tomorrow is our permanent address

I am typing this from my Asus Eee, whose name I still insist on pronouncing weirdly even though I thought that wasn't the way it was pronounced and then discovered that I was wrong and I was right, because for the past hour I have been trying to clean out my computer's keyboard. You cannot imagine all the dusty fluff that comes out of the gaps between the keys. I suggest you try it out. It's extremely cathartic.

---

And so, the school year ends. The cuts and bruises and lessons learned are still there, and no one knows if they will disappear, since no one will notice them disappearing anyway. And in my case, the cuts and bruises part is literal, due to biking. Two days ago, I raced against August four times, and won all four of those times. He said that was because he was being a gentleman. About an hour later, he lost control of the pedicab, and I crashed into a gazebo.

It was a fun experience.

Well, he only crashed once. I kept losing control when I drove the pedicab. I even crashed into the sound system. Guia lost control not at all.

Hey, that rhymes.

And then the day after that I biked twice, once with Tram and Menez, the second time with Airah and Menez and Paeng, And Paeng suddenly braked in front of me... and I fell.

As a result I have bruises on my arm and shoulder, and a cut on my face. It feels weird.

The fun thing about getting injured is that you automatically have a funny story for people, and you're absolutely sure that it won't offend any of them.

---

The school year ends, in a way that does not signify that it has been ending ever since it began. The pictures are taken (sadly, before I got the cut on my face), the fair booths have closed, and the children who are no longer children are found to still enjoy volleying a ball over a net. One has to wonder why they enjoy it, and why none of the cars around have volleyball-shaped dents in them. The sun throws caricatures called shadows across the ground, the math grades have been handed out and the Sir Nat students are in various corners of Pisay, complaining and celebrating and mourning, the treasurers chase around those heavily in debt to the class funds, the autograph books fly from hand to hand. The fair days are quiet and lazy and are spent doing nothing at all, which is honestly the most enjoyable task in the world, and which, deep inside, is the sole desire of every student after three days of exams. The periodical test results are posted inside the SHB's halls, and the students either take efforts to check them out of take efforts to avoid them- who wants to spoil the last days of the school year? (34 ako sa Physics perio! bagsak ako sa Chem. perio!) Classmates who will forget about each other over the next months, or when the new school year rolls in, or not at all, chat about concert plans and memories and
throw insults and inside jokes at each other. Questions that had never been asked are asked, friends that could have been but never were are salvaged, and classmates who fall off bicycles are rescued and asked if they were all right. Despite the silence of the days that stay in spite of the loud music, the students are at complete ease, and they make special efforts to let everyone know that they are not. These last days, everyone knows, are only escapes, temporary refuges from pressures that will never be abated and from expectations that will never be met.

And so, the school year ends.

Now I can honestly say I can appreciate Ma'am Marla. =>

---

Ang galing talaga ng Physics Unit mag-isip ng mga mahihirap gawin. They compiled all their ideas in an event called the Physics Olympics. May bike race kami na pabagalan! Our team (me, Pristine, Airah, and Camarao) placed third in our section. Kami ni Camarao yung nag-bike. Masaya kaya, kahit na sobrang liit ng bike. =>

At tinuruan ako nina Haha at Carmel kung paano umakyat ng puno. Except that Carmel could have warned me that the tree had caterpillars earlier.

Nakakainis yung mountain bike na hiniram nina Menez. Hindi ko abot.

---

Last week nag-food trip kami. We were supposed to interview people for Soc. Sci.. We went to the UP Shopping Center. And everywhere we went, my groupmates just had to buy food.

Well, now I can honestly say that I have climbed a tree, and that I have tasted isaw. =>

---

Ang weird tignan ng mga STR posters. Yung mga galing sa Sir Tayco sections, sobrang seryoso. Tapos yung amin... Well, imagine a world without fish. =>

"... Is there anything as pathetic as an ex-president?"

Sagot namin: "A current president."

Pero seryoso, nakakatuwa talaga yung ibang parts doon. Lalung-lalo na yung sa huli, at pinasabog ng ship yung slave fortress.

"You are right after all- the slave fortress at Sierra Leone is nonexistent." =>

---

I don't know which is more annoying- being treated as though you knew everything, and having too much expected of you and too much weight on your shoulders, or being underestimated, being treated as though you had no capacity to think and judge for yourself.

I don't know what I'm supposed to write here.

Because, unlike some lucky people, I cannot write.

I should make that a constant. Write= stringing words together in a way that won't make people want to kill you.

Then again, I won't be able to complain about my penmanship.

