Alabang Shebang

28 July 2013

Been currently employed! What a surprise for me! I’ve been given access to prestigious research institutions in the Philippines, first was NIH, now RITM. And I am still apprehensive as to where this would bring me.

First was emailing my CV. The next thing I was called for an interview. The interview last Friday, July 19 led me to travel to Alabang. Instructions on how to get there care of ivanlakwatsero. What an inspiring blog he has. I was bold online to attempt chatting him on FB. The same day as that fated interview, dad called to tell us he would being arriving in Manila and that we should be prepared to meet him a little after midnight. Sam and I rushed on our general cleaning preparations. The three of us had no sleep until the next morning.

Before the interview I didn’t get to bathe and that was how it was when I traveled early Saturday morning to Calapan. Mom was to meet with dad and I was to look after Shiela. The travel went well. I was into my thinking mode again through window glimpses at the SLEX and how poetic I thought this sounded: Let the grass and the running asphalt intertwined tell the story of my life. The recompense I had was the trip inclusive Thai action movie with all its slow-motion different camera views for the action scene. They made muay thai appear as the art of both force and grace. I felt I have not given it the credit it deserved by enjoying it not as immensely as I usually would if I were on my receptive state. Back home with Shiela, I was able o do nothing. I was at odds about where I should be, what I should be doing, what purpose there is for my lie. For the first time since The Voice local franchise aired, I was able to watch it after that tear-streaked viewing time for Carlo Aquino’s MMK episode. I slept with Shiela on my arms. She’s such a wonderful, very blessing and inspiring child. As much as I would want to stay with her, I have to grow too.

I knew that. Even if belatedly, I accomplished what was expected of me. Michiko looked like a gray tiger cub in his three little pig’s-like stone house. Fluffy still looked juvenile, the same as when I left her.

The next day, I did nothing again until I had to rush on getting back to Manila for the first day of work on Monday. Mom and dad arrived before I was even ready. Our kind-natured neighbors dropped me off by the municipal road where I rode Ka Pael’s trike to the port.

On the bus, Jack the Giant Slayer was playing and I missed most of its parts because one of my fellow passengers started preaching. It was a novelty. My seatmate was all fatherly he was laughing at my reactions to the movie.

Since then it has been work time for me. I don’t want the idea of I don’t belong and I am not needed here again to take root in my being. I was carefully observing what everyone else was doing, trying to make small talk with each one.

Day 1: Not so late. Still trying to find out what I should be doing in the lab. Sir Philip and Ma’am Pearl were the people I talked to and was with most of the time. Why not? We were on the Enterics team. Basically. I was like Sir Philip’s shadow, trailing after him. Had a free ride in Sir Edson’s lift from RITM to the terminal with Ma’am Pearl, and Sir Jun. Though I was exhausted, I pushed on with shopping for groceries. Made use of tape as hair clip for today.

Day 2: No buses in Manila starting this day. I scrambled to make it early. Good thing I heard Ma’am Jo and Ma’am Pearl and Sir Mark (He just told me last Friday to not call him Sir but this was last Tuesday, an exception) talking about how I would get to Alabang via the LRT-Alabang jeep route. We had ice cream too during lunch. I was almost sure I am late since I was struggling to find the cybervan to RITM. I wasn’t late and I followed Sir Philip around again while humming and reading to myself about Department of Micro basics. Way back home I was on the bus marked Plaza Dilao. Just where could Plaza Dilao be? I was seated beside a man whom I thought was drunk. He was friendly but his breath smelled differently during his frequent coughing that I was somehow alarmed that he might be infected with TB. He reminded me so much of Tetsuro from About His Brother. I was almost sorry I had to be indifferent to him. There was this ruckus at the street by Quirino cor. Pedro Gil. Soon a man, a civilian in black, was helping the traffic enforcer with the traffic under the seldom tiny drops that were still falling. The road decongested. Only then did I realize that that man was Carlos Celdran. The bus driver told me I was impatient. Oh yes I was. I attempted to alight somewhere before P. Gil and Vito Cruz. Good thing the bus driver intervened with that foolish plan. I came home to cook dinner and sleep. I felt drained from lack of sleep.

