...because I spent last night watching one of my personal heroes become President of the United States of America! And I liked the speech - not the rising "yes we can" forcefulness from when he won, nor the tear-jerking inspiring from when we got the nomination, but a clarion call to do the work to bring change.

Heck, it has something for everybody! Listen! (See everyone? You can be awesome too.)

'Ika nga:

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

Ano kaya reaction ni PGMA? Haha!

Below is the speech, along with a transcript.








My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often, the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land -- a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the fainthearted -- for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again, these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act -- not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions -- who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them -- that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account -- to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day -- because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control -- and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort -- even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West: Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment -- a moment that will define a generation -- it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence -- the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed -- why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

current music: THIS

Silid - Up Dharma Down

You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.

- Garden State


My former seatmate posted this quote on her blog. I admit, I've been feeling like this quote myself.

In three hours, I will be twenty-five. I have lived in my house for something close to 17 of those years. I live in a society where families stick together no matter what, no matter how long, and it's perfectly cool that I still look out for my parents, most especially since I'm the eldest, and just simply have to.

But already I feel how more and more this house is some place I no longer call "home". My room upstairs that I share with my brother feels less and less the comforting refuge I remember back in the day. I cannot sleep there anymore, the same way you probably cannot just sleep in strange people's homes. I find that as I have grown up over the years, I am asked more responsibilities, but have only the same privileges, and they are also slowly being reduced. I cannot pick the room I want, the downstairs den, because it's not my decision to make, and I get the feeling it will never be my decision to make.

It's the same white walls with the same barking dogs and the same rotten rock music my family plays. It's the same routine of the same mornings with the sameness that feels more and more foreign and alien, not because it's changed, but because I've changed, and that my heart longs to pick its own walls, its own pets, choose its own choices of furniture and make it own mess. I long to make my own way, to get away where nobody demands me to save them. I long to make my own mistakes.

I feel it. I want out. I need to find a way away, to fly away and never be found.

I am not a big believer in New Year Resolutions, and for good reason. Most people don't really mean it when they say they'll do something. Why should I? Also, many resolutions have specific points on how to get their resolutions done. Other times, it's the lack of, well, resolve.

This year, I want to try something a little different, and a hell of a lot trickier. Off the mailing list of Neil Strauss, one of my favorite authors, is the idea to specifically nail in every detail of how you'll get resolutions done. And to actually write them down.

I figured there'd be a good blog post and story to go along with my year-end list, so I guess I can just hop to it and hope!


1.) Exercise, Training & Kendo
I have had a relatively good year in terms of exercise. I say this because the past years were utterly bad. This year I am making it a point to aim for 0 cuts in classes all year-round. This translates to something close to 100 hours of hard, high intensity exercise a year, with more depending on how long it takes. While this will certainly affect my life as a worker, a Days staffer, and as a family dude, I think I want to really give this a good go.

Also, I resolve to go jog, play basketball, get off my ass for at least twice a week, for an hour (inclusive of stretches and cool-down times), on Tuesdays and Thursdays or when applicable. If anything, it'll help relieve stress on stressful days.


2.) Food (volume)
I slashed my intake of rice tremendously, and so I hope to continue the trend. I hope to go cold turkey on rice, first for an initial target of four months straight. If I take, I'll reset the clock. After, we go from there, whether or not we push for up to five, or six, or into the whole year.

[I am not about to restrict what I eat - that's for next year. How much I eat is a good thing to start on.]


3.) Birthdays
I resolve to be a better friend by freaking remembering your birthdays! I ought to at least send a text, an email, or a Facebook/Friendster/Multiply/MySpace message to anybody and everybody in my network. It's only fair. I know I did a good amount of this for the past year, but there's always room for keeping up!

There are also people whose birthdays I do not now, as well as some of whom I am not close to. I resolve to try and greet them anyway. Adding a little extra cheer is for free.


4.) Planner Time
Still on the topic of dates, I resolve to use the Starbucks '09 planner I have and stick to it! I realize I tend to stop writing in appointments come April or May, so I hope to have a well-worn out planner by the end of the year by writing every little meeting, appointment, lunch out, party, training session, whatever!


5.) Checking Up on Friends
I used to do this a lot! I used to phone friends out of the blue come 7 or 8PM at odd evenings just to see how they were. I don't get to do this, not so much because I'm busy, but because I broke the habit and don't really try to reach out again.

Ergo, I resolve to try and text, phone, or write to at least one old friend a week, just to see how they're doing. That's 52 people in a year, and for sure I don't have that many close friends to catch up on! Hehe.

I'm not a text-message-sending person by default, and in turn I never know when to text and not to text, so I'll need your help on this one. If you are curious about what I am up to, please go ahead and say hi. It won't count, but at least I know you're reach-able that way.


6.) Sleep
I don't sleep right. I haven't slept right in years. Hell, right now I did not sleep the whole night, but dozed off for the whole morning before, as well as during that 5PM to 9PM swing.

So, I resolve to be a morning person, by targeting a sleep cycle of 10PM to 6AM everyday. My work life and health will probably pick up for the better once I get this right. I expect this to work at least for nights heading into Mondays through Fridays. I also expect to let myself slack off and take the weekend to puyat.


7.) Writing
High time I set benchmarks and goals! I target three features a week (two for work, one for whatever), a poem a month (for me) and at least two blog posts on this blog. I also target to journal on my notebooks at least twice a month, one on every other week, just to properly chronicle things. This will help give me and my writing the proper practice I need.

I also resolve to edit anything I write at least a day after I am done with it. It should help pick up the quality on whatever my output looks like.


8.) Blogging
A wise lady told me that your blog should stand for your beliefs, values, and who you are as a writer and as a person. In my line of work where I am slowly and surely exposed to greater public scrutiny, I have to do something. I therefore resolve to do two things: to clean up my blogs, so it can better be indicative of who I am, and to set up my online portfolio.