---

Some can tell the story of a major English project, of the hours spent into work on an exhibit that would only last 120 minutes, of finger-painting since there were no more paintbrushes, of friendships made and burned out of desperation or frustration or gratitude or just plain chance. Some can find words to describe the laughter in the air when paintbrush, paint, and even the water to dip the paintbrush in were borrowed from other groups, the relief of knowing that finally, finally, the roof of the "house" in your exhibit was done, the amused irritation the next day upon discovering the bird excreta on that roof. Some have words for realisation that you really are lucky after all, to some extent, for wondering if anything being fought for really is worth what it cost, for the simultaneous exhaustion and happiness when your work is finished and there is really nothing you can do about it.

---

Some can narrate a crazy day spent with five more classmates, can talk about amusement at signs bearing assasination tips and at iced-tea drinking contests and at pretend-emo moments and at all the mishaps dance can bring. Some can paint in mere letters the scene of 29 students, exchanging laughter and gifts and- real or mocking- Christmas greetings, and the apprehension they had for presentations where one wrong step could, literally, ruin everything they had practiced for, and the accomplishment they all felt once their presentations were over and done with and never had to be repeated for the rest of their lives. Some can describe the bond that classmates have that can go back on them at any moment (that reminds me of Chem.), that bond that can be so much more and so much less than friendship, that bond that is the most similar to that of soldiers fighting the same battles and dodging the same bullets and living on the same terrible food for months on end. Because you and your classmates have lived though the same experiences, the same terror teachers and infinite requirements and careless mistakes, and only they can understand you when those experiences come up.

---

Some can, without making any effort at all, describe endless conversations under catwalks and around the oval and sitiing in the field and in the school corridors, can bring out the emotions of euphoria and despair and frustration and anger and whatever other emotions are brought up that exist in the almost-human frame of mind. Some can recreate scenes so clearly they are almost visible, pictures of pounding rain and raised voices and cold air and peace. Some can give enough flesh and blood and breath and life to words that even those who have never lived their lives can live through these words.

---

They are the luckiest of all. And the rest of us are just stuck trying to give justice to what we experienced, and end up, eventually, giving up. Because what should never be destroyed is better left forgotten in some unknown corner of the mind than preserved in words that will make the rest of the world wish that it never existed to begin with.

---

Halata bang tinatamad lang akong magsulat tungkol sa lahat na iyon? =>

 Magpahinga muna
Sa problemang dinadala
Kung very serious ka
Baka naman, mabuang ka!

For some strange reason, that's what this Humanities Week seems to be doing to us. I don't know if the regular load of third year is so insane even the once-Inhumanities Week seems like a break, or if our sole requirement for these events- the di-kum- isn't going that bad after all.

Or maybe we're just taking our song to heart and relaxing more around practice.

Hindi naman masyadong sabog yung di-kum namin, di ba? Hindi naman masyado?

Ang tanging payo ko sa 'yo, simulan mo sa ngiti
At gaganda ang mundo....

This Humanities Week is weird. I mean, weirder than Humanities Weeks usually are. For one, it doesn't last an entire school week. It lasts for three days.

And, by complete accident, I became a contestant for the KKKwiz. I had been thinking that I should have slept during the elims, but what the hell. I discovered joining the contest was less tiring than watching it was.

Especially if you only knew the date of the contest on the day itself, and did not study in any way. And kept on singing your di-kum song during the contest. =>

Sir Martin: "Roxas smiley... I think we can accept that."

And the easiest Econ. question in the history of the world: "Give the names of the people on the 1-peso, 5-peso, and 10-peso coins respectively."

And I'm glad Sir Martin can decipher hieroglyphs- a. k. a. my handwriting. =3

Ngumiti, tumawa, magsaya, kumanta
Loob mo'y gagaan, pati ang problema
Ngumiti, tumawa, magsaya, kumanta
Gagaan pati ang problema!

I must have sounded drunk in the aftermath of the KKKwiz. I think I had amassed so much energy I had to lose some of it. Which I tried to do. By singing our di-kum song at the top of my voice. I doubt I had ever been that hyper in Sodium. I think my classmates thought my sanity was going for good. I think? Yes, I think!

La lala lalala lala lala....
Kung very serious ka
Baka naman, mabuang ka!

By some unfortunate accident, the first person I saw that I knew when I went to Pisay on debate day was Jamil. By some fortunate accident a. k. a. the KKKwiz I was very hyper. The combination ensured that I greeted everyone I knew with : "Hi <insert name of person/entity>! Nakita mo na ba si Jamil? Mukha siyang ewan!"

Well, it was true.