Day 3: I went on the wrong route. This commuting adventure got me a late mark on my timecard. The bus travelled the Las Pinas route and the jeep left me more impatient in the Alabang Metropolis traffic. Commuting is teaching me patience and prudence. I have short supply of these apparently.  I’m sorry that when I arrived Sir Philip was done with bench A work, receiving specimens and doing preliminary work-up. He was still kind enough to allow me to work with API 20 NE. It’s fun! Bought rice and upo from Don Robert’s with Ma’am Joy for lunch. Sir Armand and Ma’am Mel shared me their meatballs with misua and upo meal. Pushed on to get load using paper bills from the automated load machine despite the pains we both got during our last encounter. Through Ma’am Bing and Ma’am Winnie’s help, I got my load! Dad arrived today back in Manila and it made me more taxed that I had to endure this FTI – Pasay Rtd jeep line. I didn’t know better. I just overheard Ms. Pearl telling me that I should ride the Rotonda jeep. It’s raining again. I came home to tinola and fried chicken cooked by dad. I came home late I didn’t do anything more.

Day 4: This time I’m early. API reading for me! I was ‘microscoping’ on India ink and Gram stained smear.  This was my “atribida” day. It was implied to me that I am an atribida. Maybe because when Alissa was asking about ONPG and she said ornithine I said yes. My bad. It was very easy to assume that I was playing know-it-all.

Day 5: Plating! Oh how fun! I was actually practicing somehow. When I was performing API tests last time, I was thrilled and fulfilled. I had my quiet concentration time. I loved it! There’s peace in what I was doing. And now, plating, Sir Philip said I had to have a light hand during streaking, akin to painting and coloring. It was my first time to buy barbecue from the cafeteria I accidentally subscribed myself to the COOP discount. How much fun this is! Ma’am Sally was also giving a lecture on sensitivity testing. I am in a place where I would work with experts. It’s great!

Void

18 July 2013

Got it now! What made my time at NIH unbearable is my inability to grasp the world. Listen here, before, I’ve always lived more to be understood and not as much as to understand though I claim to be doing that. I’ve limited the world into my idea of it, seeing it according to my circumstances or seeing it as it is, fully blinded that I could be part of its other parts I am not a part of. Sounds confusing? The same with me too but that’s the gist of it. I see the world as separate from the world I am in now, as if they are not a part of each other. I’ve isolated myself to my little world and to the idea that I could not be a part of the world that I’ve never been previously a part of though I am aware that it exists. I only saw that I have this life to live and that the other possibilities of life for me are just there but it’s not for me to join or mess with. How wrong!

John Trimble nailed it when he said, to the amateur writer [or speaker] (I just added this in context but John never mentioned speaking, his book was on writing.), he seems to make perfect sense and is convinced that because he understands it clearly, the reader [and listener] will get it exactly as he understands it though he merely conveys it in vague manners, simply like putting thoughts in paper. That’s what I’ve always done! That’s how I lived by! I never put into consideration how the reader and listener would receive what I’m saying. I expect that they would already understand it simply because it makes sense to me. In that same faulty manner, it hit me that I was seeing my world disjointed and unattached from the rest of the world that I do not entangle myself with anything that doesn’t seem to suit the flavor or color or any attribute of my current world. I was too preoccupied with self-expression to no end I no longer considered the benefit of what I am doing for other people. Probably, I was just wasting other people’s time and was wondering why they haven’t felt enlightened at all with me around!

The frustration of not being understood lies there! You may express yourself but do not demand understanding if it was not part of your intentions while you were creating to be understood. Oh, I was just too greedy, demanding everything with a single effort. The more I want, the more effort I should give. Something’s out there beyond, not within the circumscribed sphere but very much wanted, find a clean way of getting it!

The weak spot has just been identified! The cause of operations failure, spotted. There is also a world out there, you are a part of it. That world outside yourself is a world you are a part of and you want it to validate your being a part of it. There’s no better way for it to validate you than you to find ways to convey to it your need, to convey to it clearly and unmistakably, transferring from your own world to the outside world your thoughts as unadulterated as possible. That’s the point of communication and that’s why I’m failing at it! Whew!

Unlike the cell that has a semi-permeable membrane surrounding it to preserve its integrity while allowing an exchange of contents from both sides, an individual ion-gated channel was all that I had, a very restrictive barrier. I kept myself so isolated from the rest of the world and now I wonder at the alienation? It’s hilariously insane. What a laugh this would be!