This should help not only streamline what comes up on a Google search about me. It should hopefully help people find me better, and to like what they see. And if anything, less swearing and profanity on the Internet is always a plus. (But I will still pepper my language when I find it necessary - I don't want to sell readers short and hold back.)


9.) The MA
Time to enroll in the higher education thing I had been putting aside. By the start of the new school year semester, I resolve to be taking my Masters degree, preferrably an MA in Comm or something along those lines. Also preferrably in Ateneo, since it's near the house. I have about four months to clean everything up, and if I don't get this done I'll kick myself.

The way I see it, I'll be turning 25 soon, I'll have my MA by 27 or so (while working, hopefully) and I'll move up to a new job, then maybe graduate with an MBA by 30 or 33. Ideal would be all degrees overseas, but I can't reach - grades weren't great for scholarships, nor can we afford much. So fine.


10.) Faith, Prayer, Almighty Shizz
I resolve to try and do stick to the original challenge - to hear mass at least twice a week, one on Sunday and another of my choosing. If anything, I hope it'll help detox my life.

I also resolve to set aside time to pray, for at least 10 minutes, two times a day, everyday. These are easily accomplished by shutting the radio when I drive, so I get to move around Manila in a higher state of consciousness. Hehe. Well now, didn't that sound nice.


11.) Saving Money
I resolve to reduce spending by bringing my own lunch everyday. That should enable me to spare at least another 100 pesos or so a day off food spending. It helps me avoid the unahan sa ulam rush that plagues our satellite canteen, and should ensure I eat healthier in the process.

While I don't think I can really go back to my old tight-fisted ways, I resolve to raise the amount I save by locking away 50% of all income as soon as I get paid. This will give me at least something to work with when payday arrives, and something to fall on if I do decide now is the time to splash cash on that new PlayStation 3 and Rock Band I want, or the kendo armor I need, or the Arsenal shirt I have been eyeing.


12.) Getting My Learn On
I resolve that by the end of Feburary, I will have a functional knowledge of Adobe PhotoShop, by hook or by crook. That means I can already use the application in a creative capacity. And I am a slow learner, but what the heck. I need this stuff.

I also resolve to learn how to take photographs properly! I must learn how to use my camera's myriad features by the end of March, just os I have some lead time. I think that should help improve some of the output I make for work and for myself in leaps and bounds (or at least in steps to the right direction).



Everyone, this list is really a masive experiment. I have never done this before, and if I do stick to this, my year will be all set. I do not know if I can really do this. What matters is that I do what I can.

Wish me well!

current music: the random, meandering noise around Bellarmine around 1:30 PM

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

- Mary Oliver

current music:

Today is All Soul's Day. I am at home, back from more Kendo training, and home alone. Well, my kid brother is here with me, but that's small consolation. Mom, Dad and Chimoms all left the city to Batangas to chill at the beach and I had to stick behind because I had work Friday.

I was lobbying for a massive party here at my place in their absence, but given there are no surprise guests at my door (it's 9:47 right now) I can safely assume the motion was defeated.

I don't mind being home alone, but I'm not fond of the idle time it forces on me. Heck, even reading books feels like an uneasy chore. So, I'm trying to 'stretch' the mind the way people stretch after exercise. Lord knows my mind has been jumpy-busy September and October.

1.) A42
A week ago, I staffed for A-Days. 42 batches na! My "baby brother" Cy was the Vice Rector, and I had to go and support. I'm happy for him; it's been his dream for the past four years to head a batch, and this Christmas he'll be Rector with another stellar staffer, MaraDel. How's that for a cool storybook ending? Rectors Miggy and Don-Don were also exceptional 'fathers' to the 7 participants!

I had a different vibe around this batch. I'm always "The Professional" when I staff, so I had a certain 'bounce'. I guess it comes from a realization made in the previous two months and their events. It's something like, Christ saying to me "Raph, ako bahala dito, I got your back". And while everything I didn't like about staffing still emerged, I learned to gloss over it to find Christ in the different spaces and places in the venue.

It was quite a recharge that I never saw coming. And I think the rest of the staff felt it too! Everybody was so full of good vibes all of a sudden, when in previous days I remembered more bitterness or more sadness. Call it on the current blend of staff, or the way the top people ran it well, I dunno.

All I know is I look forward to the next! Thank you Lord.


2.) AAA
My work life is WEIRD. Everyday, I go to work and find a beehive. My boss taking and making phone calls. My colleague Jill swamped with e-mails. Our finance officer making the rounds to prepare for her maternity leave (which begins now). Every other day we have people drop by for meetings, and take phone calls as we prepare for this massive Career Expo project we're doing.

As for me? I'm quietly chugging away at a bunch of e-mail queries, and designing PowerPoint Presentations. Every now and then, I get sent out to buy food or deposit a check at the bank.

I don't sit in on the pow-wows. I don't chime in my thoughts anymore on designs or marketing campaigns. I sit back and cruise, and dial in my work, and even surprise people that I'm all done for the day or week.

It's a funny feeling, really. There is suddenly a lot of idle time for me, while everyone else is scrambling to keep their head above water. I'm almost jealous, actually, because I'm not a fan of not being trusted or not being on-the-ball on things. The things they do trust (and thrust) on me are tasks I cannot, for the life of me, do on my own, and good volunteer help is so hard to find.

I still put in 8 hours a day (and sometimes more), and I still have to help out the family chores and stuff. I work hard at what I do, even when too many people don't appreciate my effort. I am paid a pittiance, and I know it. I took a risk when I got this job, with the goal of building myself a good springboard to launch myself. Lately, I feel that while I am establishing my goals for this job, the demands of the world insist I find new ways to earn more money.


3.) A-Days
I've maintained before that my Days community is not perfect. It's broken in some spots, although if I were so bold to say it, I call it broken in some people. We had a batch last week as I mentioned before, and one of the biggest reasons why it was so awesome was because some people weren't there.

