Blame it on the hype.

So I’m re-reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower and it’s weird because I feel like I’m reading it for the first time. I read it back in my fourth year of high school (or I dunno, the year the school got infected by AH1N1, because I had a marginal note about that. I think that was fourth year. During that outbreak break, I watched A Very Potter Musical back when it was still called Harry Potter the Musical. Chyeah. That was fourth year.) Anyway, I guess it’s not really one of the books that I…felt.

I remember thinking that it was good, but I didn’t really get all the hype. I guess I was a cynic even back then, I just didn’t know it yet. I think I bought the book because of the hype and since I’m a hipster (even back then, yes, I didn’t know it yet either), I grew accustomed to disagreeing with the hype.

Fuck the hype.

I also remember thinking that it was really sad, and that Charlie was a bit (I’m sorry, Charlie) retarded. Not in the insult way, in the seriously, mentally ill way. And I think he is? I haven’t gotten to that part yet. I think he was molested by his aunt but I don’t know. Also, it’s not really sad, now that I’m reading it again. I actually find it quite funny. Melancholy too. Which is sort a quieter sadness, like not as pronounced as real sadness.

And I’m only seeing the prettiness of the lines now. Maybe I saw them before but since I was a cynic, I didn’t really feel the beauty in them. I think I was too absorbed in looking for the fucking quotes that were going around on Tumblr. And what the hell, this book was published in 1999. Who brought it to light? Why is it only getting attention now? I think that’s the only thing that I felt then that I still feel now: wonder at why this book is only just coming to light, what with the movie and all.

Also, it’s weird, because I write sentences like these now, like the ones in the book. I don’t know whether so many people have copied the style of the author and I just subconsciously picked them up. Weeeird.

Now Charlie sounds normal. I don’t think of him as emotionally scarred anymore, and I can relate to him more now. Wow. How much has changed in two years that I can relate to an emotional teenager? Well, obviously the book hasn’t changed so it’s probably me. I know most of the references now, so that’s one thing, but other than that, I’ve always thought of my college state of mind as just the continuation of my high school state of mind. Apparently, something has changed.

We should start measuring life in these reactions. Change-o-meter. Books are change-o-meters, as well as songs and movies. Actually, anything that can elicit a strong reaction is a change-o-meter.

Maybe I was close-minded when I was 15, which is a horrible realization to come to, but I think I thought of it as boring, just because it was published in 1999 and old books are boring. (Blame my train of thought.)

Then again, I read the Hunger Games the same year. I tried re-reading that too, but I still don’t like it. If possible, I think I like it even less than I did before. I think it’s the hype. The Hunger Games is a lot more hyped up now than it was two years ago, while The Perks has sort of dwindled in terms of how many ‘I swear we were infinite’s I see on Tumblr everyday.

Damn. I should really stop listening to the hype.

Sweeping declaration! (That is not coming true, but I felt like making one and waving my arms about and putting an exclamation mark in this slightly dull blog post. I think the exclamation mark is the unloved, extremist uncle in the family of punctuation marks. I am in favor of supporting its radicality.)

Sweeping declaration: I will stop listening to the hype. It’s annoying and it makes me realize how dependent I am on the opinions of others and how easily influenced I am. Until I learn how to formulate my own opinion, I will try my best to read books or watch movies or listen to songs before hearing anyone else’s take on it.

I don’t want to be a cynic, it’s a scary word to be attached to my name.

I don’t know why but since I was young, I was always inclined to not do what people tell me to do. Or at least, if the command is said in a really annoying, shoving it down my throat, nagging way, I am definitely not going to do it. Like I’m about to take a bath, then my parents shout at me to take a bath, I’m going to sit in my room for half an hour, wait until they catch me reading or something, see how pissed off they are, before actually taking a bath.

I guess it’s the same with books. I need to piss someone off before doing my thing seriously.

Wow, I just came from ‘cynic’ and went all the way to ‘society rebel.’

Go figure. I’m going to read.

We are intrepid. We carry on.

Once again, I find myself. I find myself. I find myself.

I find myself at a loss.

There’s always a weird emptiness that comes with the conscious decision to express yourself. The bracing ruins it. All that expectation for nothing.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a teacher who told us on the first day to never plan, because things are never the way they’re supposed to be. Life is one big juxtaposition (God, I hate this word. J and X should not be so close to each other. Their tension is scalding.) between reality and expectations. I suppose we’re all sort of living in our own versions of a (500) Days of Summer scene, with or without the delicious soundtrack.

Did I just use that word to describe something other than food?

I must be reading way too much fan fiction.

In any case, it’s nice to be writing again (some semblance of it) and not feel like shoving toothpicks under my fingernails.

