posted by carl @ 1:43 AM 0 comments

peter pan travels through time too

peter pan travels through time too

like what i have said, when everything seems to be going steady, you will create problems for yourself.

you choose your own bat, and love is usually the weapon of choice. you whack yourself on the head...an impact so great not even a keg of red horse would have smashed you as much. you say the wrong things (and you find yourself to be the only one talking), you over-share, you extend interaction to an alarmingly pathetic degree and you wallow by yourself afterwards, cursing your own existence to the high heavens.

but an alternative weapon would be nostalgia. nostalgia plus trouble-shooting. you stand back, squint at yourself and scrutinize things you know you will never be able to change anymore anyway. but you put your life on a pause all the same. you put off your jacques derrida reading time and lie on your back, stare at the ceiling and let your mind drift to creases of a so-called past. "i used to be...," "how could have i been so...," "what the fuck happened...?!"

this, i think, is a form of time travel. i remember madeleine l'engle's a wrinkle in time and the concept of tesseract. the tesseract is actually another interpretation of hyperspace--you fold space and walk right through it. and that's what you basically do with time when you wallow on daydreams in the middle of an academic war. you fold time and walk right through it. time is movement through space, as sci10 had sufficiently nagged me into believing, and when you forego of all the things you could have accomplished in a certain span of time, it's as good as walking right through time itself, with only that empty fold to look back to.

and in the exact instance you wake up, when you stare blankly at your readings with its pages unturned, you realize that you have done an about-face to take a peak backwards in your life. you stare at that wrinkle in time, that small crack of non-productivity which you will hide behind the word "reflection"... and that's when you'll know:

"oh my god, i'm not growing."

posted by carl @ 2:39 AM 2 comments

behold, testament of the friendship between levi and i.

he comes home from new york, some oceans and continents away, yet still manages to find and bring home to me an artifact that's so hopelessly me. as a tribute, i had hung this star (original from broadway, he says. which i don't really doubt because he forgot to take the price tag off. hahaha) on my bedroom door a la diva's dressing room.

mommy: where'd you get the thing hanging outside your door?

me: levi gave it to me as pasalubong from new york. nice noh!?

mommy: eh why does it say "queen?"

me: mommy! it's a term! have you heard anyone say "drama king!?"

sometimes i pity my mom for being so naive. but i envy her because of that too. on the other hand, i really love myself for being as witty as hell and for always coming up with the silliest of excuses enough to make me doubt my own wit.


***


when you're twenty-two and you have not experienced being in a relationship yet, you wouldn't help but question yourself. (of course i'm talking about a friend here--i am clearly sixteen years old, as i have been for six years now.) and when you have not been in a relationship yet by the time you'd graduated college, there is nothing left for you to do but write about it in your blog, as if asking those who might get to read it to set you up, godamnit!

i have always said that i am not interested in the l word. which is true, actually. but here, i succumb to the danger of writing as if i do for lack of a better topic to write about. i have observed that the vicious cycle has always been like that. pining for someone has never been so much about truly needing something. it never felt more of a primordial need than a need constructed either by hollywood, hallmark, gift gate or blue magik. and when you have no problems at all, you create one for yourself: you fall in love. then again, that's not me. i'm talking about my twenty-two year old friend who thinks he's falling for another jerk. heaven help him please.

posted by carl @ 12:31 AM 0 comments

a new season has begun

indeed it pays to know history a little more. had i just memorized the dates shoved up my arse when i was still in grade school, then i would probably know that today is independence day and i wouldn't have woken bloody early to troop to an empty campus.

today was supposed to be my first day of class with miss schriever (the name amuses me so much i had to make an excuse to post it.). european literature. but today, technically speaking, should have been my second day in grad school. last tuesday, i attended science fiction and fantasy fiction writing workshop with no substantial background in the mode/genre. sticking to the customs of first sessions, mr. flores asked all of us to introduce ourselves and give our background in science fiction and fantasy. whilst my classmates marveled at c.s. lewis, ray bradbury and madeleine l'engle, as testament to my life as a semi-ditz, this is what i had to say:

me: i'm charlie. i don't really have a strong background in this mode or genre, and i must admit that most influences that i have in sci-fi and fantasy come from pop-cultural sources. ((in other words, hollywood. but of course i had to find a more erudite way to say this.)) ummm...i've read harry potter...

mr. flores: the latest one?

