I think some time last year, I wrote a post issuing a war on poetry. And here I am posting two consecutive posts featuring just that.

I've had my email address for about seven or eight years now? Amazing, huh? No wonder it seems so juvenile. Along with the typical down sides to having such an old email address (cramped inbox, lots of spam and reeeeaaaally sad name) there are also some good sides.

Looking through my inbox and the record of ALL my sent messages makes me nostalgic. I reached a point in my inbox wherein the only emails I got were from my School Newspaper Editor, Lana. (We're still amazingly close until now, due to the bond of our oober fangirlingness of all that is Johnny's Entertainment)

So most of the emails consisted of my poetry submissions, article submissions, revisions, edits and random stuff. We're separated by 5 years, she being the senior, but we related well. Whether it was because my mind was mature or she had her childhood spirit still instilled inside of her is beyond me.

The good thing about old emails is that with the messages, you also get a lot of old attached files. See, in 2nd Year High School, my laptop, along with all my files, articles and poems died. So I really had no backups for them

But after having scanned my email, I was delighted to see that I could re-download all my attached files. Needless to say, not all my literary masterpieces could be salvaged from this crude blast of nostalgia, but some of them could and were.

I'm reading a few of them now, and I must say, I was a very scary child o_o

One of the few poems I wrote, approximately when I was in 4th Grade was this.

Untitled

Fake smiles adorn my face
As I float down the halls
Filled with false memories and regrets
But my heart is heavy as the bells ring…

I try to hide the tears with laughter
Laughter of things that have nothing
No meaning, no sense
I try to drown myself in false hope

What did you do to me?
Is this what I deserve?
I hide under my covers out of the light
Trying to hide from the sorrows and remorse

Feeling escapes me
In a desolate state of numbness
The secluded corner of my heart
Still crushed from your words…

Those haughty words of discontent…
The battle in my heart which you brought about
Still not won by either side
Filled with joys fabricated from my need

The disarray of my soul
Still fails to be sorted
In the uproar of memories of supposed happiness
And memories meant to be forgotten.

I try to piece together what I had
The veiled secrets that I tried
So hard… so very hard to conceal
The adamant longing to live

The vague picture of happiness
Does it exist?
All seems shattered
And my soul left in a flaccid state

I try not to look… I try not to fear
The inconsequential conditions that haunt me
Why does it feel this way?
The foul and malevolent memories plague me…

My state of being seems shrouded
In what seems to be a gaunt tear in reality
Should I search for something…
Something to placate this feeling…?

No… I’d rather keep it this way
In my dormant state of nothingness
In the equanimity of my soul
Silence…

I felt that way…
Now with nothing to foster true hope
Now, then and soon to come
Upon the scolding heat of rebuke…

You sever any glint of bliss
I feel I must go away
Escape the noxious fumes of your arrogance
What am I to become?

Crushed…?
Shattered…?
Lost…?
Or just hidden…?


Note the excessive [mis]use of ellipsis, characteristic of my pre-Sir-Joey-educated self.

I was a SCARY SCARY SCARY youth. Right now I'm seriously wondering where all this angst came from, and where it all went. I mean, I used to be so --- poetic. Where did all that go o_o

What scares me most is that this poem, written roughly five or six years ago, is eerily similar to how I've been feeling the past few months.

Premonition much?

Either way, I was a troubled child, but an artistic one. I'm guessing all my literary prowess in poetry has since then been transmuted into that of journalism. Who knows when the alchemy happened, it just did.

I truthfully hope though, that one day, my talent will come back to me D: I never really did remember why I stopped writing poems, or why I started disliking them so much.

Probably a trip back to my old post on poetry would do the trick.

Either way, nostalgia ensues. Amazing, isn't it?

Lol, I woke up from another crying dream today. I have no idea why I was crying :)) All I know is that in this dream I liked somebody and that somebody kept trying to pair me up with somebody else and it annoyed me, and when I woke up I was in tears :)) Such a weird dream. (P.S. I'm using 'somebody' because I REALLY have NO IDEA who the person in my dream was, not because I'm masking someone's identity)

Immediately after I had the immense need to rekindle my fangirl self.

