Facebook. Twitter. Formspring. Goodreads.
Photography. Journals. Work. Reviews & Coverage. Seedbook.
| Provided by website-hit-counters.com site. |
I have first drafts due on Thursday, articles due on the 30th, and I have to finish my requirements for my job. The school year hasn’t started yet but the workload has poured forth and I am greeting it proactively! In fact, I even have the time to write fanfiction and stuff. So ha!
In an obligatory update, I have come to the conclusion that the situation of the fall of gravity will never stop hurting. It won’t. Therefore, I’m putting myself in a different situation which will lead me to a new situation and sooner or later, it will just be another story that I passed through and each passing will hurt and I will not hurt anymore, only if I don’t cross that path again.
Anyway. I’ve been working on this piece and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to scrap a certain part of it out and that makes me very sad since I really want to use it. I have two pieces in the works, actually. Very short ones, nothing elaborate like A Cyclical Destruction or anything. Here’s the bit of it that might not make it. I hope you enjoy it!
Fun fact: blaming the construction of new water pipes in your general area is not a viable excuse for being an hour late to your 90 minute class (even if it is true). Neither is it an acceptable excuse that you spent the entire night weeping yourself to sleep until 3 in morning and you didn’t wake up to your 4:30AM alarm. That is a hard fun fact of real life and it’s something that I’ve had to learn the hard way.
I dislike tardiness and that’s a fact. A fact that I can barely accept is that you were always fashionably late and there were times when you’d make me wait for two, three, five hours because you’d know for a fact that I would wait.
The cold, hard truth about facts is that they are almost always presently true. Facts coming from a reliable source are often facts that we need to come into terms with because these are facts that we’re going to have to live with for the rest of our temporal infinity. An example of a hard fact is that not everyone in this world is going to love you, even the people you want to love you. The fact that we are all being pulled to the center of the world by a force called gravity is as factual as the fact that my eyes drift to where you are when you’re in the room; my eyes are the moon and you’re the Earth.
Not a lot of people know of the fact that tigers have striped skin. Yes. Skin. It’s an interesting fact because most people think of fur because that’s what most people see. That’s a fact and the fact that I wasn’t clever enough to see what was so clever about it disappointed you. It concluded that sometimes, I do think like most people.
It is oxygen that we breathe and blood that runs through my veins and a heart that beats and beats and beats and it is a fact that almost all of that stops when you look at me (or at least feels like it because if all of those literally stopped, I would be dead). Nothing is more deafening than the cacophony of lonely silence; I guess I simply have to face that sweet factual music. You’re never going to say my name again, let alone look at me, and we’re never going to have that very essential only not so essential conversation after all.
When you miss somebody, there are only four possible reactions from the person being missed: he doesn’t care, he doesn’t know, he’s glad to be rid of you, or (if you’re lucky) he misses you too. If you’re really lucky, he misses you more than you miss him. However, I believe in fact and the fact is, there’s no such thing as luck. And in the whole pondering of these facts, I conclude two hard truths.
The fact of you and I cannot be argued. We happened, we mattered, and that fact will never be taken from us. We are not an opinion, a hypothesis, a theory or even a proposal - we are a law, an indubitable fact that once upon an infinity, a boy met this girl and the fact picks up from there. The fact is, we happened; there once was an us and now there isn’t.
As a matter of fact, the memories we created in situations that used to be the present were factoids of time that only we cared about, and only we will care about. In fact, a descendant of Genghis Khan was celebrating his birthday the moment I first told you the fact that I love you. I didn’t care about Khan, I cared about you. It’s difficult, given all the irrefutable facts, to think back on the things that we made into the world, of the stories that we created by simply being there. You and I are the only two people who are accountable for those facts in time and try as we may, we are the evidence that prove these facts true. We can’t ignore the evidence in ourselves and the theories that made our situations possible. We can’t discredit the effects and causes for the events that have led me to this great conclusion:
I love you. I miss you.
And that’s a fact.
