my life starts here, where everything I've been doing the past year ends:

free books, free food, free beer...

FREE CHARLIE.

see you there.

posted by carl @ 8:20 PM 0 comments

this one is dedicated to all those who matter

an overdue speech

I was originally writing a creative, insightful, deeper-meaning-of-life kind of shit introduction for this post until I decided that this post has no deeper meaning anyway. For once, I would like to let go of metaphors and write the way any normal ditz would write.

For that is how I chose to be. During my stay in college, I chose to prioritize what to wear tomorrow over finding out if there's anything due. True, I look back and semikindasorta regret not even trying. I see my friends with honors and lie to myself that I could've had honors too if i just wanted to. As much as I don't think I'm innately dumb, I chose to be dumb. And when wonderful things happen to me accidentally, I feel even dumber than how I chose to be. You see, even as a dumb person, I've had my shining moments.

Anyway, so the point is that my batchmates decided to throw a couple of titles at me before we completely left loyola schools. CommBatch King, CommBatch Queen and Batch Queen to name three. Up to now, I still don't know how to take these...is it normal for me to be flattered? Were they mocking me? How do I react when people greet me? Is this for real? Am I real? Who am I, am I the person I think I am, or am I the person they think I am? Why me?

I go back to CommRoast, to which I really owe a lot of talking. When I was named the commking and queen I was not able to give a speech. While I was driving out of the parking lot, I felt like an ingrate not even thanking them or not even giving the expected mushy "i will miss this place" speech. I just stood there and said "well, I hope that we'd all have work by next year" and "di pa naman tayo mamatay diba, we're just graduating." When the spotlight turns to me, I always end up saying the wrong things. I swear. (A week later during blueroast, i will grab the microphone from the emcee and shout to the entire batch "maraming salamat at hanggang sa huling pagkakataon binabastos nyo pa rin ako.")

But as I drove down Katipunan Avenue, I realized that I am proud of the comm majors. (I exclude myself for reasons I would have to discuss another time.) They are so imperfect that it feels real just by being with them. And they own up to these imperfections. Most of all, they don't measure their greatness by how hard their workload is, but by how fun they make hell be. And I should not be flattered that I was made commRoyalty. I should be flattered because they consider me as one of them.

I'm sorry if this post turned out to be sappy, but it did because it is dedicated to those who matter. To those who made me feel that I matter. I am their king and queen after all.

(I would have been so contented with these titles--batch queen is just gravy.)

posted by carl @ 9:53 PM 0 comments

a lengthy, desperate and foolishly honest cover letter stapled to a one-page resume

a lengthy, desperate and foolishly honest cover letter stapled to a one-page resume


I am a fresh graduate of AB Communication, and I am not afraid to admit that I have marched down the stage with enthusiasm and optimism for what I could do for the entertainment industry. Now that it is time for me to seek what it is I am called to do, I hope to find it in your company.

But as much as I have for a long time been looking forward to graduating, I actually have dreaded it just as much. Not only have friends from earlier batches shown me how hard job-hunting is by solving it through exporting their skills to the first world, but also in spite of my weakness in figures and numbers, statistics have shown me how highly probable it is that I will be sending cover letters like these forever without so much as a phone call asking for an interview in return. I hope you give me a call—I have graduated; however I have only graduated. I have no medals nor Latin titles to accompany my diploma. Although I believe that I do possess the brains to have done as well, I have nothing to show for it. The ratings on bad luck and inescapable circumstances which led to average marks do not appear on the transcript.

Before I sent you my resume, I was just about to solve this fear by getting an MA. People tell me that a college degree is not as competitive anymore. It will help me in entry level, but prospects of any form of promotion will be hazy without it, they say. But I figured that postponing the inevitable is futile. I could earn myself an MA and still have trouble convincing you to accept me into the company. Or I could get accepted but then I would have to face the egotistic struggle prevalent to most who have worked all their lives to earn academic reassurances. I am talking about having to deal with the feeling of over qualification. This resonates in the minds of those who were given a hard time in school and therefore feels highly of themselves when they overcome the struggle. Optimism is a good trait to maintain, however expectations of coming immediately into world-changing positions is a lethal drawback to this. It is a well-earned feeling; however, it does not help much in settling in the world of job-related stress. So now I am taking my chances by passing my resumé.

Insofar as what I could offer your company, I believe that my strength lies in creatives. I have always dreamt of working on-cam and have taken up classes in performance. I have also always been inclined to creative writing. In fact, I have earned a fellowship to a local workshop and have successfully pursued a minor in English Literature. I am also very much involved with the official university folio as writer, faux editor and manager. My involvement in the folio also exposed me to managing events which I have slowly learned and grown to love. I can only cross my fingers that you are willing to accept someone who cannot work accounting sheets, much more somebody without three years of experience.

I have chosen to study what it is that I love to do and now I have to pay the price by not expecting a stout starting salary, if ever I will be accepted. I do not posses the skills required for a kick-ass cut-throat arena reserved for corporate executives. I am an incidental artist preparing to be a starving one. And even starving artists need jobs.