Now I feel like talking about the point of this post, which in retrospect is nothing you haven’t heard before. I’m starting to feel like I’m my own father, telling–nagging–myself to do things over and over again. Wake up early, work hard, make something of yourself. (That last one is usually implied rather than said out loud.) I’m tired of it and I always wonder where my father gets the energy to do this every night, why he even bothers. Sometimes I feel like it’s obligatory. Our version of a good night kiss. Guess that shows how imperceptibly dysfunctional our family is.

Today I wore a skirt to the mall. It is the first time ever that I have done that. (No caveats or disclaimers. It really is the first time ever.) And I found myself looking out at all these people and singling out the people who were wearing skirts. It was the same when I started wearing glasses; I began to count the bespectacled passersby. A part of me wanted to ask them questions of the hi-I’m-new-to-this-am-I-doing-it-right sort.

People look for other people. That’s why we cluster. We don’t want to feel alone.

Anyway, where was I?

The point.

The point is to remind myself that The Art of Getting By was–what the hell, I’ll just say it–an awful movie. I have a rant on this locked and loaded, but I don’t want to go there. The point is it wasn’t as good as the trailer made it out to be. Maybe I just didn’t like it because I’d seen way too many beautiful movies and the curve was ruined. Maybe that sort of movie just isn’t my type. (No, that’s not. I love movies like that. This was just a really badly executed cliche. Full rant to follow. Or not.) Whatever.

The point is: I don’t like just getting by with cliches and normalcy and the lure of attractive grown up child stars. Life is different now. Getting by isn’t enough for me anymore. People say that we should work hard to support ourselves, to build futures and to try to have a life. I thought that was okay. I thought that was what I was supposed to work for, but that’s not it. That is not what I want.

I am made to do something else, something bigger. If I wasn’t, I feel like I wouldn’t be trying this hard. I am clearly not a very determined person. I crumble easily (though a few hours ago, one of my friends told me I was strong. I don’t entirely believe her but I feel like I did get a little stronger when she said that. The magic of affirmation. For that, I love her all the more.). I am often depressed and I hardly ever deem something to be worth the effort.

But I’m still here. And surprisingly, I still want this, whatever this is.

I have never stuck with anything for long. As a fangirl, I have observed that my love comes in very strong bursts in varying lengths. When I am a fan of something, I am a FAN of something. Then it goes away with time, and whether it has a chance of coming back is unpredictable. Also, absence does not actually make my heart grow fonder. It does for three days, then I search for other things. (Unless my love was particularly strong, like my love for Kakashi. My mourning for him lasted half a year.) Honestly, I’m scared that my fickle, temperamental fandom love is an omen of my future relationship habits. I’m scared that I’ll get tired of someone and look for other ways to spend my time.

But this: this need to be SOMEONE, someone who deserves the all caps, a bigger, better version of myself; this is still here. Something in me knows that I should not stop wanting. (Then again, maybe everyone feels this way. Whatever. I have to swallow my hipster pride and accept that as a person, I must conform to some societal standards. This doesn’t change the fact that I feel this wanting. Anyway, I feel like I feel it so much better than everyone else. /feelingera)

Long breaks always depress me. I have so much time alone with my thoughts and I never know what to do with myself. I don’t think I can change that. But I need to grow up. It’s the only way to get what I want.

I don’t know what that entails, as I have never done it before, but I must do it.

I am a child star in the Hollywood of my life and I don’t want to be a Disney Channel child gone bad. I want to be a Harry Potter star. Not Emma Watson, because she’s perfect and it’s scary. More like Rupert Grint, because he’s Rupert.

Oh, it’s 3AM.

Good night.

Everything, everything ends.

WordPress, let me just start off by saying: STOP FIDDLING WITH THAT NAVIGATION BAR THING AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE. Every other time I sit down to blog, it changes. It’s really bothersome. Staffet.

Now, for real: Hey folks. It’s that time again when too many things have happened to me to keep it all in. So here you go.

First, the title is from Meet Me on the Equinox, this Death Cab for Cutie song that was used in a Twilight movie (I don’t know or care which one, they’re all the same because I haven’t seen them. Ignorance is bliss.) because well, it’s the equinox. I don’t even know why I remember that, the Philippines doesn’t have four seasons, but I was thinking of Tom Felton’s birthday and suddenly I’m like ‘hey, he was born on the equinox.’ I don’t even know how that all came together in my head. I looked up ‘equinox’ in Spuckle’s dictionary to check. (I was right. Weird.) Then I thought of solstices, then looked that up. The song goes ‘meet me on the equinox/meet me halfway/when the sun is perched at its highest peak/in the middle of the day.‘ The sun is at its highest during the summer solstice, not the equinox.

So that’s my share of useless trivia for the day. If I look like a geek, I might as well act like one.