There was a big, big pick-up in the mood of the staff! People were more bouyant, more upbeat. People were, by the large, more motivated to work and less distracted. There was less of a line between the 'cool kids' and the 'dorks' among us. People saw that we weren't a rag-tag bunch of factions and clans. We were one people. Without them, we were one.

I am praying that they don't come back anytime soon!

current music: it's silent, but my head is playing Ne-Yo

Because You Forgot

all the words that I've said,
written, read, every line you needed
in your heart and head, all the letters
dropping from me like crumbs of bread
trailing to safety through a valley of the dead

I write you tonight. Because all these words could do,
every vowel and syllable and silent letter U
is curl the hours back, bridging the gap
of the miles of salt and tears.

If you are cold, haunted by the weightless phantoms
of bodies that have passed over
and pressed against both our bodies, I
will whisper your name,
lighting fires from feet to cheek, till nothing
is left of us but ash. If my hands

cannot be the ones that stroke yours
during those secret seconds of warmth,
I will write you the story
of how your fingers found my shoulders,
molded the stone in my back
into wings. If my lips cannot find yours,

or they are replaced by another's,
I will make poem for your feet
that have flown you away,
and in there, I will kiss them,
turn them to fins, so that you may seek me
beneath the seas that I will have thrown my soul to.
If you cannot find me in your thoughts,

I will will you, Dear, a song, such that the sails
of your mind find me through the muddled
mists of memory covering the sea of our lives.
For if I can remind you of this,

this promise that holds the hands of the sun,
the truth that my tongue
finds itself prying from my teeth, what keeps
the follicles of hair on my forearms
standing, the little secret the silent abyss has always known:
that someway, in some light,

every night I breathe, I will write,
and every night I write you will never be alone.

When I was in college, my Philosophy professor, Dr. Leo Garcia, liked to say this version of Sir Francis Drake's prayer to start our day. It didn't leave that much of an impression at first, but after several sessions, it grew on me.

Last night, a friend of mine got drunk and had a lot to say about me. About how I've lived, and how I've still not fully realized who I could truly be, even if I profess living a life where I truly am happy. That I can still go so much further, be it in my career, in my health, in my relationship with God and even in my relationships with people I love dearly.

Here I was, saying I was really happy with how things are going. Like I just finished a tall house of cards, or a castle of sand, and somebody came by and kicked it all into air.

And then tells me to build my house with bricks, and blocks, my castles on rock and stone.

I post this prayer, as a sort of way of saying "Thanks" to God, for this not-so-pleasant reminder that my life's work remains undone. I still find the task of rebuilding Raph quite daunting. Still, I should do it.


Disturb us, O Lord

when we are too well-pleased with ourselves
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, O Lord

when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life
when, having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.

Stir us, O Lord

to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas
where storms show Thy mastery,
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes
and invited the brave to follow.
Amen.

I remember watching it on YouTube. It was September 18, 2008. Dr. Maya Angelou, one of my favorite poets. She was giving a short warm-up-the-crowd type intro talk for Michelle Obama. Dr. Angelou said that while much is said about her husband Barack, Michelle was also quite amazing herself, as the best person to speak of how a great man he is. Who better that to say this than his wife?

"I believe that only equals fall in love."

She said that and the crowd applauded. Of course, in the context of her talk, she made mention of how somebody like Michelle was more than a match to her man.

But at the same time (and I find this with Maya Angelou poetry) there's a lot more to it.

See, apply it to the people you've loved, or more specifically, fallen in love with. Now, be honest. Not many of them worked out. And that makes sense. But the ones that do, and stick?

I'll use for an example a relationship that did stick. Growing up, I used to wonder why my Mom and Dad got together. Dad was class valedictorian in UP Los Banos, editor of the school paper, and was accelerated and graduated early. But he didn't have much by means of a social life; my sister used to joke "Dad was a loser dork back then" when we talk about it.

Mom? She was Homecoming Queen. Not stellar academically (she didn't pass med school), but popular, with orgs and sorority activities 24/7. Tita Mandy (Mom's dorm roommate then) used to tell stories of the dozens of suitors after Mom, at the flowers they left at the dorm, and how these boys would keep asking her after Mom. Mom shrugged them off the way you try to hide the story about the time an elephant pooped in your backyard while your next-door neighbor told friends about the smell.

So when they told me that the way the "dork" won over the "crush ng bayan" was because of a stray day when Dad sat besie Mom in Cell Biology class, I had to admit being perplexed. "That's it?" I'd think to myself. No sweet talk? No flirting? No GAME? The only major "move" Dad did, apparently, was when he saw Mom depressed at one point, and he spent time with her "being a friend".

Mom's story corroborated it. "He was just so nice to me. I felt he liked me but never said anything, then when I confronted him about it, he told me he liked me. And I liked him na rin, because I got to know what kind of person he was."

NGEK! And to think I wanted a story of riveting passion and romance and a fairy-tale happy ending.

But life isn't like that. And no, Mom and Dad aren't 'equals' in certain ways, it sort of evens out. Mom is the type who lives to experience the world and has helped open up my Dad to new and exciting experiences - new food to taste, new places to visit, new friends to make. Dad, being the stable, predictable rock he has been all his life, has been able to build the strong foundation that my family has grown on. Dad used to say how it was weird, him being "thrifty" and Mom being the spendthrift she was, but now he sees how his wife has become something of the budgeting maven, working the family account like clockwork, like how Dad pulled those 1.0's for his GWA, both in UPLB and in Med school.

Theirs is a love that has endured claims of infidelity, bouts of tempers firing, around a quarter of a century of married life, health crises on both ends, and yes, even children acting a damn fool. It's still stands.

And yeah. Dr. Angelou must've been onto something, saying how people, no matter how different, belong to one another when they know that in their love, they meet their equal.

