This is after

I cannot imagine what the people on the bus were feeling. I wonder if they were wishing to see loved ones who were far away.

The events of August 23 are so nebulous, I have not fully grasped them. I do know some of our own fucked up in a most spectacular fashion. Rolando Mendoza took fifteen people hostage, got most of them killed and later lost his own life. The PNP was unprepared; the media was intrusive; and the president almost missed the party. The Chinese in Hong Kong are lashing out. Pain does that to people.

The Filipinos are experiencing varying levels of embarrassment. The bungling idiocy of the PNP and the insensitivity of the local media can make anyone cringe. But it is necessary to separate feelings about a series of unfortunate events from feelings about who we are as a people. If we are to redeem ourselves, we must remember that we are worthy to do so. It is not: "I am not embarrassed to be Filipino." It is: "I am proud to be Filipino."

Let's turn off the TV...

...it's killing us, we never speak.

The photo source here.

The Midnight Organ Fight by Frightened Rabbit is one of my favorite albums ever. I get the feeling that these guys are kind of self-deprecating. And well, I'm a little self-deprecating myself. It's how I roll.

Anyway, songs on the album have been the backdrop to my two-day grading marathon. At school, everyone is just finishing up with their second long exams. I have arrived at my last batch of unchecked blue books. An end is nigh.

It's only 7PM and it feels like I've been awake for two days. Later.

Smoke and mirrors

An excellent link from my friend Jing: the dying art of pencil-drawn animation celebrates the dying art of stage magic.

Here is the trailer for The Illusionist:

What's in the bag?

The last bike ride.

I feel the words looming in my head, but they refuse to be bothered with expression. These sentences will probably come out in random bursts. Anyway, here we go:

Lately I have been thinking a lot about Enschede and how peaceful it is there. I think about biking along tree-lined streets in the late afternoon. At top speed, I would sing at the top of my lungs, trusting the wind would drown out my dubious pitch. I miss getting lost, and not being worried about it. Also, I miss my mother. It must be because my life is all over the place these days, so my mind likes to drift off to quieter times.

I went bowling earlier tonight, and wasn't very good. On better days, I like to think I can produce a decent score. I was off my game tonight though (This is if we can call the way I bowl game.). An assessment of my poor performance on the ride home: I may have been (a) half-assing my way through it; (b) over-thinking it; or (c) half-assing my way through it because I was over-thinking. I have been living out my days in a distracted daze. But apparently, I can still rhyme.

I often promise myself to study for my classes a week in advance, but I almost always end up cramming. My already crowded brain can't take much more of this abuse. I also need to check a bunch of reports and problem sets, which I have been cleverly hiding under my desk. My work table looks innocent, but it is actually a menacing secret fortress of ungraded papers.

The upside to all this working is that I have a little extra money. In recent days, this has become necessary because self-therapy often involves spending inordinate amounts of money on either books or junk food. There is a book pile next to my bed that is so tall, I can't see the rest of my room when I'm lying down. The problem is, I never have the time to read. This is such a terrible thing to say. It is one of the most excruciating consequences of work.

Some of the books in the pile are Hanna's. She lent me Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan, among other yummy titles. I started reading it last night, and have been enjoying it so far. The tricky part is actually finishing it. At this point, I sigh ruefully.

In TV, Lem has given me old seasons of The West Wing. After a round of episodes, I am normally an emotional wreck. But I am wrecked in a good way.

It is raining tonight, and my bed beckons. Later.

Good Morning Baguio, with Kubi

A quick note before I attend a seminar about how not to eff up so much in class :)

Rako's wound is healing nicely. Yesterday, it looked like he had an extra lip. This morning when I gave him his breakfast, all I could see was a flaming red line on his cheek. This is relatively satisfactory, because the sight of his teeth through the wound was a little unsettling.