Yaaaaaay! Happy reading! :) I wrote another article for this month’s issue but it seems to be… missing. I’ll leave the link up anyway once it magically appears. :)
Picture running for five kilometres among five thousand other runners in a field covered with the walking dead, where the chance of enountering a zombie hungry for human flesh is ten steps to one and winning means living. That is the premise of Outbreak Manila. This month, The LaSallian brings you head to head with organizer, Deb Victa.
Often, the only excuse novel haters need to convince them to throw a book back in the shelf is, “they’ve got no pictures in them.” To the verbally challenged or the outright lazy, looking at pictures is easiest way to grasp a story. A picture is worth a thousand words, after all.
If that were true then Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral has much to say.
Bookshelves are chockful of love stories with the same plotline of ‘boy meets girl and they fall for each other. Love is everywhere – or so the cliché goes in every song, story, poem, and work of art since man first found words to express a malady so painful “and yet so fair”.
But what if love were precisely that, a disease (no, seriously) – would you take the cure?
You’re sitting in front of a screen, that much is inevitable. What else can you do while you’re inside your house? Heavens forbid that you actually do your chores or bake a cake or learn how to make scrambled eggs or take a three hour shower. And don’t even think about getting out of the house to catch that new Burton movie or get yourself a Burger King meal instead of ordering something in. No. You are in front of a screen and while you’re flipping through channels and see that Peter Pan is on or you’re scrolling through Tumblr and you’ve just been given the entire plot of the next episode of Game of Thrones in .gif form, there is one thought in your mind that is going on and on and on:
I miss him.
(Or her. Pronouns are interchangeable given your situation but for me let’s go with “him”.)
Here’s one thing. You shouldn’t look through your old journals and photographs and have, for some reason, every memory come creeping back in. Where you first met, the first thing he ever said to you, every single bus ride you shared and you talked about Britt Robertson in that one show he liked (but then it got cancelled after two seasons)? Don’t think about it. You probably shouldn’t have kept those bus tickets that you’re only supposed to keep because sometimes, inspectors come on board to see if you’ve paid the fare. But you kept them in your pocket or your purse or your wallet and somehow, you still have them and you remember each one of those tickets and where you were sitting, and the graffiti written on the chair in front of you.
Don’t even dream about going outside because the outside are the “us” places. Remember that one corner you used to sit on at McDonalds? Remember those couches at Starbucks you two sat on until (literally) 1 in the morning while he was on your laptop and you read a book? Remember the times you spent at that place that sold chicken and he told you that you were pretty? Remember that one time you threatened him with the worst imaginable punishment you could muster and you almost did? You could have done it, you know. Remember his house where he so carelessly placed an expensive solar-powered watch outside and you were inside his house and you couldn’t figure out if it was considered three floors because there were two staircases (but does it really count if one floor only had a giant television and a sofa)? Remember the porcelain ducks near the other staircase that had the mint sweets that he never left home without? Remember how in every fight, he would corner you to another place where he’d build a memory, and that fight would become a story and then you’d be alright again? Don’t. Don’t even dream of it.
It wouldn’t be advisable to lay in bed all day. It would make no difference that you stayed in bed until 3PM and you have a massive headache and your back hurts. The house is empty since your dad and your older sister are at work, your mom’s at the gym, and the housekeeper doesn’t really count because you don’t talk to each other anyway. You’re alone and you could be doing a number of unimaginable things but the one thing you shouldn’t do is lay in bed all day and surround yourself with a multitude, a fortress, of pillows; trying to recreate his warmth, his softness, his security - trying to feel what it was like again. The pillows provide all the softness in the world but none of them have the heat and the strong stable heartbeat that was all you needed to bring you back home. Inside your pillow fortress, you try and think of that tone and all those things he said that you probably shouldn’t remember. You think he said that he loved you but then again, you weren’t supposed to remember. You shouldn’t curl up on your side and try and think about how he smelled like nature, rice balls, fried chicken, and boy. You shouldn’t do that.
