I think it was Julia Ormond as Sabrina who said "I must've been taking pictures all my life, long before I even had a camera."
Funny/sad phone episode with Prado last night. We must've been on the phone for four hours, sometimes talking, mostly not. It was such an Oedipus Rex night (minus the incest) - when a truth was unraveled and the only seemingly sane thing to do is gouge one's eyes out. (Don't get any ideas, Prado, it's just an analogy. It's going to be okay, meng. Carry na lang. Kung kaya ko, kaya mo rin. Love naman kita baby.)
She said, "I wish I were seven again, so I can do stupid things and forget about it after 2 seconds." Watching my little cousin, it amazes me how much children can tolerate: inconstancy of attention, temporary neglect, outright rejection. But they never give up, they go on pestering and nagging, single-mindedly pursuing a simple objective: to be loved. Maybe at 21, not much of that has changed. We're still as needy and insecure as we were 14 years ago. We just don't have the same courage as they do. We always feel like we have so much more to lose at this point in our lives. Do we?
"The greatest happiness love can offer is the first pressure of hands between you and your beloved." Stendhal is not good for me. But I am addicted. The first few days I couldn't put it down. Later I recognized, I had to, for it made me so miserable. Away from it I didn't know what to do with myself, and so I would fall into it. I hoped that it would exorcise all the longing that lingered, but it made it worse. Stendhal, no matter how vile he made being in love seem like, how utterly absurd ("in love realities obligingly rearrange themselves to conform with desire") and irrational ("From the moment he falls in love even the wiseset man no longer sees anything as it really is....He no longer admits an element of chance in things and loses his sense of the probable; judging by its effect on his happiness, whatever he imagines becomes reality"), still he colored it with a sliver of pathetic heroism.
I suppose I was going about it all wrong. If I wanted to stop being sick with love, it probably wouldn't help to read about why people do it, and how they fall into it. Far from being able to distance oneself from the feeling, one would even feel a greater inclination for it, reinforced by the act of placing oneself comfortably amidst a seamless narrative, forging bonds with countless, nameless, faceless others suffering the same miserable fate.
It didn't help to think of my actual situation either. It made me confused ("Torn between doubt and delight, the poor lover convinces himself that she could give him such pleasure as he could find nowhere else on earth"). I knew it wasn't going anywhere ("It only needs a very small quantity of hope to beget love") and I knew I didn't want to go on like this ("Love is like a fever which comes and goes quite independently of the will").
It is common knowledge, the only way to cure an obsession is to find another, stronger one. The strongest love is often forged during childhood: the bond with one's parents, siblings, first pet, etc. So I found myself, as I did when I was three, in the presence of one of my first loves, the black and the white of a piano. I must've played for fourteen hours the other day, stopping only to eat, nap, answer the phone. I can't say I'm cured, but I've found a new disease. A month ago, alone in a hotel room in Japan, I was a glorious wreck. Now, still in general a mess, but at least, once and for all, finally over it. ("There are moments in violent and unrequited love when you suddenly think you are not in love anymore. It is like coming across a spring of fresh water in the middle of the sea.")
Stendhal is not good for me.
Yes!! Done, done, done. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who phoned and wrote cards, posts, comments, e-mails and text messages. Thank you thank you thank you Suri for metaphorically holding my hand through the break times. Thank you thank you thank you Ji for celebrating the end with me! It feels kind of weird. Now I'm unsure what to do with myself. Even if I didn't let it take over my life this summer, studying for this test at least enforced some structure into my summer. Now, well, it's a whole lot of reading, watching TV and general house-bumminess for me.
Right after (well more like several phone calls after) I walked to the Strand and bought Harry Potter 6, The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde and Stendhal's Love. Ji and I had dinner at McDonald's and watched 40-year old virgin. (Watch it! It's wicked funny!) All in all, it was a perfect ending.
Jenny and her friends drove in yesterday from Chicago and we met up at the Met from where we walked to the Guggenheim. Shelby got us free tickets! I'm going to kidnap her (and her free tickets) several weekends from now and go museum crazy. We had dinner at the Hard Rock and wandered around Times Square a bit. I'm so tired (and broke) I just want to stay in for the rest of the summer, until Fort Lauderdale.
Off to breakfast and Harry Potter.
Mini Apple boxes. Yay! My ipod mini came today. Wheee!!
Doom is T-2 days. Eek! I've resolved to not freak out, but would definitely appreciate e-cards, e-mails, phone calls, text messages or comments of support. I've been pretty good this past week, no blogging (as obvious from the lack of updates) and not spending more than an hour each day online. (To be honest though I've just found a different distraction. Piano. I think I spend 8 hours playing and 4 hours studying a day.)