-----------------------------

I tell you this, for my life is interesting lately, particularly when it came to the women I've met, cared for, and even loved. I am blessed, I guess, that years ago I had found people I knew I could spend my life forever with. And also doubly blessed that my friends are true friends - true friends must be always there, even when you don't realize you need it - their loyalty has come to bat everytime a girl catches my fancy, or when it's me who finds admirers.

My peers have split one another to two sides. On one hand are some of my longest-loving confidantes, adoptive sisters and brothers, some of the wisest and noblest people I've met. Theirs is the belief that love is love is love, that if Raph so chooses to love somebody, then she must be one of the luckiest women around! That if there was anybody who could care and love and nurture a relationship, you'd do a lot worse than Raph (never mind that he's not the physically sexiest man).

Others are different. I nicknamed them "moveonraph.org". They too, number in my deepest, most valuable friends, the kinds I spent hours awake on the phone on, or who have come to my rescue countless times. They still continue to throw my life preserver hoops, albiet a different way - they believe that if somebody was to be loved by Raph, she must deserve it. She must love me in the same endless, no holding back kind of potential that they've seen me in with some girls from way back.

How do you know, who deserves it? How do we tell that somebody deserves another?

And the most important part, I guess is...

...who are they to say whom I should love? :)

current music: Arsenal @ Sunderland on ESPN (2nd half started, score still 0-0)


I was writing you a poem but apparently somebody already wrote it, and did it better than I could ever dream. Tsk!

Still. For you, who I am dying to disappear from the world with. Let's go away from it all together. :)


You are tired
E. E. Cummings

You are tired,
(I think)
Of the always puzzle of living and doing;
And so am I.

Come with me, then,
And we'll leave it far and far away—
(Only you and I, understand!)

You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,
And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart—
Open to me!
For I will show you the places Nobody knows,
And, if you like,
The perfect places of Sleep.

Ah, come with me!
I'll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,
That floats forever and a day;
I'll sing you the jacinth song
Of the probable stars;
I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,
Until I find the Only Flower,
Which shall keep (I think) your little heart
While the moon comes out of the sea.

I've been soaking up a lot of pop culture lately. It's a nice, somewhat odd feeling. It gives me stuff to think about, right before I lay to sleep. Well, if I DID sleep. I hardly get a wink these days.

One friend wrote on his blog that if he had one thing he could do before he died, his answer was "to be a vigilante for a day". I found that rather amusing - the craze over Batman is high following "The Dark Knight", and then there's also my rereading of the book "Watchmen" by Alan Moore. Both works, while very different in approach and theme, hit at one common yarn: how a hero isn't perfect, how he has weaknesses, and how those his or her heroism is not what the world need.

I, for one, think that we'd need a hero one of these days.

Last Tuesday (to my best knowledge), an Atenean by the name of Tara Santeciles, Batch 2007, took a jeep home when she was mugged. The brigands did not just take her things - they shot her in the head as they made off. It was the eve of her 23rd birthday.

She spent her birthday in Medical City's ICU, a bullet in her brain. She's still unconscious, on life support, and doctors debate on whether or not surgery can help her.

I first got this newsfeed from Nikki, one of my friends from A-Days. People who've met Nikki can attest to her being a bright and positive force. Shortly after hearing this news, she was shocked at how people could be so cruel to do something like that. Depressed doesn't cut it - she began to wonder why we should bother to hope for humanity.

It's one dark story, among other things I've noticed lately. Is it a sign of the times? I hear nothing but news of how gas is driving prices higher, how fighting in Mindanao has resumed, how Russians back separatists in Georgia, and how amid the spirit of unity in the Olympics, one man killed a coach of the US volleyball team before jumping to his death.

In my immediate friends, I hear rumors of how upset others are at one another. I hear varying reports on who's upset with whom, and for whatever reasons. It affects how we come together - I can't remember the last time I was at a party when some people didn't leave early to avoid the arrival of other people expected to show up. Some others find it harder to keep conversation for more than "hi's and hello's" - as though being associated with me were some kind of terrible thing to avoid.

At home, my own brother has forsworn any ties to me, and I, frankly have stopped caring. Nobody, not my sister nor my parents, dare mention his name around me, and me to him. We treat the area around one another as empty, dead space.

I remembered "The Dark Knight" and "Watchmen" - both illustrated how the people of the world were in a sort of sinking ship together. We see how the world spirialling into disaster, brought out "what people are really like". How, at the end, there are no puppet strings that control everything. It's only the random, nebulous happenstance of empty existence, and that we impose our own truth to it, because we can't accept that there isn't anything behind it at all.

What could I say to the people who are in this spiral of despair?

Shouldn't it be, that even as the world is heading to shit, we should do something? What little we could do anyway? After all, in the end, even if it's all going to be futile, we ought to have done what we could. Shouldn't that be how it's supposed to be? That we don't compromise. That we know what we stand up for, and what we find non-negoitable. And that we stick by it, even if it hurts, even if it's painful to stick by it. That we must never try to "pragmatize" morals, because then, as my Constitution professor put it, we prostitute ourselves for something less that what we really value.

I don't have a lot of answers. I just take you halfway, and you swim the rest.

WARNING: This will be long, and badly written.


On the way home after a late Saturday night out with the Dayzers (Rakstar ka Joshua!) Ben offered to buy me breakfast (yeah, it was REAL late) in exchange of me driving him home. Fair deal.

(Kate, this was after we got you home, stealth-ninja-style.)

One of the things we talked about was my kid brother, and how he's been M.I.A. on a lot of these awesome parties. So, I had to tell him what had been going on, as it's hit a 'new low' so to speak.

[I'm writing this narrative for the same reasons that I write poetry, and short prose: so I won't forget. So I can sleep better. And if I don't wake up, so that there's gonna be something here to remember me by.]



Three Saturdays ago, as I got home from a rather delightful day at Kendo, Roel sat me down to talk. He said it was 'something I did'.

