else it was reverie

I am a creature of routine and ritual, and I breeze through days experiencing a certain sense of satisfaction and the occasional totality with the usual people, the usual events, and the usual things. I am not easily bored with what is considerably a multifaceted life sans concupiscence and regularly abandoned sobriety, and in most days—and this is with the recognition that happiness is not my talent—I don’t seem to find anything or anyone particularly missing.

But when I do—and I do now—I am possessed by a strange compulsion to travel and to fall in love. 

My ceiling is made
with the revelation of
sidereal blankets.

-——————————————————————————————————————————

Disclaimer/Abstract:
This is the first time that I am writing (what I believe is NOT) an academic paper after more than twelve months, during which I have obstinately abandoned all academic and scholarly sensibilities—things which have always been questionably present in my life anyway—in favor of a simpler, advanced literature-free existence I thought I could consider having. Thus, I emerge now a stupider version of my graduate student self.

Putting into consideration that I am—to begin with—scholarly challenged and downright idiotic, I have decided to document all actions and thought process that I have experienced in the duration of writing a paper for my Development of Drama class, not only in an attempt to be creative or truthful, but more importantly, in the objective of later on scrutinizing these instances and discerning their implications, especially in terms of my own mental health.

Much later on, I will attempt to draw out parallelisms of my behavior and manner of thinking to those of the majority of today’s young men and women, who are subjects behind cultural phenomenon such as #OneDirectionAkaBestIdolsInTheWorld, #KathNielMostPromisingLoveTeam, and #JuliaMontesPrincessOfThePhilippineTelevision.

I might just also be drama-tic this way, I guess.

-——————————————————————————————————————————

2013 May 19, Sunday

12:00NN
I’m screwed.

2:00PM
I’ll start at 3:00, I promise. Or after I finish this bowl of ice cream and that episode of How I Met Your Mother.

3:30PM
I am so not a theory person. I thought I was, but I think the ship of that fact has sailed long after Contemporary Literary Criticism three years ago.

3:35PM
While the YFC Big North sector heads are nursing a Summer House Training hangover and rubbing elbows online, here I am, rubbing elbows with impossible papers!

5:00PM
Question: Ano ang masarap kainin habang nag-iisip, nagsusulat, at gumagawa ng madugong academic paper? Ice cream? Nuts? Brownies with drugs?

5:30-7:00PM
Shirked academic and intellectual responsibilities… 
  a.) to change my Google Chrome browser theme (in the belief that I was bored with my life) 
  b.) for a protracted moment of mental party and hedonism to the tunes of Carly Rae Jepsen, Swedish House Mafia, Flo Rida, Pitch Perfect OST, Sponge Cola Palabas songs.

                                                  I like crazy, foolish, stupid
                                                 Party going wild, fist pumping…

                                                 Hey, I heard you were a wild one… Oooohhh

7:45PM
- Dinner with parents (wow). 
- Chicharong bulaklak and rice make this ordeal a loooooooot better. 

9:00 PM
I wished I had been in the creative writing program instead. That way, I can write all the junk I want, and when people tell me it’s ugly, my only point of defense is an obstinate “No, you just don’t understand me!”

9:58PM
Fuck, I keep peeing.

sometime between 10:00-11:30PM
I have endured the fury of the summer sun—by not having a haircut— in preparation for one thing: I NEED to learn how to fishtail-braid my hair. And because I was so distracted by this compulsion, I tried it tonight, finally: 

:| 

2013 May 20, Monday

12:13AM 

12:40AM
I’m just going to sleep, not finish these papers on time, get kicked out of the program, and seek a career in DJ-ing instead.

12:31AM
Tugsh tugsh tugsh.

1:00AM
“The Theater of the Absurd explores man’s relationship with man. The result of that exploration is a rehearsal of the futility of such a relationship, and the works decry that futility.”

Well, THIS is futile and absurd.

1:19AM

(Mental Note: Dear family, I’m genuinely sorry for hoarding the ice cream. I need this to keep myself awake.)

1:52AM
Are these seemingly mundane thoughts normal for a legitimate graduate student to have? Should I be learning to think of other more mature, graduate student-y things like the MA thesis? Or a PhD? Or scholarship?

Am I teenybopper and if so, should I stop being one and force myself to “grow up”?

“We are who we are.” - Ma’am Rica Bolipata-Santos

2:26AM
PAGE THREE OMG

OMG BLOCK QUOTESSSSSSSS

2:56AM
The absurd theater is characterized by its philosophy that man’s subjective experience is the only reality, its consciousness of itself as “play,” and its refusal to adhere to the Aristotlean drama’s conventions of time, character, and plot. Through illustrating rebellions and discontinuities within language and dialogue, the lack of dramatic conflict in its plot, and the absence of the protagonist as well as the anti-hero, it champions the presupposition that human life is ridiculous and pointless. In this absurdity, this kind of theater attempts to challenge man to a certain exercise of introspection.

 2:58AM 
*CUE GUNSHOT SOUND EFFECT

3:20AM
I think I’m sleeping and finishing this tomorrow. 

3:23AM
BUT.

3:27AM
No coffee + an urge to listen to Flo Rida’s Wild Ones again. 

3:30AM
Down… with the bloody Red Queen.

I have only prayer now in this fevered country where all pines to see you finally fall:

If only gratitude can be translated from the desperate solace of having to run to the shelter your clouds imply

I was seventeen, and indomitably smitten.

