Month: August 2012

please.

everyone just needs to stop touching my shit. like, seriously.

i know i’ve been super inconsistent about my feelings about being here, but i think i’m ready to go home now.

i’ve contracted some sort of terrible illness. if i’m still sick by the time i get back to school, i’m going to be hella pissed. i already have enough fucking issues concerning the beginning of this school year.

someone give me some space to breathe.

and i’d kind of appreciate it if everybody stopped asking me if i want an alcoholic beverage.

i know it’s just people trying to be conscientious, but i’m not some sort of tragic one-dimensional character out of some trashy reality tv show.

there’s slightly more to me than a fondness for cocktails.

let’s just run through the list of my flaws that have been pointed out to me since i’ve been here.

i’m:
– selfish
– manipulative
– the only truly ‘different’ (i.e. problematic) member of the family
– shallow
– damned.

these things are pointed out to me constantly.

constantly.

the only nice thing anybody can muster up to say about me is that i’m funny.

or pretty.

nobody knows how often i have to stop myself from crying.

i’ll be sitting in a cab while we ride to our next destination, and a wave of inexplicable guilt will wash over me.

at those times, i need the music in my ears, and all i can do is look out the window hoping nobody notices my eyes welling up.

nobody knows, nobody knows.

everything runs deeper, and i’ve just started realizing it.

mother just reminded me of something i did in the past that i obviously feel awful about.

i know it was wrong, and she threw it in my face.

i let her know i’m kind of mad she wore one of my favourite shirts as a nightgown without telling me, and she retaliated by reminding me i’m a terrible person with no real values and a deplorable set of priorities.

i’m tired.

August 31, 2012

uh oh
i had the worst sleep last night.

i woke up by myself on the couch in the dark, and this disoriented me. someone had turned off the lights.

the fan whirred beside me.

i think i was still in a state of half-sleep when i wondered where i was. all i could make out were the vague outlines of shadows in the darkness, and the blinking of a red light against the wall. my eyes began to adjust to the dark, but this didn’t make things better.

the shadows were playing tricks on me.

i thought i saw the tall figure of a man in a hallway. the curtains were moving ever so slightly. the television struck me as ominous.

and the fan whirred beside me.

i turned it off. the absolute silence was even worse. soon i realized i could hear the breathing of someone fast asleep, and this scared me. i knew it must’ve been someone in the room directly above me, but what if it wasn’t?

i pictured a man outside, breathing against the glass of the window above the couch.

it was all very surreal. i felt disconnected from time and the reality of the world.

i lay there for a while, making fear out of nothing.

anxiety comes in the strangest forms, sometimes cloaked in the shadows of the dark.

i turned on the light.

but once fear is nurtured and has a chance to grow – once it sprouts its roots and splays its branches – it becomes difficult to cut down.

so i went upstairs and sat with my family, if only for a little while. i listened to them breathing. and then i went online so i could see there were people who were alive and awake.

the world was still turning.

i went downstairs and turned on the fan.

August 31, 2012
“"Well, don’t you think guts and curiosity are kind of similar?” said May Kasahara. “Where there’s guts there’s curiosity, and where there’s curiosity there’s guts. No?”

“Hmm, maybe they are kind of similar,” I said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe they do overlap at times.”

“Times like when you sneak into somebody’s backyard, say.”

“Yeah, like that,” I said, rolling a lemon drop on my tongue. “When you sneak into somebody’s backyard, it does seem that guts and curiosity are working together. Curiosity can bring guts out of hiding at times, maybe even get them going. But curiosity usually evaporates. Guts have to go for the long haul. Curiosity’s like a fun friend you can’t really trust. It turns you on and then it leaves you to make it on your own – with whatever guts you can muster.”“

‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’ by Haruki Murakami

August 30, 2012

haruki murakami, the wind-up bird chronicle
bed time.

i’ve spent far too much time thinking about pillows and bed sheets and duvets today.

if a single piece of bedding manages to sneak into my dreams, someone’s going to have to pay.

