< quote me on these >

   Not everyone granted that one day of "All Saints' Day" is a saint.

   Behold, the sarcophagus!  What do you see... a mere block of stone.

   Valor is best left to the living for nobody died because of it.

   Those who wish to be buried are those who cannot let go of living.

< now this is worth blogging about >

   The other day, during our nth class reunion, I came across a very obscure scientific fact: that tranquilizers and tequila don't mix.

   I'm on medication, and as far as I'm concerned I need to be a hell of a lot calmer.  That also means, according to my doctor, that because of the drug interactions between alcohol, Haloperidol and Chlorpromazine, I should stop drinking.  After all, I know I drink too much and I'm probably going to live the rest of my life popping typical anti-psychotics.  So I figured that if I'm gonna quit drinking but go out swinging, I should be wasted.  Thanks to cheap tequila, local vodka and a generous helping of green mangoes washed down with a few cold beers, I got knocked down good.

   I know a hangover like I do an old shoe, so after being carried away to a room where I had toxic nightmares thanks to drug interactions, I took to rationality and decided that if I'm going to be the same old liquor-swilling bastard, I must quit taking the medicines.  The more rational course of action would be simpler: while I'm on medicine, no alcohol.

< romantic experiment >

   A lot of girls I know hate the very idea of playing Warcraft III: Defense of the Ancients.  DoTA, for short.  It's not DoTA, per se, that annoys them, but the very idea of playing a computer game.  It seems like a likely tradeoff, between a real maiden and a Crystal Maiden.  Or, to play on the pun, there's a vengeful spirit behind every guy who plays a Vengeful Spirit.

   I'm used to the whining of many a girl about the mad obsessions of her boyfriend being addicted to DoTA.  But why?  It's a simple-minded game, no more than a point-and-click adventure through a battlefield.  A relationship gone "DoTA" is nothing more than a relationship gone awry because of a simple game of DoTA.  Big whoop.  They say computer games are addictive.  They're not: like smoking, the thought of playing a computer game is addictive.

   Girls: you can't expect your DoTA-addicted boyfriends to respond to your every whim.  To wish only to serve, to gladly obey, to give their lives to you if you're named Ner'Zul.  Ultimately, the choice is often between you and DoTA, right?  Wrong.  You may be looking for time with your boyfriend, a date...

   Come on, just play.

< hmmm... >

   I just had a Pepsi Cino, a coffee-flavored variant of Pepsi.  Even Coca-Cola has one: Coke Blak.  I am now thinking of the next big wave in flavoring a fine cola: one that tastes like urine.

   While urine-flavored colas wouldn't probably make the waves I'm expecting of such a product, you have to hand it to our culture.  We have come to that point in flavoring everything in coffee that you just kind of think about what this says about our lifestyles.  I'm not a coffee drinker myself, but why must everything nowadays taste like coffee?

   I know I'm dealing with extremely babaw social phenomena when I could just as easily write about the economy or how much I hate the President and would do anything to moon her blind, but that's the kind of sociology I bring to the table.  You wouldn't want me to be your teacher.

   Anyway, coffee-flavored things are symptomatic of the character of human society today: a society bound by the rules and benefits of coffee.  Coffee, like its effects, isn't taken in slowly.  The coffee break, heck, even the kaffeeklatsch, lasts exactly fifteen minutes.  That's as much time as we can spare ourselves out of 24 hours.  We become human for exactly fifteen minutes every day, thanks to the coffee break.  Before coffee became so central to the workplace, humanity was far more extended through the continuum of time.  When we started to divide our time based on the clock and its implications to production - say, the length of time it takes to bolt together a machine - we became so time-centered to the second.

   We can't seem to get enough coffee into our system that we start introducing those quick ways by which we can caffeinate ourselves and turn our circulatory systems into a series of pumps and tubes to circulate coffee into our systems.  Had the coffee-flavored candies not been enough (and they aren't), we start introducing coffee-flavored everythings: coffee colas, coffee cakes, coffee chips, coffee cigarettes, coffee wines.  Pretty soon, we start to become enveloped in the entire cultural system of coffee and why it exists: it is the social drug.

