Complicating Reality

Thought that I should start my blogging year with a song that complicates reality. Just remembered Sir Nino’s reply to my comment on his blog entry entitled Why I Write:

“Kat, how about doing some complicating of reality. That might make you get back to writing again.”

Viva La Persistence (Kimya Dawson)

I dreamed i thanked scott ian for persistence of time
back when steve and eva died that album changed my life
it was a package of pure darkness tied up with a silver string
delivered by a fast train rearranging how i think
he said “i can’t believe you even know that i exist,
i’ve got all of your albums and i think you are the best”
he started to cry and i started to laugh
i gave him a hug and he gave me his autograph

reeling in my disbelief, i know that it was just a dream
all the covers that i see are different from the books i read

everything is crumbling around me
why does everything cost so much money?
could somebody please help out my family?
my mom needs hearing aids, new shoulders, and new legs
my dad needs a break he works all day every day
my brother needs a place and a job where he can make
enough money to take care of his baby

here’s a simple dissertation on a complex situation
money and intimidation and mass graves make strong foundations
for the giant corporations that own all the TV. stations
telling us to take vacations to their big theme park plantations
rather than to hearts of nations

where we might meet people on the street who say
“i don’t want my mtv ’cause it brought viva to its knees”
and mom and pop are begging “please, globalization’s killing me”
while we think that they think they need all of the things we think we need
like martha stewart shams and sheets and sugar free powdered iced tea
vanilla coke, lemon pepsi, friends episodes on dvd

i went to see the doctor of psychiatry
weapons of mass instruction finally broke me
he said “act your age, don’t be afraid, take two of these.
now listen real hard, put down that guitar,
don’t be a retard, be all that you can be”

the things he said i could be were laid out right in front of me
would i choose deep fried apathy, mcnuggets where my balls should be,
or super sized conformity? i walked away and i’m still me
free to go fucking crazy, free to know why i’m angry
one and one and one is three and you and me is all i need
singing songs, drawing cocks, picking locks to locked doors
find deflated hearts, and pump them up.

 

The Ant and the Elephant

Disclaimer: This is fiction. If you think you are one of the people referred to in this post, then do not be too assuming. As Daria puts it, “I love having low self-esteem, it makes me feel special.”

And I thought I was the only one who assumed to have low self-esteem. There is Daria, who loves to have low self-esteem because it makes her special. And there are those who seem to have high self-esteem based on their social skills, or should I say, their ability to belong to a large group with ease.

When you are in high school and you are one of those they call “top students” of your batch, you tend to hope and strive to enter what they call a “reputable” school in college. Of course, “reputable” is ambiguous. It is understandable that every school considers itself “reputable”. Despite that, there are still people who are very vocal about how proud they are about their school, yet they have this notion (although they may not realize it) that their school is inferior to other schools.

Because they do not come from what they believe as a “reputable” school, they assume that people from the “reputable” school have way too high self-esteem. And, this is one of the curses that people from a “reputable” school have to deal with.

The truth is, however, people from a “reputable” school have damaged self-esteem. This means that people from a “reputable” school do not have way too high self-esteem. It is just that the people from what is considered as the “not-so-reputable” schools have low self-esteem, which is not entirely bad because it would make them feel special.

And, it is not about schools, which are the reputable ones, and which are not. After all, every school aims one thing, that is, education.

This is all about the ant not being too small but the elephant being too big.

 

Panic Attack (On Ace’s Exit)

Ace, together with Dan, was the latest Survivor to leave the game. When Ace joined Fang, I hoped that he got voted out as early as possible as he was a threat to the original Fang members, Matty, Ken, and Crsytal. But, with the way things are going, Ace’s exit is something that I should not be happy about.

 

In a previous episode, Matty and Ace formed an alliance, where Matty swore to his girlfriend’s name that he woud never betray Ace.Considering that Matty and Ace are the “power players” of Fang, the alliance may seem powerful. But, Matty’s alliance with Ace have worried me from the start. Ace is considered as the “snake”, and Matty’s alliance with Ace makes Matty an easy target.

 

When Jeff announced that each tribe was going to vote someone out, the game definitely took a turn. The immunity challenge was an individual challenge, where the winner, while he or she was safe from getting voted out, was going to assign another immunity to one of the members of the other tribe. In this case, Marcus of Kota won and strategically gave the immunity to Sugar, giving her two immunities all in all.

 

Matty and Ace decided to vote out Crystal, and expected Sugar to do the same. But, Ken got in the way and convinced Sugar to vote Ace instead. Unexpectedly, Sugar went with Ken and Crysal, making Ace the 7th person voted out of Survivor Gabon. As you might have known, Ace and Sugar have been allies since the beginning of the game. Sugar is considered as one of the weakest players, but with the way things are turning, she is on the contrary one of the strongest players in Survivor Gabon.

 

Going to back to my real issue, that is, Ace’s exit can mean that the moment Matty fails to secure an immunity for himself come merge, he is the most likely target. Sadly, what I can do as a fan is to keep my fingers crossed and hope that his being athletic, competitive, honest, and loyal will keep him longer in the game.

 

 

Little World Beside The Glass

While I was chatting with a friend last night, this line came out of my fingers: “I love my little world beside the glass.” My friend joked that I can make a novel out of the line, and I said why not.