August 29, 2012

me, seriously
conflict.

above: the sister and i straight chillin at my cousins house in oro vista.

i’ve slowly come to the lightening realization that a part of me really doesn’t want to go back to montreal.

all that waits for me there are problems that need fixing – i need to get a mattress (and furnish my entire room), i need to figure out what to take as a major (and maybe switch all my classes), i need to find a job (and potentially learn french to do so), i need to resolve an awkward missing bedding situation (i’ve been put in a difficult position), etc etc etc.

and i’m probably going to do some binge drinking on the side because, well, that’s the world of higher education in montreal.

the list of things to do just never ends.

this last month of summer vacation has been exhausting.

i’m not ready to just jump right back into school – back into the world of endless imperatives.

i need a break.

a part of me just wants to stay here, playing with little cousins and big waves, carving my name into the white sand on the shore of a beach, leafing through a book i’ve been dying to read, climbing a spiral staircase to sleep in a room that isn’t mine.

everything is laid out for me here – i just have to go where i’m told.

my biggest concern right now is sometimes i can’t find my hair wax.

and here is where the inner conflict lies.

i’m excited to see all my friends again, but i really don’t want to have to face everything else.

i want to be able to keep reading what i want.

August 29, 2012
$1 haircuts anyone?

don’t really know how i feel about it but wow it was hella cheap.

August 29, 2012

everything in this country is so cheap, me
“In languages that derive from Latin, "compassion” means we cannot look on coolly as other suffer; or, we sympathize with those who suffer. Another word with approximately the same meaning, “pity” (French, pitié; Italian, pietà, etc.), connotes a certain condescension towards the sufferer. To take pity on a woman" means that we are better off than she, that we stoop to her level, lower ourselves.

That is why the word “compassion” generally inspires suspicion; it designates what is considered an inferior, second-rate sentiment that has little to do with love. To love someone out of compassion means not really to love.

In languages that form the word “compassion” not from the root “suffering” but from the root “feeling,” the word is used in approximately the same way, but to contend that it designates a bad or inferior sentiment is difficult. The secret strength of its etymology floods the word with another light and gives it a broader meaning: to have compassion (co-feeling) means not only to be able to live with the other’s misfortune but also to feel with him any emotion – joy, anxiety, happiness, pain. This kind of compassion (in the sense of soucit, współzcuzie, Mitgefühl, medkänsla) therefore signifies the maximal capacity of affective imagination, the art of emotional telepathy. In the hierarchy of sentiments, then, it is supreme.“

– ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ by Milan Kundera

August 28, 2012

milan kundera, the unbearable lightness of being
it was about an eight hour drive to ilocos. we left at around 10 pm but we could barely sleep in the van because there were eleven of us in it and it was super uncomfortable.

we arrived at ilocos at around 6 am. i wasn’t really expecting cobblestone paths and old architecture. it looked like a little slice of europe.

we went to maybe five different tourist destinations before noon and as soon as we got to the hotel i took a long nap.

it’s really pretty here.

more sightseeing tomorrow, but the flash of my disposable camera doesn’t work.

poo.

August 25, 2012
“Unlike Parmenides, Beethoven apparently viewed weight as something positive. Since the German word schwer means both "difficult” and “heavy,” Beethoven’s “difficult resolution” may also be construed as a “heavy” or “weighty resolution.” The weighty resolution is at one with the voice of Fate (“Es muss sein!”); necessity, weight, and value are three concepts inextricably bound: only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value.