   But does it taste good?  Definitely not: we are all naturally averse to coffee.  Like cigarettes, we learn the coffee habit.  We put sugar and milk into our coffee because we don't like the taste of pure black coffee.  But we "need" the caffeine: for all its kicks, for all its social benefits, for the extra energy it gives for us to get through the day and to screw on the next bolt in that system of irrational activities put in that extensive rubric called "work."

   Anyway, back to the Pepsi Cino.  It kind of tasted good, although it seemed redundant for me to drink a coffee-flavored caffeinated drink.  And I wasn't in a hurry.  Pretty soon I'll be sucking on a coffee-flavored candy.

   Hell, I don't even drink coffee.

< hmmm... >

   I remember the time I almost went blind and was losing my balance a year ago, and thank goodness my vision is returning back to the "normal" that still requires my uber-strong eyeglasses.  I still sit pretty close to the TV and I still clutch railings in very unfamiliar places, but overall, I'm good.

   That was until I was wheeled into the emergency room a few weeks back and after further diagnosis on a caffeine-induced daytime nightmare, I was whisked off to a psychiatrist for further testing.  The result?  Suspense... suspense...

   People don't take too lightly to "diagnosis" since it is a prelude to something bad, and in my case it's something really bad anyways.  Lately I've scrapped out the "worry" factor since all the worrying in the world wouldn't do anything to me anyway.  Instead I look for the proverbial silver lining, knowing that things wouldn't be so much of a damn deal anyway if only I take a deep breath and think of the positives.

   OK, I'm barred by medical confidentiality to talk about the illness per se, but suffice to say, I am mentally ill.  It's some sort of a psychotic disorder, and while I haven't been running amok naked or while I haven't been killing people left and right like some neurotic serial killer, I am indeed sick in the head.  It's not curable and the most I can do is to inflict harm upon a legion of people if I left it untreated.

   Lemme see, if I hadn't been given the kind of will that can withstand romantic breakups left and right and countless takes of basic algebra, I would have probably left the shrink's room crying and in a shambles.  But nope, rather than mope I've taken my rather hardened soul and started taking pills.  The hallucinations are still there, and I'd graduate to a new medication soon, but hey, it's not necessarily a death sentence.

   I've always told myself that if it's not enough to kill me, it's definitely not enough.  People respond to these "life changing events" in many different ways to the point that they completely change themselves.  There are those who change the way they eat, there are those who change the way they act, there are those who change the way they think.  To me, life changing events are already enough for you to be changed, you don't have to take radical steps to change.  It's a lot like a polynomial: factoring out things need to be done a step at a time.  Life is not about that shortcut that will get you cured.

< hmmm... >

   Apparently, our President doesn't do much reading.  When she announced that we are now a "Second World country," I was ready to surrender myself to the Philippine version of the KGB for being a reactionary, or for being anything but a faithful follower of the Revolution, a reluctant traveler, part of the bourgeoisie who should be sent into a gulag or a re-education camp.  I was poised by the door ready to be arrested by the government for being either an intellectual or, plain and simply, for being an idiot.

   Further exegesis reveals that the term "Second World," following the fall of the USSR, is "now used" to describe economic conditions.  Shows you how much Gloria Arroyo knows about current affairs.  Following the dissolution of the USSR, experts in international relations skipped the trichotomy of First, Second and Third World and adopted dichotomies like "West" and "East," trichotomies like "Industrialized Countries," "Newly-Industrialized Countries," and "Developing Countries," or in most instances countries are just referred to as countries.

   Our President is an idiot.

< short take >

   When Michael Schumacher lost his final Grand Prix at Brazil (oh, excuse me, Interlagos) I almost cried.  Not because I lost a bet, but because it wasn't the fairytale ending I was expecting from the seven-time world champion.  But then again, I almost cried knowing that all the negativity surrounding Michael Schumacher has almost tainted his legacy to the sport that is Formula 1.

   Schumacher really drove like a man possessed in that race, and that to me is his legacy to F1: great driving.  You have greats in other motorsports: Valentino Rossi in Moto GP, Colin McRae in rally racing, and of course, the F1 god himself, the late great Ayrton Senna.  But the way Michael overtook Kimi Raikkonen at the difficult Senna S towards the end of the race was just a thing of beauty indeed.  The legacy of Schumacher is not the negativity surrounding him - the incident at the United States Grand Prix or how he was literally handed the win by Rubens Barrichello sometime back - but picture perfect driving.