My first search was of course, Arashi.

They're doing well, as usual.

I didn't bother with HSJ because I hear the fandom's quite dead right now. Amma wait for it to rekindle.

After I went on to NEWS and then shortly after my Korean Fix.

And then I noticed something adorable.

Kibum + Donghae = Kazunari Ninomiya @_@

Or maybe Kibum + Kazunari Ninomiya = Donghae

Either wayyyyyy, they all look like each other :P

So addition to my vast library of Johnny's Pictures, which, if you read my LJ, you'll know the hierarchy of, I have a new folder dedicated to Donghae and a subfolder dedicated to KiHae.

Heechul has also made it into my library.

So congratulations to my new fandom inductees.

Gah I am so bored D:

I just had a very blah conversation awhile ago. It made me remember things. It also made me want to dig up some buried memories.

Just like this poem.

LOVE

I love your smile, it makes my day.
A burning feeling deep in my heart
Passionately listening to your stories,
Deeply taking note of anything you say,
For every moment with you is like heaven.
I love you when you’re sad
Gaining the chance to comfort you;
When you’re happy,
Because it makes me happy too.
I love you when troubles are ahead.
I will be your most trusted shield
Defending you from life’s dilemmas
I will be your everlasting shadow
Guiding your every move
And like the wind,
I will whisper to you softly
Reminding you that you are never alone.
The heart shows when it cannot hold the love within itself anymore.
And when I look into your eyes,
This is exactly what happens.
Even if it was just a glimpse,
I knew that you were the one for me.
Don’t ever think I never looked at you,
But the fear of rejection took over;
I would rather look at you for a thousand years and be unnoticed
Than talk to you and be cast off.
I do wish you are crying,
For with tears you show me that you are touched,
And nothing else could satisfy this urge to go on.


I doubt the person who wrote this for me even remembers that he wrote it. And if he does, he probably regrets it. Especially now that I've put it up for the entire world to see :P

This poem wasn't actually written as is. It was a series of little encouraging messages that the person sent me when I was sad. In one of our later conversations he sent me a word file with all of them compiled to form this beautiful but rather incoherent poem.

I'd say that it's the thought that counts, but in this case there mustn't have been much thought put into it in the first place.

Idunno.

It's sad how you can be so close to a person one day and so far away the next. This poem dates back to circa 2006-2007 if I'm not mistaken. :P I haven't talked to the guy since.

Life is full of metaphors. When you see them, you're put into such a state of discernment, it's almost overwhelming.

Personally, mine is full of metaphors. Some I've discovered through time and some that just pop out of nowhere during strained conversation.

One day, during summer vacation, I had found a tiny cellphone battery. Well, later on however, I'll discover that it didn't just pop out of nowhere. It was right in its box, where it was supposed to be, ever since I signed up for this new phone.

So I had been carrying, essentially, a phone with an empty battery cartridge.

That day, the battery came to me with a magic-like warranty. In my sleep that warranty screamed in my head that it would last a lifetime. Or at least for the lifetime that the phone would come to reach. So realizing I had nothing to lose, I put it in my phone.

It was a perfect fit.

For a month it sat in my phone. My phone never came to life.

The battery was useless without a charger.

When school enrollment came, I had hopes or buying that new charger. But just as uncertain buyers go, I limited myself to canvasing the possibilities, window-shopping for that charger. I missed the chance to buy it, and for two more weeks, my phone went uncharged.

One fateful day, I had chanced upon a charger sale. I seized the chance and bought it.

The next few days were an awkward adjustment period. I was enjoying my new found utility. And for fear of ever losing it, kept it perpetually attached to its charger. I never wanted to run out of battery. This battery, out of all the batteries I had come upon had been the best - the most long lasting. It brought me some of the most meaningful experiences in my life, not to mention 3 new contacts on speed-dial.

As you can probably guess... it was too good to be true.

