lank tangles

i got this idea off a post on Facebook, '20 Random Things About Me.' this post contains only 13. and it isn't even finished. i'll update the list when i get ideas.

1. I eat my halo-halo upside down --- sahog then the leche con yelo.

2. Some people bite their fingernails when stressed. I scratch myself silly and pick on the scabs of my wounds.

3. I used to be called 'The Walkout Princess' --- regardless of who i'm talking to, when the situation gets too exasperating, i walk out.

4. I can induce selective amnesia, if i try hard enough. It only works with people, though.

5. I used to be called 'The Nightcrawler' as well. Go figure.

6. I am a pack rat --- i still have the bamboo leaf my org sponsor gave me about four years ago. Talk about sentimental.

7. I don't like kids. Or babies.

8. My mother likes to tell this story about how when i was young i coudn't be left to go play with other kids because i allowed strangers to lead me off by the hand. Little has changed --- lead me by the hand, i'd still follow.

9. Anger can be steered into stubbornness, persistence, courage. Tears make your face puffy. On screw-ups, i'm for anger over tears any day.

10. Sure, i'm intimidated, but i like hanging out with and learning from the best.

11. I weave pieces of heart and soul into each and every dreamcatcher i create, one final gift of deep feelings with the acceptance of things that are and cannot be, and a plea to never, never forget.

12. I have a hot-cold-love-hate relationship with Virgo and Saggitarius (my Ascendant); quiet and comfortable peace with Leo, Aries and Cancer; the other signs.. no definite idea yet.

13. I can be anything you want me to be. All you have to do is ask.

photo by janjan sison

thursday afternoon, i skipped my 4-5:30 class so i can prepare for broadcast at 6. everything was a blur then.

i lost all of my audio files. all my audio files. all my fricking audio files.

and still i didn't get to broadcast. the booth aircon was down. 

jason was right. it just wasn't my day.

there are just days like that.

crap days, when nothing ever goes right. hrrrgh.

for a semester now, i've lived in a dormitory where the bathwater coming out of the showers is always (always, i tell you) either lukewarm or scorching. it just gets holy uncomfortable when you've to bathe late in the morning, you'd be sweating rivers soon as you turn off the shower. here in my rented second floor room though, in a house in sitio defuego, san francisco, general trias, cavite, it's a whole different scenario. early each morning i'd come out of the house with numb fingers, thanks to the freezing bathwater at 5 am. i step outside to begin the long walk from my house to the tricycle stop for the office and the sun on my face is simply glorious, so nice that despite the incessant pounding in my head brought about by unintentional all-nighters listening to a 28-year old's migraine-inducing stories about being pregnant, abortion, lost love, fate vs. destiny, palm-readers and predictions about the men to come, i'm driven to smile and hum a little tune and add an extra spring in my step. hello, sunshine, it's a beautiful morning.

that was about a week ago.

the sun has been a mere reflection on a fogged-out mirror. it's amazing how in a matter of days, from jumping out of bed at 5 i've gone back to crawling out of it reluctantly at 6 each morning. not that i'm complaining, an overcast sky is an ingredient for a great day for me. it's just that.. in here, the sun for me is an incentive. sometimes, you need an extra push so you don't slip into the ditch of feeling lonely, especially since i've virtually been living alone for weeks with no other soul to have decent conversations with; i can feel the thickening cobwebs in my head swaying in the wind when i walk.

and i'm working extra now. i've added two hours to my regular eight, so i'm working a 7-6 shift, but i actually get off work at around 7. i keep thinking i've morphed into a workaholic. i'd start running around the plant after coffee at 6:30 in the morning with only a pitstop for another cup of coffee around 12:30, then it'd be dinner at 8:00. tiring, really, my legs would ache real bad from the to-and-fro trips to my sampling points, my month-old shoes look like they've been überused for years, but ironically, the job is exciting. i think, contrary to my first impression about working in a plant, i'd do just fine in one, for as long as two years or so. that's a theory. i can't really tell what my freedom-philic, carefree-bordering-on-hedonistic soul would demand of me next.

