At around 8:30 A.M. this morning, my father flew to Singapore. From there, he would have taken another flight to the Middle East, where he'd be working as a ceramics plant foreman for at least a year. After almost 15 years here, during which his career had risen and fallen, during which my family had found and then lost financial stability, he has become an OFW again.

I did not go with him and the rest of my family to the airport. It would have been like saying goodbye to him permanently for me. He would turn 50 next August, he had flunked his first medical exam because he had high cholesterol levels and high blood pressure, and so I do not want to give me yet another reason to imagine that he'd be coming home, like my grandfather, as ashes in a box. (Knock on wood.) Instead I just gave him the longest hugs I've ever given him.

*

Not until now did I realize how bitter it is to suffer from the lack of opportunity in this country.

*

I don't know if it's just the constantly rainy weather, but throughout this day the house has been quiet. Not the quiet of silence, but rather, the quiet of sadness. Most of us have spent most of the day sleeping, and we had dinner at the abnormally early time of a little past 7 in the evening. I'm the only one who's been awake since around 8, and even I have caught some of the sadness in the air.

*

Since my father won't be coming home until next year at least, this means that I'm now the man of the house. I thought I'd be like I am usually, the only difference being that I'm not just asserting it, but it's not.

*

To be honest, I've never really wanted to invite my father to become one of the two persons I'm allowed to bring to my graduation, but now that I can't I've realized just how much it means to be able to consider him.

In the 70s, this logo represented a Roman Catholic Church organization that ministered to people my age.

...So I guess there were people back then who knew that stuff like this was happening?

My brother Justine is graduating from Grade 6 this afternoon.




...Ever since he kicked back at me when I tried to tickle him I've teased, mocked, and criticized him relentlessly. I'd be lying if I said that the only emotion I feel towards him is love, and in fact, most of the time it's either contempt or anger. But right now I'm proud of him despite all that.

I don't ever want him to know this, but right now, I can admit to myself that dammit, I love him.

It's been almost a week since I learned that I can't go to the outing the Ptosh would be holding from April 2 to 4, and though I always ask my parents at least once everyday if we have enough money to let me go I haven't found any reason to believe that we do so far. And I don't think I ever would, to be honest. My dad hasn't drawn his salary for two months now because the factory where he works has lost one of its investors, and my mom – well, she's not being paid to take care of my widowed grandmother, that I can tell you. I just couldn't bear to not ask, because I just couldn't bear to give up my dream of going, but I know that to ask is an exercise in futility.

To ask for permission to go to the outing my current block of classmates would be holding from March 30 to 31 would be futile, too, because the elder of my younger brothers would be graduating from Grade 6 on March 30 and there's no way in hell that I'd be allowed to miss that. So I haven't even asked.

To be honest, I get depressed whenever I think about these things. No matter how much I say to myself that I'm being a jerk with entitlement issues, no matter how much I say to myself that this is how things have to be for me and that I just have to accept it and keep moving forward.




...But it doesn't mean that I wouldn't be proud when Justine goes on a stage on Monday night to receive his diploma. I'd be there in the audience, or maybe even with him as he goes on the stage, wearing my best, grinning. There's no way in hell that I wouldn't be there, because I love him, dammit (but don't ever tell him that).

I got this from splash. If you'd like to answer it, then, uh... go!

1. Name:
2. Birthday:
3. Where do you live:
4: What are you studying/working as:
5. What makes you happy:
6. What are you listening to now/have listened to last:
7. What is particularly good/bad about my LJ:
8. An interesting fact about you:
9. Are you in love/have a crush at the moment:
10. Favorite place to be:
11. Favorite lyric:
12. Best time of the year:
13. Weirdest food you like:

RECOMMEND
1. A film:
2. A book:
3. A song:
4: A band:

FANDOM
1. Favorite Fandom:
2. OTP/OT3:
3. Icon/Fic Journal (so I can join if I get the urge to):

PLUS
1. One thing you like about me:
2. Two things you like about yourself:
3. Put this in your LJ so I can tell you what I think of you?

My universal answers are below the cut.

( Read more... )

Just now I decided to visit all of the people on my friends list, and I was shocked when I discovered that many of my LJ friends whom I believed to have stopped posting a long time ago have actually posted recently. I was like, how the heck did I miss crazymabober and ryuuoh_elf and shady_affair and snozzlenut? And how the heck did I miss one out of every two posts by jhesset_hime and yamisakura38? I check my friends page at least twice a day, so I shouldn't have missed them.