Four months in and the battery fried. There were days when it'd come loose. Sometimes, it would cause my phone to hang. And times when I needed it the most, it would run out. After much denial and failed attempts at fixing it, it gave way.

I dug for the warranty buried deep in piles of trash and found it, only to discover it was void. I did have something to lose.

Now that my too-good-to-be-true cellphone experience seems to be coming to an end...

Do I remove my battery and dispose of the charger?

I can always try to keep my phone connected to the power supply and leave it on charge mode permanently. But that causes stress on the battery, as most electronic appliance users should know. It damages the battery even more, and hurts your phone as well.

The battery is dead, and the temptation of charging it might just drag my phone down with it.

What do I do now...?

I thought this post would be pretty good when I thought about it. I mean I HAD to make my comeback into blogging memorable right?
But now that I'm actually here on my computer writing it, I have no idea what to say.

Earlier this morning I had all this pent-up stress and self-doubt. Not to mention the big discouragement that is basically the equivalent of the complete lack of ceteris parabus which constantly plagues my standards and ideals - the firebreathing dragon that is that evil hag who strikes such feelings of inferiority and uncertainty into the hearts of those unprepared

But seriously, WTF. Everybody would scoff at me and say that my hatred for all things related to that dragon were irrational. Well I think they're pretty warranted now.

I don't know about you, but teachers that back up their ideals by negative reinforcement and throwing demoralizing insults and threats just lose my respect completely. I mean, it's happened with almost every teacher I've known. Heck, even I do it sometimes. But what kind of teacher uses it as the base foundation of her teaching? I know that teacher has some favorites and on occasions because of the intensity of her favoritism the negative foundation of her teaching seems to be cancelled out, but how is it that I'm the only one who notices from the get-go, not having to have the situation get to that point when you just want to strangle someone.

Blah, I'm not even making sense anymore. I just reread that paragraph and it's like mental throw-up. Excuse me for that.

Basically, all I want to say is that a teacher that makes her student/s feel THAT worthless about him/themself/ves, regardless of the general morale of a class, will never earn my respect. It may not make sense to anybody (actually, I'm pretty sure it won't), but yeah, I'm venting. Humor me.

Which brings me to another point of analysis.

WHAT THE EFF IS WRONG WITH ME????

Why do I feel bad when others don't? Or feel a hundred times worse when they do? Why do I set my standards so high that it makes it impossible to just be happy and why, after continuously being reassured of my worth and value do I feel like a little worm on the pavement?

Maybe it was how I was raised. When your every movement is subject to critique, some point in time you're bound to crack. Think of my life up to this point as a bunch of comminuted fractures which haven't been treated. By the end of it all I'm just broken equipment.

I don't know. It's like people try to fix me when they assure me that I'm okay, that I'm fine. But they're just using staples and adhesive tape and glue and it really doesn't help?

Sigh, I don't know.

Which leads me back to how I'm in such a fragile state right now. And Iliad just isn't helping.

Sigh, owell. Better just take some happy pills and deal with it.

That was a sucky comeback...

Lol so now that ACET applications are over I feel like sharing my essay a bit :P Nobody's read it yet and I feel so deprived of praise :)) I'm Kidding. I just need something to post :P please do excuse any grammatical errors since I am just copying off my ROUGH DRAFT since my softcopy seems to be missing :P.

Boggle
Being asked to define myself by my missions, goals, achievements and philosophies has been a recurring dilemma lately. I could never really find the words to express myself. Everything that would come into my head would be too abstract to put into coherent thought. Because of this, some would view my vague and uncertain answers worrying. I, however, find them reassuring.

Ever since I could remember I could never really consider myself a focused person. I had trouble focusing, not in the sense that I lacked commitment in my endeavors, but in the sense that my interests were always too broad and spread out that I could never really concentrate on just one.

When I was four, my mother enrolled me in extracurricular activities such as computer, ballet and piano lessons. By that age, I had already realized that I was different. I had been the only one my class to enroll in all three willingly.