He told me that he called this girl (who we will hide behind the letters J.L.) on the phone to greet her 'happy birthday' and the conversation broke into an argument. He asked her why she's been so cold to him. She replied with an anecdote of how 'a guy named Doval was stalking her cousin'.

You see, my brother's in love with this girl for a while. They were acquaintances a few years ago, but despite my brother's most earnest actions (flowers and such), she had to say no to him. There's a laundry list of reasons why: her Chinese family, her parents' rules, her then-impending move to Australia, other boys, her work as a model and 'standards', lots of reasons. We know little for certain of how close they were - he keeps his cards close on that one.

Many people would learn from this, and restart with somebody new. But like every good Doval-Santos child does, he never gave up. He kept carrying that torch high. While we liked how he'd suddenly act all inspired-like, we saw anomalies. Like, how songs he wrote started to sound 'awkward', like how somebody just blurt out they "find you sexy" in front of your parents awkward. Then we saw the PC hard drive was cluttered with pictures of her (last check as something like 100MB of pics, from Friendster and Multiply.). Then there were those notebooks littered weird poems we didn't care to read anymore (one was left behind in the car once when I took it, and thank God my companions knew it wasn't my handwriting). Then there was the 'shrine'.

Needless to say, we found it fucking creepy. And this had been going on since... hmm. Since I was in 3rd or 4th year college, if I remember. It just kept going!

None of us sibs could get through to him about it. He was quite combative about anything we said, and he took to us like a bull to a matador's cape. We tried to get our parents to intervene, and they always said "oh, it'll be ok," or the staple "that's not your job to do that, Raph."

I kept my mouth shut, as free hard drive space disappeared slowly, or how his weird songs would fill our house. He'd be happy one day, and then depressed and brooding and playing DotA alone another. He'd sidestep any constructive criticism - how his songs sounded, how he dressed, anything - and even call us 'insulting' him and 'not supporting him'. He'd charge us of talking behind his back. He demanded we didn't interfere, and scuttled any offer to help.

So we stopped - we left him alone, and we didn't try to help. Still, it kept going, and the girl still kept shaking him off, or hiding, or dodging phone calls. One time she had her kuya sic on him and over the phone he gave my brother a piece of his mind. Real awful day, that was.

He started to change his ways, somehow since then. He sort of toned down - he locked himself in the computer room with loud love songs playing and her picture on screen no more. He put away the magazine clippings and the flowers off his desk that made the shrine. He kept talking about 'trying to move on,' while trying out acting classes, and modeling workshops or all that.

December, he said he wanted to go to med school. You have no idea how overjoyed my parents were at that news, given that my sister and myself seriously do not want to take up my father's practice. While we all were scurrying around helping him study for NMAT, or to look for a school that would accept him without Biology units, he wasn't all so excited - he was glum. It was not the look of somebody who "found his purpose" as he said. He often nodded, and looked away. He looked like somebody who was in for Death Row.

He looked like me, February '07, staring down law school grade deficits and rapid inspiration loss.

Months passed and we thought everything was gonna be okay. He would reassure us that he was done with the girl, that he "had to prepare for his new life". The creepy pictures were still on the hard drive, but he looked so absorbed in medicine. He looked slightly more cheerful (although maybe the NBA playoffs had something to do with that). I was ready to think that maybe he had turned a corner, like he kept promising us he would.



Until, of course, the story of "Doval" allegedly "stalking her cousin".

That cousin was somebody I liked back in the day. WAAAAY back 1st and 2nd year college. Somebody I tried to woo, and somebody who also said 'no' to me.

Who knew?

I was shocked by this turn, because as far as I knew, myself and that girl (whom we shall hide under the initials A.K. hehe) were, and still are, very good friends. Yes, in spite of her father getting angry at my phone calls, and how her friends were, at times, tense, even hostile to me, we actually got along pretty good.

And I fell for her then for a very good reason: she was a genuinely sweet, caring person, for everybody she knew. It was hard not to like A.K. How such a sharply painful story - stalking - could come from her was out of this world. It sounded too much like J.L. using something, anything, as an excuse to shoo him away after four years of dogged pursuit.

Roel would have none of that, for "he didn't know that bitch" as spoke in his frenzied pace. He was up in my face, the way a desperate man begs. "You have to help me. You have to do something about this. You have to fix this." And he keeps begging me to talk to A.K., and get her to tell his crush how he's really a nice guy, who wants to know her cousin better. That he loves her, and wants the best for her.

I was appalled - "I thought you were through with this?" I asked.

"I'm not FUCKING done with J----. I went to med school because her current boyfriend is a doctor! And that she wants a doctor for a boyfriend!". (And how he got that last bit of info while they were not in touch was just too much.)

I tried to get myself some elbow room. I hadn't heard from A.K. in months. I had lost her phone number with my old phone. I kept her at YM, but she's a career woman, and often away at meetings and working. I had never been to her house. I wasn't friends with her friends (see above).

"If you love me, if you''re really my brother, you'd clean up this mess you made."

It's hard to describe what you feel when your kid brother tells you something like this. Especially given how you knew it's not your fault. What I did let on was anger. I snapped at him, I yelled, I was insulted and let him know not to question me as his elder brother. All of that. He backed away, like a tiger backs slowly from a hissing snake, with a snarl and hard eye contact.



My principles would win out. We talked Monday, and A.K., true to form, was really gracious about it. The YM transcript is still here. She agreed with me that something may have been said wrong. She said she'll talk to her cousin, J.L., when she could to help sort it out. I even joked "for all we know, it might have been me! but that was ages ago, right?" and she said, "oo, tagal na nun. and you weren't a stalker."

With smiles and all, we though this was over. I tell Roel - thinking he'd be content.

Roel then went on a barrage of questions - what did she say, what will she do, did you tell her to tell J---- that I love her? - and I was quite annoyed. I calmly, softly replied, "they'll talk. and we'll see."

His tone changed to resentment. He then said something about how I was to blame for 'ruining his life'.