Though I think that the first debate, on the CPP/NPA's declassification as a terrorist group, wasn't judged very well... After all, it is a delicate topic, and one where biases can dictate one's view of something. The negative side won. Which, under okay circumstances, I wouldn't have thought would happen. After all, it was the side Jamil was on. I'm serious. And, and here I try not to be biased, I think the affirmative side (I nearly typed "the positive side", for what is the opposite of negative? positive!) presented better arguments.

Then again, it's impossible to be completely objective. Even if you're just observing. Each person has his/her own biases, and these can even change the way he/she interprets what he/she sees. And to observe something is to change it.

Ang tanging payo ko sa 'yo, simulan mo sa ngiti
At gaganda ang mundo....

My team, I believe, has always won the Laro ng Lahi. It's just an observation. A very biased one, too. Observations regarding oneself are always biased. But they can be true.

None of my classmates have ever been kicked out from Pisay. This is true.

And for the past three years, my Com. Sci. schedule hasn't changed. This is also true.

I remember the old Humanities Weeks. Garnet had the Yellow Team, and agawan-base in the spot where the new gazebos are, and the langaw in Emman's gulaman, and Konan, and taking pictures for Art, and lying down on RD's banig and laughing, and Thea's famed Listerine Model picture. Champaca had the Black Team, and Bioman Junior, and practices for the talking tableau and the speech choir, and Laro ng Lahi in the rain, and August's being absent since he broke a leg, and my "Paging 2-Champaca, paging 2-Champaca, yung mga cute."

Ngumiti, tumawa, magsaya, kumanta
Loob mo'y gagaan, pati ang problema
Ngumiti, tumawa, magsaya, kumanta
Gagaan pati ang problema!

I'm tired of always being the one being left behind. But that's beyond the point.

 It's almost pathetic. I don't know which is more pathetic, my grade, or the fact that I chose not to study and just see what happens? Or, the one who decided as such?

But still, I can't complain. We have a new Chem. teacher, a new quarter to start over with, new (and in some cases easier) lessons, new projects. But new isn't exactly the right term there, is it? Since everything of the present is affected by everything of the past. You can never really start over with a clean slate. Never.

Which is why hardly anyone can say they have no regrets. I think it is in the nature of those who think to weigh the value of what happened versus what would have happened, and their consequences, and their effects. To wonder which really mattered more, happiness in a solid present or happiness in a future that could never exist, and to wonder what would have happened.

Regret is a price of thought.

---

I am going nowhere.

I mean that in all senses of the phrase. Nowhere in this post, nowhere in this world, nowhere in my life, nowhere in the STR sources I ought to be working on. Perhaps it is because I have nowhere to go. I wonder if people are born that way, or if society and upbringing made them that way, and if there is a difference, if the way they are born is tied in to the way they are brought up and the way society treats them.

(These random thoughts go nowhere as well, except to new paragraphs.)

Or perhaps it is because I have no interest in leaving.

I would like to think I prefer the latter. It means I have a choice in the matter. The same way I chose not to be in the DL last quarter, instead of having to figure out that no matter how hard I tried I would not get into the DL. Which did not happen, so I am not sure that it would have happened. But still. I chose to be not in the DL over being forced away from the DL by my abilities. Or lack thereof.

It all depends on what one values more. Happiness in a solid present or happiness in a future that could never exist? One's pride or one's future?

---

Do people ever really go anywhere? Or do they just delude themselves? Do they advance in some manners while forgetting other, less obvious, equally or maybe even more significant aspects of life? Six years from the ever-memorable 9/11, have people actually learned something from it? Or did it bring about nothing but bomb scares, wars, auras of terror, hatred, paranoia? Six years since Erap was ousted, why do people gather to support him, insist he is innocent?

Six years from the first time I set up my ever-expanding multiverse. Have we actually progressed? Or have we just been wasting time and energy and plant fibers over nothing?

Two years since I first entered Pisay. I have changed, I admit that. For the better? For the worse? But better and worse are only relative. Or do the changes amount to nothing at all? After all, the net force is still 0 if the friction is equal to the applied force.

Andali ng bonus sa Physics! Pati yung number 6 sa Chem. problem set! Parang anticlimax ata... Pero nakakatuwa pa rin. =>

... about the words "Sodium" and "Ramayana". "Sodium" refers to a highly corrosive, even deadly element. "Ramayana" refers to a highly stressful, even deadly epic scholars are required to present in a play. And when combined- well, the effect is so strong that every time it happens a storm has to come to prevent the chaos that would ensue otherwise. We'll see about next time, though.

I'm beginning to hope that our Ramayana pulls through. The cycle of practice, stress, final preparation, cancellation, schedule change, practice again is getting tiring. No, actually I just want to have it done. But there are no classes and whining about it won't do anyone any good.

---

I don't know if I like the rain or if I hate it like hell.