I look like a geek, dork, nerd, all the discriminatory four letter words of the twenty-first century because I got my glasses today. (Have I mentioned I need glasses? I need glasses. The story is not important, as I may remember it as the time I explored the school infirmary for the first and hopefully last time. All that I need to remember is that it was September 2011 and I was reading The Virgin Suicides.) My mother is being mean about it because she’s my mother. I tweeted something equally mean (without saying that it was about my mom) and people started commenting. Awkwaaard.

Kind of like that awkward moment when I thought no one was online and I posted my crappy graphic for the week’s Dramione challenge. (It was Disney-themed and I picked The Princess Diaries. Enough said.) It’s like the dudes who pee paint graffiti on walls when they think no one’s looking, but it’s the internet; everybody’s looking. And sometimes, somebody awesome is looking, and they make you feel like you’re not worthless and less of a dork. Yay.

Speaking of dorkiness, I’ve started watching Doctor Who (that’s not the dorky part) from the fifth season (there it is). There was too much David Tennant going around on my Tumblr dashboard for me to actually enjoy watching the earlier seasons, okay. I felt like I new everything that was going on from the supply of gifs alone. (Gifs is an actual word. Huh.) Also, I saw a gif of Eleven going ‘glasses are cool.’ (This post was going to be called ‘In which I am obviously concerned about my dorkiness and seek consolation from TV and the internet,’ but it was too long.)

Quick rundown of everything else because I’m all out of smooth segues: One. My sister and I switched planners. I get to have her Total Girl planner and she gets my Harry Potter planner, which is perfectly fine with me. The Total Girl planner layout is surprisingly good. It even has an expense tabulation. Two. I have a four hour break on Tuesdays and Thursdays now because my Motor Sports class–you remember the class I stood in line for two days because I wanted to fill that break–is done for the semester. I got stuck with a crappy go-kart during our session on OVERTAKING. So that was a pleasant experience of being a sitting duck. Three. I play an annoying aunt for our final play for Theater 10. The rant concerning this deserves its own post.

And despite all this business going down, I’ve managed to do all those things and nothing by way of schoolwork. It’s just how I roll.

My eyes hurt now so please forgive me for this abrupt ending. Everything ends.

I’ll always love you though, New York

There was a 9/11 thing on MYX today and they played this video. This song has actually been in my head for some time. It’s that inkling song, the song that goes like this–no, like this–wait, no–I don’t know, it’s about New York. That’s how I always thought of it.

I cried when I saw this video. I’ve seen it before but it just hit me particularly hard today. It’s not even 9/11 anymore here. I think it’s not as much as it is the date as it is the words: Hell, I still love you, New York. I’ll always love you though, New York. And it’s true, New York. I love you, I love you, I love you.

New York feels like the person whose story I have to write about. It’s the place where my soul was born. You know that story about humans having double body parts, so we were separated, doomed to find our other halves? My other half is a city. It’s a whole vast overflowing cauldron of heads and arms and legs, and I get to pick which ones I want, which lives I want.

It’s probably not right to be so disillusioned about a place I’ve never been, but I can feel it. This is it. That’s where I should be. I am meant to love New York.

Maybe the reason I lead such a loveless life (not just romantic love, even filial love, and hell, I don’t even know if I’m being a good friend) is because I’m meant to love things like words and places, things that can’t love me back so I have to love myself on my own. I just don’t have room for anyone else. And I’m completely fine with that. I can be alone for the rest of my life, if I’m alone in New York.

I know my heart belongs to someone I’ve yet to meet. (Someday You Will Be Loved, Death Cab for Cutie)

I know it’s not enough to make up for all those hearts you’ve lost that day, but here is mine. Take it.

It’s yours, New York; it was always yours.

This is a crazy planets.

My head hurts because I am slowly going blind but that doesn’t matter because I was about to blog about a dream that I thought was real like it was real and now I’m just going to blog about a dream I thought was real having realized that it’s not.

First. What the hell. This is that awkward moment when you don’t have the faintest inkling that you like a guy and then, what the hell, you dream about him. Is that logical? I ask you: IS THAT LOGICAL? What does this say about me and my feelings? I feel like I spend so much time trying to analyze why I feel things or do things because I don’t know, I have nothing better to do, but then this just jumps out at me out of nowhere. Does this mean I’m not even good at thinking? Or analyzing shit? I thought I was pretty decent at those things, considering I do them all the time.

Second. I don’t know whether this is a consequence of my slowly going blind*, immeasurable lack of things to do and ergo, to dream about, my being incredibly affected by a bad performance in my Theater midterm, my lack of love**, my subconscious need to update this blog at least once a week and the deadline for this week is fast approaching, a repressed story or just trippy afternoon heat.

Third. The dream wasn’t even all that substantial. I can’t even remember much of what happened in the aftermath of my panicking about it’s unreality. I can only remember him showing the slightest interest in me. Slight as in, ‘Hi, I’m sitting next to you by choice and not because this is the only seat left in the room.’ So ano, Shaniqua, kinilig ka na ba dun?