To the endless horizon

12 July 2013

Intentions were absent. Maybe they were there, subconsciously. But now, I actively work to attain amusement and happiness. I am willing to make efforts and to spend for me to be happy. Guilt is not much associated with my lopsided perception of opulence. It was I who set this rigid limits of what was for me, of what level I could stay, of where I should be, of how I should live, of who I should talk to. They are being demolished. I am being given the unhampered view of how high I could soar and how low I could fall. If only I would want, I would ask and then it would work. I could be all things good and all things bad. I could be anyone at this point. When I should be doing something, the first question is not “Why should I?” but “Why shouldn’t I?”

This must be cosmic air. I inhale it and I know I have re-learned what I always knew. It would make sense but I shouldn’t rush it.

My life is being made full. These moments of grief, they will end as with all other moments. I will grow. No matter how much I’ve been savagely cut, I will bloom again. It is not something I could control. It’s just who I am and I can’t stop it. Sam said that since I was depressed with my work, she saw me as someone more human. What was I before an automaton? Must be. I was so cold and independent, I relied mostly on what I could do, on what I have. Far worse, I existed only for the win. The glimmer of gold has blinded me from seeing that this brand of victory wasn’t the one that I should bank my life on. It is easy to wreck and I will be beyond repair if that was all that I had.

I am more forgiving of others, only harsher on myself. I do not forgive myself, calling a stricter code upon my actions and thoughts. If I am truly free, why do I improvise chains for myself? It’s laughable how stuck-up I am with my incompetence I let everything else fall. As I hear Joseph and John comment on how I said Beiber sounds like a girl, “Not anymore!”

I have many more tomorrows before me. My first obligation is not to a job that chokes life out of me but to life which has stayed with me as long as my memory permits. Again, this is not the ending of endings. Game over flashes before my screen but I still have tokens to insert in the slot. Game on! 

Who is Eiga Sai

12 July 2013

 The first time I went there was with Jello. It was during the invitationals where he introduced me to MCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art and Design) people. There was Ms. Lara who happened to reside in the same building as me; Ms. Patty whom Jello said always come to work looking the way she did that night, always freshly made up; Ms. Pernia, DAC (Department of Arts and Communications) professor at CAS (College of Arts and Sciences) and Ms. Cruz.

To keep myself from being late for the event, I left the office at 4pm, only to end up buying Sam’s goggles and denatured alcohol from Handyman as advised by Ms. Marianne and Ms. Ruby of DEOH (Department of Environmental and Occupational Health). I went there initially for Aids but since he was out, it was Ms. Marianne who told me where I could purchase those items from and the retail price of the denatured alcohol.

I still made it before the beginning of the program, 6:30 pm, but I wasn’t able to help Jello with his kite-material purchasing. Since we haven’t confirmed how we were to enter the set-up space for Eiga Sai’s opening, we decided to eat out first. I had a Wham! Burger. Sam and I were on a budget especially since I will be unemployed for a while and I won’t be earning anything. Well, I still had the burger. It wasn’t everyday that I would be spending that much and Jello assured me that the film would be shown for free.

By the time we got back, we were allowed to enter the cordoned space around the ground floor’s fountain. The simple opening rites involved the national anthem of the Philippines and Japan being played. We weren’t feeling at all about Japan’s national anthem. It was as if it was an unheard of song. It was pure sound, without any lyrics and nobody was really singing. Even the Japanese ambassador who gave his welcome speech shortly after didn’t sing. It was infuriating to see how people from the higher levels of the mall, though I’m sure they hear the anthem playing, didn’t pay the respects due to the Philippine anthem at least, discounting the raised flag on the rather short pole. Are we that selfish and stuck-up in our own little worlds? (Hearing me talk it wasn’t as if I’m hung-up on my previous employment. I made it my life. Then it kicked me away. Ugh. This emo me is nauseating.)

We lined up eventually at cinema 2. About Her Brother started with Aoi Yui’s narration of her life up to her marriage where her uncle is first shown. The customs of Japanese people are surprising for me and probably, normal for them. Marriage rites were in a closed door ceremony and all that happened there would only be retold to the visitors during the reception. It was way too formal. All the time before the uncle started the ruckus where he battered the usher’s head with the microphone, what he did was acceptable for me but was shameful and annoying for all the others there. That gave me the impression of how uptight they are. The brother, Tetsuro, was actually charming. It’s as if he can’t help acting the way he acted because that’s who he is.