me: oh, all five books! ((con mucho enthusiasm, the words were so perky and solid, they felt like a badge of honor which i wore with my chest thrusted forward. but i realized that this was not half as impressive as an imbecile balancing an egg on his open palm, so much to my mortification, my mouth kept on yapping...)) but my friends have been, for a long time, egging me to read neil gaiman. and oh, i have the tolkien books but i haven't read them yet. one of these days, i will.

fabulous. my last statement really completed it. i felt icy, dart-glances launch towards my direction. not only have i presented how elementary my reading list is, but i have also successfully drawn attention to what i am missing out. to what i deprive myself of. for obvious reasons, i resolved to remain silent during the next three hours.

aside from my being an academic klutz, the state university has also given me a fresh view on how i really fare in this world.


i am
alone
.


there. i have never been so poetic in my life, and although the image presented is not as subtle as good poetry customarily comes with, i feel that the line cuts and wording just about captures the foolishness this insight arises from. don't get me wrong, please. i am so overwhelmingly happy for having been allowed this chance to work on my writing skills. i may not want to be a writer, but i find myself writing anyway. so i just want to make it right.

but my reasons, no matter how defensive, stupid or (dare i say) valiant they may be, do not buffer the circumstance at hand: this is the first time i have ever been new in school (prep school excluded). i am a bonafide freshman in this place. lost. lonely. clueless. for hours, i stand in front of the bulletin boards, letting my gaze crawl slowly across the clutter of papers. "wanted male boarder." "nice korean here wanting to make friend." yes, i pretend to be reading the announcements because i have nothing else to do while waiting for my class. (apparently, according to a foreign classmate, UP teachers are notorious for being late. we were waiting for thirty minutes then, and in my building, benches have apparently been outdated. who needs a bench if you have a floor?! and he goes on to saying that *some teacher* is the worst. apparently, thirty minutes is not worst.)

but this morning saw a different scene. i needed not to pretend to be reading the announcements because of a variety of reasons:
1) there was no one there. an activity was not necessary to shield myself from appearing to be alone.
2) i need not be there. today is a bloody holiday and i can't forgive myself for not knowing this.
3) my brain was just fried.

so now, im here in holiday inn, robbing internet time.

wishing this country happy independence day, and at the same time wishing myself for the day i become independent from all these "new boy in school" hang-ups.

posted by carl @ 10:55 AM 0 comments

* * *


okay i just took the quiz for kicks and the result was too smashing for me not to post it.

Am I cool or uncool? [CLICK] You are Super-Cool! Woah! Step back - the future's so bright for you it's blinding me! You are the coolest of the cool. Everyone looks up to you as the benchmark for being coooool. The fonze was your grandfather. Any cooler and you'd freeze! WOO it's chilly in here. Cool quizzes at Go-Quiz.com

then again, the very fact that i took it is a proof otherwise... hahahaha

posted by carl @ 10:32 AM 0 comments

now showing: charlie, the movie

whenever i see a movie (particularly one that i end up liking), one: i am sure to watch it over and over, and two: the pangs of deep regret always set in. it's a weird kind of regert. stupid, actually. i look back upon the story of my life and always tell myself "fire the goddam scriptwriter!"

humiliating as it is, especially considering that i have sufficient background in media studies to actually realize that i keep on falling into media tools, i should admit that i always end up wishing that i was IN the movie. not as an actor, but as a character. and it does not end with wishing. true enough, i spend hours and hours staring into space, living fantastic scenes, in which i am a primemover, in my silly little mind. sometimes, i think i'm going bonkers, yet i always indulge my eccentricity in spite.

life is a movie. my life is one long movie not specific to any genre. but they say that movies are, in reality, trailers with hours of fillers. so i guess my life is not exempted from this.

the purpose of this journal, i guess, is for me to be able to plot down the trailers in my movie. and if my life is a teen movie, i just had that classic "new in school" scene yesterday, which could be captured by a lot of words save for fantastic. (which i will write about after i attend the first meeting of my other class.)

in this lifetime, i have been a vampire, a wizard, a warrior, a prince, a rockstar and a movie idol, among those oh-so-close-to-real life fantasies. (such as living in "clueless." hahahaha) but through it all, i have remained to be empress of my silly little universe, who sits here in the north eastern chamber of the castelo castle typing all these imperial ramblings.

posted by carl @ 12:36 PM 2 comments