< stupid literary thing, quite long >

   In the immortal words of Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen, "War / What is it good for / Absolutely nothing."

   They're planning on bringing Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) back again to replace National Service Training Program (NSTP).  Quite frankly, I'm against it.  I'm a victim of the high school version of ROTC: Citizens Army Training - I (CAT-I).  It was the kind of torture I refuse to subject myself to ever again.  While I favor wearing combat boots, I refuse to wear fatigues ever again.  I refuse to subject myself to the rigors of baril-barilan combat in some mountain, I refuse to march to the orders of a phonetically-challenged commander, I refuse to handle a "rifle" which is nothing more than a piece of wood, I refuse to do anything that has to do with me being a reserve of the damn Philippine Army.

   My old CAT-I fatigue jacket in the far dark corners of my wardrobe reads my name with the rank of Cadet Major (emblazoned with that single diamond) and has the position, "S3/Operations Officer," the batallion's official provost/sumbungan, the guy in charge of all the corporeal punishment dished out by the heathen batallion commander and the officer beside the screaming adjutant.  Being beside a shouting maniac did wonders for my hearing.  I may have had it lucky to earn my rank - that I'm technically a commanding officer of the Armed Forces of the Philippines - but before that I had to go through the drudgery and the shame of a bad haircut and baril-barilan war games somewhere in the mountains of the lower Cordilleras.

   Back in my Cadet Officer Qualifying Corps (COQC) days in my third year in high school, I had it far worse than a neophyte fratman.  Not only did I have to salute ranking officers even if they were mere members of the Silent Drill team, I also had to sport this ridiculous "Army-style" haircut that left me looking like an anorexic version of the Pillsbury Doughboy.  We had a PE instructor for a commandant - who had seen better days with the big paunch that was his belly - and a real hardened Army man for a non-commissioned officer.  I hated them both, together with their band of goons who were academic derelicts from the lower sections, to high heavens.

   Everytime I was eyed for punishment, though, I was cut loose.  Being the editor-in-chief of the school paper, I reserved every right to expose the corruption going on in the regiment.  I was spared from the pumpings and the squatthrusts, although I was in charge of all the paperwork from there on in.  As I slowly made my way up the ranks with administrative blackmail, the final test was about to constitute the worst day of my high school life.

   At Mt. Santo Tomas, in the effort to turn me into a real Army man from being a pencil-pushing pussy drafting PMA recommendations for the diehard officers, I was put in charge of an entire company during bivouacs, something that the more "battle-hardened" platoon leader-bound imbeciles did not take too lightly.  We won the war games by simply hiding behind the brush of the mountain's jungles, but not without me spraining my ankle, tweaking my knee and injuring my back.  Even then, I was forced to rappel and crawl across a length of nylon rope without a single ambulance or EMT in sight.  By the time I was finally welcomed into the arms of the rotten corps - not without a kabog from more than a few officers than I was willing to take a light punch in the solar plexus for - I was all-too-willing to quit and be a private for good.

   As an officer, I didn't share in the sadism of my brethren-in-arms by forcing the juice of sweaty socks to the gullets of poor dumguards, nor did I command a single platoon.  What I did, though, was to inspect dumguards and privates (sounded gay) for any sight of imperfection.  I didn't punish anyone: I was just taking them out for a ride on the carousel of demerits.  It was the kind of sick and twisted mentality that had me almost skinned alive by the commandant.

   As much fun (sort of) I had in CAT, I still can't stand the thought of doing it all over again.  When it comes down to "Twinkle-Twinkle" punishments and going through an army thing without firing a single bullet...

   Once is enough.

< hmmm... >

   I don't know if it takes a blogger to figure out the problems of the Philippines - if it ever did, we have a real problem.  I mean, it's not enough that a great majority of our people suffer from the kind of abject poverty seen only in a melodramatic portrayal of indignities.  It's not enough to say that our politicians and public administrators either have mental dysfunctions or display the kind of incompetence expected of donkeys when they run states.  It's not enough to say that we lack national pride, since we would go into endless scholarly debates on what really constitutes a "nation" or a "country."