2 days later, my Dad calls me aside as I was on my way to the kitchen. Roel was there, and he looked despondent. My father heads me off, and told me the scoop: J.L. and Roel talked again. And she's threatening my brother with a restraining order. I am instructed to "give him space". The effort Dad has taken lately to keep us from being in the same room together shows how serious this may be.

We have not talked, and I have lost count of the days.



It's dragged on for this long, and in my heart of hearts, I know I'm clear. I know that I'm not the one who obsesses over someone who shovels back nothing but shit.

This has gone far too long, and now, I'm starting to rue introducing him to my other friends. To wit, he told me he liked one of my closest friends, (one whom, I myself find quite enchanting) and now I worry silently when I see him try to talk to her. I'm scared this awful fiasco with his crush may repeat. And I don't want that, because if he messes with her, fuck 'brotherhood', I'm kicking his ass. (and besides, he showed me what being a brother means to him anyway.)

Ben asked me, "If it's not your job, whose is it?" and I didn't know what to say. He's right, you know. It's a job that's gotta get done. And get done soon.

I'm tired, and I don't know what to do. Lord, I don't know what to do.

Manifesto

I have a dream, a dream that lives for myself, and with some providence, with whoever reads this.

Some of you would know I have been part of a community of fellow believers. We are a special group. Our group was founded on the idea that we would be friends, whose faith carries us forward, and with this faith, we share the love we have to others. We work together, united by a common cause and love. All of us share in this work, and all do our very best, with much enthusiasm, love, and passion.

We do our work seriously, but at the same time, we do not lose sight of one another. We stick together not just because we are friends, or happen to be in the same place, but because we want to move in the same direction. We stand by each other not just because we're sometimes the only ones who are there, but because we're the only ones who'll give a damn.

That was then.

I am writing this because I am afraid this dream is dying. It is disappearing too fast, and the future will only glimpse this dream in memories passed down by people like myself, who have also glimpsed at it from a certain distance, never truly holding it to our hearts. I'm writing because I want somebody to help me keep this dream alive.

I'm talking about the dream I saw made real in the Agape DWTL community. I am talking about the fellowship we shared together, over the course of several years (4 of which I have been very active) and I feel that we're weaker because of recent events. I am talking about the ideal vision of a community that is united by a certain, indescribable love, a love that is characterized by what we have come to derive from our name "Agape": selfless, unadulterated sacrifice, no matter who or what is before us.

I saw this community in action years ago, on my first staffing batch. I invited two dear and near friends to join our community. They were welcomed in grand fashion, and loved in a very true and personal way, never mind that nobody knew who they were. I saw how everyone helped one another. I saw how we worked hard, and took great pride in our work, and how we found the grace in that same work. I saw how we all were bound together to serve. I ground my bones hard in three days unlike any sort before, but I emerged stronger, and I felt I could love in a purer, truer way than before. In my first staffing batch, in working hard, I gained a tremendous love. I knew my place was here.

In the years that followed, I have done my utmost to pass this love - for the community, for one another, for our participants, for Jess - to others as well. I did my best at my tasks, while making strong friendships and forging a stronger relationship with the Lord I worked for. It wasn't always easy, and at times it was hell of a struggle, but it was a sanctified way of life. In me, I learned different, deeper sorts of loving, as unique to me as I am to the over 6 billion people on Earth.

Through all this, I believe I learned a lot. I learned the value of time, and how other people's time is just as special as mine. I learned how the seemingly strongest, most perfect-looking people keep deep-seated insecurities and fears, and how they are no less priceless to God than the greatest of us. I learned how to rally people to get things done. I learned to pay attention to detail and plans, and how to work around when things don't go as expected. I learned to accept people who were awful to me, and to further strengthen bonds between those who were good to me. I learned the meaning of the word 'professionalism,' and how it is valuable everywhere, even if we're not paid for what we do. I learned how to clean bathrooms. I learned how to scrape candle wax off floors. I learned how to survive barefoot for a weekend without slippers, or how to be usher to strangers for a Mass.

Mostly, I learned how love and sacrifice are hand-in-hand. And that by giving much of myself, I gained a whole wonderful world of love for all I've done.

Why am I writing this? It's because I am starting to worry that the way we are working now is far removed from that dream. Already, I am beginning to see a dichotomy living in the community, like a worm growing inside an apple.

I'm thinking about the petty factionalism that is brewing among us, how we build walls around our own little circles instead of building bridges to expand those circles to others.

I'm thinking about the way people have slowly begun to shun our work, and instead focused on the lighter sides of our time such as all the idle partying and socializing.

I'm thinking about the way we isolate, belittle, ignore and even hurt others, while calling on the Lord as our friend.

I'm thinking of the many disaffected members of our community who have given much of their time, energy, at times money for our cause, but we in general shun, or spread rumors about.

I'm thinking about that anecdote of the guy who we kindly asked help from, but whom we were rebuffed sharply for this request.

I'm thinking of the girl whose only wish was to get by quietly after her break-up, but cannot because everyone is talking, listening, judging.

There was a dream that was once Agape. THIS IS NOT IT.

It's not it when we have all the time to go drinking, but don't have the time to go to a bank to sort the money. It's not it when we lack a transparency in monitoring those funds. It's not it when we profess a value of acceptance, of a surrender, of a divinely inspired generosity of heart, when in our words and deeds and practices, we shun people whose personalities clash with ours, when we surround ourselves with those we feel strong around, when we push out of our circles of friends others who are not like us. It's not it when we're too wrought up in trying to win over other peoples' approval by trying to be funny, personable, or clever, but fail at being hardworking, committed, and responsible.

When did having more friends mean more than having done more work? When did we stop accepting other peoples' flaws, and start pulling near ourselves those select few we care about? Why do we raise our glasses for people who made our day, when there are so many other members of our community who also matter, and without whom our work will fall apart in bits and pieces? Why do we mouth off on how "the Lord is all we need to survive" and how "we cannot compel anyone to do their part" when, in a very real degree, such ideas give other people license to slack off? Why don't we understand that your mere presence among us when it is time to work demands that you do your utmost best, and not only when you find it convenient?