This is a conviction born of Beethoven’s music, and although we cannot ignore the possibility (or even probability) that it owes its origins more to Beethoven’s commentators than to Beethoven himself, we all more or less share it: we believe that the greatness of man stems from the fact that he bears his fate as Atlas bore the heavens on his shoulders. Beethoven’s hero is a lifter of metaphysical weights.“

– ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ by Milan Kundera

August 23, 2012

milan kundera, the unbearable lightness of being
clutches.

it is only as i spend a few moments alone can i start to feel the same familiar sensation wash over me, just as it has so often before.

i can feel the clutches and the restraint – the smothering suffocation.

don’t get me wrong, i love my family, but i don’t even have a room to myself here.

the only time i spend alone is at night, when everyone else has gone to sleep and when my eyes can barely stay open – or on rest days like today when i can steal moments in the communal bedroom to finish reading a book.

it’s difficult for me to spend too much time with the same people without extended moments of solitude.

i – who cherish times of isolation, who even in the first year of university consciously chose to spend hours, sometimes even a day or two, all alone – have no time to myself.

and how truly can i be myself when i am surrounded by people who have painted a portrait of me as already semi-damned.

i can’t escape the image of my life as having strayed off the righteous path – as being foolish and mislead – and maybe its an accurate portrayal.

but i love my family, and i really am grateful that i get to spend this rare time with them. this trip has, for the most part, been wonderful.

someone please hand me a more positive attitude – just pry the non-existent fingers off my throat, steady, one by one.

there are only a couple more weeks.

August 22, 2012

musing, rahnt, rant
“We can never know what to want, because, living only one life,, we can neither compare it with our previous lives or perfect it in our lives to come.

Was it better to be with Tereza or to remain alone?

There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, "sketch” is not quite the right word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.

Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.“

‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ by Milan Kundera

August 22, 2012

milan kundera, the unbearable lightness of being
“‘Did you like being in the kitchen? Did you like to cook?’

Mother’s eyes held yours for a moment. ‘I don’t like or dislike the kitchen. I cooked because I had to. I had to stay in the kitchen so you could all eat and go to school. How could you only do what you like? There are things you have to do whether you like it or not.’ Mother’s expression asked, What kind of question is that? And then she murmured, ‘If you only do what you like, who’s going to do what you don’t like?’”

– ‘Please Look After Mother’ by Kyung-Sook Shin

August 22, 2012

kyung-sook shin, please look after mother
boracay, 2012

above: boracay. a little slice of paradise – minus the infinite amount of bugs. and the constantly pestering merchants. and the hordes of tourists who clearly have no idea how to walk with any morsel of common sense.

i don’t think i realized how much fun i was actually having until we left the island and headed back into the big city. i really do enjoy water, and it’s always nice to be sipping on a coffee with the sea wind blowing through your hair and the sound of the tide washing up against the shore.

we spent the first day on the beach, lazing around and taking dips in the sea. i’m not really used to swimming in that much natural salt water. i don’t really care much for the taste and it kind of stung my eyes, but whatever – it was so pretty, so all is well. there were so many different hues of blue and the water was so clear.

we went island hopping the next day. and helmet diving. and snorkeling. and i also got a really pretty necklace so now i can wear a small wooden tarsier clinging onto a stone dangling from my neck. it was strange to feed and swim with wild fish deep under the surface of the water – to be that close to these creatures i’ve only ever seen behind the glass of an aquarium. so strange to be able to reach out and almost touch – have them brush up against me.

we went out for drinks that night. two for one cocktails on the balcony of some bar. nobody wanted to finish their drinks so i got the leftovers and got kind of tipsy. not a good idea on a family vacation. i had to keep myself in check in front of my parents when we went to meet them after. they’d been listening to a live band and a few amateur performances. from what i saw, the bolder members of the audience knew how to sing.

yesterday we rode on a banana boat and a flying fish, and that was pretty fun. the novelty of water sports wears off after a couple of minutes, but i like the feeling of water on my skin, so it was alright. went out for drinks with my parents that night. i think my entire extended family thinks i’m some kind of crazed alcoholic party animal. such is the price of shamelessly exposing my life on social networking sites. how much am i a product of our generation?

today i drove an atv to a lookout point from which i could see the whole island. the ride over was pretty fun because we got to drive fast. the return trip was a different story. we got stuck behind a group of three women who were literally travelling at a sluggish pace. we weren’t allowed to pass them and it was awful.

we went to starbucks later in the day and soon we were on a plane back to manila.