It helps not to jump every single time your phone vibrates or it rings because someone is calling you. Someone who is not him and you really ought to stop thinking that it is. You see a little red dot with a number one on it and you think you’re going to explode because you’re thinking “O, God. This is it, this is it, this is it.” But it’s not. It’s another group message from things you really don’t care about. It’s not and it’s never going to be and thinking that it is, would be counterproductive to this whole guide.
And maybe, hopefully, someday you can go outside and not be afraid that you’re going to see him (and you’re not going to roll your eyes at his dorky mohawk for the umpteenth time). The time will come when your phone vibrates and you’ll get annoyed, not anxious. And your “us” places will always be your “us” places because there were once upon a many times that you spent there and the past cannot be erased. You can only move on from it. And try and remember and recreate as you will but someday, you’ll stop missing these things, those moments, that person. They’ll exist and they’ll be in your memory but they’ll just be stories. And you become the person who was once affected by them because they were yours. And then you’ll really move on from it.
You’ll know this guide will have worked when the dull aching of the missing has stopped and you wake up at a decent hour and you go outside and make new “you” places and be okay. Because you’re going to be.
Results may vary.
It started with a turn, a smile, and polite conversation.
It grew to be something beautiful. Amazing. Something worth writing - reading - about. It grew into hope and friendship and promises that were promised to never be broken. It became love - something stronger and infinitely more malleable than fleeting romantic love. It was supposed to last. It wasn’t supposed to have an ending. In it was safety and laughter and everything that was ever only dreamed of. Built in it was trust. Kinship. Compatibility. Complementary actions and behaviours.
As it grew, it grew up. Bit by bit, it started breaking. The cancer latched eventually and it slowly started to die. The promises were broken and no matter how hard or how much it went through, it wasn’t enough to keep the promise of never letting go. In the end, it would have to be let go for the cancer to break, for both to live and still be able to dream. All who heard said it would never work. One half knew it would have never worked, the other half promised it always would. There was no reason, there was no rhyme - just like gravity.
Lies. All lies. It grew, grew up, and died.
There were no fireworks or a knelt knee and a confession or a spark or a handshake or a smile or a bouquet of roses and lavenders or a drive to a beach, racing to catch a sun setting to rise to another distant place or a dream or a “Stop! Wait. Please.” or a call or a text or a hidden letter or returning of gifts, photographs, and memories or hugs or something spectacular or indescribable or anything that used to be.
It ended with a turn, a look that begged “What happened to us?”, and a no looking back.
You walk into the room but feel as if it’s not the same room anymore.
You’re surrounded by the same pale walls as before. It’s the same bed. It’s the same computer screen you stare at, day in and day out. It’s the same dry, tropical air you breathe. It’s the same unrelenting Sun that beats down on your skin. You used to love - crave - the heat, the warmth, the loving light from the Sun. Now all you can think about is the fact that it’s too hot, too close, too yellow.
You walk around the same places as before. It’s the same walkway, the same archway entrance, the same orange lights that light the way in darkness. Cars and buses still pass you by in the darkness, their blues and reds are gone as fast as they came. You look at the date and you think back on the year before and think of what you were doing then. You were at the same spot, with the same dilemmas, with the same exact things.
You look up at the sky for answers but somehow, the dark, velvet blanked as been ripped. The stars are still stars but not one of them is recognizable, not one light is familiar. You’ve always been able to count on one light - a single brilliance that can lead you to where you needed to be. No matter how hard you look, no matter where you go, there was that single constant.
When you look up at the sky, the stars are still there.
Somehow, it’s not the same northern star anymore. And right now, you just want to go home.
Hallo, lovelies! I just got on to this fascinating thing called summer vacation and I’m going to enjoy every single day of it - all two whole weeks of academic freedom. Only not really, because grades come out on Thursday and I’m nervous.
