biological clock
Posted at 10:03 AM

it's the first day of school. i can tell even without looking at the calendar. the morning is just this much darker. the rain just that much more threatening. the air is a little heavier, adding to the gravity that keeps me in bed.

i know, i know - that's probably just laziness. but there's always been something about me and the first day of school. never liked it. i have very stark memories of heading to JASMS from Damar Village in the cold dark rainy mornings, half awake, barely fed. even if i liked school (and i LOVED my grade school days), the first day was always so... so... bleh.

and now, almost three decades later, yet another first day of school. there've been so many my body is so sensitized to it. i don't mind school really. there are days that downright rock! but there's something about the first day that's so... so... bleh.

speak to me
Posted at 10:22 AM

after close to 20 years of driving, i am getting the hang of the language of cars. some of the common phrases you need to know are:

fwap fwap fwap means 'flat tire'

thwapthwapthwap means 'fan belt snapped'

click (silence) click (silence) means 'i don't want to start'

click urrrgghhhh means 'timing off, can't connect' 

grrkkkhhhh means nothing good, ever.

thwip eeeek thwip eeeek means 'the winshield is dry! turn the damned wiper off!' 

 

recently i got a brand new sound. while running, the car was going wadda wadda wadda while it was idle it would go (as accurately identified by joanna) ftph ftph. one of the spark plug cables was loose

an ad
Posted at 07:00 PM

i know i have something to write about, but i overtaxed that muscle in my brain over the weekend, so i'll just post an ad...

Order books, DVDs, CDs from the US and have it delivered to you!

Email syntax.group@gmail.com for information and a free estimate 

*huff puff*
Posted at 09:01 AM

i have been tossed off to the 5th floor on tuesdays fridays.


5th floor. i'm so high up i can see over the trees through to the iglesia ni cristo church.


and you know where i am, no elevators (which makes me green with envy everytime i go to the acb of uap).


so i climb and i climb and i climb and i climb - and just when i think i can climb no more, i look and see that i'm just on the fourth floor.


crap.

i'm tired
Posted at 01:36 PM

had a dream last night (actually i've been having all sorts of dreams involving all kinds of things like vegetables and people turning into pigs - but those are other stories).

last night's dream was this: i had to get to puerto galera from san teodoro, the town beside it. by pump boat, this is a good two-hour trip. how did i do it? i swam. yep. swam. all the while trying to outswim a giant rooster.

and i woke up, went to the bathroom to wash my face - and everything had a shimmery, dreamlike quality to it. even the water was trickling in slow motion.

then i woke up again. i hate it when this happens

the 80s reprised
Posted at 08:59 PM

(posted this some time ago. might even have been another blog. am in the process of fixing it up and i thought i'd post it again )

When I was in high school, the EDSA revolution happened. Madonna was a fairly new hit and Cyndi Lauper was giving her some tough competition. U2 just came out with Sunday Bloody Sunday and everybody owned posters of either Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet. Michael Jackson was still black.

Greenhills was the place to go and buy all the cool stuff: Sperry topsiders, penny loafers, Swatch and Smash watches. And Tickles for all other paraphernalia. There were lots of open spaces between Unimart, Shoppesville, and Virra Mall.

We thought Henry Sy was nuts for thinking of building Shoemart all the way out in North Avenue, the middle of nowhere.

Mini-golf was swinging. Par 42 in Amosolo, Makati was the place to be; or, if you really couldn’t help it, Par 44 in Greenhills was an acceptable substitute. Then dinner in Angelino’s and drinks at Pep’s. Tia Maria’s for zombies and margaritas any time of the day.

McDonald’s in Greenhills and Quezon Ave were cool. We would ogle cute McDonald’s staffers too – back then, Richard Gomez was working one branch. Aga Muhlach was the cutest guy in Bagets, though Herbert Bautista was the nice one. Tito Sotto was a comedian. Sharon Cuneta still wasn’t mega and Dina Bonnevie was still Katorse.

Our anthem flick was The Breakfast Club (or Pretty in Pink or 16 Candles. Notice that the common factor was Molly Ringwald). Gremlins freaked us out and Friday the 13th was just on its first run.

I look around me and sometimes wonder where it all went. How did I get to my 30s so suddenly? But my nostalgia for my own adolescence is comforted when I see the next generation of kids occupying Katipunan and doing pretty much what we were doing when we were kids although now they use cellphones instead of payphones, show off laptops instead of handheld video games (though some still show that off too). Life does go on. These places that are so different from the ones I grew up in will also be alien to the kids 10 years from now.

And by then I will be in full midlife swing. Still writing I hope, and remembering.

this morning...
Posted at 10:18 AM

i finished my formal workday at 8:40 this morning. that's because i threw my second class out.

actually, i threw half the first class out for not knowing more than 1 out of 5 facts in a report i had them read. the second one was a bit more dramatic though.

see, two meetings ago we took up this story in which the character was a great lover of Emerson. nobody in the class knew who Emerson was - not even a vague idea. so i told them to find out - i gave them 20 minutes to do the research... we were on the 5th floor of a building with no library. needless to say they all came back close to cardiac arrest. but they got the information.

moral of the lesson: when you read literature, know the allusions. i told them that they had to be very ready with the next story.

next story, which should have been discussed this morning, is a cultural piece set in Jolo. there were references to wazirs, astanahs and people riding white horses.

question: what does riding a white horse mean? blank stare

question: what is a wazir? blank stare or half-hearted answers of 'an official...?'

question: what is an astanah? blank stare.

end result, 8:40am leave the room (some couldn't believe at first i was actually throwing them out). students' heads hung low, teacher off to buy breakfast. 

a different kind of road trip
Posted at 11:00 AM

6 hours, 100 kilometers, P300 worth of gas...

 9 nine west branches.

 joanna and i were in search of the shoe. THE shoe. she knew what it looked like - she had seen it in one of the branches. she knew the price. we had the cash, we were ready.

unfortunately it wasn't there. and neither was it in any of the other branches. but there was this other shoe. dark gold, strapped. beautiful. P5,000. hoowa.

four branches later, at the last stop, the golden shoe - the beautiful golden shoe was on sale for quite less than P5,000. no size. another pair, long desired, was now at 1,600 down from over 4k. still no size.

'well, this sucks,' became the refrain. even before we entered the stores joanna would say that in anticipation. but the last 2 pairs, those were really heartbreakers.

good thing we managed to squeeze in a pint of haagen dazs macadamia nut and choco choco chip in the process