augustchild turned one year this november. it's played a witness to a milestone in my life (the past year) and if you have been following, you, lucky you.

my first post was first post to graduation: the real-life series, which i wrote around the time my partner sheela and i started conducting our killer thesis. it also became the shelter to all my last-months-of-student-life frustrations and served as the playful deathlist of the principals who thought of themselves the presidents of the Philippines.

i got through that and now, i speak of the Cebu furniture industry, of commercial invoices, of abusive clients, of a sarcastic boss, of inconsistent but fun officemates, and of healthy today, disappointing tomorrow workloads and work spirit. I have arrived at reality: the ultimate real life series.

for this, i did something right to the blog. please check out the new stuff in the side section and tell me if this is how right it should be. i'm still a grade school in personal background settings so i'm not getting my hands on that until i turn high school or even a graduating 6th grade student. with my tech knowledge level, this is about how far i can take you to what rocks my world and if you think i'm just a wannabe of whatever, well, you don't know me at all (and you haven't been following :) because the truth is, i really am a wannabe of whatever. 

in the meanwhile, let this post be your guide to this side section that i'm bragging about. not much, but at least there's something:

mine mime machine

read most of the buzz in pictures. i just got new pics posted in there that your visual curiosity will have to settle with for the longest of times that separate my Ormoc visits. sadly, i don't have the patience anymore to work on photo downloads at my Cebu PC's turtle speed.

a few of my favorite clicks

here you can check out the sites that i usually go online for. i have my friend, Vera's blog site in there. if you are a weakling for sadness in such good writing, it should also be in your favorite clicks list, too. Purple chocolates is Tiepee, one humorous girl whose blog i discovered while looking Egay Caoeli up (ugh, i had to mention that) more than two years ago. this year, this same blog was featured in Candy Magazine's best sites. wow, it thrills me to this day that i got there first. and who else is reading? just pam pastor, the chief correspondent of many sorts over at philippine daily inquirer.

John August is a screenwriter who/m i love so much for putting Big Fish in the big screen. and he writes funny, too. Butch Dalisay is the wittiest and comprehensive writer my reading sensibilities have ever grown addicted to. he writes for several columns in the philippine star; but it's definitely penman that he is most known and loved for, and rightfully so. this is in philstar's monday art section.

Wikipedia, as we all know, is our internet friendly encyclopedia and in my goal to extend my knowledge, has also become a companion in my surfing time.

Updharmadown is my favorite ear addiction and the most delightful of all hypnosis. and this site is their home online.

Screenplays and Screenplays II have a wide range of movie scripts which i have been poring over to read, to learn, to soak in the slowest steps toward my screenwriter's dream.

turfs

where my friends (with the excemption of ghe) belt their worlds out in words. i just got to visit ghe's site after he tagged me (that's why they tag in the first place) and he is what i would call a cynic, and one who loves making lists, at that. i just thought of sharing this little boy's world to all those who are open to opening their worlds to some humorous cynicism that most of the time, spells out downright truths about life.

movies that i should have written but didn't

behold this tribute to my shameful frustration over not having written such great scripts. shameful it is because i am not exactly doing anything about it. not exactly it is, since i have composed a thousand beginings, but nil of an ending.

music that kick me at the moment

every escapist has to have such list to stay wordly sane.

sweeping snippets of the mime machine archives

for your convenience.

i looked at my brother and tried to see traces of the car accident that wiped out a bit of his hair and embraced his upper head area with a cast for several days. a few weeks ago on his way home from drinking with some cousins, he crashed into the protective rail of the Agua Dulce (Ormoc's natural water source) and smashed his head onto the windshield. the impact was so strong that his head broke the windshield. or let me rephrase that: his head is a steel of an anatomy that the windshield yielded to damage.

but i didn't find any traces. i observed his driving, and i didn't find any either. so literally, he got in an accident that smashed his head onto the windshield, visited the hospital to look out for internal damages (thankfully, not anything serious), slept through it during the day, got a 5-minute lecture from my grandmother (my parents have given up) and woke up to a new lease in life with nothing more than the cast.

let's go back to the beginning.

i look at my brother and tried to see... (eyes up)

[in response to Jessa's friendster message, edited to fit my obsessive compulsiveness]

Dear Jessa,

Let me set this straight - i needed no apology, especially from you, for something that wasn't even written in paper. Though you promised that you would tell me if (and when) it will happen and that you wouldn't let me hear it from somebody else, i guess this is one thing that once broken, cannot be fixed anymore. Please don't worry about it though. Seriously. 

That aside, Jessa, as somebody who's both shared and experienced with you a lot of moments of wondering and pondering and finding the slighest traces of love that hope struggled for us to still believe in, I have to tell you now that you've found it: happiness!