ANYWAY! It’s this guy’s birthday tomorrow and so I’ve been planning/making this thing for quite a while to make him, I don’t know, happy on his birthday. Seeing that I probably won’t see him on his actual birthday, I burned a copy of this video on a DVD and wrote a long, sappy, handwritten letter on rare owl parchment that someone got for me at Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Well, here’s the kicker, folks - when I tried giving him the DVD + letter, he wouldn’t even touch it. The boy looked disgusted or something, like it was a disease or whatever and said that he was advised not to take it. So I, being traditionally proud and dramatic, left it on the floor at his feet and walked away without another word. And his friend has kept calling me ever since and I have stuffed my phone deep inside my closet so I don’t feel nor hear it ringing.
Well that’s work well wasted. Anyway, I wrote and recorded a song for him. I got some of my friends to help me come up with guitar chords because I don’t play anything. I then made a music video made of clips that I shot at places or things that were pivotal in our friendship. And from there, I posted it on youtube and got people to greet him a happy birthday.
I’m not one to waste efforts so even though he didn’t like it, I hope you guys do. :)
Behind the Scenes of “Go on Ahead”.
Inclusive of basically my group mates and I being silly and my acting debut (HAHAHAHA WHAT) for like… ten seconds.
I can’t believe I’m done with my second year of university. I’m graduating next year! AHHHHH! <3
Enjoy! :)
Free writing at CONCEPT class! Yaaaaaaay.
I. I can’t really remember the bed I slept in as a child. Oh, wait. Yes, I do. I shared it with my older sister and it was a queen sized bed. I was always at the side of the wall, protecting me from falling. I was always at the side facing the window in full view of the Church. Sometimes, I would think things little girls are not allowed to think and I would hear the familiar chime of the local Parish and I would stop thinking it, reminded that I’m being watched constantly. That doesn’t always work and sometimes, I would just close my eyes and face the hotdog pillow that protected my sister from my unconscious slobber. I slept on a pillow my grandmother made for me, made out of fluff and old school uniforms.
II. I now sleep on my mother’s bed, right next to my father. I don’t really remember whose pillow I sleep in but it’s the same hotdog pillow I clutch on to every single night. It’s been like this since we had an air conditioner in only one of the rooms. There are five of us in a single room and two mattresses. The bed I sleep on is the oldest one we have, the very first thing that my mother bought after she married my father. I sleep in that room now and my mother and father have not slept in the same bed together for over five years. My blanks are hand me downs and are embarrassing and the bed has been the bed my parents made love in (in full view of little, innocent me) when I was a child. I remember it and yet I sleep in it soundly, the instant replaying itself in my head over and over in times when I don’t want it to.
III. I want a bed that can swallow me whole with its complete and utter softness, like a cloud made solid yet still retaining its damp, seeming softness. Or perhaps made of the softest down or feathers that will adjust to the shape of my body, having it set and fit and embrace me whole, changing shape as I twist and turn, rocking me softly until I fall asleep. But then again, I give that up in a second and sleep in a bed of nails or rocks or lava as long as I wake up next to him. I could live with his skin as my only warmth and his eyes the only Sun I’ll ever see, the gleam in them in the morning mark the first break of day. When he opens his eyes - that is my morning sunrise. He brushes his fingers away from his forehead, his eyelashes creating great gusts of wind turning into hurricanes inside my chest. Waking up next to him is a breath of fresh air after being submerged in the coldest, most unmerciful waters. And I would give up all the beds in the world if I could fall asleep every single night to day for the rest of my limited infinity to him – to you.
Hallo, lovelies! I got “published” in TeamComm’s online magazine called “C!te” with one of my older pieces called ”What if you’ve already met the one you’re supposed to be with?”