Certainly, this was a burden on my four-year-old self. In fact, if I started to excel in one facet of my lessons, I would slip on another. Hell would break loose as my mother scolded me. My lessons were the root of fits on more than one occasion. Needless to say, despite all the abrasive episodes, I enjoyed all three lessons, but when asked to name my favorite I would be stumped.

A few years later, I would find that I didn’t want to just know how to operate a computer or dance. I wanted to learn more. When my brother entered Philippine Science High School, I just started my second year of pre-elementary. Already, from piano, my interests deviated to the odd figures in my brother’s old Biology books.

At the age of seven I was immersed in the inner workings of the ecosystem and human body, as well as the Bible. In fact, if asked to correlate the two, I would respond enthusiastically, taking pride in my reasoning prowess. This could be attributed to the nature of my religion. I love being a Jehovah’s Witness, and contrary to popular belief, being a JW does not mean I am a radical or an anti-science activist. I am assured by the logic that my faith allowed me to espouse where other religions would have left me to lean on blind faith.

When I started displaying an affinity for the humanities and sciences, my mom suggested that I too aim to get into the prestigious Philippine Science High School. I all too happily agreed.

In between that fateful day and my entrance into PSHS, my interests had jumped from music and dance to art and literature, the English language to Japanese Culture and from basic Computer Technology to all-out web design and graphics design. I had competed in more than five occasions in figure skating competitions and participated as the first of our school’s delegates to a mathematics competition. I had learned basic Japanese, Chinese and mastered my mother tongue.

Then there was Pisay.

Most people would list passing the PSHS entrance exam as an achievement with only one wide path leading to success. I viewed it as a fork in the road.

Initially I had aimed to get through PSHS with my sanity intact. As my first year passed, I had my sanity, but I lost my sense of direction. Before Pisay, I had been the top of my class at everything, but when you’re in a pool of students as gifted as those in Philippine Science High School, you tend to learn a valuable lesson in humility. I was no longer the best; I was one of the best. I had no where to go from there. When I entered PSHS, my psyche slowly changed. My goals rearranged themselves in front of me like I was editing movie reel. Once again, my interests rattled then fell into place like the letters in a Boggle box. As the years passed, I realized that as good as I was in Math and Science, I was far better suited in a school which paid more mind to the arts.
Rather than sulk about the irony of my decision, I decided to make the most of it. We’ve all heard of Scientists. We’ve all heard of Mathematicians. Artists and Writers are a dime a dozen. In my brain, I wanted to make myself into a hybrid professional. Once again, my broad perspective began to manifest itself. I decided not to excel at one facet of the PSHS curriculum, but to dabble with each and every one.

People say that being multi-talented only merits appreciation and praise after college, when you start work. People who say that haven’t met me. You’d think that because I was such a muddle of interests I would be useless and not very ambitious. You’d be wrong. On more than one occasion, being multi-talented and resourceful has gotten me out of the strangest fixes, whether it’s dealing with a schoolmate who’s a few fries short of a Happy-Meal or whether its being a friend or a leader.

By my third year in Pisay, I had gotten the hang of living as an Iskolar ng Bayan. As low grades rain down from the heavens, you start to realize that it’s not the end result that matters, but the journey and how you get there. At this point, we’re all just trying to get there.

As I built up my resolve toward my new goal, I did not neglect my spirituality and dedication to God. On November 18, 2006 I was baptized as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I could now add Bible Student to my hybrid professional model.

It is at this point that my over-enthusiastic nature backfires.

When people are asked to choose a college, or a course, it’s never easy. Still, they get through it. As much as I’d love to say that having a wide range of interests to choose from would be helpful, it really isn’t. The person I am now isn’t ready to choose just one. After having read the Ateneo Brochure several times, I am now convinced that no matter what course I choose, Ateneo will be able to provide me with an environment conducive to my probing propensity to expand my horizons.

So when people ask me about who I am and how I define myself, my vague answers don’t worry me. They never did. They’re just there so I don’t have to limit myself. They’re just there so I can soar.