This cannot continue. This MUST NOT continue.

And I feel that things must change NOW.

Schtick from Cliques

In 24 years of gallivanting around planet Earth, I take great pride in my friends. They come in many shapes and sizes. They live in different kinds of houses, and have different families each. They like food that I usually can't eat. I like them, and for the most part, they like me so long as I'm not being a jerk, which is fine by me.

I have a fair share of friends. If Facebook, Friendster, Multiply or MySpace were the barometer of friendship, I do pretty well, averaging at least in the 400's or 500's or something. (Except for MySpace, but that's because the site never really took off here in the Philippines.) For those not into the social networking schtick, that's not so bad.

What I do wish sometimes were that all my friends were friends with each other too. Or that at the very least, they were cool with one another.

I remember when I was 7th grade, I made friends with this 6th grader kid. He was loud and spoke straight English, as though he weren't as Filipino as his eyes and skin and surname suggested. We were students in an after-school tutorial class, and while we mostly kept to our own year levels (he was part of my kid brother's class), we were cool with each other. He was nice, albeit not so keen on the idea that people can get tired of other people. I figured he just liked chatting with me, because I could level with his banter, how he liked to talk about his teachers, and how my teachers (being a year ahead of him in the same school) were like, and so on.

Nobody liked him. You know how in school there's this geek, or nerd who speaks in monotone and really loudly? Like that. They picked on him and made fun of him. They called him gay. They laughed behind his back about how he talked about nothing but his teachers, how he had no life whatsoever. It was only when I was sitting around talking to him, nobody bothered him. Of course they couldn't; I was one of the biggest, toughest-talking kids with a nasty temper himself. They didn't dare try pick fights with him if they felt I would fight too.

It never, however, stopped them from picking on him. Neither did I really want to stand up for him; I wasn't that close to the guy to stand up to them and defend him. And part of it was because those kids who hated him were some of my friends too.

It's a trend that carried over in many places. My kid sister has a former schoolmate who she hates talking to, hates interacting with. My colleagues in our volunteer group met this girl nobody wanted to be friends with, who everybody else called a vicious flirt, even if she was cool with me. In another group I volunteer with, there's a guy who, hands-down, is one of the most selfless, most dedicated people you'll ever meet, but he got in the hair of too many people, and so he became a pariah in a community that really could've used his help. I fell in love with a girl, and stood by what I felt, even if my colleagues in college said she was bad news, and in effect, I'm no longer in touch with any of those former classmates.

I hate more is how I have to juggle these friendships all at once. I had to maintain ties with fellow volunteers even as they talked behind the back the guy who was doing a lot of the dirty work for them, and they didn't realize it. The college classmates had to work with me everyday in school were slowly losing their respect for me because of who I chose to love. I often had to play "double agent" to people, not to curry favor with them, but just to maintain a sense of order, that I wouldn't make enemies because I "chose sides".

I didn't, and still don't know what the right course of action is. Some say I ought to have stood up for these oppressed friends, that they don't deserve the stick given to them. Yet, I also know that they're in this hot soup because of what they did, or what they failed to do. Sometimes, like the 6th grade kid long ago, they don't deserve it. Other times. they brought it on themselves by making too many enemies, and making too few friends like me. In all cases, I found that my loyalty was never something somebody could erase, but I rarely wanted to lose a friend because I was closer to another.

It's a part of life. I guess people really don't or won't get along with everybody. I still have to make a choice with what's best for the group, or what's best for the one person out of the loop, who probably deserves more than just the cold comfort of a sympathetic smile or conversation.


current music: Gotta Have You - The Weepies

current music: Oasis - Wonderwall



When I was a young boy, I first heard this song as it streaked all over top 10 charts and hit radio stations everywhere. I saw this MTV played dozens of times, but I don't think I really understood anything. What was a 'Wonderwall'? What's with the clowns and show girls?

Ten years, dozens of music samplings, Wikipedia and actually falling in and out of love changed everything. Now I wonder about whatever became of the silly little man who carved holes in his wall to get a glimpse of the girl who he could never really have, but whom he loved with all his heart, unbeknownst to him that their lives would collide in such a big way.

I read the lyrics and think to myself if such things could happen to me. If I could be so lucky to be watched, waited by and wished for, and somehow rescued. Or if somebody was already like that for me: that one fateful day, out of the black that falls in time, our lives we find will just some way collide.



Today is gonna be the day
That they're gonna throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realized what you gotta do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do about you now

Backbeat the word was on the street
That the fire in your heart is out
I'm sure you've heard it all before
But you never really had a doubt
I don't believe that anybody feels
The way I do about you now

And all the roads we have to walk along are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
There are many things that I would
Like to say to you
I don't know how

Because maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after all
You're my wonderwall

Today was gonna be the day?
But they'll never throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realized what you're not to do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do
About you now

And all the roads that lead to you were winding
And all the lights that light the way are blinding
There are many things that I would like to say to you
I don't know how

I said maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after all
You're my wonderwall

I said maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after an
You're my wonderwall

Said maybe
You're gonna be the one that saves me
You're gonna be the one that saves me
You're gonna be the one that saves me

Love in a softer world.




(taken from www.asofterworld.com)


Because this is why my heart doesn't stop beating.

current music: Be Mine - Robyn

Para sa Isang Nawawala

Patawad, patawad -
nakatakda na sa tala-arawan
ang mga araw na ika'y nasa Maynila;
bukas, mawawala ka muli,
luluwas palabas, palayo,
patungo sa mga ibayong dalampasigan
nang aking likhang-isipan.