With rain comes the urge to write. Don't ask me why. And at the moment I am trying to translate a rather long Pisay story into words. It isn't working. The stupid thing about wanting to write, is that it rarely coincides with having the ability to write. I mean write as in string words together in a way that won't make people want to throw you off a bridge, and not write as in hold a pencil the right way and form legible scribbles.

With rain comes a better, more relaxed, more upbeat mood. Or maybe that's because we have no classes. Or maybe I'm just hyper. How am I supposed to know?

From our last math class:
Sir Nat: Alam ninyo kung ano yung locus? Di 'yan yung insekto, a!
Norman: Di ba yun yung ballpen?
Sir Nat: May nagsabi sa Cesium, locus daw yung nahahanap sa Region 1. Locus Norte, Locus Sur...
...=3

From last Wednesday, while I was playing with my Pisay pin:
Me: Ang cute talaga nitong pin na 'to... Sayang...
August: You're going to kill me, aren't you?
Me: No, I'm just going to stick this in your eye. Well, on second thought...

---

Why am I being so hyper?

Why am I even asking?

Why do I still not know how to end entries?

I wondered, in the middle of a stupid problem I could have finished in five minutes on a good day, if that was how dying felt like.

Pain shooting up your spine when you made to move your pen. Pain stabbing you in the back of your head when you tried to substitute and calculate. Pain exploding in your face when you opened your eyes to the light of the Physics room. Above all, the pain of knowing that you had to answer this long test, even at the cost of your life, even if all you wanted to do was screw your eyes shut against the maze of numbers and words, was to just curl up and die.

I wonder, now, if dying feels like a Physics long test in a sea of migraines, exploding stars, dying nerves, despair, pain.

---

Yesterday I was wondering if dying felt like a Ramayana performed when you're obvioiusly not ready, performed when sick and tired and in a class filled with insane politics and false pretenses. I wondered if dying felt like trying to give your best despite everything and dismally failing yourself- while the people you thought would help you stabbed you in the back. I wondered if laughing at the silliness of a Filipino horror movie that turned into a comedy when subjected to watchful eyes and tart comments was life support. I wondered if the cancelling of classes the next day- este today- was resurrection.

And I wonder if I will die again. Due to grades, or stress, or my class, or all of the above. I wonder if this will be the year, I wonder if I will forgive myself, I wonder what will happen if I don't. I wonder how I will leave this world, if necessary, I wonder if the rains will ever stop, I wonder when I will finally start working on the Health perio.

I'm not feeling the hell week. Then again, I hardly ever do. But still. I still can't believe that one quarter of third year has passed. There's proof, though- I'm freer and more relaxed around my classmates, everyone's bugging me to study for periodicals, and I'm beginning to have new friends.

I'm still not used to having close friends- after all, only an unlucky few knew me for me in my old school. Old habits of hiding emotions and pretending everything is all right just to show people you don't need their help die hard.

I realise, after watching Pisay the movie with my batch and two other Pisay batches, that almost all Pisay stories have the same elements. Friendships, studies, academic problems, stress, horrible teachers, good teachers, unforgettable events, forgettable facts, grade worries, fear of failure, despair, hatred, apathy, STR, hell weeks, uncertainties, wrong decisions, annoying classmates, newly discovered talents, humbling moments, triumphant moments, homeworks, unfulfilled expectations, late projects, failing grades, over-perfects, pressure, competition, symbiosis, enmity, laughter. I don't think Pisay would be Pisay for me without these, though it may be for someone else, anyone else, everyone else.

Everything depends.

---

Sodium took two vehicles: Jazzy's van, which held Airah, Pristine, MJ, Sedric, Jeffrey, Ingrid, Jazzy (of course), Bonggi, and me, and a rented bus, which held everyone else plus part of Magnesium.

The rented bus was "first-class" (or so it said on the paper stuck to its doors, but who can expect anything else of Quintin?), pero ang bagal niya!!!!

As a result of that, Sodium was the first '09 class, and second class overall, to arrive- and was at the same time the last. We had to wait an hour for them, since our treasurer, who was with them, had the tickets.

Ang ganda ng CCP!!!! Wala lang.

And the two Sodium vehicles left the CCP at the same time, about. They took out from McDonald's. We had a buffet lunch at Kamayan, courtesy of Jazzy's father. And guess what? We had to wait an hour before they arrived!

We had Ramayana practice, and strangely enough, I still like it, despite evrything. Ang saya talaga ng role ng narrator- pero ang hirap din! I only pray that the floor of the stage is clean come performance day.

And after the practice were two hours of reading and contemplating and arguing and annoyances and death threats, and I wouldn't have life any other way. =>