I'm a little bit worried that I'm not going to fall asleep the night before my exam. I've been so good with sleeping. My favorite part of training for the MCATs has been training myself to sleep 8 hours straight each night. But I think my nerves are getting the best of me. Last night I couldn't sleep at all! Tsk tsk...
Anyway, to my beloved friends, think of me, and send me good vibes! Talk to you all soon!!
Sometimes, friendship is a decent conversation at the 47th St. McDonald's.
and i answered its call. I went to the New York Public Library today to do my practice test. Well, two-thirds of it. It was the perfect place to study - the nice long tables, gorgeous ceiling, the cool airconditioning. Even the people around me gave the perfect simulation for an actual exam. All in all, I had a productive day.
I don't know why I ever hated New York. It seems that it's everything a city is supposed to be. It's so easy to get around and there are so many public spaces where people can just sit and be. After a late lunch I sat down at Bryant Park behind the library. They even have these bookshelves where you can grab a book to read while you're passing your time.
Maybe it's the first time that I'm seeing New York with the independence that the city requires of its inhabitants and visitors. I used to think New York was a hard lonely place - that's why I hated the tourists who crowded the streets and covered up its emptiness. But I suppose we carry our own loneliness, and it's only now I've learned that I'm everything but alone. As with loneliness, you can carry the love and support of those who care about you.
Did I change this summer? I can't tell. Something is definitely different. I'm happier. Not giddy, not delirious. Not even not-sad. Less afraid. Less controlled. More certain? No, more hopeful. Ready.
On repeat: Be still my heart (Postal Service)
Oh how you laughed
At my complete lack of grace.
But I could not recall
A more perfect fall
Cause when I looked up into your eyes
It didn't hurt at all.
And I thought, be still my heart...
Prado said this morning "We just keep on digging ourselves deeper holes here [in Manila], hoping that our planes will pull us out when it's time to leave." Planes won't do it. Over 8,000 miles away and mine still got deeper. But you know what works? Friends helping you up.
That's the big lesson from this summer's non-internship. I love you all! Thanks for everything.
New season starts September 8. Whee!!
12 more days till doomsday. Gaah! I'm going to go insane.
On other news, Abu Dhabi is out this summer. My sister called to say it's not going to happen. Lucky for her, my other sister is making up for it by getting me an ipod! Whee!! I told you Prado, we will join each other very soon. I might just run away to Boston, or make for Florida two weeks early. Or I could hang around New York, too. What to do? What to do??
If she wants me (Belle and Sebastian)
I wrote a letter on a nothing day
I asked someone “Could you send my letter away?”
“You are too young to put all of your hopes in just one envelope”
I said goodbye to someone that I love
It’s not just me, I tell you it’s the both of us
And it was hard
Like coming off the pill that you take to stay happy
Someone above has seen me do alright
Someone above is looking with a tender eye
Upon your face, you may think you’re alone but you may think again
If I could do just one near perfect thing I’d be happy
They’d write it on my grave, or when they scattered my ashes
On second thoughts I’d rather hang about and be there with my best friend
If she wants me
And far away somebody read the letter
He condescends to read the words I wrote about him
And if he smiles, it’s no more than a genius deserves
For all his curious nerve and your passion
I’m going deaf, you’re growing melancholy
Things fall apart, I don’t know why we bother at all
But life is good and “It’s always worth living at least for a while”
If I could do just one near perfect thing I’d be happy
They’d write it on my grave, or when they scattered my ashes
On second thoughts I’d rather hang about and be there with my best friend
If she wants me
If you think to yourself “What should I do now?”
Then take the baton, girl, you better run with it
There is no point in standing in the past cause it’s over and done with
I took a book and went into the forest
I climbed the hill, I wanted to look down on you
But all I saw was twenty miles of wilderness so I went home
I watched Florida drive away in a minivan and now I'm all alone. I could say with some regret, "If only I had studied while in Manila." But I won't, because I wouldn't mean it. I wouldn't exchange that time for a million weeks in all the theme parks of the world. It's probably better this way. I should be able to study much more efficiently now. At least there are five empty rooms in the house without computers/internet where I can set myself away from distraction.
I had a panic attack this morning after scoring abysmally on my first practice test. Sometimes I think maybe it's not meant to be - that I'm not supposed to be a doctor. But I forget that that language is reserved for romantic love, or things that have more to do with luck (which I suppose includes romance). Not for life's dreams. We may not be 'meant to be' with certain people we strongly desire. We may not be 'meant to be' lottery winners. But how the rest of our lives unfolds, that is mostly up to us.