So, uhm, just like the title of this post says, is it just me or does this mean LJ sucks?

Yesterday my parents told me that I couldn't go to to the summer outing the Ptosh would be holding on April 1-4. They're finding it difficult already to pay for the summer classes I'd be taking this year, they said, so we have to cut down on our unnecessary expenses. I expected that answer, to be honest, but it was nonetheless painful for me to accept because I've never been to a summer outing for more than 5 years now and I just want to have a vacation with my oldest friends before we graduate from college and go our separate ways. So I sulked for the rest of the day yesterday until I saw my mom crying, and because I believed I had made her cry I told her that I'm accepting their decision and that I'll never raise it again.

I've just learned, however, that I wasn't really the reason why my mom was crying yesterday. The reason was because the father of one of my cousins are spreading malicious rumors like this to my aunts and uncles, and that they aren't standing up for us when he does that:

one of my aunts & uncles: Bong, ba't di ka kumain ng niluto ni Marissa? (Bong, why wouldn't you eat what Marissa had cooked? Marissa is my mom's name.)
"Bong": Ayoko, baka kasi lasunin niya ako. (No thanks, she might poison me through that.)

I'm seriously pissed at him. However, I'm also deathly scared of him.

(Guys, if you don't want to read about how fucked up my extended family is right now, you can stop reading here.)

Just how did we come to encounter "Bong"?

My aunt Aurora fell in love with him while they were serving in the jungles of Mindanao. (They used to be in the military.) They entered into a relationship, despite my paternal gandparents' severe disapproval, and eventually my aunt got pregnant with my cousin Hyacinth.

Hyacinth's impending birth was a problem because "Bong" was already married. If he gave my cousin his surname, his wife, not to mention the Army as well, would have solid evidence that he was in an adulterous relationship with my aunt. So when my cousin was born she was given the fictitious surname "Santiago," and to the best of my knowledge soon after her birth "Bong" separated from my aunt. My paternal grandparents took her and my cousin in until they left for the States, and when they left they put my aunt in charge of our family's ancestral home.

My aunt still wanted to pursue her relationship with "Bong," however, and eventually they got together again. It was during this time when we the grandchildren were introduced our "uncle Bong." To be honest, it was then that I started to fear him, because when we first met he bragged about his .45 caliber pistol and offered me a lesson on how to shoot with it. My paternal grandparents were still deeply opposed to my aunt's relationship with "Bong" and were even more opposed to his living in with her (he told us that he left his wife because she was too feisty), but in the end they grudgingly assented to what they couldn't stop.

For a time, my aunt, my cousin and "Bong" seemed like a normal family. We all knew that their family was flawed, but the rest of us tried to make the best of it. And then things started to fall apart.

I've answered this because it seems like a convenient way to summarize my 4 years in high school, and since I crosspost my multiply blog posts to my LJ I've translated the meme into English for so you guys can understand it.

( my answers to the meme )

One of my recent posts was about a fansub group's dropping Digimon Adventure, which is one of those shows I've watched that I never really got over. That fansub group was the only one subbing it, and since it still has a big fandom in my opinion given its age (it aired sometime in 2000) the wank that erupted when they announced their decision to stop subbing it was epic. Geez, I myself was very disappointed when I learned about it, but WTH that isn't a reason to post comments like these at their LJ group:

comment 1:

This is obviously just a call for attention, why else wouldn't they even give a reason? They're getting their kicks now seeing over 50 comments of people whining.

Oh well.

comment 2:

Wow. Well that's rude. Oh well. I guess I'll just go kill myself and blame it all on this group in my suicide note.

comment 3:

Really? Just the idea sounds idiotic, what mediocrer, half @ss, impaired
dipstick would do that when they only heve a handfull of episodes left !!!!!

YOU GUYS FAIL AT LIFE!!!
*oh and i hope that fake cough turns out to be bronchitis...

Go fuck yourselfs
-Concerned Digimon Fan

P.S.Take off that stupid Digimon Adventures Icon ... hipocripts.

comment 4:

You lazy faggot, how could you quit subbing it when you're 7 episodes from the final one? What's the reason? You can't conclude it because there's something wedged in your throat making you cough? Like a cock?

Maybe more of us would be more understanding if you actually gave us a reason.

