Cloth for Nothing

There's so much to say of a story that no one bold enough dared to speak. To some it's a casualty. To others it's a feat. Doubtless though it remains, the story was etched in the hands of time. Gone with the swift, gentle blow of the wind. Kept silenced forever by the guardian of the night.

This moment,
I write the saddest line.

I rummaged it up
from a dirt-laden,
stockpiled pieces of cloth.

I used to wear them
once even felt so
relaxed on my bod.

In fact, I used to look
good on them.

I loved to flaunt them,
as a calvin klein
or a dkny hunk would.

The skimpiness
of the cotton fabric
touts my slender fit.

How i admired it,
plus adored and deified!

Now stained and blooded,
ripped and tattered,
I'll use it for the last time

Just to sort of remember
that the saddest line
was once the Happy one.

Boring Class Wears Prada

Class was boring this morning. I was somewhat lethargic. I didn't know the exact the reason why. I was thinking if it's about the other one leaving today or I am just basically feeling languished.

I felt I was babbling. And I don't make sense. If I did, maybe my class didn't understand my discussions.

Oh crap.

One thing I disgust is to be caught unprepared in front of a crowd. Though those people in front of me are 4 years my junior, and they basically may not have any effing idea of what's running inside my head, it's an awful feeling that I was like taking baby steps trying to make sense.

I am not really ranting here but my God, I was making a way to reach out because I will be spending my time with these kids for ten full months, and at this point I am like lost child in the wilderness.

On the other side though, what I am doing right now is pretty much exciting.

For one, I am exercising something I have often shrugged off before - to talk in front of people. I am looking at this as some kind of a training, some kind of an obstacle course I have to pass thru to reach a certain end. Not bad. Let's just say, I am like trying to improve myself in within a structure that is compatible with my capacity. Argh. That's pretty bad. But oh well, that's just it. I have to do something about it.

Another is that I am liked involved in a science project-experiment. I as the scientist and my students, the hamsters.

Hmm. Nasty.

But why not? This is the first time I going to teach seriously. This is the first time I am going to handle an advisory class. This is my chance of becoming an, err, a mentor. Big words for a growing kid.

I resolved that bottomline, changes that I want to make for the future lie in the input that I gambled in feeding on tomorrow's generation. Yikes. So much for someone who's internal struggle is bigger than what it appears to be. So much for my patriotic, love-of-country side.
I may not know what's going on inside my students' heads. But somewhat, somehow, I want to be part of it. Take a peek on it. Hold it. Perhaps, control it. So devilish, but so like me.

Darn, I watched the Devil Wears Prada the other day. I found myself understanding the world better. Simply put, there are things that we do not want to do and there are things that we are compelled to do because we have to. Our emotions, our interests become irrelevant because we're left with no other choices but to take what is already before us.

What we don't understand is that though we are just being pushed to do something, we are learning throughout the process. The way may be hard. The road may be very steep. Still, in the process we don't actually lose. In fact, we end up with our own gain.

The world we live in is so demanding, like Miranda. So cunning. So controlling. Andy succumbed to Miranda's will simply because she's her boss. Andy hated it. In fact, she was ranting like hell. But as she ranted more, she achieved more that eventually Miranda clandestinely liked the way she worked. Miranda even chose her to go with her to France over a more seasoned employee.

Andy eventually loved her work. Or let's just say she was consumed by every nitty gritty of her job. She let herself be dominated by her boss until a life of her own vanished into thin air. Only then did she realize, after she had gained almost everything she never wanted that there are more important things than that-her relationship with her boyfriend. After her character developed throughout the "tests" she went through, was she able to get a life of her own and gain her dignity.

Ah. Sweet plot. True enough, no pain, no gain.

The Destiny of a Paperboat

Work is the absolution from pain, an escape even from
the menial of burdens, and a temporal release from a
baggage of pestering thoughts.

Work officially started last monday. It was a
hodgepodge of emotions that I felt. I was excited at
one point since I can now channel some repressed
emotions in favor of doing a handful of jobs. There was
a struggle at the other side, whether I am doing what I
am destined to do. I believe that I am meant for
something else.

And I have to content myself that this is just a means
to my end. An end that remains unthinkable at the
moment.

Right now, I am teaching. I took. Nah. I was assigned
to take part-time teaching load in the school that the
organization I am currently affiliated with manages. By
the way, it is a Christian school. Which perhaps gives
you a drift that I am working for a Christian
organization.

And I am beginning to be proud of it. Why beginning?
Because it took me quite some time to dig into the
conduits of my brain and accept that I am somewhere
across the far-flung area of the Philippines, took a bold
step to search for a territory totally unfamiliar to me,
and pushed the limits of an internal philosophical
debate to revert back where I began: the facet of my
faith.

Going back to the assigned thing. It wasn't really my
cup of tea to handle a boardmarker and strike it on the
white board to reiterate that a subject always agrees
with its verb in number, or that writing any research
paper requires you to have a topic first. It wasn't my
choice. But I don't have any other choices because
somehow, somewhat I have to earn a meager sum
here in the other side of the world in order to sustain
my deviance.

Let me clarify that point. It's not that I don't have any
choice at all. That would be too pitiful of me to
become. I don't have any choice because I am trying
to reconciliate a choice that is purposeful. To leave,
therefore, and go back to Manila and embrace a
callcenter-ish bread and butter rests afar my
imagination.

Now I could say I am pretty much enjoying what I am
doing here. Or well, trying to enjoy? Or making myself
believe that I am enjoying. Whatever. Point is at least
there is something that I am keeping myself busy with.
The operative word here is BUSY.

Just like an empty trash bin, an empty time is likely to
be filled by clutters. In fact, at the moment they start
to flux, it would be barely possible to out-breath them.
The freer the time, the more chances of looking back,
tracing back, and mulling over things passed. Things
that will NEVER ever get back.

A logical, thinking mind would say that it is so pathetic
to just sit down on an empty corner and to savour the
emptiness induced by the turbulent waves of time.
PATHETIC. So it is. But could it be that staying without
any reason at all is pathetic as being suaded by the
most irrelevant of experiences and the top among the
me-wants-to shrug it off phases in life?

Which leads me to what and where I am right now. I
am piece of paperboat drifting and drifting across a
tranquil ocean whose depth remains unmeasured and
whose temper will always be vulnerable. I am a piece
of paperboat ambling amidst the vastness of the
ocean, trying to seek for an island which will finally
quench my longing--to finally find a place I will call my
HOME.

One Cold Night

There was no cooling system in sight. Not even a fan was at a-hand’s-grasp to relieve what supposedly had overtaken my body. Funny! It was a summer night. But it felt like it was seven months after. I could still hear the feathered-creature humming outside my windows. They muddled with the strings the almost un-heavenly chorale of cicadas produce. They all confuse my senses more.

Should I shift my attention to the numbing cold or in protecting my ears from that discordant sound?