Thanks to Dita and Jen for cheering me up! I'm only too lucky to be surrounded by people who love me everywhere I go.
I should stop blogging.
Happy birthday, Ma!
In the book I'm reading, one of the women complained about her husband: You don't know what it's like being married to Hal. He's like a big black rubber ball. Nothing you do makes an impression on him.
Maybe she should freeze him, then he'll explode. Physics. Chemistry. MCAT.
Inspiration comes from the most unlikely places.
"But what could be odder than the way that books which chime with one's condition or stage in life insinuate themselves into one's hand?" (4)
and so does Doris Lessing's love, again. I bought this book six years ago, read a couple of pages, and against the self-imposed rule of never leave a book unfinished, I dropped it without giving it a second look. But this summer, these words insinuated themselves:
"There seems to be a rule that what you condemn will turn up sooner or later, to be lived through. Forced to eat your vomit" (2). And later, "...the hard law ... says you must suffer what you despise" (9). Some people are better than others in living what they preach. But I suppose most of us are caught in the middle, pulled on the one hand by the logic of living with the restraint required to maintain one's sanity and on the other by the desire to know what lies beyond the rules (the paradigmatic forbidden fruit, borne from the tree of knowledge). Or plain recklessness. Ultimately, the universe has its way of making us understand, live how the other half lives.
I've been exchanging study hours for time rewards to read a few pages of this book. I don't get past more than a few pages, because the words jump at me, pulling me back, to read them over and over and over.
"Her body burned more fiercely, if this were possible. Burn, the word we use, shorthand for such shameful, such agonizing physical symptoms. Quite poetic, really, the word burn." (109)
"She was raging with desire. (Rage: another good word, like burn.) But why describe it, since there is no one who has not felt the mix of anguish, incredulity, and -- at the height of the illness -- a sick sweet submersion in pain because it is inconceivable that anything so terribly desired cannot be given, and if you relinquish the pain, then the hope of bliss is abandoned too." (120) This part is all too familiar, the madness that accompanies being 'in love'. I remember saying these words to myself some three years ago. To let go of the love that caused so much pain is, to let go of love. Why would anyone, for we all crave to love, even consider this a viable option? Yet now, looking back, I don't know why it should have been so hard at all. The phantom was a coverup for shame. I just couldn't see through it.
(Is it repeating itself now? Youth is a fountain of mistakes. But today I am not raging. And today there is no pain. Perhaps the hope of bliss has long been abandoned, with the quiet acceptance that this life comes in overlapping phases and the only reasonable hoping left to be done is the hope that this too shall pass.)
"There seems to be a general agreement that being in love is a condition unimportant, and even comic. Yet there are a few more painful for the body, the heart, and -- worse -- the mind, which observes the person it (the mind) is supposed to be governing behaving in foolish and even shameful ways...For people are too often in love, and they are usually not in love equally, or even at the same time. They fall in love with people not in love with them as if there were a law about it, and this leads to...if the condition she was in were not tagged with the innocuous 'in love', then her symptoms would be those of a real illness." (140) Psychosomatic. Emotional anguish manifest in physical pain.
The book is an antidote. There is no better cure for emotional distress than the detached, clinical study of it.
this will probably be my last post for a long time. aside from the fact that i must focus on studying from now until the 19th, i would probably have nothing interesting to write for all of august. i'm coping with missing home pretty well. i must be since i'm constantly smiling. it's kind of amazing - i feel as if at the back of my eyes is this recording of all the things that's happened these past two months, on perpetual playback. my cousins must think i've been pretty spacey of late. of course i miss everyone, but i don't feel at all that i've lost anything. in fact, i gained a lot. i love them all so much more now. i didn't even know that there could be more of this...
anyway, pictures are up. please visit my multiply site (see links). it will make you laugh, i promise! summer craziness only the way we know how - no limits, just reckless abandon.
as for now, i'll leave you with these two songs from the OC, the soundtrack of my life. as David mockingly noted, everything goes back to the OC...
