The only things that keep me up and above the thing called boredom would be my dvds, my new book conquests, and some extracurricular learning that seems to be floating and drifting at the start of my summer. Yes. There's no more homework to be busy with (And when did I ever get busy with homeworks? Unless it was for Psych 115, I'd be sleeping through it like a log.) and I've got two weeks to bum around and be some lower lifeform before summer classes push through. 

   My 2nd semester officially ended without a hitch; my last and final paper for my Psych 115 (there goes that major again) was finished at 3pm and was dropped off at the department around 4pm. Technical papers are not exactly my forte ever since that Philo incident (my prof called me illogical -how appropriate) but writing that final paper was not as hard as I thought it would be. There certainly is some hard work involved yet I felt strangely organized  and so-not-me when I was writing the paper. It felt right. I mean, I was writing something logical and straight to the point without the blurriness of fiction and hiding behind the masks. Then, I realized that I enjoyed doing this kind of things too. I want to keep on doing it. Along with my other frustrations, of course. Now I am much more confused in what I'm going to do in my life than when I was four. I should've stucked to becoming a nun. And since that one man I told my nun dream to when I was four died quite a while ago, it's too late and I cannot go back.

    Why do we want to be so many things all at the same time? Or is it just me? 

   Maybe I need to stop worrying about the future. If it happens, it happens. I'll just try to believe that everything will fall into place.

*****

   Somewhere I smelled a stink of fish. Now I can name it in five letters.    

Randomness# 15??

The Tattoo Artist

You came to me with your skin,
an empty slate, wanting to
wear his brand on your sleeve.
This is love, you said as you
bared the blank canvas.
And you were willing to
pay its price with this
black blood.

Yet when my pen,
burned, carved the stigma into
your flesh like sharp nails, you
neither called out his name
nor for that love that brough you here.

It is my hands you will
remember. And the pain.
For who was it you clinged to,
cried for, as I cut each bloody letter
into the skin that will never
know my name?

   For the past week, after I had splurged my money on books and several copies of *ehem ehem* Korean movies, I feel strangely poorer than usual. Still with various items to buy in mind, I planned for ways to get cash, which includes (a) working as part-time tutor during summer (b) maybe encoder in places that needs one (c) begging in the streets. But suddenly, because of events that transpired last Saturday afternoon, I now stand in my room with 2 20 dollar bills in my hand, 2 baseball caps, a binder, and a new blue shirt.

   I now feel very very blessed and think that God really really loves me now. But with all this unexpected money handed to me without any warning, I am again strangely torn between spending it all to keeping it to myself for future, more productive, buys.

   *****

    I hate summer. I hate the heat. The one thing that keeps me from going haywire and flying to another country would be (1) things don't go any colder just by me complaining about them (2) I don't have enough money to fly into another country anyway. I'm literally sweating buckets here. And people won't surely like me if I'm sweaty and irritated and hotheaded from all that heat. I want some weather-control thingy so we could have snow here just once. I miss the cold weather =( 

   Well, there's just one rule for that....

...for this guy anyway....

Watch all 16 yummylicious episodes of My Name is Kim Sam Soon. You'll get the idea.

*credits of pics go to soompi.com forums

   Mr. Thomas, aged 35, sleepily dragged himself off his doorstep like a slug out to work. The only difference between him and that slug was that he wasn't really out to work. He got fired just a week ago due to a curious incident with a toothbrush and a toilet bowl. And all this dragging business was just for show so none of his neighbors would know how he had fallen from grace -from floor manager to professional bum. At least, he cheerfully thought, passing the mailbox that had always been empty but sagged like an overbearing fruit, he reached the professional level and got out of the stupid cycle. 

   Two of his once closest friends: Eddy the security guard and the late Saranza "Anti-Dirty Perry", his mentor in the mopping business, got so sick of being forever chained to their respective jobs they both went ballistic after a couple of decades. Eddy, after a particular night shift had grabbed his shotgun, robbed the nearest pizza house, ate all the pizza and threatened to shoot anyone who made fun of his white uniform. He soon got arrested, now living happily behind the guarded cells of some farflung prison with sleeping patterns normal after 30 years. Saranza hadn't been that lucky. After realizing that an obsessive-compulsive couldn't lead a stress-free life being the janitor of a local brewery, seeing that there's just too many dirt in the nooks of crannies of machines he was off-limits to, he decided it was high time to end it all. He jumped atop the tank holding the beer, plunging into its murky alcoholic depths. There had been no better way to die for him than to be surrounded by disinfecting liquor.

   "And now", muttered Mr. Thomas, standing jobless before his decrepit mailbox with a pseudo-working expression on his face, "Now that I've broken out of that, what the hell am I supposed to do?" 

   His mailbox, after seeming emptiness this past few years, churned out to the ground a very much wrinkled brown envelope with Thomas' name on it. Surprised at having received a letter at last, he slowly bent down to pick it up and gently opened the envelope with a pair of rough hands.