Doon na lamang kita nakikita,
naikakamusta, nadadalaw;
paano pa ang telepono, na may hangganan ang naibabato,
o ang mga sulat na hindi sasalta sa poderas ng iyong pamahayan?
Tila lagi ka namang wala dito,
kung saan ka pinakakailangan,
kung saan ka sana ang magiging simula
sa isang maligayang kinabukasan.

Ngunit,
sasabihin ko sa iyo:
kahit sa bawat sandali ika'y napapalayo,
o kaya't lagi kang lumalakbay, at naiiwan ako dito

hinihintay kita,
at araw-araw, gabi-gabi,
hanggang sa wakas, hahabulin kita,
at doon tayo magtatagpo,
sa pook na kahit ang buwan, walang natatakbuhan.


===================

To You Who Is Forever Away

Forgive me, forgive me -
already the days are numbered, marked and measured
when you are here in Manila;
tomorrow, you will leave me again,
away to that distant shore of my dreams,
jagged as dashed rapids are jagged,
crashing on a cliff.

It is in dreams now I find you,
in a place where no phone numbers can be reached as dialed
or no letters can be read in our wordless language of waiting.
Tomorrow you will leave again,
and I will watch the sky for signs of you.
I stay and watch my face grow old,
ever nearing a future where you're not here.

Yet, I tell you,
at every hour, every second,
at every single moment you spend leaving me,
I am here, still waiting for you.
And for all that time, I will stay,
'till the day comes when I will find you, chase you down
to where the moon can't swim from these shores and drown.

current music: Sa Madaling Salita - Ang Bandang Shirley

I've been thinking.

You made your choice.
But maybe I haven't made mine.

And I think there's a time when I'm tired of watching you disappear, time and again.

I've always loved you, but I don't think you know what that means.
Nor how deep this all goes.

Nor how I can't take that back, never mind that I've met others, others who love me better.

Because maybe, just maybe
it's me who can love you best.

1 A.D.


I think there were still candles left alit
when we left our little room
to search for things we wanted
but we both didn't have for each other.

It's been a while and we haven't returned;
it's probably too dark for us to be together again there,
now as you say all the lights are snuffed out,
that we can't go back,
that we forgot matches, and can't spark another start.

You tell me this again and again,
your eyes looking elsewhere, for places
I can't walk to with you.

But
what if things now are different,
that the light didn't die,
that the flame caught a curtain or something,
and burned the house down?

Maybe what we really have left inside
isn't darkness, but soot-stained memories like ash,
stuck to skin, and unwilling to leave.

Or maybe
this fire we have inside
could still be burning, waiting for us
to come back,
stay,
and warm ourselves, arms entwined in embrace.

Let's not put out the fire.
Besides, Dearest,
your kiss alone puts these flames to shame.

current music: Be Mine (ballad version) - Robyn

Friends, please, please listen to this song playing in my current music! You'll find it on Robyn's MySpace page. 

It kinda got me thinking. Heh.

---------------------

I was driving home today and I realized that at the end of it all, I have a rather "high-maintenance" life. And in a certain sense, I'm not always making a good account of it. I'm having more and more trouble "paying the upkeep" to keep the life I lead. For instance:

- I've got lots of friends, but not a lot of time for all of them (some even envious of the time I 'allocate' to others). I'm always eager to catch up, but life got in the way. 

- I have a job I love, but I'm not great at it (even downright bad at it on some days)

- I have family duties that I can't get out of. And this family's very... particular about how I live.

- I have things I do "that are for life improvement" (writing, soaking up art, exercise, etc) that I want to always do, but don't always do.

My dad's old classmate, Dr. Dans, once gave the commencement speech for the graduates of PGH Med, and he said related how he subdivided his life into "big and small rocks". You put the big rocks first, then the rest fit. I took a deep look and saw that the rocks have moved, changed, and re-sorted themselves lately.

Raph's "Big Rocks"

1.) Kendo training every Saturday afternoon

2.) Days meetings every Saturday (sometimes), with batches every now and then

3.) Days rounds/parties/times out, variable times

4.) Time with family, Sundays

5.) work, weekdays, afternoons non-negotiable

6.) AAA board meetings, Wednesdays, once a month

7.) AAA events, and related meetings, interviews, etc depende sa araw.

8.) time devoted to blogging, writing, journalling, etc

9.) any and all friends who need me to be wherever (because I'm a sucker like that)

So in effect, Saturday is really the only day that "looks kind of set," and everything else just rolled in, from video games to webcomics, to telephone calls. My potential busiest week (and I hope it never happens!) has a Days batch on the weekend, training on the Saturday, board meeting on Wednesday, an event somewhere mid-week, and time out with family on the Sunday, all on top of regular office hours! 

I miss college now, how I only had to worry about area every Saturday morning, classes in the week, and UAAP games/Arsenal games. :p

--------------------

Growth happens and we don't always see it.

My hands are going callous again. My feet are losing their power to feel pain, as I walk on almost all sorts of surfaces now. My shoulders, left arm, my upper back all feel tighter, stiffer, and lighter. Some say I got taller, while my sensei says my back is straighter now. Old clothes feel more loose now; heck, I think I can fit into a lot of my old stuff again. The scales don't say I lose weight, but I feel... smaller, and taller at the same time.

I've been trying to be more... outgoing, I guess. I'm more talkative, more like the TnT I used to be. I am getting a little better at remembering names, and I try to be a bit more "playful" with people I talk to, without necessarily coming off as a jerk, or worse, a flirt. Heck, one girl I dealt with at work last month even said I was "very perky", which I find an unusual assessment. 

I don't think I'm as patient as I was when I was teaching children. I find my attention span going shorter and shorter. My temper, too, is coming back. Even the smallest slight is enough prompting for me to yell, and the "irritability" I picked up over law school has returned to make a second guest appearance. 

I'm starting to wonder if at the end of it all, I'll be so different a person I may not recognize myself, let alone be recognized by people who love me. 

---------------------

Sometimes when you're totally beat, I guess that prayer is really all we got.