the production run ends with today. and i've a week left in this assignment. i don't know how to feel about it, really.. but i did sigh just as i was typing the last sentence.

i am undergoing on-the-job training at SCA (Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget) Hygiene Products Corporation here in First Cavite Industrial Estate (FCIE), Langkaan, Dasmariñas, Cavite. i work through the 7-4 shift, monday to friday. so far ive finished 80 hours out of 240.

hot, dusty, inhospitable. Cavite. but then again, when you're too busy running around doing your job you won't even notice the heat. or the time. or much of anything. so i've begun to not mind the climate here.

i wake up at 5 am and am dressed by 6. i walk roughly 500 meters from my boarding house to the FCIE gate. i buy puto't kutsinta from the kakanin vendors along the way, then stand in line for the tricycle to the factory. i get to SCA by about 6:45 am and go directly to the canteen for breakfast. at exactly 7 am, i report to the Quality Assurance (QA) office.

my OJT partner, roy, and i start the day by doing rounds in the company's wastewater treatment facility and the boiler and chemical area water sources, taking samples for the daily check (this is a chemist's job, i know). we cover miles inside the laboratory going around testing the water samples for properties such as hardness, dissolved solids, suspended solids, pH, chlorides, etc. after the tests and after cleaning up all the glassware, we do quality control and approve and reject all the incoming deliveries and outgoing products of the company (these are things done by auditors).

then i walk home, buy banana cue along the way.

the paper machine will run on may 5 for production, and with it, everything else. roy and i are very excited, because we'd get to be chemical engineers then, not chemists or auditors. the production will run for 15 days, and for that span of time we have to gather the information required of us by the company for our special topic. mine is about flocculants, roy got a topic on boilers.

until then, this bird will be a slave chained by academics.

i miss LB. i'm hoping to get to lounge in the sand in boracay with my boyfriend. i want to go home to iloilo.

archelle floro fale, from a presscon (NSPC) in antique 1999

alain greg contreras, from a presscon (NSPC) in cebu in 2003

mary jo itakura, from a presscon (NSPC) in cebu in 2003

santigo paulo pascual, from new dorm in college

can anyone tell me anything about these people? i'm trying to recover my past. 

this is from a collection of strips called Roasted, created by Andy Riley.

Black woman with dreadlocks: So you’re over him then, pretty much.

Lottie: Oh, definitely. These days i hardly think about collecting all my tears in the freezer and making them into an icicle which I’ll use to pierce his so-called heart.

cute. i found the hardbound copy in a shelf amidst the Calvin & Hobbes and Far Side collections in Powerbooks in SM Megamall. it was my first time, reading for FREE in a bookstore. in Manila. Philippines.

filipinos are to some extent selfish when it comes to their words, i'm thinking, everything is sealed inside transparent fragile protective covers, unbreakable unless bought. it has been a dream of mine to have one of those shops like the ones in Europe where you could pick out a book or a magazine from the shelves, buy coffee (or not), read, leave, and come back to do the same anyday.

i had fun with that new discovery, Roasted. too bad, at the time, i had noone really to share the laughs with. (meryl? josh? kix?!! *sigh*)

FPPS 199. Course description: Undergraduate Seminar.

I was in my beloved black stockings, a miniskirt i sewed together myself, borrowed heels and a knit shirt i've shorn the sleeves of some 20 minutes before so it can look better suited for such an event. i added a button on the neckline, too, for a little drama. the outfit came together just peachy.

we were told to write a paragraph about ourselves, for our introduction.