I’m fucking desperate.***

MOVING AWAY FROM THAT NOW. This use of all caps is necessary, I’m sorry for not being a writer and having to resort to crude formatting to establish my points.

So. I asked. And I can take Creative Writing majors next semester. A couple of points that need to be in a bulleted list because I don’t think I can handle the pressure of paragraphs. Also, it might draw your eyes away from the dream spazzing.

• I’m definitely taking CW 100 (Introduction to Creative Writing), but I’m not sure whether to pick English 21 (Survey of English Literature I) or CL 121 (Critical Approaches to Literature I). I don’t even know the difference. Having friends would be really good right about now. (What is a Slytherin. Someone who looks for friends only when she needs them. Good job, Shaniqua.)
• I also want to take English 12 as my final AH GE course. It’s World Literature. You read stuff. Lots of stuff. I might suffocate in words next semester, but that’s how you know you’re still fighting.
• I don’t think I’m actually allowed to take a concentration course yet, so I’m going to assume I can take that during the summer, or at least, the summer after that. If not, then I’ll take what I can during the summer.
• This is where I mentally chastise myself for not taking NSTP this year and having to take it next year with all my majors. Fun fun fun.
• Good luck if my grades don’t make the cut when actual shifting time comes around. Insert the world with a superimposed trollface here.
• Also, I found an upperclassman CW major on Tumblr. This excites me.

I leave you with footnotes.

*I almost fainted the other day in freaking SC, in freaking Rodic’s, and had to go to the infirmary because I was too effing dizzy to walk. I’m just really thankful Dea was there. I’m quite sure I literally would’ve died without her. When I got home, my head started hurting insanely while I was reading. My parents say it’s a sign I’m losing my eyesight. I am a writer. This is not good. (Probably panicking way more than I should, but still, not good.)

**I’m not just talking normal teenage, forever alone, time of the month hormones here. The other day I was told that my grandmother has cancer and was likely to die in six months. I was more concerned over the possibility that she would die on my birthday than on the certainty that she’s going to die so soon. I do not love people as much as I should.

***Which probably explains the fact that I used a title of an existing blog that I haven’t read as the title of this post.

P-O-T-T-E-R-M-O-R-E

Okay, that was supposed to be to the tune of my sophomore Sportsfest cheer, but yeah, thanks soundless internet.

Anyway, guess what happened today?

If you guessed ‘another unfortunate birthday,’ then you’re right! Although it would be really creepy if you knew that minor disasters often coincide with birthdays in my family. My mother’s birthday a few years ago was the day my great-grandfather passed away, my birthday last March was the day of the Japan earthquake and today, my aunt celebrated her birthday at the hospital because my nine-year-old cousin has appendicitis. She’s okay. We all are. We’re kind of used to this.

Also, if you guessed ‘nothing, you with the boring life, you lazy child,’ that’s correct too, to an extent. You are correct in thinking that I haven’t continued the deciphering of my Kasaysayan notes even if my midterm is on Thursday and I’ve barely gotten to the third lesson. You’d also be correct if you assumed that my reading of 100 Years of Solitude hasn’t progressed as much as it should have, given that I’ve had about three days to catch up.

But, my good sir/madam, I, in fact, did accomplish something today and that is the creation of a new graphic, which I am surprisingly quite proud of, save for the fact that it doesn’t really have any appropriate words on it yet. On the bright side, I’ve finally learned how to fiddle with curves and levels and go beyond my usual black background with gradients and colors and shizzle.

This actually started out as a joke, something I started out of boredom at the hospital. (Did I mention that I love hospitals? Lots of people think it’s a creepy place, because people die there, but I love it. It’s clean and quiet and everything smells of disinfectant. I find them as poetic and inspiring as beach houses. Go figure.) I usually read when we’re somewhere and I know no one’s going to talk to me, but more years of solitude? Really? I think I’ve had enough alone time for the time being, so I brought Spuckle along. (Actually, the story’s shifted back from the boring, confusing war to normal life. Well, if you consider an ascension normal.) So yeah, I started mixing strange psychedelic colors and somehow ended up with something decent. Playing with Photoshop is awesome.

Oh, Pottermore? What about it?

Fuck yeah, I got my email like half an hour ago and the only reason I’m killing time writing this blog is because I need to be mentally disposed when I’m at the chapter about the Sorting and writing keeps me calm.

It’s actually a little slow at the ‘moments.’ I’m not sure if it’s because of the heavy graphics or because I’ve been closing my laptop without shutting it down while I was in the hospital earlier or because there are a lot of people online. It’s very cool so far, with the tidbits from JK Rowling which I’m just really happy to know about. It would’ve been funner if I were just starting to read the books though, so I could know all these things as I go along.