How they managed to live day to day in way too cleaned-up houses, the systematic arrangement and undisrupted flow of systems, why couldn’t we Filipinos lead that life too? Is it a prevailing lack of discipline? Is it laziness? Maybe both. When I was still dragging myself to work, I wasn’t that tired, I knew that I had energy to spare if I really wanted to but I let Sam do the household chores because I knew she wasn’t doing anything else. And when I pushed myself to fix everything before resting, what I thought was, there’s still tomorrow to finish that which you’re doing. It reminded me of ate Grace too and how I thought it lazy of her not to tidy her house of dust when she’s practically got nothing else to do when she arrives home from work. Being tired is only in the mind. It only extends as much as you think you are in it.

Ginko, the older sister of Tetsuro, was an amazing character. She’s dependable, always calm, reliable and kind. She excelled at everything. She would do everything well and good. There were these shots where she was shown to take refresher courses for pharmacy, and calligraphy classes. She’s brilliant. I remember Tetsuro saying, “That’s for you to say when everything you work on comes easy for you.” Replete with the close-knit neighborhood congeniality, the story went on until the part where Tetsuro died. Occasionally, the director focused the camera on stills or objects before continuing on with the story line. It could be an empty hall, the pharmacy door, the wind chime. It brought a sense of calm and rest in the film. This was a recurrent style for Japanese films as I have observed this in all four I’ve watched so far.

It was as if the perfection and stability that came with Ginko whittled out Tetsuro’s futile attempts at life. Tetsuro was having difficulty with living just because he wasn’t able to keep up with society’s standards.

Watching other offerings at this year’s Eiga Sai, I thought that Japanese culture flourish because their people appreciate their art. See their movies and know that they were created not only for profit but more for art and expression. These same intentions make those films earn money. And as I hear the couple who were next to me in line, yes, the Philippine consulate in Japan could conduct parallel film showing sessions! Isn’t it the Japan-Philippines friendship month? Can’t we sponsor or at least arrange for paid views of Filipino films there and ask them as well if they are concerned about our lackadaisical but intriguing culture-influences as depicted in our films? Wouldn’t this be an efficient promotion of Philippine tourism?

The run and re-run of overused film storyline and the emergence of a generation of artists portraying films for the sake of art and expression should be spark enough to infuse in the consciousness of other nations that film and art in the Philippines exists. Aren’t we convinced? I don’t want to dismiss the surfeit of talent I’ve seen among the illustrators and animators in the recent Oh No! Manga Cosplay Camp 2. Don’t we have other outlets for our creative energies? We have our own brand of art–the lushness of music, dance, fashion, architecture and style. Shouldn’t we take ourselves a level up and not stop? But oh we do. We stop to catch our moments of happiness. We stop to refill our reservoir of inspiration as we are surrounded by truly depressing sights of dilapidation. We take time to motivate ourselves, contrary to what Japanese value as I’ve watched for hours through their films - success. We use our time instead to live.

Must be back on track again

2 July 2013

Funny how after I started this blog I meant to battle my fearlessness then all of my fears emerged, plaguing me at the same time in hordes. What happened to me this past few months have escaped documentation. Each day ends without any resolution or integration eventually all of the following days became meaningless.

Most of the things that happen day by day are so detached from me, I could actually see myself doing things I never thought I would be doing without any purpose or explanation from my part except for, “He/she told me that.” Meaningless and hopeless sorrowful mechanical existence was not only defined but experienced. There are lots of actions and conversations that do not make sense to me.

Incidents like those multiply and my mind does not let go of any until it becomes explained, justified or intellectualized. My mind works on the premise: everything has a reason and I would accept it after I get a grasp of what the reason is. More and more of those occurrences accumulated and preoccupied my brain; I could not function well anymore.

That was when the dark cloud descended. Cozily it settled on both shoulders and wrapped itself around my neck. It was a scarf that fits perfectly. Grief was its name. Depression was what it elicited from me.

I was at most times confused, doubtful, guilt-ridden and fully-dependent on intuition or was it guts? When people around me act contrary to what they say, how am I to adjust and adapt to them? When they see only their side of things, refuse to accept objective and realistic reasons, and, doubt everything you say to the point you also doubt yourself, should I still say in that type of environment? Up to this point I still can’t make out my mind why I did not get along well with them. Am I not sociable? There was something in the atmosphere that stops me from being myself. What could that be? Why am I easy to disappoint? Why am I easy to discourage? Why do I learn so easily that when I get hurt once, I never venture to get myself hurt again?