It was a scene straight out of a cheap, high school rom-com: in a large room that a bunch of fluorescents attempt to light up, a handsome, crimped-haired young man uncovers from a crowd of hundreds. As this sea parts soundlessly, he steps forward to utter the words “Good evening, brothers, sisters.” 

And there I had been, reckoning—correctly, I am sure—myself to be but one with the assembly of girls who had hopelessly fallen under the lightning of a spell that is you. Yours was an unmistakable charm made all the more endearing because of your grounded, unassuming nature, and your goodness was unmatched by any other integrity I had known before.

The note with which you punctuated your exhortation sent everybody, young and old, flocking all over you to give you some sort of affirmation. Surrounded by many, swimming through jokes and well wishes, you spoke with such humility and benevolence, and did, too, to strangers you refused to name as such. It was undeniable that there was a quirk in you in the form of awkwardness (a somber herald to the Michael Cera stereotype, if you will) yet you remained to be gracious to all. It was in watching you with so much amazement that I was first made to believe that such goodness was possible. You became a first hero, and I wanted to consume you, completely.

And gaze upon you I did from afar. That night ended with us not really knowing of the other, and it was to be expected because no introduction of me would have been worth your time. My eyes’ encounter of you was no more than a mere moment, and it is false to say that at that sight I was in love. And yet, there was so much about you that had enchanted me wholly; your coming seemed a portent that sung of purpose and promise.

I was seventeen, and long before a violent history of love, there you were. 

It was during a night I no longer remember. 

You were held hostage in a tower guarded by demons and I, though not in any way obligated to deliver you from detainment, took it upon myself to save you. Details have long escaped me, but I do remember dragons, flames that shot into the air, chains and metal balls, keys, doors, and flying.

It took me countless attempts, and I recall almost dying in the hopeless operation. I assure you that you weren’t completely useless: You yourself struggled to break free from the shackles that bound you, and when you finally did, it was you who found me. 

And so I could not really claim who did the saving during what should now be a nightmare buried in the sepulcher of a thousand evenings past. Tonight, in this exercise of recollection, I myself find that I am redeemed from certain captors: my proclivity for heroics, my silence, your memory, and perhaps, you.

From that dream I have committed only one thing to memory: the kiss, more magical than the reality of demons and dragons and dreaming itself.

I believe in the presence of water now here in this summer of signals and calm before storms. 

I’ll let you in on a secret: 

To be completely honest, I fear this outpour of audacity to fight. 

It is rather beautiful and haunting that one does not simply do a soundcheck on words and meaning, and that an utterance written or said—no matter how impulsive and untrue—can neither be taken back nor truly vanish into thin air of minds and hearts.

To grow is to cease the mindless flirtation with this responsibility.

Ang wika ay dagat at langit na nais kong languyin ng may hindi mapantayang galing. 

The bridge set itself aflame as I poured kerosine over the pedestal in an attempt to destroy it. 

In this country where no climate exists other than infernal, let the spiritless attempt of rains come to realize that it is too late to salvage anything.

for introspection, contemplation, meditation, discernment.

for silent and loudly lived conversations and convenants with the Almighty. 

for love-filled movement. For service. 

for places and whereabouts.

for friends—ones that I have met and those I have yet to encounter.

for wisdom teeth removal. 

for love and romance.

for learning.

for dancing: 

   (a) to the beats of the restless, with the restless.

   (b) on stage of paper.

for midnights and missions for the muse. 

for words. For worlds.

for passion.

for destiny.

I have never understood the gravitation I had towards you and your notorious batch until this very day, your graduation. Perhaps it could be because I have always had an automatic preference for the underdogs, perhaps it was your bad boy of a class charms that spoke to me, or maybe the fact that it was in this class where I had been given the golden chance to teach the best subject in the entire universe—world literature (HAHAHA). There was always something about you that had kept me sane in Mont Michel since Day 1, and for whatever that had been, thank you, dear Seniors.

Allow me to proceed by telling you my impressions of your class. You are—in many aspects of the word--gago. Tales of scandals and mischief preceded you, and it wasn’t long before I found myself thinking along with the majority: Ay, ang gago nga nitong Year IV! Our very own literature classes would be punctuated with sitas and sermons, with you throwing in your usual pilosopo hirits to serious questions and your never-ending complaints about impossible quizzes and pleas for bonus points. You were my ten-month-old pain in the neck, the quintessential thorn to my throat that I am removing today.

But beyond all this kagaguhan was a goodness that not everyone saw in you, the characteristic that has never stopped drawing me close to you. Ten months of analyzing poems, discussing stories, and discovering words and worlds with you have opened my eyes to who and what you really were. Today, Year IV, I will finally tell you this with all the sincerity in my heart: You are more brilliant than you realize, and you are infinitely better than what you have known yourselves to be. You are gago, yes, but you are good. 

And it’s that goodness that I pray you give a chance more as you venture outside the walls of Mont Michel. Never cease believing in what you can do and in what you truly are. Your batch may have been defined by issues, your imperfections and the most adverse of negativities, but know that your batch has struggled and endured past these and that you have stood up against these all. Believe in your strength, especially that for doing what is truly good. 

I will always be rooting for you. To me, you will always be that batch who had a great heart despite all kalokohan. I will always believe in you despite the odds, and I will always be immensely proud of you. And perhaps it will never be my destiny to understand this overwhelming faith in each of you, but the important thing is I do. This is what I know to be love. 

Enjoy this moment, graduates, for this is one of the rarer times that you are on top of the world that I believe you will one day conquer. 

Again, thank you for what has been a phenomenally incredible ten months with you. Godspeed, Batch 2013! Mahal kayo sa akin.