Hello Sunshine
(So hard to say goodbye
Meaning it today
I've said goodbye before
Leaving you alone
By the sea
So hard to say goodbye)
Hello sunshine
Come into my life
In honesty it's been a while
Since we had reason left to smile
Hello sunshine
Come into my life
I'm a minger
You're a minger too
So come on minger
I want to ming with you
In honesty it's been a while
Since we had reason left to smile
Hello sunshine
Come into my life
You're not so innocent
You're a disgrace to your country
If you fled a million miles I'd chase you for a day
(If I could be bothered)
Hello sunshine
Come into my life
Honey and the Moon
Don't know why I'm still afraid
If you weren't real I would make you up
now
I wish that I could follow through
I know that your love is true
And deep
As the sea
But right now
Everything you want is wrong,
And right now
All your dreams are waking up
And right now
I wish I could follow you
To the shores
Of freedom
Where no one lives
Remember when we first met
And everything was still a bet
In love's game
You would call
I'd call you back
And then I'd leave a message
On your answering machine
But right now
Everything is turning blue
And right now
The sun is trying to kill the moon
And right nowI wish I could follow you
To the shores
Of freedom
Where no one lives
Freedom
Run away tonight
Freedom, freedom
Run away
Run away tonight
We're made out of blood and rust
Looking for someone to trust
Without A fight
I think that you came too soon
You're the honey and the moon
That lights
Up my night
But right now
Everything you want is wrong
And right now
All your dreams are waking up
And right now
I wish I could follow you
To the shores
Of freedom
Where no one lives
Freedom
Run away tonight
Freedom freedom
Run away
Run away tonight
We got too much time to kill
Like pigeons on my windowsill
We hang
around
Ever since I've been with you
You hold me up
All the time I'm falling down
But right now
Everything is turning blue
And right now
The sun is trying to kill the moon
And right now
I wish I could follow you
To the shores
Of freedom
Where no one lives
residual high from my stay in manila has made me forget how much i hate new york in the summer. it was always too hot and the city offered no place for refuge or amusement due to the deluge of tourists. but now everything is foreign and familiar all at once: the neat rows of identical houses, the american cars, the clean streets, the welcome summer heat. i'm lovin just about everything right now.
my trip was uneventful. i couldn't meet up with my cousin because i missed the train to yokohama. after mailing her a care package i went straight to the hotel, bathed and crashed on the bed. i worried that i wouldn't be able to spend the night alone - not after all the goodbyes (said and unsaid), not after everything i've just left behind. but i have no more room for sadness. this summer is for happiness.
prado thanks for kidnapping me every tuesday and all the other bloomfield days. i know and you know my occasional resistance was a mere farce. we're crazy. that's us! chuck shame, dignity and self-respect at the door. embarassment is our middle name and scandal is the name of the game. yns good times and bad, i'm with you girl. i'll miss our random philosophical ramblings. i love you, i love myself, what's not to love when you're self-aware? so much for swearing off alcohol - but all in moderation. "beer is like gold" - i could only wish i had that kind of passion. david token white boy, thanks for letting me make fun of you all the time - as well as laughing every time! you were our ticket to just about everything, above all the band's circle itself. to you i've already said too much one hundred times over. lucky for me you're "amiable" ;-)
prashimodo, athens, jer i will see you east coasters very soon. don't be mad at me for not spending as much of the summer with you because i'm sure to be visiting you individually within the next few months. it's high time i drop my lazy you-come-to-me attitude. RI, PA, DC - watch out coz i'm coming to town!
nix, jells so many plans, so little done. oh well. i look forward to going crazy with you two come fall. we'll show mae and hee won how it's done in manila!
kresta mama-ba. my oldest friend. i love that we haven't changed - not in the ways that really matter at least. i love that we can talk with the same intimacy as if we'd never been apart. i love how you understand me so well. i love you. talk to you soon.
mike mike mike. since you hardly spent anytime with me this summer i have nothing to say to you. call me when you get in.
random summer moments - car rides - table reservations for alex dumas, sandra cisneros and isabel allende - bloomfields! - dancing - dancing with louie - singing with louie - talking to louie - wearing a louie shirt - redbox "i will survive", "dancing queen" - redbox lapdance from danny - 21st birthday serenade from bollywood live band - getting lost to punta - "never" lying to my parents - pool pics - falling into the pool! - marco polo - july 19 - loitering in eastwood - waiting by the parking lot exit - "i get lost.. in your eyes" - "for you i bleed myself dry" / "bakit ngayon ka lang" - sleepovers - hi ma'am, haiku - jay jay sando moment =) - white chicks "makin my way downtown..." (just a thought: how fast do you think vanessa carlton can walk if she expects she can get as far as a thousand miles by "tonight"?) - making fun of everyone - "why not?" - meeting the parents "tita!" - bday surprise for yna - david's wowowee face - david's dance - fighting - making up - friendster stalking
comment and add!
i'll post pictures up soon. love love love!
tonight's the night that shit's going to hit the fan...not if i can help it! the summer motto's been fun, fun, fun so i'm not going to let anything ruin the perfect summer memories. need to pack today, but more importantly, i must stow away all this emotional baggage that's been dragging since last week. i've spent too long hanging out on the brink of falling in love and now that certain events have forced me to make a decision, take the plunge or abandon post, i suddenly fear the loss of the comfort of complacently, indulgently grazing this place. but as with most things all i can say is "oh well" and move on. i just need to let it go. what's the point in holding on if neither he nor i can brave the risk of pursuing this?
for what it's worth, i feel as if i'm handling this much better than freshman year fiasco. maybe i like d so much more than a.
we're just kids!