Roger lost to Tommy Berdych on Wednesday. I was so sure of the outcome that I went to bed early. I woke up at 2AM and found two messages from Lem: one at 10:15PM asking if I was still awake and another at 10:50PM containing overtones of sympathy. I knew immediately The Fed's match had gone awry. All of yesterday, I was so convinced that it was my fault he lost. If I had watched the entire match, if I had just stayed up long enough to channel him good mojo, it may have turned out differently. Then I went to Jessica Zafra's blog, and she also blames herself. Haha. I think, perhaps, every Federer fan feels somewhat responsible for the loss.

Later.

Happy Inauguration Day

Semi-quiet day at home. In the morning I did a bunch of chores, which made me feel productive enough to lie around for two hours around lunch time. I watched a little bit of the newly sworn in president make the customary inauguration speech. I was unmoved. Rako's bravado got him into a bizarre tug-of-war with Ludwig. In this case, the would-be rope was Rako's face. A short, deep wound now runs down his upper lip. To avoid panic among certain readers, I will try not to mention that I think I could see the inside of his mouth through the wound. Lem assures me that dogs are resilient, but I continue to worry. Rako is napping under the study table, mending.

This afternoon, I read a little bit and thought about the rest of the week. Today feels a little bit like a Sunday, which would make tomorrow a Monday. That is a depressing thought. I'm trying not to get carried away by the sudden slump. Popped in an old DVD of the first (and only) season of Kitchen Confidential. Bradley Cooper is amusing when he is neurotic. It's a shame the series ended too soon, but I suppose the exploits of the real thing are entertainment enough. My friend Hanna lent me her copy of A Cook's Tour. I've taken a hungry bite out of the first few chapters, where Bourdain recounts the slaying of a fattened pig in Portugal. He writes:

I learned, for the first time, that I could indeed look my food in the eyes before eating it - and I came away from the experience, I hope, with considerably more respect for what we call "the ingredient." I am more confirmed than ever in my love for pork, pork fat, and cured pork. And I am less likely to waste it. That's something I owe the pig for. I know now what a pork chop costs in terms of the living, breathing thing that was killed to supply it.

At eight o'clock tonight, I plan to watch Roger Federer play Tommy Berdych in the Men's Quarterfinals. Kim Clijsters took out Justine Henin and later fell to the younger Vera Zvonareva. What does it take for a come-back around here? In other Wimbledon news: John McEnroe wonders when they will get to use the new roof on Centre Court and Alan Wilkins makes an appreciative comment about pineapples from the Philippines (Vijay Amritraj informs us that the pineapple on the Wimbledon trophy is some kind of symbol for wealth.)

I've just about used up my break. Cell organelles and osmosis await me. Later.

It isn't tomorrow yet.

For my return to blogging, I give you...

GELATO!

It is warm tonight, so I am imagining pear-flavored gelato sliding around on my tongue.

I haven't written in a while, and I am as puzzled as you are as to why I'm starting again now. The new school year begins tomorrow, and I have been hired to wreak havoc on impressionable young minds. I should be up to my neck in Zoology books, but here I am blogging. I think this could be the last dregs of my denial.

My quiet life as a patron of the arts (This sounds nicer than penniless bum.) is at an end. I mourn my slow mornings, my stack of unread books and unwatched movies. I mourn my walks with Dog, and the constant battle to entertain myself. I mourn impulsive downloads and random link-clicking and afternoon TV. I mourn curling up on the green couch and relaxing mugs of tea. I mourn free time and series marathons and unplanned naps. I mourn pajamas during the day and successful, experimental lunch recipes. I mourn peace.

Later.

P.S. Roger Federer lost to Robin Soderling in the Quarterfinals of the French Open. I was not as devastated as I should have been. Lem observes that Roger now reacts to losses in a calm, paternal manner. Rafael Nadal inevitably won the final and now believes he can bounce back from his relatively mediocre year. I didn't know The Bicep harbored such confidence issues. Cheers to the new Number One.