Because boredom can make you do the most trivial things, I searched for images with the keywords “little world beside the glass”. And, I found this image from a blog called “little plastikk qube“. The image is one of the Portraits of Idling People on the Train, which the author tagged as “the seat beside the glass:

I found the image interesting because this is exactly how I look whether I’m idling or not at work. While the person in the image is on the seat beside the glass of a train, I am literally seated beside a glass at work. And although the image is not plausible, I love sitting beside the glass because I can detach myself from the world where “other people” live and create a little world of my own.

In fact, these past few days, it would be lucky if I blurted out five words to the people outside my little world beside the glass.

 

Fang Gets Even

The quote for the episode is: “The problem is that they’re stupid. I really shouldn’t blame them for being complete idiots, but they are. They don’t know it, but they are.” — Randy, referring to his teammates

A fellow Survivor fan asked me what I thought about Fang, if I thought the tribe would be the next Ulong. I told him that I didn’t think that Fang would be the next Ulong because I had faith in its members. Also, I usually find myself rooting for the underdogs.

And, I was right. After losing to Kota in three consecutive challenges, Fang made a come back, proving that they are not the worst tribe in the history of Survivor. Fang won both the reward and immunity challenges, the surest way to boost the tribe’s morale.

Kota, on the other hand, voted Paloma out, who is considered as the tribe’s weakest link.

 

“Losers stick together” — Michelle, Survivor Gabon

The 17th season of Survivor (Survivor Gabon) has just started, and the instant crowd favorite seems to be Bob, a 57-year old Physics teacher. He belongs to Kota, the yellow tribe, which dominated the first three challenges.

Fang, the red tribe, on the other hand, instantly had two members voted out: Michelle and Gillian. Michelle, a 24-year old music assistant was voted out because of her “negative attitude” while Gillian, 61-year old nurse, was voted out because she “would slow the team down” — typical reasons for voting tribe members out.

Apparently, Fang is the underdog. Michelle was sort of frustrated because she did not belong to the tribe where the “beautiful people” are, as she put it. I am kind of disappointed that she had to leave very early in the game. I don’t know, but I think the show needs her.

When she was voted out, she had this to say: “I’m not really surprised. Losers stick together. Fat people stick together. They decided to keep Gillian, who’s like a hundred and five, and to vote me, who’s twenty-four and completely fit. I mean they’re all idiots…”

 

Signs of Aging

Three college students hop on the jeep, laughing. As soon as they are settled, one of the girls says, “Sis, narinig mo na yan sya magkanta? Kaganda gud ng boses nya.”

Then the other girl answers, “Narining na, pero once pa lang man. May exam bya ako bukas, hahay. Ten lang gud kami ang nakapasa sa Accounting.”

Then silence. And they talk again, laughing most of the time.

There you are, sitting beside one of the girls, thinking until when you have to suffer from their tinny voices. You get a headache of sorts, and look back if you were like that a couple of years ago. Then you say to yourself, no, you definitely were not like them.

They say that getting annoyed with the “younger generation” is one of the signs of aging.

 

2nd Birthday

Yesterday, my blog turned 2. With only 2,199 hits in two years, it is not much quite of a blog, really. It is updated twice a month on the average, and most of its visitors are my friends.

While I want it to stay inconspicuous as much as possible, there is one short entry that has solicited quite a reaction from “others” and my friends. Last September 12, 2008, it generated 175 hits and 35 comments, and for a blog like mine, it is really high.

 

I do not know if it is a very bad case of vanity, but I love reading my blog entries over and over again, especially the ones that I think are well, “well-written”. It is much like a diary, where you write something for yourself, only that you are giving the people you know and, er, other people the privilege to read it and express their thoughts about it.  

 

Two years of “on and off blogging” and I’d be lucky if it generated 3,000 hits at the end of the year. But for all that my blog is worth, I want to thank it for having been the “Mnemosyne” that I need especially during the times when I am on the verge of forgetting.

 

Bad Lessons on Blogging and Context-ing

To quote Sunburnfreezerburn’s comment on one of my entries, “Posting an entry in a blog is not back fighting. In fact, it is exposed to the world wide web. and it is open for interpretation.”

What is happening to Internet users these days? They come across the link to your blog, read its contents, assume that they are the ones being referred to or that they have something to do with one of its entries, and react negatively.

The weird part is that it is their first time (probably) to visit your blog, and leave a comment on one of the entries that has been posted almost three months ago. They call you names and accuse you of “back fighting”.

Good characters are round characters.

The human character is complex. You are a complex person. They are complex persons. Even the so-called static characters of the fairy tales are now made complex. (Try reading Neil Gaiman’s short story entitled Snow Glass Apples.)

What you think and what you write on your blog at a particular time of the day is apparently not the same with every unique minute of your life. Turning points take place, characters experience epiphanic moments.

Context is vital.
When they are not regular visitors of a blog and have nothing to do with the blog owner’s life, but leave comments assuming that they are the ones being referred to, then the essence of context is missed. What right do they have to assume that you are being a loser, that you are “back fighting” through a blog entry that has been posted months ago when they have missed the context in the first place?

They come to your blog, read your entries, get hurt of sorts in the process and react negatively, and turn the whole world against you.

Whatever is happening to the Web 2.0 users?

 

Alpha and Omega

I promise, this is my last entry that has something to do with the UAAP Season 71 (with the UP Fighting Maroons not making it the final four and the UP Pep Squad bagging the title ***grin***).

This means that I must have a new television show to get excited about and look forward to. Thanks to Survivor Gabon, which premieres on September 26.

I am Looking forward to discussions with my Survivor-fanatic friends.