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we always take the opportunity to hurt ourselves and the ones we love. what is it about pain that makes us easily forget how it hurts? we pick our poisons and nurse our demons. we fall, cry, pick ourselves up just to do it all again. it's almost in vain to ask - for what purpose? we forgive. we understand. we let it go. "the laughter keeps us coming back for more." it's easier to forget. it's easier not to think. sometimes i'm also convinced it's better.
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if i can't be a rockstar, i'll just follow one around. my summer in manila is drawing to a close which means my groupie days are nearly over. in the past 6 weeks we've come from sketchy stalkers waiting by the parking lot exit to (although still sketchy) talk all-night with with the band till they kick us out buddies. goodbye, louie.
---------------------
Belated happy.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Good Charlotte
I'm in love with my friends. I wish I can marry all of them. Prado, Yna, Dave - consider this an open marriage proposal. Let's be Mormons in Massachusetts!
----
Currently an insomniac. Five days of fun, nine hours of sleep. I've been having some trouble lately. Sleep account: Tuesday night - 2 hours post excessive EtOH consumption; Wednesday night - Zero; Thursday night - 2 hours; Friday night - 5 hours (only after a 3-hour drive, train ride and a rock concert). What to do? What to do? I've tried watching really boring movies, even documentaries - but they always end up ultimately stealing my interest and distracting me from my goal. Hot milk? Can't. I'm lactose intolerant. Homework never failed to put me to sleep, especially when topped off with a tight deadline. I probably sleep more during the term than this summer.
Time to go again. Fantastic Four.
doesn't this picture make it look as if our high school life was the story behind the O.C. Okay, fine, maybe Beverly Hills 90210. No? Saved by the Bell? Saturday Night Live (spoofing one of the aforementioned shows)?. This was taken on my 21st birthday which was the best birthday I've ever had! Second only to my McDonald's Cowboy Party at age 8 - just kidding, I never had one of those. Kudos to Danny @ http://danielgimenez.com for taking the best pictures! We miss you already!!
Today I made some progress. I finished a chapter in the morning and I plan to do three more before I sleep! I also managed to calculate how many episodes I can still (re)watch of the O.C., optimize my entire T.V. schedule and organize a regular vegging out with Prashina. I really am hopeless and it really isn't something one should be proud of.
On other news, country music is growing on me, if Ryan Adams can be called country. My Windows Media Player insists on classifying him as such but I suppose I'll have to ask Jenny to be sure. "Be my winding wheel/well the children laugh and sing/a song that ushers in her driving rain" What exactly does that mean? I have much to learn about the Midwest is for sure.
This week we (Nicole and I) are going to start going around high schools to talk to students about applying abroad. I'm somewhat torn about this project. I don't want to pull out the best minds from the country; or even suggest that US schools are better. But in the end, it's their choice what they do with their lives - we're not telling them what to do, we're just presenting them with options. I do think a fresh perspective is what is needed, and there's just too much clutter and noise in this country to achieve anything that will resemble solutions.
For now, more TV awaits. My favorite soap is on.
not that anyone would care to stalk me...ahem... jen and shelby..ahem (i know for a fact that you two are up-to-3rd-degree-friends' livejournal/xanga addicts).
Not much of what I had planned has been going on lately: not much MCAT studying, not much thesis reading, not much getting out of bed. Instead, there has been a whole lot of window shopping, movie watching, band stalking, eating, drinking, sleeping... I'm hoping that will change in the next twenty-four hours, mostly because my exam is in less than two months and my prospectus is due in less than three.
Despite all the backlog, this summer is still on a steep upward trajectory - Abu Dhabi with my sister in August, Florida with Ging and Nikki in September! Nikki's already taken me to Boracay early June (see photo) - there can never be enough sand and sun in one summer (desert or beach).
Along with that, I've got several projects in the works - 1) MCAT 2) Thesis 3) Parokya 4) Recruiting 5) Photography 6) Song writing - it's definitely going to be a productive summer!
But before I can get started, I'm just going to get more movie-watching done. Aviator is on.