I dropped by UP today to wrap up some stuff for my enrolment. It didn’t take more than a minute for nostalgia to take over once I stepped into Eng’g.

In the world of heavy textbooks, calculus and algorithms, life was far simpler. I miss the nonchalance of walking — no, prancing — around UP, with your head up in the clouds, thinking about trivial musings, as well as how one day you are someday to change the world.

Dang holidays. They make it all the more difficult to go back to work.

After 1 1/2 hours of dawdling, I finally got the hint that I wasn’t about to conjure up anything productive, except if you call staring at my screen & pressing the Outlook Send/Receive button a dozen times meaningful. So I gathered up all my SQL handouts and headed off to the nearest coffee shop for some quiet review time.

Can’t wait to enroll next sem.

[ Sat, April 28 ]

had my braces adjusted for the 1st time today. eeep.

since I was in the area, i dropped by the sunken garden in UP today for some long-overdue mot-mot (a.k.a. ’emote-emote’) time. time to embrace the loner in me. curling up my mp3 player and a tub of ice cream, i soaked in the chaos and serenity that was UP. soccer to the left, kites to the right, frisbees all over the place — it was THE soothing alternative to tv. i should do this more often.

———-

[ Sun, April 29 ]

got to (finally) watch Mines’ recital (dapat lang, gra-graduate na si mines!). mines, di ko alam kung bakit pa ako nagugulat, pero you were phenomenal! you’re one of the rare gems that deserve all the gifts God has given you. 🙂

————

it’s the commuter’s curse: the (sometimes unwanted) gift of time to zone out and reflect.

what’s worse, poring over a question that you know will never get resolved, or not even having the capacity to ponder at all?

————

i don’t know how i magically converted to a certified homebody. some days, it’s really an effort to drag myself out of the house in hope of creating some semblance of a life. dang.

whenever i could, i usually hitch a ride home from my cousin. our carpool conversations would usually start with his rants about work, then with my rants about work (or raves — yes, i do have raves, so sue me). Then a few other random thoughts and debates follow, which usually die down with us singing along with whatever track is playing.

the topic of genres came up, and then my cousin asked me where the word came from. why is it pronounced ‘dyan-ra’? is it French? i just replied that it’s probably the same explanation for fillet.

i remember a time way back when i was so fixated on learning how kiddos learned to speak. how the hell does a squeaking person learn to enunciate, let alone comprehend what a series of sound means? who invented words? when our ancestors learned to tap their brains, how did they know that a ‘rock’ is a ‘rock’ and not, well, a ‘genre’? (oh well, rock is a genre, but i digress.)

i remember being so fascinated that i tried to observe my niece as an infant. then i blinked (for some months) and missed the moment. oh well.

now, these things, i could do for work. why didn’t i think of being an etymologist as a child? (grr, you job charts, you. is it so hard to squeeze in ‘etymologist’ between ‘doctor’ and ‘farmer’?) i mean, i used to devour words. i remember looking up strange words in the dictionary and writing them down in alphabetically-indexed cue cards to expand my vocabulary (God, should I stop now before I doom myself to the further depths of nerd-dom? i should be right about the 4th bolgia now.) it’s a thrill just knowing the wealth of insight, culture and insinuations behind the words we just take for granted daily.

programming, i could do as a sideline. haha. oh well, who ever said that a person is destined for only one career?

Call me a sellout. The former cheapster now feels at home at coffee shops. Maybe I should decorate my room to look like one (jotting down To-Do #000839×31).

It’s not to drink coffee though; I’m in the mid of trying to be a tea-drinker. Just a shift of mindset, I guess. It all started with that first sip of Coffee Bean’s Chai Tea Latte (behold power, for those yet to be bewitched), but I’m trying to take it in without sugar & milk. A slow, but progressing, process.

Maybe it’s just something with getting older that you start to appreciate what’s bitter. Fresh milk over Nido. Dark Chocolate over Baby Ruth. Heartbreak over illusions. You get the drift.

how could you turn something like this (look above left) into this (look above right)?!? *sigh* don’t worry, rodrigo, we still love you. haha.

