happy new year

I don’t really know how to start with this. 2006 has been significantly a personal hurricane of growing expectations and disappointments. My life has been an irony in the past months. I’ve been finding myself pushed and pulled in different directions. I’m 19 just about to enter the real adulthood; they say still young yet old at the same time. Scared yet excited. Positive yet glum. Happy yet unsatisfied. Immature yet independent.

These past days I’ve been in a process of reflecting over this passing year. 2006 has been notable. There has been success and failures, friends have gained and lost, fresh loves and broken hearts, we all know it hasn’t been that perfect but we’re all here still living. Soon it’ll be 2007, a new year, a new start, new challenges, new decisions and we’re all looking forward for a better start.

A part of me critically analyzes my life-choices as the year ends. And a part of me is still anchored in a crib yearning for silliness and childishness. I face decision making as if it was so difficult. I frequently weigh on the consequences instead on the advantages of my choices. Then I would constantly thrust myself on the muddled world of ambiguity.

As every year comes I usually predict what the next year is going to hold, and every year I realize that only regrets and disappointments disrupt me with the year before. As the saying goes, “having things turn out the way you wanted them to is a measure of a successful life.” Then I would say that I’m a failure.

Now I’m back in settling scores. Ida Scott Taylor once wrote: “do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone and do not be troubled about the future, for it is has yet to come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that will be worth remembering.” Despite things did not unfold as I had expected last year, I won’t grieve over it but look into the possibilities and be grateful that I have carry on and unconsciously lived my life noticeably without even trying so.

Happy New Year to all!

Joyeux Noël

"Forgive me, Mr. Claus. I'm afraid I've made a terrible mess of your holiday."

censorship.. bloody funny

I believe it’s a good news that they’re back! Mtv’s Celebrity Death Match is back on air spoofing celebrities after its cancellation a few years ago. They’re finally hitting once again on horrid matches as celebrities wrestle for their bloody life. But this time the hilarious Clay-ish Animation would be more interactive as I’ve heard viewers can now vote for matches they want to see.

Not everyone would be glad to see this parody of celebrities kicking butts with exaggerated bloody injuries. I am a proud fan of sadistic and brutal cartoons. I like watching violent stuff on tv. Perhaps it appeals on my darker ego and I weirdly find it more interesting. I grew up watching these guys as they crushed all their enemies saving their lives or the world from vicious villains. I am just one of the kids in my generation who was raised on cartoons where these guys try to blow each other out of existence.

Yeh I’m guilty of attempting all the stunts and tricks I’ve seen on tv but I’ve not experienced nor caused injuries form what I’ve done. I may be a kid then but I swear I was smart enough to know the difference between real and what’s just on TV.

If a parent would be reading this by now, you’d probably be engaging on a censorship campaign or something against violence on tv but that’ll be unnecessary. I believe that restriction would give the idea that people couldn’t think for themselves. It’s a presumption that we, particularly the kids are mere stupid that we’ll mimic everything that we see on tv. I believe that humans are not shaped to be stupid but perhaps some are being raised to be spoiled stupid. They lack the familiarity to think because they got someone who does for them.

I understand and appreciate the parents who would deeply worry about the quality of tv that your kids watch. I understand that you would deeply worry about the quality of person your kids will turn out. I know you won't be around all the time so you appeal for censorship to protect your kids. But in reality how could you possibly protect your kids from harm which is naturally out there?

a lack of color

Some of us perceive life as boring, dreary and monotonous. We are nailed flat on belittling our capabilities to take pleasure in living. I feel like this whenever I do my school work. I’ve been skipping sleeps and drafting late at night for about a week and it was a real killer. I was doubtful, uncertain, wavering and have reached the point of giving up. In fact, I’d given up. I submitted my unfinished architectural drawings and hardly cared.

“Sometimes we have to put our lives on hold ‘til we have done everything that we need to work on. In my case, my school cries for an urgent attention and it is what I put on hold.”

Back then, we dream of having lots of money, good grades, good friends and a loving companion. Well I’ve got one out of four. Some of us were just born with a clear polished future ahead of us. Some had desperately aspired of opulence and glory that would come to realism. And some were born to be me who are nearly spoiled by the lifestyle that defines them.

I live in the procrastination mode letting the opportunity to pass as I wait for a better life as I call it. What would you expect from a spoiled immature kid? I’ve been spending my life thinking about great stuff that in fact will never happen. Sometimes it’s so fear-provoking that you’d just try to forget but paranoia eats your head with doubts and terror. You desperately try to get free from these tangled worries but they consume your psyche as you float towards the real yawning life which is sadness.

elevator music

Picture that you’re on a plane with your head set on having a pleasurable vacation. Then suddenly the plane starts falling through the air. You’re freely falling thousands of feet per second while the lights flicker annoyingly. The yellow stuff cups fall from the ceiling as the pilot’s voice quivers over the speakers. The pregnant lady next to you grabs your arm and shrieks for aid. On your left is a kid pulling your sleeves as he points to his asthma medication rolling down the floor. People behind you are crying and visuals of your family, friends and dogs flash vaguely in your head. Your vision got stuck on your parents who are apparently clueless and sleeping during this hour.

So within that minute what do you do? What do you say? If a heavenly mobile phone would mysteriously appear in front of you whom do you call? Would you give that chance to the lady next to you? Would you openly confess all your sins and secrets? Would you start weeping and pray for forgiveness? Would you start bargaining your life with God?

I thought about all these yesterday. No I was not in that plane hence, I’m still alive. I went to my friend’s place yesterday in a 6-or something-storey condo building. On the ground floor of that building is where I regularly have my haircut. I took the elevator from the 4th going down the ground floor. The elevator stopped, the light flickered till it went off as the emergency light lit. The fire alarm started ringing vociferously and I was stuck in the shaft with a mere old lady. My heart was beating with tense that it could burst out of my chest. I was picturing people panicking, running and jumping off the building.

I was trying to calm down but as the fire alarm continuously rings, I thought of getting on the floor and shed tears like a five-year old would do. I tried to keep my fear as I hum unrecognizable melody. The lady besides me took her rosary and volubly says her prayers. And that made me even more panicky. After a few minutes, the light went back, the alarm stopped and the elevator resumed its power. There was no fire, but some kid who pulled the alarm.

After that incident I felt like I’ve been granted another life. Though there was really no fire it made me think a lot. We deal with these things when we’re only on real situation. We confess, we forgive, we own up, we fear, we plead, we change only when we’re on the verge of falling.

mental lapses

It’s hard to recall what has been happening with all the amount of stuff that has been going on in the past weeks. Well, I was on the brink of depression after realizing that I lost 9lbs from being sick for three days. I had an intestinal infection and I was literally throwing up every food that my body consumes. I haven’t been to sleep for 4 straight hours. I was craving for sleep, but every hour in my bed seems pointless when my system won’t comply with body. But anyway, I’m fine now and perhaps all set to cross new boundaries.

I’ve been catapulted back in my life. I nearly have a week to finish all my drawings for a Medical Center. I haven’t started doing my initial sketches and still don’t even have any concept. I’m in fact shaking right now as I imagine all the work that I need to do. But then, I’m here writing this journal. But being hassled right now makes writing such a comforting factor.

I’d be spending the day depriving myself socially with caffeine and chips. I’ll wait for that boot of inspiration to come. I can now feel the pressure growing and starting to mount. A long stint away from sleep will be starting soon. I just wish a good design would tap my shoulder as I doodle over my sketchbook.