There are some other pieces and photographs in there by good friends and colleagues (wow “colleagues”!) of mine and it’s pretty nifty. Do check it out if you’d like! :)
031412
Last Wednesday was Real and Not Real: The Hunger Games University Tour. It’s a THG symposium that I organized alongside my other officers. On top of being the organizer of the thing, I was also one of the speakers. And as an added bonus - due to technical difficulties, I hosted the thing as well! It was exhausting, honestly. The turn out of people was somewhat disheartening but understandable because apparently, the event clashed with some political debates or philosophical talk or something. I’m not sure. Oh well, papel.
Photos!
Carlos Flickerman and the spirit of Rue as your hosts for the day, folks! He dyed his hair black because black is the new blue. Also, the ties on his elbows are apparently the latest in Capitol fashion. Oh, Carlos. You so funny.
Ms. Biana on her Postfeminist Critique of The Hunger Games, saying that Suzanne Collins is her second Philip K. Dick.
Katniss getting “reaped” for the third time! The reapings were pretty cool. We gave away some pretty neat-o stuff, courtesy of our sponsors (Scholastic, National Bookstore, Pioneer Films, and MCA Universal [once again this event was brought to you by DLSU Writers’ Guild: Redefine Writing])! I should totally make a living as a voice talent now. (Not.)
Marien Jose as Katniss Everdeen during the event. It was awesomepossum because she even called me out for acting more like a Capitol citizen than Rue. I blame the Effie Trinket-approved shoes!
People lining up for Mellark’s Muffins! (Well… they were made by Bea.) The secret ingredient is Nightlock, we’re all going to die! Yay! (We kid. They’re blueberries.)
Professor Sangil’s talk! Eeee! I would have loved to have been her student. Sadly, the odds were not in my favor. :(
There was a record of around 80 people in attendance. It’s saddening that the other schools had at least 250. :( That just made the odds of our attendance a little more favourable, no? ;) We even had a Quarter Quell!
Ms. Angel of Hunger Games Philippines winning a Mockingjay Pin! Even if she already had one! (I wanted to steal it but then I remembered stealing is punishable by death).
Me giving my talk with only notes from my trusty iPhone, Fondue! I wasn’t able to prepare a presentation because I was pressed for time. I managed somewhat, though. So yay! :)
Some of our fabulous prizes! Five copies of the Limited Edition version of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and a stamped copy of Mockingjay! Other prizes were movie posters, pass for two to watch The Hunger Games at any cinema during the regular release date, leather bookmarks, CD samplers, and Mockingjay pins!
This lucky girl won the ever-so-coveted copy of Mockingjay! T’was a surprise that she had only read the first book! Gasp! There were so many spoilers during the talk! (Oh God. Thighs, Jonnah. For such a thin girl, all the meat went to your legs. ;_____;)
Ahhh! I got a freebies bag from Scholastic and a certificate of appreciation for being a speaker! Eeeee! And I swear, in that moment, we were legit.
Once again, I was the spirit of Rue! And yes, my bright red pumps got a lot of compliments. And they’re so comfortable for a pair of four (maybe five) inch heels! I’m not even kidding. I run for miles in these babies. “Maybe I would have won if I had sponsors.” Oh, Jonnah nah.
Well that’s all we have for you today, citizens of Panem! Thank you, good night, and may the odds be ever in your favor!
xx
Jonnah
It’s Not Really What You Think EP
“I’m Gonna Miss You”
Renzo Magnaye
Here it is, folks! Three weeks of pre-production, an entire day of shooting, and three days of post-production. I’m just incredibly happy at how this music video wasn’t crammed. And yes, this video is the reason why I went home at 1AM for three days straight. It gets me teary eyed every single time! Enjoy! :)
The Sun’s warmth touches the bare skin on her arm. She runs her hands against her skin, feeling the soft, sweet sensation of the warmth there, well acquainted with the loving heart only the Sun can give.
In the flickering, changing fire that is life - it is only the Sun that remains as her constant source of heat. The jealous, possessive clouds that come between them, cast away by the ruined marriage of the Sun and Sea. Only the puffs of the Sea in the sky, the jealous children of the Sun’s mistress, that take away his heat from her. The Sun remains, though. Still bright. Still burning. Still fighting to get his light back to her.