See, this is what I mean about fandom experience. The new generation of Potterheads don’t have the same thrill of waiting for the next book to come out, so they have Pottermore so there’s still a little sense of anticipation. With Pottermore around, you don’t turn to google if you’re too lazy to read. It’s like the part of the internet that encourages you to keep reading.

It’s pretty chill so far. I think the real action starts when you get sorted and mix potions and stuff.

I’ll continue this blog when I get sorted and until then, you must prepare for my anguish.

—

Oh my Lord. Pottermore. Why. Are you doing this to me. Seriously. Oh my God. I just. Really. Why. How. Incoherence sputtering forever. What. Really. No. Just. Really. I can’t. Mouth open forever. I don’t know what to say, really. Just oh my God. Really. This is what I get for not doing homework early. I probably don’t deserve to be called a Ravenclaw, and dammit, I knew I should’ve picked the evil choices for Slytherin, but no, I decided to be honest and go with the smart choices that I thought would at least lead me to Ravenclaw.

So. I’m a badger now. This will take a few weeks to properly process, so yeah. I’m just going to go ahead now. Is this real life. Probably not.

At least it’s not Gryffindor.

From hate, it seems, stems all exciting things.

I feel full of myself today, so this post will be about me. I mean, like, even more about me than usual. Or I don’t know, me and the beauty of my failures. What. I’m not used to feeling full of myself so in the manner of myself, I will use that as an excuse to not make sense. (Woo, hyperness, I see you.)

In the hot mess of the past few days, I’ve turned back to writing. Haha, yeah, let’s not put too much on that. I have a history of being the prodigal writer. That’s okay. I feel like the spurts of writing are longer and more passionate than the last, like I’m inching towards this final stretch of energy that will last from now until I die. My determination has to be spread out, I guess. I’m just not the kind of person who can keep going endlessly.

Or this could just be PMS. Either way, we’re back together. Sort of. As much as we can be.

Speaking of relationships, the disgusting, wrist-slashing FOREVER ALONE feeling has abruptly disappeared. I doubt it’s gone forever, but for now, I’m fine on my own. I think it’s because I’ve had two bonding sessions with the two most important women in my life in the past 72 hours, which has never happened before, so I’m pretty stable. (Also, appropriately, there’s a special on single women playing on TV right now.) Strange how I can love and hate two people with equal amounts of intensity.

Anyway, writing. I think this started when we went to mass yesterday. We went to a different parish than the one we usually go to because I was going to my friend’s 18th and that church was closer. That in itself was probably a good thing. I seriously needed a change of scenery and I’ve been falling asleep in mass for the past couple of weeks. (And I wonder why my life has been derpressing. Derpression. It’s a thing.)

Anyway, the sound system was awful and the choir was all of one person and the organ player, but the gospel had this line from a White Stripes album so I stayed awake for this one. (I’m not so much of a hipster that I’m a big White Stripes fan. I wiki-ed them the night before. Go figure.) It was the one taking up your cross and following Jesus. The priest said that people have a natural aversion to suffering but only through suffering can we truly be Christians, like if we weren’t ready to carry our crosses, then we weren’t real Christians. So I was thinking that all my suffering so far has been self-inflicted and it wasn’t even literal physical suffering. Most of it was psychological over-thinking emo shit. I mean, does that sort of thing even qualify? So okay, mini-revelation there.

For some reason, thinking things over in mass or even just realizing things makes me feel better, like I’ve uncovered some part of the world that I didn’t know was there. Somehow, I reached the conclusion that it was time for me to do some real working-hard-for-what-I-believe-in-like-I-said-I-would suffering instead of dragging other people into my sadness.

Conveniently, I came upon this this morning in the form of a free Sunday Star from ChowKing. (My mom and I were commuting to my go-kart PE thing in the rain, after I made her stay late last night to wait for me after my friend’s debut. If this happened about a week ago, I probably would’ve just slept on the bus and spoken to her in versions of the word ‘mmph.’ It happened this morning, and I still feel guilty. It’s slightly disturbing how I consider this guilt to be an indication of my return to life. Very Confessions-ish of me. In any case, I’m content to feel guilty, so I don’t know if this falls under ‘suffering.’) I remembered my self-imposed challenge of getting published before turning legal. So here it is.

If this is what it has to come to, then here goes. If it has to come to nights and days of trying to determine the correct language for blogging, of avoiding Tumblr in all its forms in favor of the pursuit of synonyms, of fierce self-editting and making everyone I know beta me like crazy, then here goes. Here I go. Here we go, writing. Here we are.

I was writing the first part of this post in my parents’ room and I feel the need to apologize if I was too distracted by Vice Ganda kicking over chairs to properly articulate my need for this to happen. It’s like the Horcrux Hunt all over again, only this time I feel like I’m better prepared for failure. In any case, I’m going for it.

