(no subject)

So the NMAT is over and done with and if I could take it again in place of that Bio30 lab exam I would and there's Bio30 Lecture and Chem40 and maybe that report on the Industrial Revolution to deal with and am I getting worried? No, because football fandom is the most wonderful place to be, and my to-read list? Is longer than my arm. Never mind that I have short arms.

You know that feeling, that there's a whole new world right in front of you and waiting is something for other people, that excitement that goes past the bones and through the marrow and straight to the stomach and says, Screw exams, tomorrow you die, et cetera, et cetera, you need to know what happens next, or what could have happened instead, or simply what happens, and you could live like that, in the story, for ever, and the world could go boom and start again and be for ever just as before? That's it, that's exactly it, what football and football fandom bring, what football and football fandom are, what happens as a side effect of Barcelona or Arsenal walking out onto a pitch, because everything has the potential for story, to be larger than itself. Heck, everything is story, flawed and light and painful and as brilliant as a Leo Messi run to goal.

I write when I'm excited and I write when I'm miserable and I write when there's nothing left except stupid words, always the same words and the hope that maybe this would be the time they'd grow up. I write because it's what I do, I don't know how to do anything else, I would if I could but I can't. And most of the time it's just another thing but sometimes there's the feeling that, I don't know, the skin over my shoulder blades would come off and out of the bone and muscle and cartilage would grow wings and the tendons would be stretched and the nerves bunched up and that would be okay because then, the flying, and then, the world. Because yeah, in a way, story is the world, only from a different vantage point.

Also, Francesc Fabregas, did I ever say I love you? Yup.

---

Manchester United and Arsenal at four in the morning. Am I scheduling my life around football? Of course.

---

Also, the Philippine national men's football team won't get a home game in the 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup semis against Indonesia. Their games will be away and away, both in Indonesia. They say that this is because we don't have a stadium that will pass AFF standards, probably forgetting the fact that the Philippines hosted the 2006 SEA Games in the process. The Philippine Football Federation let this go, probably because it is inefficient, corrupt, and stagnant. The president was actually voted out by the other members of the federation after his accountant showed that he pocketed a lot of the federation's money, only to be reinstated by FIFA. This should not surprise anyone. Our team doesn't even have a proper training ground.

Thank you, PFF, for making me think about the problems of the world when I just want to think about the problems of football. Thank you very much.

(no subject)

So the NMAT is over and done with and if I could take it again in place of that Bio30 lab exam I would and there's Bio30 Lecture and Chem40 and maybe that report on the Industrial Revolution to deal with and am I getting worried? No, because football fandom is the most wonderful place to be, and my to-read list? Is longer than my arm. Never mind that I have short arms.

You know that feeling, that there's a whole new world right in front of you and waiting is something for other people, that excitement that goes past the bones and through the marrow and straight to the stomach and says, Screw exams, tomorrow you die, et cetera, et cetera, you need to know what happens next, or what could have happened instead, or simply what happens, and you could live like that, in the story, for ever, and the world could go boom and start again and be for ever just as before? That's it, that's exactly it, what football and football fandom bring, what football and football fandom are, what happens as a side effect of Barcelona or Arsenal walking out onto a pitch, because everything has the potential for story, to be larger than itself. Heck, everything is story, flawed and light and painful and as brilliant as a Leo Messi run to goal.

I write when I'm excited and I write when I'm miserable and I write when there's nothing left except stupid words, always the same words and the hope that maybe this would be the time they'd grow up. I write because it's what I do, I don't know how to do anything else, I would if I could but I can't. And most of the time it's just another thing but sometimes there's the feeling that, I don't know, the skin over my shoulder blades would come off and out of the bone and muscle and cartilage would grow wings and the tendons would be stretched and the nerves bunched up and that would be okay because then, the flying, and then, the world. Because yeah, in a way, story is the world, only from a different vantage point.

Also, Francesc Fabregas, did I ever say I love you? Yup.

---

Manchester United and Arsenal at four in the morning. Am I scheduling my life around football? Of course.

---

Also, the Philippine national men's football team won't get a home game in the 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup semis against Indonesia. Their games will be away and away, both in Indonesia. They say that this is because we don't have a stadium that will pass AFF standards, probably forgetting the fact that the Philippines hosted the 2006 SEA Games in the process. The Philippine Football Federation let this go, probably because it is inefficient, corrupt, and stagnant. The president was actually voted out by the other members of the federation after his accountant showed that he pocketed a lot of the federation's money, only to be reinstated by FIFA. This should not surprise anyone. Our team doesn't even have a proper training ground.

Thank you, PFF, for making me think about the problems of the world when I just want to think about the problems of football. Thank you very much.