of course, amidst these highlights we did a lot of wandering – looking at shops and stopping at cafes, buying mango shakes and knick knacks and doing other touristy things.

it was a fun little vacation within a vacation.

witnessing but not actually really partaking in the island resort nightlife made me want to come back with group of friends – and not my parents or siblings – for spring break. maybe i’ll set up a trip to cuba or something. i’ve heard you can get some pretty good deals with a bit of planning.

tomorrow’s a rest day and then we’re off to another exotic location to do other exotic things.

here’s to the final twenty or so days before i’m back in montreal, bending over textbooks and tearing my hair out trying to pick a major.

August 21, 2012

i really like islands
tumblr_m8wnannk9i1qb907m-1

here’s a video i took while riding a tricycle. i almost died filming it but whatever.

and here’s a quick recap of what we’ve done so far.

thursday night: arrived. went to see lolo (mother’s side). other relatives were there as well.

friday: celebrated nanay’s birthday with the fam. reacquainted ourselves with a ton of cousins from our mother’s side. played with babies.

saturday: visited lola’s (mother’s side) grave. saw even more cousins and uncles and aunts. we have a lot of those.

sunday: went to cruzada, our old church. nanay had us perform a special number in front of the entire congregation, and then in front of the youth.

monday: visited my aunt’s (father’s side) restauarant. reacquainted ourselves with aunts and uncles.

tuesday: traveled all the way to cogeo. reacquainted ourselves with a ton of aunts and uncles and cousins on our father’s side.

wednesday: it rained all day. went to tita lucy’s restaurant – a familiar sight. everyone on my dad’s side of the family is amazing at cooking, so we have a lot of food establishments.

thursday: visited antipolo, where orpah and i were born. discussed family drama. bought lanterns for my room in montreal.

today: had lunch with one of my mom’s cousins (or something. the relationship wasn’t quite clear to me). ate a ton of seafood. went to mall of asia. wasn’t that impressed.

we also went to a bunch of shopping malls throughout all this. there’s a shopping center on literally every corner around here.

tomorrow we’re going to boracay, which is apparently some wonderful paradise with white sand beaches and massages and delicious food.

i’m excited.

(Source: tumblr_m8wnannk9i1qb907m-1

here’s a video i took while riding a tricycle. i almost died filming it but whatever.

and here’s a quick recap of what we’ve done so far.

thursday night: arrived. went to see lolo (mother’s side). other relatives were there as well.

friday: celebrated nanay’s birthday with the fam. reacquainted ourselves with a ton of cousins from our mother’s side. played with babies.

saturday: visited lola’s (mother’s side) grave. saw even more cousins and uncles and aunts. we have a lot of those.

sunday: went to cruzada, our old church. nanay had us perform a special number in front of the entire congregation, and then in front of the youth.

monday: visited my aunt’s (father’s side) restauarant. reacquainted ourselves with aunts and uncles.

tuesday: traveled all the way to cogeo. reacquainted ourselves with a ton of aunts and uncles and cousins on our father’s side.

wednesday: it rained all day. went to tita lucy’s restaurant – a familiar sight. everyone on my dad’s side of the family is amazing at cooking, so we have a lot of food establishments.

thursday: visited antipolo, where orpah and i were born. discussed family drama. bought lanterns for my room in montreal.

today: had lunch with one of my mom’s cousins (or something. the relationship wasn’t quite clear to me). ate a ton of seafood. went to mall of asia. wasn’t that impressed.

we also went to a bunch of shopping malls throughout all this. there’s a shopping center on literally every corner around here.

tomorrow we’re going to boracay, which is apparently some wonderful paradise with white sand beaches and massages and delicious food.

i’m excited.

)

August 17, 2012

philippines 2012
tumblr_m8pmz0jusz1qb907m-1

blue and i are frienemies.

(Source: tumblr_m8pmz0jusz1qb907m-1

blue and i are frienemies.

)

August 13, 2012

Month: August 2012

please.

conflict.

clutches.

boracay, 2012