I feel proud of myself for doing all these things this year. I feel braver than I was in high school, braver than last year even. This is all I ever really wanted: to be brave and strong. Not Gryffindor!brave, hellz no. Just brave enough. Enough to get to New York, enough to follow through, enough.

I’ve been stalking my competition perusing the Star’s Sunday Lifestyle archives. We’ve always been Philippine Daily Inquirer people, but this not a time to be a purist. So far I’ve gotten a few of Jessica Zafra’s articles bookmarked, two articles each on Harry Potter and the Hunger Games, and one really good article on Catcher in the Rye that actually made me want to read the book. The next paragraphs are enclosed in ‘full of myself parentheses.’

(I’d link to the other articles but they were unmemorable. See how full of myself I am when it comes to these things. I can only laugh. I’m sorry but I can honestly say I can write a much better essay on Harry Potter than the other two. Okay, I realize I’m talking the talk like a boss without actually having written one, because when I tried to, the wounds were still fresh and I cried. Maybe I’ll write one now, but that’s not likely, because I picked another book to write about, and yes, okay, it’s still painful. More on that later. I’m never this confident so let’s move on to more snark and criticism.

Almost every fricking one wants to be a doctor or has achieved something or been somewhere. One of them is even a Palanca awardee. Also, literally 99% of them are girls. Really, guys? Really? Also, about 75% of them love science and/or math. This whole ‘I’m a geek because I like science and math and that makes me cool, right?’ thing is on the rise. I’m not saying that all the people who like science-y shiz are doing this to be cool nor am I saying that they don’t genuinely like the topics, but really, why only now?

Hey, make that two Palanca awardees.

I’m also not saying I’m not like them. I probably am, I just don’t realize. I have a feeling that I’m not, but like Dumbledore, that’s all it is: a really good feeling that’s usually right. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a fiercely strong desire to be different, to just stop being invisible, that makes me separate myself from everyone else even if I shouldn’t. I don’t know. I don’t know. I never do.

I’ve scrolled back to March 13, 2011. Weirdly, as I go further back, the older and more professional the writers get, so I can’t really judge them as they’re not on my level. Oh well, guess that ends the snark series. In a few weeks when I’ve submitted my article, this ‘I’m going to Edgar Allen Poe-wn you all’ mode will probably turn into either apathy or fear as most of my emotions seem to be either of the two at the core. We dive back into technicalities now.

I am a judgmental bitch. Put me in Slytherin, non-existent Pottermore email.)

I’ve decided to write about Going Bovine by Libba Bray, because

1. I’ve already written like three essays on The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It’s essay limit has been reached.
2. I’ve written an essay on Going Bovine for my Sociology class last year, so yay reference material. Sort of.
3. Going Bovine is arguably one of my most vandalized books, competing for the top spot with Will Grayson, Will Grayson. I don’t know why, but I only write comments on the YA novels. Anyway, yay more reference material.
4. Nobody’s written about Going Bovine. I’m different. Yay.
5. Libba Bray and I have the same birthday. Yay.

And the world, being its epically fatefully coincidental self, has just caused a tweet from Libba Bray to appear on my feed.

@libbabray: Just wrote a line I thought was nice. Then realized it was dangerously close to a Journey lyric.

I love her.

Well, that’s about it. That was unsurprisingly exhausting to write. (I should really work on my ending skillz and stop referencing the whole writing process. Big no for essay-writing.) So yeah. This is my longest post yet, so I’m just hoping after all that ranting I actually get through this. Title is from a line in the epic Catcher in the Rye essay, and how appropriate it has become for this post, I can’t even.

Also, I just downloaded Game of Thrones. Woot, let the vicious fun begin.

I’m never close enough to say.

Just a few things I want to get off my chest. No creative intro for this one, just words.

I love my Kerouac calendar. (I was so tempted to change that ‘c’ into a ‘k.’) I’m sure in a few months I’ll have them all more or less committed to memory, the same way priests know the Gospel reading for a particular Sunday without having to check. For now, I just love having words to live by that I can actually live by, as opposed to ‘some people are just too blind to see what’s in front of them’ or ‘friends are like the wind; you don’t always see them but you feel that they’re there.’ I mean, really.

24. No shame or fear in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge. – Jack Kerouac, Belief and Technique for Modern Prose

I am embarrassed to be back on Tumblr again, but I am proud that all the Dramione blogs I follow have led me to attempt learning Photoshop. Actually, it was John Mayer’s fault. For some reason, I listened to a song for the twentieth time and suddenly it’s Dramione-related. I’ve listened to songs that I knew were fandom songs right away and I’ve made countless music videos in my head, but this was the first time I actually sat down to make one. Weird. In any case, said graphic still isn’t posted, for fear of harsh judgment, despite my asking my Photoshop-savvy friends to judge it ruthlessly from the font to the colors to the intense amount of textures. (Also, haha, realization: Some people who make graphics have better Photoshop coloring skills than I do, but omg, their font choice is downright abysmal. Not to mention grammar.)