Didn't I tell you that it was bound to happen? That -- excuse me for the analogy -- Piolo would see through Rica and see Juday. (Let's pause a moment and forget the kapuso/kapamilya battle ok?) He was bound to see you.

But even a certainty such as this could never escape all doubts. In this case, why did it happen too fast? ... My only hope is that it wasn't too fast for you to keep track of every moment that made up the hows of arriving to that point. Not only will you have something to keep and talk about for the rest of your life (and as something as romantic as love with a close friend), but also for the happy streaks that you speak of this relationship with will still be there for... and ever.

I haven't been dropping by at school, i know. Pardon me for the clear signs of aging early on, shown in my eargerness to go straight to home right after work. I have no social life; on weekdays, at least. I even just told Vera that one morning I woke up with a weird sickness towards my work. It was on a Monday, so I hooked it on Monday/weekend blues (lame). And more so, it was the Monday after another encounter with Updharmadown. This is weird, but I feel strongly for their music. It's my drug for now in the sense that I need great dosages of it every week. Haha. Seriously.

Or to get this as plainly straight as possible, let me get this freaky realization out: this is my escapist's retreat.

Lest you think otherwise, let me assure you that I haven't lost my sanity. Maybe bit by bit, i am just learning that there is more to life than waking up at 530, choosing the best black bottom that would fit my black top, praying for emails so I don't have to fake my workload for the day, marking up furniture prices to unbelievable amounts, owning up other people's mistakes, getting along with people who just can't.... and my near misery is borne out of my cluelessness of what this MORE is. 

I can't explain the questions I face everyday, the doubts on whether or not I've wasted the first months of real freedom, the action-less search for that happiness. No matter how seriously I fight it, I am a sticker for convention. I hope you have found your alternative in Alex.

Please take care of yourself, Jessa, and of your heart (and of Alex's heart too). Selfless love might be the trend in every relationship but don't completely believe in that. Take care of yourself first and even more. Alex may be my crush, but you are my dearest friend.

Love lots.

1. i hate my feet. but as mumble has influenced on me, i can see happiness in them by making them dance. cha-cha is so 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s (basta, read: OLD). boogie is too wacky. jive too fast. tango too sexy for my tummy. hiphop too heavy. tap dance having all of the above, as a result, getting just a bit of each. just right. happy feet!

2. if i couldn't charm my boy with my no-charms, then i'll just tap dance my way.

3. i'm obsessed with the fireplace scene at The Garden State. hands down, it's the most romantic scene borne out of hollywood (at par with Before Sunset's ending clips) and the remy zero song that was playing has been going in rounds in my background. thank you very much.

4. i would want to experience that scene with the guy. which should be a give-away that i'm open to finding the guy beyond my corner in this world.

5. she was the first girl who tap danced in reply to a guy's confessions and i would like to be the second.

6. i can't sing, i can't charm. perhaps i can write, but so many other people got to that first.

7. this would be my "completely original moment in history" (out of hollywood, i mean)

(by zach braff, excerpt from the Garden State)

You know what I do
when I feel completely unoriginal?
- What?
# La, blah, blah
Blah, la, la ##

I make a noise or I do something
that no one has ever done before.
And then I can feel unique again
even if it's only for like a second.
So, no one's ever done that?
No, not in this spot. No. You just witnessed
a completely original moment in history.
It's refreshing. You should try it.
Oh, no. Thanks.
No, come on.
I think that was good enough for both of us.
Come on. What are you, shy?
This is your one opportunity to do something...
that no one has done before and that no one
will copy again throughout human existence.
A-And if nothing else, you'll be remembered
as the one guy who ever did this.
This one thing. Uh... How was that?
Oh, I've done that one before.
- So, uh...

8. if i could get myself a Zach Braff, geeky he may be, why not?

9. everybody should learn how to do at least one dance.

10. 'cause i'm sure my feet were not just made for walking.

:)

by Zach Braff

There's a handful
of normal kid things I kind of missed.

There's a handful of normal
kid things I kind of wish I'd missed.

You know that point in your life when
you realize the house you grew up in...
isn't really your home anymore.
All of a sudden, even though you have
some place where you put your shit...
that idea of home is gone.

I still feel at home
in my house.

You'll see one day when you move out.
Just sorta happens one day, and it's gone.
You feel like you can never get it back.
It's like you feel homesick
for a place that doesn't even exist.
Maybe it's like
this rite of passage, you know?
You won't ever have that feeling again until
you create a new idea of home for yourself.
You know, for... For your kids.
For the family you start.
It's like a cycle or something.
I don't know. But I miss
the idea of it, you know?