   We are a country full of problems, but it seems to be the case that we can't get out of them.  We still seem to be stuck in those golden inopportunities, those problems that could make or break us, and we veer towards the latter.  Every opportunity that arises that would take us back to EDSA and bring democracy back to the people ends up in failure because nobody seems to care anymore, or because everyone forsees failure.  Every opportunity that seems to be the chance for us to get out of poverty ends up the very thing that makes us poor because we can't seem to risk the chances of taking up some radical new idea to fix our financial woes.  Tell a guy you're going up the mountains to become a rebel and go against the state through arms and you're labeled a "terrorist."

   And so the bulk of us become so depressed with the situation that it all boils down to an almost truistic axiom: the Philippines is the suckiest nation on Earth.  Look around: mayors get suspended during election season, our President remains a squatter in the seat of power, and the bulk of the population live the isang kahig isang tuka lifestyle that would have even the poorest of the poor questioning God's mercy.  Our country sucks: our nursing exams become botched with leakage issues and the examinees become a house divided over a retake.  Our country sucks: we focus too much on the "political" that everything becomes a political issue that even the absence of toilet paper becomes a matter of political economy.  Our country sucks: activists and journalists are being killed left and right.

   And we've been thinking of these grand schemes to alleviate our lives from the abject poverty and politics plaguing our lives.  Microcredit?  Who understands microcredit in a world where utang is understood at its most basic?  Super-regions?  Who gives hell about who belongs where if the same existence awaits those who plan on migrating somewhere?  Infrastructures?  A road is for those with cars, what about those who don't?

   The reason why this country sucks is rather simple: it is ultimately a question of values.  I'm not talking about Christian or Muslim or political values: I'm talking about those simple values that make the world work.  Boy Scouts, if not for most of them being posturing oafs who have their eyes set on a differently-colored neckerchief, would understand that a simple issue of conduct is what's wrong with this country.  Take the ULTRA stampede: in most other countries, people would have had the common sense to fall in line after what happened, but around here we still crowd about free concerts and pa-premyo gimmicks of gameshows.  Take Hermogenes Esperon getting pelted with eggs: were eggs the best way to express disagreement with his draconian policies?  Take Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales: isn't it enough that he demonstrate the conduct expected of him by not judging cases based on the kind of publicity it would take for him to be known as a "tough guy?"

   It's a simple question of values: what do we value in this country?  Take nurses: do they value the noble ends of being a nurse or do they value the ignoble ends of dollars?  Or what about the economy: do we value what's in it for us or do we value what's in it for me?  See, everything is connected.  Most of the time, we can't give one good reason to justify our actions.  Simply urinating in a wall is evidence of it.  Like I've mentioned countless times through the course of the Experiment: all the rallying in the world will not change the consciousness of those you rally for or rally against for so long as we don't question what we value.

   Try asking yourself that question.

< some blah >

   We sit together
   The mountain and I
   Until only the mountain remains.

- Li Po

   Lately I've been remembering the summer I spent in UP Diliman and how much I had a love-hate relationship with the place.  It's the people I miss the most that makes me wonder if I've ever made peace with my mind, the friendships I built and the conversations I had with my good friends now turned acquaintances.  Ever since I've been back in my own UP campus, in the comforts of yet another office (this time, the Student Council) I seemed to have allowed these friendships to wither away and the memories remain just as they are.  It seems like I don't know how to keep friends, or maybe I've just remained too preoccupied with my job to treasure them.

   Sometimes I wish I didn't make those decisions that would keep me away from my friends.  Those rash forces of habit that would have me up one second and down the next.  Somehow fate has resigned me to a life without friends to treasure and to keep.  There are those times where I wonder if I ever made a good decision in making priorities that transcend beyond my own self-interests and do things for the greater good.  When I could be hanging out in the kiosks with my friends after a particularly harassing day at the classroom, I make a beeline for the downstairs office which turns out to be my home away from my second home.  Not because I wanted to be a student councilor, but because I'm expected to at the very least be there, even if I can't do my job right.

   The point I'm trying to make is that I'm stuck in a moment, alone looking at the mountain.  I can barely recall a time I actually had friends that I was always with, save for those quick trysts with someones that kick off towards the end of a semester.  I have problems keeping my friends only because it's often those times that I am expected to be somewhere that keeps me away from my friends.  Like when those times when I was in the school paper: the friends I had were those who were in the school paper and no one else.

   But then again, I can't have my cake and eat it too.

- to erik, who has always been a friend to me, and to all the sunken garden peeps.