Speaking of fandom, I had this weird urge today to re-read a fanfic from a while back. I think the high point of my day was finding out it was still saved in my laptop. I’ve cleaning everything out, see. I don’t know whether that’s smart or stupid because I just downloaded a buttload of textures, around five new albums, a fanmix and the movie The Notebook, because I kept seeing this adorable quote everywhere on Tumblr and I got curious. The fanmix is awesome though. Forgot where I downloaded it –too lazy to look through my browser history but it’s for Will Grayson, Will Grayson and my hipster eyes were opened to even more obscure bands. This is what love is.

In other news, I am slowly plowing my way through schoolwork. Today was kind of a fail, but it’s like a manageable fail. I forgot that I had to submit an index card for my first class of the day. This isn’t really a big thing because I forget things all the time, but it’s my first real unsalvageable slip-up of the semester. I mean, I’m happy it wasn’t a bigger mess, but still, I’m disappointed in myself. I feel like I relapsed after two months of being clean. Also, I have a feeling that if it was a smaller class the teacher would get an idea of how much I actually care about her subject, which isn’t a lot. Thankfully, that class is auditorium big and I sit at the back. I spent it reading 100 Years of Solitude, which is a book about war and incest and made me miss The House of the Spirits.

English 11 feels a bit better than it did at the start of the semester. By that I mean my anger has evaporated into nonchalance.

We learned how to do makeup today in Theater class. Again, there’s that moment of failure wherein I realize I forgot to bring my drawing of the possible makeup for my character even if I specifically told myself that morning: Oh, hey, I should remember to take down that freaky drawing I made of Electra for Theater today, we might need it. But I don’t know. Theater is a sort of homely class where people accept each other and some people actually threw out their drawings, so it wasn’t as much of a failure because it felt like we failed together. My prof was nice enough to let us draw it again, and because I had mine tacked to my cork board, I more or less drew the same thing. (The eye makeup was so much better in the original though.)

There was an awkward moment when my prof asked whether my drawing was the original and I said no and he asked where the original was and I’m like ‘Nakapost po sa bahay.’ And he’s like ‘Nakapost?’ like haha, why are you displaying that. That was a very ‘I’m in kindergarten and I stick all my pretty drawings on the fridge with magnets’ moment.

So I was the kid who didn’t know which one was the foundation. Actually, I didn’t even know half the stuff that I brought with me. Makeup is like a set of paints for me. Things are either the paintbrush or the paint. I seriously felt like I was just covering my face in eyeliner. That or I dunked my head into a pile of ash. Thankfully, I found the savior that is liquid eyeliner, which felt more like a paintbrush-pencil hybrid and I managed to save my face at the last minute. I can no longer imagine living my life without it. While I want to redeem myself by using my newfound liquid eyeliner prowess to make myself pretty instead of looking like a stressed, vengeful, exiled Greek princess (that looks a lot less hot than it sounds), my face is really itchy right now. It’s going to be a long time before I’m ready to exert the effort to do this on a regular basis.

My hair, on the other hand, is another story. My primary goal in growing my hair out has been achieved: I can now do a crown braid. This is an achievement, yes. All I have to do is get enough courage to wear my hair like that to school or to somewhere outside my house and I’m ready for a haircut. Seriously, this really is the only reason I wanted to grow out my hair.

And wow, that was a lot to get off my chest, and it’s not even nine yet. As a lame closing paragraph, I give you this blog: Metro Manila Missed Connections, which, I think, is the best thing on the internet right now. I love that there are so many well-versed Filipinos out there who are just looking and noticing things and people and I love that these moments are happening in this country, the kinds of moments that you make you write poetry and make music videos. It’s unbelievable that there is so much hidden in this city and even more unbelievable that there are people finding it. I’m hardly ever happy to be where I am, I always feel like I need to be someplace else, but this blog is my here and I remember that there is a reason why I am, well, here. And okay, secretly, I’m waiting for someone to look for me. I’m like this eerie presence at school. Somebody’s bound to have seen me, right? Hello, inferiority/invisibility complex.

Okay, that’s all.

Title from Gray or Blue by Jaymay. (The lyrics people insert in graphics are also wonderful sources of new songs.)

asdfghjkl; The world is amazing.

I had an awesome day today and I wish I could blog about it but it’s one of those too-awesome-for-words days and I feel like if I let it all out, I won’t have anything else to hold on to. So as much as I hate myself for doing this because these sorts of posts are pointless because two years from now, I won’t know what the hell I’m talking about, I’m going to leave a happy moderately cryptic sort of post just to let the world know that I appreciate its existence.