Maybe that's all family really is.
A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

Maybe.

i read my friend vera's leftover and i am reminded of the "highs" back in college. (thanks vera)

perfect timing since i am getting traces of sickness towards my work, or rather, those that/who co-exist with it. i am not putting in the same list everybody who sincerely make it a good place for me to grow and get a life at 21. not that it's always working, but in many times, the futile attempts are as important as the successfull attempts. at least they tried.

i don't know why i seem to have dragged a thousand kilos under my arms today. i could no longer use the "monday blues" excuse since it's tuesday. perhaps my UNaccidental encounter with the guitarist from my current favorite high, a.k.a. carlos and how i'm sure i appeared dumb (and semi-drunk at that) to him really bothers me. why the ugly toes of mine does this matter?

in the reflection today, the Companion literally screamed at my senses not to fuss about small things. yes, i have my daily reflections, and yes, unlike how i may seem here, i don't always argue with the reflections. go ahead and be surprised how i could possibly put reflections that sound too religiously inclined, the word shitty, and sickness towards the world all in one blog.

i'm not cursing Lord. but then again, He doesn't need me to use this as my curser since He hears it from all the way in. i may be pretending out here, but He knows what's going on all the way in there.

my memory beats for the night...

ATTENTION, vera: I can't comment in your blog. 

what do i do online?

blog.
visit my blog.
bring my existence to the awareness of the rest of the world.

vera, 2nd day that i feel i want to kick myself for getting myself too glued to my job. i am not sure if i am unhappy already, maybe it's just a momentary occurence (like everything). but definitely, i dragged with me 10000 paragraphs worth of frustrations today. (you know what that means)

what is wrong?

thank you for your leftovers..

ver, should it be a sign of crisis at 21, of unhappiness, of worry that we are just wasting our earliest moments of real life, that we are blogging mostly about sad stuff, or stuff that sound sad?

shit, now and forever from richard marx (?) is playing in this numb internet cafe. for some reason, the mere shittiness and corniness of this song always gets to me though i can always run to OO or A little respect if i'm pining for shitty love songs. i'll die if for the first time from the One Fine Day soundtrack follows.

... then it's destiny's child "brown eyes". is that good?

to the gayest of all gays, patricia "kitty" braden and to all pretentiousness real princesses who should watch breakfast on pluto.

going to a show is like going to disneyland, so says carla of me. and catching updharmadown live is definitely being first in the line for the the space mountain ride.

can i blog?

i just got out of a small room talking to carlos about the today is t-shirt day CD that terno recordings has been promoting on breakfast. terno is the umbrella company for today's music greats such as paramita, radio active sago project, juan pablo dream and of course, updharmadown. they have a CD compilation of songs from the bands under their care and each band has designed a t-shirt that can be purchased, too. i'm waiting.

i introduced myself again as Ivi, to which, paul in the backyard exclaims, "mojo flies!"

yeahhh... i really like this paul and carlos. good memoried musicians.

i literally approached carlos when i saw him standing all alone and listening to the band that played after them, and when we started talking about the today is t-shirt day, we moved into the small room where the rest are. here's the thing: i invited him over to our table.

what a dare. devil.

that aside, updharmadown live in outpost is like an opened hatchet. it's been locked for months and it's open. like what fellow fan said, "time to get high." high time, alright. they performed all my favies -- the world is my playground..., hiwaga, we give in sometimes, pag-agos -- can i stay high?

thanks to vera. thanks to the guys.

i am answered.

this is the thing, russ. #025 in espina village doesn't know what a dvd player is. until my mom bought a second hand phillips dvd/vcd/cd player from my aunt, it's never seen one. when it finally did, i made it a first priority to enlist in a video store's membership just to give the house a dvd feel and fill the once empty house with the kind of reality the movies depict. and yep, one of the first movies i rented out was crash. i've heard so much about it and the last words were from my cousin who just dawned on me is a real fan of unheard of, weird films. just as i thought i was alone in this genre in my family, i realized that it has another of me. (never judge cousins who don't speak a lot, they're usually the ones who's got so much to speak about)

and so this talk about crash just got posted. anyway, it's an honor to have you visit this blog, russ, my workmate, my old schoolmate, my friend. welcome.

i want to apologize to jackie. for the life of me, i couldn't explain how i could have forgotten you. really. i counted so many times the number of wormies to make sure i didn't miss out on anybody. but for the life of my counting and my memory (not again), i forgot jackie velasco, one of the most important members of the group (to start with, she's got unbelievably organized notes, joke). let this forgetfulness not be a sign of having forgotten you (but of course, at that second-ish moment of blog completion, i did forget there is a wormie named jackie (hey that rhymes!)) you can ask anybody jaq, it's impossible to forget you..

i apologize to vera. i made a word, but then i broke it. it's very un-friend-ish of me to have done so but you have remained a dear friend. i couldn't possibly put a period to a list of the things that you have made me realize about myself and about the world, so i wouldn't even attempt to start listing. but at the moment, i just have to thank you for texting me about the an updharmadown show-up at outpost. haha, that's the fan in me talking. you've got a fan of a friend vera and you just hit the jackpot for her. thank you.