"The next speaker is a BS Chemical Engineering student, majoring in Pulp and Paper Technology;

She does not actually like her present degree, but is hopelessly addicted to paper;

Dreams instead of becoming an interior designer, a grape orchard owner and a professional radio jock;

Whose ultimate goal in life is to have her own exhibit in a CCP gallery; and

Having accomplished thus, plans to retire in sunny Rio and long afterwards die peacefully in her sleep in a log cabin on a windswept crag in mystic Scotland."

such rave reviews i got from Ma'am Stel Castillo, but i don't know if i should be flattered by her saying that based on my presentation, she is assured that i actually did learn something from her subject FPPS 132 last year.

i appreciated my audience so much, Ma'am Stel, Sir Ronniel, Aciel, Roy, Davy, Davy's girlfriend, Davy's girlfriend's friend, Carey and Jarvik my little love, because they actually laughed as my intro was being read (meaning they got the joke). the people from FPPS, my classmates and my teachers, asked questions as well, which meant i have done well in my presentation for they understood the points i was trying to get across.

i love public speaking. the jitters and the apprehension will never cease to be there, but the exhilaration of success is well worth the sweaty palms and the shaky legs.

if i may qoute my eng10 teacher, "i do not expect perfection, because i am not perfect." no, i don't think it's perfection i'm after. just.. a little common sense.

i had this conversation with my father about the children that litter the streets of my university. i just had to tell him about the rugby boys, and something more.

i became a part of a religious organization even before i even established footing in UPLB. for two years i have gone thru every activity that they would expect a member to experience. i have seen how their system works.

maybe i was serious. i listened to what they had to say, and i made interpretations of my own. i will forever be grateful for their insistence that i try to check Him out, but i will not be made to endure a virtual stranger's insistence to totally control my life. no.

why can the money they spend in their numerous, extremely extravagant gatherings not be spent on the grubby children? why is there a need to concentrate the efforts on children from well-off families who are, no doubt, given proper support by their own parents? why only the rich kids? why is there a scorn and indifference on their faces when they encounter the filthy children on the streets? why can they not bring these childen to Sunday School instead?

will these children on the streets ever even have a proper future? will they ever be anything for them if we keep on turning our backs on them and putting all the spotlight on the rich kids?

i canot bring myself to hope for any change in this situation. one of the things i picked up from church, after all, is that money makes the world go round.

The stars are bright tonight..

-- Stars, the Cranberries

i got home thursday, and i've been trying to fatten myself up since, with some success. everyday, all i do is eat, sleep, watch tv and listen to the radio, in random order. i feel like an alien in the town i spent half my entire childhood in, so i rarely ever go out of the house in broad daylight. besides, it's very dusty out..

but all of these aren't important. they all serve to pass the time as i wait for five o'clock. from that time until dinnertime at 7, i would sit on the little makeshift bench in our backyard and wait for the sky to burst in its seams. when it does, a multitude of twinkly sparkles show themselves high above, in all colors and sizes. like a space pirate's loot bag, torn by the treasure's weight.

i've asked my old-but-not-so-old-looking man why the sky is a lot brighter from our backyard than from the field in UPLB. from my yard, you can confidently say that Earth is on the edge of the Milky Way - you can see the rest of the galaxy beyond. you can spy venus and mars playing come-get-me and if you look long and hard enough, you'd catch an occasional falling star.

the night sky from that bench in my backyard makes me nostalgic. when will it ever be that bright everywhere? can everyone see what i can? what can i do to get rid of all the world's technology so i can bring out the sky's full grandeur? scrap that last question.

Stars looking at our planet / Watching entropy and pain / And maybe startin' to wonder / How the chaos in our lives could pass as sane..

--Stars, Switchfoot

 

 

You're Beautiful by James Blunt. an exceptional piece of something. so sad and so real.

.. i saw an angel / of that i'm sure.. smiled at me on the subway.. was with another.. you're beautiful.. it's true.. i saw your face in a crowded place / and I don't know what to do / 'cause Ill never be with you.. we shared a moment that will last till the end.. you're beautiful.. it's true.. there must be an angel with a smile on her face / when she thought up that i should be with you / but it's time to face the truth: / i will never be with you.

some people just manage to grab our attention for some unidentifyable, unreasonable and sometimes absurd reason. we can choose our friends, yes, but we can never choose the people we meet, the people who touch our lives. worse, we can never choose the people we give our hearts to, sometimes unwittingly, unwillingly.

such is the fate we all must face.