Thank you very much for taking time in reading my letter. I am looking forward to your favorable response. (Please give me a job because I don’t want to leave this country just to be able to find one.)

posted by carl @ 2:41 AM 0 comments

i huff and i puff...

i huff and i puff...


I smoke a pack a day. A humble statistic, compared to those who have decided that they will strive to be industrial chimneys. (Especially compared to those who are succeeding in this.) I’m not one of these people. I simply do not strive to be anything. I don’t strive at all. “Strive” is a verb invented for people who have nothing else to do in life. But still, I smoke a pack a day.

Should I be bothered? Maybe I should, but not by the fact that I destroy my lungs. We are all headed for physical destruction anyway. It’s a matter of choosing our bats. Some people prefer to take up BS Physics, others completely ignore the break pedal while cruising down the street, there are some who starve themselves to death; others wrap themselves up with the wrong apparel. Me? I stuff my alveoli.

I should be bothered because I have to smoke after meals, before meals, before sleeping, when I wake up, before working out (yes, I tried going to the gym), after playing a sport, before playing a sport, after a test, before classes and pretty much before and after any other verb I can think of. Just goes to show I’m not good in multitasking.

posted by carl @ 4:37 AM 0 comments

where am i going???

where am i going???


I took the liberty of reading this blog. At least the first two entries. (Well, it’s my blog anyway.) What a very boring life. And if blogging is mental masturbation, I may as very well remain a virgin until the day I die.

In this pre-established boring life, today is the first official boring day—not quite in between jobs, not quite studying anymore, definitely unemployed. Another crossroads in my life, but it is simply scary to follow one path in particular. (Knowing me, I will probably attempt to take many paths at the same time and end up failing in all of them.)

I will not be a writer.

When I was a kid, the nuns where I attended kindergarten (DML Montessori, New Manila--i've always wanted to go back and visit the school...) practiced a rather open-minded method of organizing a picnic. I will never forget how Sister lifted the chalk one day and wrote two words on the blackboard. Of course I did not know how to read then, so it was only when she read the words did I truly begin to understand what was going on: “Park or zoo.” The boys all howled “zoo” while the girls crooned “park.” I however, true to my bipolar fashion, looked outside the window and said nothing.

Now, apparently the girls in my class outnumbered the boys, so I, along with the other boys, was condemned to an afternoon sitting on the grass while dreaming about elephants and giraffes. Truth of the matter is I really wanted to go to the zoo. Had I said anything, I would have definitely said “zoo.” Then maybe it would have been easier too to just resign, lounge in the park and recover from defeat. Would have. I remember this experience rather vividly up to this day.

I spent the entire picnic munching on wafers while silently complaining to myself. At that early age, I had realized that the easiest thing to do in life is to complain about it. Nothing can ever be good enough; I always deserve something more. Seeing animals is far more exciting than picking flowers. And as I grew older, the park became the world, and the zoo became a dream.

I can never for the life of me get why I was born here in the Philippines. The world map is sprawled with hundreds of countries, and perhaps when God was choosing where to send my soul, his chip went abnormal and landed on these tropical islands. God never went in front of a classroom and scribbled all the countries in the world to make me pick where I would like to be born.

Now, twenty two years have past and I have not gotten used to the heat. I would have chosen somewhere temperate, chosen to enjoy the latest winter fashion trends. I wouldn’t have to go through twenty two years of not being able to acquire a feeling of security in the intense industrial-baroque clutter that we dub as our metropolis either. Fearing for my life while walking up and down a night-soaked Katipunan Avenue is a normal feeling as often felt as hunger is.

Here, the ice pick is a lethal weapon.

Perhaps I will try to be a serial killer and uplift the sorry state of crime here. Crime here lacks sophistication—the use of random kitchen tools for daggers, bad choice of victims and lack of serious planning. I studied in an exclusive school, acquired sufficient class, good taste and élan—I will be the perfect criminal.

posted by carl @ 5:25 PM 0 comments

altitude

altitude


Perhaps, escaping is the best thing ever invented by man. That's why I'm here: miles away from Manila, from home (which I will soon need to somehow find a way to inhabit without being a financial burden to my parents), from ADMU (and the PubRoom, heaven forbid--all the work i left!!!) and from everything else that's filled my planner for the past year. Right now i'm technically unemployed, but I have agreed with my multiple selves that I will have to worry about that after marching up the stage to pomp and circumstance. Time does stop when cavorting on steep terrain, with good friends no less.

posted by carl @ 2:51 AM 0 comments

c'mon bite me

c'mon bite me


To tell the truth, i don't even get the point of putting this up. Aware of the danger of summing my life up, and coming out as just another spoiled boy ranting publicly, I just went on and decided that since my emotional baggage has been becoming quite too heavy to kick around (yes, if i were to create a figure of speech pertaining to how i manage my emotional baggage, 'carrying' would be an utter lie, and i don't feel like lying), i may as well give emotional vampires something to feed on. Which would perfectly turn me into an emotional vampire too. But aren't we all? Remind me to write a paper on that.

posted by carl @ 3:24 AM 0 comments