i was planning to go with tiffy. our other concert barkada is bernie, but he's on a Novena mode for the law school entrance exam (no less than for the UP COllege of Law) that he is about to take tomorrow. bernie boy, our only girl, whether you make the mark or not, I AM PROUD OF YOU. so we were talking about tiffy...

tiffy, i'm sorry about the ear infection and i know you'll take the next few days of your mom's absence as a go signal to grow. right, girl? don't worry about the P300-ticket bangka. i'd rather miss that than getting it without having you to enjoy the free ticket with. char.

well, we were supposed to watch the bottlefest with updharma together but she had to back out. until vera told me about an updharma gig at outpost, i was bent on going alone. haha, that's the daredevil in me.

(but in case my father's reading...that's the dare-angel in me.)

what's happening this weekend?

my sisters are here.

cine europa is on. (watched one of the best gay films i've ever seen. it's called breakfast on pluto. gay movies can be innocent, fun and sensible, yeh?)

and of course, upharma. see you, dharmies.

today, i watched crash and now, i honor one of the strongest films i've ever seen (let me put this under the category city of God is in) and i could even probably bring this one up to that pedestal of the best that have ever been made. the only reason i could whip up for those people who think its oscar best film win should have been  brokeback mountain's is that they feel more towards the plight of the gays than the issue of racism.

which coincidentally -- or a result of having brought this movie up -- my cousin anya and i have been discussing over dinner tonight. she says that what's been keeping her away from films that touch this issue is that this issue is always being pushed to such great levels that everything that has something to do with the failure of a black person has something to do with being discriminated against. she has a point. suddenly, blacks can't be not good enough. she gets off the contest because of racism and not because she can't make the cut.

point taken. and rightfully so.

well, that's the funny thing, because when the word racism is mentioned, the word most often heard in any reply is black. crash however takes it differently. the issue of racism in the movie addresses not only the case of the black men, but also the cases of the middle eastern immigrants, the tattoed mexican, the negro, the scarred policeman, the tv show producer who has difficulty mixing his color with that of his white colleagues, the molested black woman.. racism happens in cycles. its moves in cycle. it is a cycle.

a white policeman, out of love for his father (who gave so much to the black community but only got his business closed in return), takes his anger towards the black in his profession and corners an innocent black couple. a black TV producer accused by his wife of being ashamed of his color, saves a fellow black man who tried to steal his car from the police because he thinks in a society infiltrated by discrimination towards his kind, he shouldn't turn in one of his own. instead, he looks at the man and said, "you embarrass me. you embarrass yourself."

a black woman who was molested by a white police officer finds herself in the arms of the same officer in the brink of death. she was saved by the very man who has stolen her dignity. the face she had on after her near-death experience was with the question, "how could i reconcile this?"

maybe we never have to reconcile. maybe what we can do is to go about our lives and live out of the lessons that certain events have made us see. these certain events are the crashes we must need. or else we'll go about life thinking everything is alright and that indifference is a normal thing.

johnna is back in cebu and she's still working for abs-cbn. i'm so proud of her. she could easily go back to argao and take after her uncles who are in politics. but she didn't.

kara is doing showbiz news for the local abs-cbn show. she's also an editor for shopping bag in sunstar cebu. i wouldn't be surprised if she gets somewhere else.

faith is working for one of the fastest growing real estates company in cebu. and she continues to write for sunstar.

bambam is part of the sarrosa international hotel now.

bernie is a volunteer for a government-supported group that aims to alleviate progress among the poor.

tiffany and jessa work for call centers.

vera is divided between her corporate and media lives.

jane is with marie france in manila but will soon be a part of the abs-cbn family in quezon. as in, that giant of a media mogul. as in, that dream job.

lyng is very happy with her baby zoelle and hubby michael.

gee is finishing her thesis and that activist life of hers knows what.

jessa just activated her lovelife ; - >

cedric is doing some thousands worth of writing for a company that sells english modules to hopeful koreans.

neil is seen at school more and more often and he's in people support, too. whatever happened to his obsession with making it to the daily news' front page headlines?

narsheen is inside the government and will become the change that it needs.. or i choose to believe so. because she can be. and more.

i am ok.

okin no longer has to catch the last trip to bohol on fridays as he works for GMA Cebu and if my sources were right, as a side kick to award winning radio personality, bobby nalzaro?

dulce and hera are finishing school and have active love lives as well.

kara and keith are back.

i'm not sure what lavinia is on now.

the most famous among us, chai, just got of the PDA -- as in the pinoy dream academy -- and could now be seen on TV in full kikay gear.

yen is growing with GMA Cebu. 

sheela has to quit her job in an advertising agency to fully cure herself of her bone disease. which reminds me: i have to text her.

in fact, i have to text everybody.

did i miss anybody?

i just said i'm ok.