The Sun remains faithfully unfaithful to his unrestrained mistress.
The girl is his favourite lover. His love turns her skin golden and bronze all at the same time. The sun and Sea make their offspring and they become these fluffy white things - floating between them. People call them clouds. Jealous children are they, among their more understanding half-siblings, the ever-present air from the land that keeps the clouds afloat.
She can feel him with every blast of yellow heat he rains down on her. Halos and flares surround her vision when he tries to make himself shine brighter for her, telling her “Here I am. I love you.”
The clouds become jealous for their mother. They block him from the girl and send down their mother’s wrath like liquid bullets from the Sun’s dominion. He fights his way through and in the aftermath of the war, the only thing she seeks is to feel him kiss the top of her head, her lips, her face, her arms, her body - her.
He sends his love to the top of her head, tinging it a bright red, like fire - his fire, setting her crown ablaze. She passes through people who barely see her sun-kissed glow but she knows they feel warmth. Not the same kind of warmth, though. Her kind of warmth takes a conscious effort - these people only notice him when he’s gone - her faithfully unfaithful suitor, lover.
“Stupid,” he says to the people who can see her for all she is. Her eyes become bright topaz and opal, like brilliant solidified fire or the colour of leaves during the time of falling. Her eyes are neither windows nor doors - her eyes are gates, the jeweled gates of Heaven. Brilliant orange-brown eyes that he can’t see but can see him, the brightness of his love for her.
The sky changes from blue to white to grey to blue to pink to purple, the patient Earth turning her away from him. And there he waits for his lover and she waits for him.
“I rise when you rise, my darling. For now, sleep. I am not far from you.”
She is the Sun.
He is the Sea.
You are but
a jealous cloud,
heated by their passion,
sent away by them both,
meant to keep her
from his view
but she is light.
She comes back
to her beloved Sea
and shines through.
You are but
a wish and
soon enough
you become
droplets
and pour
and fade
and vanish
while their love
is eternal.
He wills you
to him
and promises
forever.
You fall
for him
but you are fooled
for he only took you
so he may see
his beloved Sun.
When I woke up, there were strange men around my room.
The sound of wheels brushing through metal railings rushed from my roof, making my entire home shiver and quake. The sound of wheels on pavement and the scent of smoke fill the air, coming from my boisterous, minute-long neighbours. Sometimes they would stop, not because they want to but because a man in yellow or orange or blue changes his choreography for a minute-hour. Even from here, I can hear their impatient growls, the near-silent cursing under their breath. Always rushing. Always moving.
I brush my fingers through the strands of my thin, grave-and-dirt-caked hair and look at the strange men around my room. Their heads and mouths are covered with white and pink cloth. Their hands are powdered with cement remains. They are building fences around my room, trapping me. They speak in garbled voices, using terms I don’t understand. I stand to my full height - a full two feet and eleven inches. I rest my hand on the new fences while watching my minute-long neighbours’ houses flit by, becoming blurs of bright colours and black smoke.
I had been living here for the longest time - a record of five sunrises. My home had never had walls before and now they do. I peer through the new walls the strange men had built.
They all wear the same bright green shirt, caked with the same silver powder on their hands. They are drenched in sweat but they are still covered up despite the heat from the smoke and Sun. I had not changed clothes for a year.
They shovel the dirt and plants from my living room and make holes in my garage with a giant screwdriver, drilling up and down at a mechanized rhythm. The wheeled metal monster that passes by my roof comes by again. The powder finds itself inside of me and I cough, feeling as if my lungs are becoming my tongue. One of the strange men turns to look at me and barks strange, loud words at me, his hands in the air, bidding me to leave my home like some landlord telling me my rent was due when the bed I slept in was made of dead leaves and cigarette butts.
Even then, they cast me away from my home. They build fences and walls at the place I once called my room and I leave to find another bed made of dirt, leaves, and cigarette butts to call my own.
1/5 »