Haunted libraries are eerie and beautiful and quiet. Comodo, luminoso (not really) e silenzioso.

Tonight’s playlist: (At first I wondered why I wanted such weird unrelated songs to be playing, but I just realized what their titles have in common.) Taylor Swift: That’s the Way I Loved You, Maroon 5: She Will Be Loved, Meekakitty featuring Heyhihello: Wizard Love

PAASA is the new wave that’s sweeping the nation. We are the generation of awkward texts and stalking superstars. We give chase, in the hope that the world will follow.

I have the strangest impulses when I’m irrationally happy. Like I want to watch Confessions again even if it’s probably the most wrist-cutting thing ever. Sometimes I wonder about the shiz in the world that makes me happy. Then I stop wondering and start being happy. (On a side note: Is shiz a plural or a singular noun? Its subject-verb agreement bothers me.)

My Dramione shirt is officially full of GVs! (I am resisting the urge to put a string of hearts right after this sentence.) That feeling you get when you’re wearing something for the first time and you’re hoping that people will react decently but also waiting to see whether something will continue being awesome beyond the reaches of your house. Yeah. The magic of my ship has been proven. And I will go down with it.

My cousin is in the fourth grade and asks as many questions as a five-year-old. This makes me happy because A. she’s the only child I know who’s actually acting like a child, albeit a younger child and B. I don’t have to be the one to answer all her questions. She has a dad for that.

I cannot stop smiling.

There isn’t anyone I’d rather stalk people or fangirl with than you.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: I’ve not been a very good human being lately. That’s not exactly news. There are so many moments in my life when I think ‘God, I suck at this being a person thing.’ I’m completely awkward in any and every situation, I am easily harried and very disorganized, I judge people I haven’t met, I care too much about tiny insignificant things and I don’t actually like people very much. I think I can live with all of that. It’s kind of a package when we’re talking about me. Obviously, I’d like to be better, but I can accept that it’s going to take some time before complete social rehabilitation. I’m trying and I hope that counts for something.

Something I don’t think I can live with though: Lately, I don’t think I’ve been a very good friend. My meanness has transcended from judging people online to snubbing people in real life. I feel like I’ve been talking way too much about myself. I don’t know. It’s like I’ve been way to occupied with my own life to care and that’s just wrong, mainly because I’m not really doing anything productive with my life.

I’ve gotten so caught up in my immediate recovery from Post-Potter Depression that I feel like I’ve forgotten to help them. I know I said in a past post that I’m going to be nicer, but obviously that hasn’t worked out yet. I’ve still been feeling around and trying to find my way and fix my life. I’ve been trying too hard to fix the unfixable. I’m not doing enough for what’s already there and what I can improve.

A while ago, I decided to finish the recovery by just deciding to ignore everything–the pain and the stress and the confusion–and just focus on my goal, which is to be an awesome writer. With that, I also folded my thousandth official crane. (I’ve been folding in between, flyers and scrap paper and stuff, but the only cranes that I counted were the ones made from decent colored construction paper of the same size. My last crane was purple.) I decided to make writing and only writing (and those related to it, books and inspiration and words and knowledge and studying hard to shift to my desired course), my top priority. It’s been working okay. I feel like I have somewhere to run to again. When I’m lost or bored, I remind myself of this goal and I keep going.

I don’t want to pick this goal over people, or at least over the people that matter. I’ve gotten so used to disliking everyone that’s it’s involuntary for me to pick a thing over a person. I’m almost 100% sure that thing will be so much better than the person, than real life, than attachment to people who don’t really care. But I love my friends. And they’re the only ones who’ve really cared about the crap I’ve been doing or at least claiming to be doing. I should really return the favor.

It feels unfair that all my friends are stressed about stuff that’s worth stressing over–stuff for the future like orgs and academics and internships–and I’m hardly making progress in my own life. I want all the stuff they’ve been working on to turn out well and while I’ve been praying for them, sometimes that’s just not enough when you know you can do so much more.

So right now, in the name of this blog, on Albus Dumbledore’s grave, I swear I will do everything to support my friends. Go to their org event because I’m really not that busy, dress up for their debut and work hard to find them a really good gift they’ll like, write with them because I’m really lucky to have friends that do the same crazy shiz I do. I love them and I need to show them that. I cannot imagine being as crazy and as nerdy and as confident about showing that craziness and nerdiness to the world if they weren’t there.

If I were still in high school, I’d write them all letters and hide it under their desks or in between their books. But this isn’t high school and I don’t understand why it’s so much harder to show your love in the fricking real world. Shouldn’t it be easier because we need it more?

Ugh, anyway, I’ve let out all that I needed to. Wow, this blog didn’t really have a purpose but that uncensored stream of love. Oh, blog, we’re getting more personal. I’m proud of us. All I need now is a good ending.