   It reads: Mr. Thomas Thomas,

         We are glad to inform you that you have qualified for entrance into the Kaliska domain (aka, what ignorant beings might refer only with the phrase: the world on the other side of the mirror), where your magical potential are to be enhanced for your self-gratification and our world's preservation. Please, if you have read this Mr. Thomas Thomas, get your ass in Kaliska right now or we'll be dead real soon.

   signed,

   Gramioli of the deep (03-19-86)

   Thomas peeked at the letter with a puzzled look. "Well", he muttered, "learning magic would be nice. But," He then took a long glance at the date. "I think I'm twenty years late for it."

   It finally happened. My best case scenario. And dang, I hadn't expected it, merely hoped for it to just pop out and surprise me. I AM EXEMPTED FROM THE CHEMISTRY 16 FINAL EXAMS. EXEMPTED!! And since in order to be exempted you had to at least have a point average of 2 or below, this must mean I friggin' passed chem. One thing accomplished for this year!!! Wooohooooo!

   Along with being exempted from chem exams, part of my best case scenario would be my exemption from the finals of Natsci, and I did get exempted (whee!). So now I only have finals for English!!! *does the wiggly dance of joy*

   *breathes*

*****

   book trippin'

   Aprille and I decided to go to Pasig for the Powerbook's Warehouse Sale after finishing the last of our classes at UP today. Riding MRT up to Boni Ave., then taking the tricycle to the depts of Pioneer, we arrived a little after 11 at the warehouse. According to Aprille who had been to warehouse sales before, the conditions of the actual Powerbook's warehouse is topnotch: it's airconditioned, etc. But there is one thing that's quite disappointing about the whole thing: the prices of the books are still *looks up* very much high.

   Maybe as consolation through all the trouble we got into, I got a very nice copy of my fave author's book, The Deeper Meaning of Liff, for only P59, Field Guide to the Apocalypse for P29, Books of Magic 1 & 2 for P49 & P34. At least I acquired some new reading material. 

   After a thorough inspection of various titles and prices we proceeded back to pioneer to eat. Then went back to UP, me, to check my chem grades, and Aprille to meet with Paula.

   I want to go cd trippin' next time. 

   The last two days had been pure blah and uggh. Friday, I had been cramming for this long exam in Bio, then come Saturday, I had been going around sporting my sleep-deprived self on the campus for a Chemistry long exam. After which, I came home pissed off at Chem and at myself because sometimes they are so much alike.

   I am now struggling with an English paper to be passed tomorrow -with no idea how I am going to start the whole thing, except maybe that it has to start with something coherent and logical and so not me at this moment. If anything decides to go boom at me at this point, or if anyone decides that it is high time to kick me down the gutter, please do so. If I stay in this way I get more moody and it'll be better if I direct this self-loathing to something more 'there'. I am not even sure how I've come to this metaphysical fighting with myself. Maybe because I'm just crazy. As soon as things settles for the start of summer I'll go buy myself some cds and books then maybe I'lll like myself better.

   This is what happens when you notice how bitchy you have been to people in general.

   The last time I've seen her was about 2-3 years ago. Back in high school, we might have shared a tricycle ride then or maybe once we just happened to walk side by side on our way to school. We had never been in the same class, always seeing but never really knowing each other. But that one chance I managed to talk to her, I was only able to say a maximum of four sentences. It was enough to know her name. That chance was enough for me to etch another existence in my memory.

   Then time passed and antipathy settled in and she was just a familiar face floating in a sea of people, a name dangling in mid-air.

   A text. Held breath. And then the truth that this someone I know, although barely, actually went through such tragedy. It's a reality check, a slight earthquake. It shows that the hardest of things, the most twisted of plot-twists, happens in real life and not in fiction.

   Let's pray for the peace of her soul and of her baby...

   is that when the freaking participants, who had previously signed up for a fixed schedule, don't turn up as we expected them to do. We are short of four males since Monday and if by tomorrow we fail to fill in the last 15 slots or so, we are so dead. We are just soooo dead. The data would be all messed up and unbalanced and- we can't start on the friggin final paper.

   The perks of being an experimenter are slowly dwindling. Gone is the momentary feeling of being completely and utterly in control. Everything seems to be getting slightly out of hand. Graaa. Irresponsible people. I'll just wait for good ol' karma to come around.  

   Hello familiar white space. The phone is up and running and I could surf again and be civilized *puts away animal skin*. It's great to be typing away instead of doodling endlessly and doing it longhand. Although I did acquire a taste for it *struggles through bits of paper*. 

   So many stories to tell: I've been to a star, became an experimenter in a proper psych experiment, loved Kim Sam Soon, and had my dratted practicals in Chem.

   But before that, have to finish watching Kim Sam Soon.^___^