 I have this perception that to them everything about me is off. So I keep myself from them and that takes its toll on me. I acted awkwardly. I was hurting myself by hiding just so I could protect myself and protect them from me. A dastardly exhaustive existence that was. Add my neuroticism and the depression that of course was growing side by side self-pity. If before I was only unsure of where I was going but I somehow believed in myself, now, I only believed that there was a one true God and that He remains God even as I suffer and he remains shushed.

Micai has David to lend and David lends me a flashlight

12 July 2013

Throughout my almost reaching the neutral zone to the end of my non-extended contract, it was Micai and her passion for reading bolstering me up. Sam was of course my main support system but outside the family circle, Micai was my to-go gal. She lent me David Levithan books.

Everyday was refreshing. It was written simply but lyrically. It was open and was androgynous. It spoke of longing to belong and wanting to have someone to be intimate with. Isn’t that something everyone desires?  In my flat dimensional existence before this period of grief I found it non-compulsory to have someone to spend the rest of my life with. The downfall told me otherwise. Suddenly I wanted to belong to someone. I craved acceptance and always felt how I stuck out, how I was always the onlooker, the part of the crowd who was there but who never was one of the crowd. I wanted to be surrounded by people. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to belong. I wanted to be comfortable around people. I did not want the feeling of being alone in the crowd any more. It’s as if I suddenly can’t stand it. I want to continue to talk on and on and be listened to. I wanted to be acknowledged for who I am. There’s this longing for companionship and socialization. It was a need I never recognized before pain as self-destructive as this.

It was brave of A to give Rhiannon away to Alexander Lin. Then I was castigating myself again, "If someone has the right to complain his fate, it was A than you dearie. You still have a shot in life though you do not know where that is." As for the bodies he inhabited, they were universal-the fat, the addicted, the very beautiful, the recently from an accident, the athlete, the aspirant, the responsible, the obedient, the brute. It was a wonderful way to earn back one’s self respect. A was sublime in a way. He was admirable because he held out on his own all his years. He developed principles though no one directly taught him. He knew respect and love though there was no one to give those to him directly. He was knowledgeable and responsible, considerate and sensitive. He showed me how the vacation from myself would have been. Flash-pop-pop emerged my motto: you still have today and this today, you still can change. I am not that entirely hopeless. If in my lifetime, I wouldn’t see God moving the rock I’ve been pushing my whole life long, the fact that He called unto me to push it is enough.  

Micai also sent me the Lover’s Dictionary to peruse. I read it twice. If that was love, losing oneself in a togetherness that was as precarious as our passing days, what happened to me wasn’t love. It was destructive. My life seemed to have been summarized to those five months that I don’t stop talking about it at all. I’m still trying to find meaning in any of it I can’t go on to think of anything else. I know I haven’t been all too disadvantaged at that time but there was no joy at all, I was constantly silenced and wronged I was lost at always thinking that what was right would be something I would not do or would not think of doing. I have to stop. If I continue to see things in light of that experience, I will continually allow it to mar the rest of my still fresh and splendid life. I do believe that I will laugh at these remembrances. Time will come when I will only laugh at how I meekly trudged on like sheep for slaughtering. They butchered me into a weakling. I can be like that. The possibilities are still endless. I can turn my life to whatever I want to be. It’s scary-amazing!

I do not wish to be back the way I was. All that was is not for nothing. I have never been through an emotional blip blop as I did. The range of my emotions were never this overwhelmingly powerful and their transitions weren’t as instantaneous. If for anything, it would be a wellspring of emotion should the time come that I would need to manufacture emotions for a living.

The idea of writing non-chronologically thoughts and instances on love and repeating some of the entries with variations under different word entries–unassuming genius. What’s with David Levithan’s writing that makes it easy to relate to and very heartfelt regardless of the simplicity by which he writes? Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist was also an affirmative rebuke. By golly they’re only 16 and they have undergone as out-of-self pain and move on as fast? In comparison, why am I so hang-up and slow to progress? Fictional characters they may be but their rants are easy to identify with. They have each other. They try to come out of it. They are confused. They don’t know what to do. They are honest to each other, revealing themselves openly. They are fortunate that they both listen, that they both accept.

What am I doing and who am I doing it for?