——

nahihirapan ka bang mag-ipon kamo?

try this crazy gizmo – it’s an alarm clock that won’t stop beeping unless you put a few coins in. mwehehe. balang araw magkakaron ka na rin ng limpak-limpak na piso.

————–

ever visited by a ghost of the past?

an officemate who had a sister who was a paulinian found the ad astra booklet we published for pauliworld a while back. yes, the ancient gs/hs campus paper days. yikes. at kamusta naman, the first page he flipped to had my poem. YUKK. paki-tapon. alalahanin immature at angsty pa ko nun. mwehehe. i could just imagine it with all its rhyming lines na pilit. yuck talaga. haha.

well, once college stepped in, the writing stopped to flow for some reason. whether it was the lack of academic requirements, change of environment, or maybe even bitterness over a certain poet (haha), i’ll never get to figure it out. i didn’t even join the college paper. the only time i really wrote was for a creative writing course, and my poems got the lowest scores among everything i’ve written for that class. haha. but at least i got the muse going again, even for just a brief nano-moment. if you want to know how truly sappy i am (or if you’re looking for several minutes of masakit-sa-tiyan tawa), check out the said CW poems below:

Unpretend
Solace
alone can hear
whimpers of the true self
Unmask the sheep in wolf’s clothing
Release.

MRT Cabin
One hand grips
a flimsy loop.
Other’s on womb.
Chivalry’s
long dead.

Thee Who Polishes My Shoes
Wise child of the road
Look at you, too strong to cry
You’re worth more than I

Breakdown
Jack Johnson

I hope this old train breaks down
then I could take a walk around
and, see what there is to see
time is just a melody
With all the people in the street
walking fast as their feet can take them
I just roll through town
And though my window’s got a view
Well the frame I’m looking through
seems to have no concern for now
so for now I

I need this
old train to break down
oh please just
let me please break down

Well this engine screams out loud
Centipede gonna crawl westbound
so I dont even make a sound
Because its gunna sting me when I leave this town
And all the people in the street
that I’ll never get to meet
if these tracks dont bend somehow
and I got no time
that I got to get to
where I dont need to be
So I

I need this
old train to break down
oh please just
let me please break down

I need this
old train to breakdown
oh please just
let me please breakdown

I want to break on down
but I cant stop now
let me break on down

But you cant stop nothing
if you got no control
of the thoughts in your mind
that you kept and you know
you dont know nothing
but you dont need to know
the wisdom’s in the trees
not the glass windows
You can’t stop wishing
If you don’t let go
of the things that you find
and you lose, and you know
you keep on rolling
put the moment on hold
the frame’s too bright
so put the blinds down low

I need this
old train to break down
oh please just
let me please break down
I need this
old train to break down
oh please just
let me please break down
I want to break on down
but I cant stop now

had one of the weirdest mondays ever. heartbreak’s a weird word to describe it, but it surely is the closest. it’s the feeling you had when you found out for yourself that there’s no santa claus.

———————

went to uplb for the company talk last thurs. haven’t seen so many org shirts in a while; didn’t think i’d miss wearing identical shirts. haha. i didn’t realize i missed the scene that much — the aloofness everyone carries while they walk. that look that says ‘i’m going to change the world, just you watch out’. as jill put it, feeling like an adult without adult responsibilities. hay. oh well. at least i got my original buko pie.

———————

the friday’s ride to the office made it to one of the weirdest fx rides EVER. it seemed that everyone’s cellphone had to go off (including mine, which was at full volume). one girl answered her phone and mumbled something about a hospital. when she hung up, the guy next to her goes, ‘sinong na-ospital?’. she never answered; it was later when i realized that these two weren’t together. how’s that for feeling close? haha. creepy.

also got to know how the local ‘kanto boys’ felt when everyone eyed them. deprived of a life that friday night, we went to the 7-11 on the corner for our ‘lunch break’ and well, let’s just say we hung out. haha. went back to the office, had a round of poker using pushpins for chips. haha. sinong desperado? :op

———————

just slept my whole saturday am. after 2 whole NALA weeks, what do you expect? 🙂

my hair’s at its shortest ever. i could think of a dozen guy friends whose hair is longer than mine right now. haha. oh well, keri lang. remind me to not read while having my hair cut next time. 🙂