Granted, the fansub group's explanation is friend-locked, but that's no reason to wank like this at their LJ group. And besides, didn't those commenters think that wanking like this would convince them to not reconsider their decision to drop Digimon Adventure? (They really should have thought about this, since apparently the thing that started this all is that their translator lost his/her translated transcripts because his/her flash drive died.)

It's been 9 or so years since Digimon Adventure was aired. You'd think that my fellow members of its fandom have become mature enough to at least keep a lid on their entitlement issues, but apparently that's not the case. (sigh)

From the BBC website:

A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication in Brazil of the mother and doctors of a young girl who had an abortion with their help.

The nine-year-old had conceived twins after alleged abuse by her stepfather.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re told Italian paper La Stampa that the twins "had the right to live" and attacks on Brazil's Catholic Church were unfair.

Brazil only permits abortions in cases of rape or health risks to the mother.

Doctors said the girl's case met both these conditions, but the Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said the law of God was above any human law.

He said the excommunication would apply to the child's mother and the doctors, but not to the girl because of her age.The girl, who lives in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco, was allegedly sexually assaulted over a number of years by her stepfather, possibly since she was six.

The fact that she was four months pregnant with twins was only discovered after she was taken to hospital in Pernambuco complaining of stomach pains.

Her stepfather was arrested last week, allegedly as he tried to escape to another region of the country.

He is also suspected of abusing the girl's physically handicapped 14-year-old sister.

I really should be asleep already, but I wanted to post this before turning in.

WHICH AXIS POWERS HETALIA CHARACTER ARE YOU?



Nation's name: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Capital: London
Language: English
National flower: Narcissus, Tudor Rose
Birthday: Unknown
Human name: Arthur Kirkland
Height: 175 cm
Age: 23
- A rainy empire that was once a pirate and is now a gentleman.
- Was once a subordinate of France, but after taking the top half of France's land and getting violent with him, their relationship has been spoiled and now they're fighting buddies.
- As a former pirate, he used to torment Spain and set up colonies here and there and everywhere. Was a pretty violent little boy.
- Is cynical, hates to lose, and is slightly obstinate.
- Seems to be cold at first, but is surprisingly devoted to someone if he becomes friends with that person.
- Has a real potty mouth, but is not a bad guy.
- Loves spirits/ghosts, faeries, magic and legends to the point where he has a list of spiritual residents as well as ghost tours.
- Also, he keeps appearing on the news for stupid sex acts.

I've underlined the parts that fit me in my opinion.




...Like I said, I really should be asleep already.

The fansub group Ryuu-Rogue has just dropped Digimon Adventure.




I know that they're not under any obligation to fansub it so I shouldn't expect for more than what they're willing to give, but still, ARRGH WHY CAN I HAS NO MORE DIGIMON.

I just want to marathon the entire show so I could pretend that I'm 11 years old again for 54 x 20-something minutes.

Is there someone among my contacts who could convince a fansub group to sub the last 6 episodes of Digimon Adventure? I and the rest of the Digimon fandom would be grateful for it. (gets arrested for promoting copyright infringement)

Right now I'm at home, just like the title of this post says. I'm at home and I feel absolutely contented. Yeah, absolute contentment is the term I'd like to use.

*

My parents told me that they've already told our relatives about this, so I guess I could write about it here now. In a month or two, we're moving to our ancestral house. None of us are eager to move, but since my dead grandfather before he died wanted us to live there after my cousin and her sonofabitch of a father (long story) vacates it this April we're pushing through with it nonetheless.

I know that we could use the money we can earn by renting out this place, but I'd really rather live here if that's the only reason why we're moving. Because I like it here. Something about the white of the walls and the beige of the vinyl flooring and the brown of the varnished stairs screams "This is your home!" to me. Unlike in our ancestral house, I'm absolutely sure that I'm not going to see any ghosts here. Also, unlike our ancestral house, this place is in a quiet neighborhood. I really like living in quiet neighborhoods.

...But there's nothing I can do to cancel the move, so I have to resign myself to the fact that it's going to happen.

Our professor in Econometrics canceled our class for today, so I only arrived at the office this afternoon. I knew that it was open, despite what the door sign said, because I could hear the aircons humming when I was about to enter it, but otherwise I wouldn't have known that. The lights were off and the only people inside were Patti, Luis and ate Trinna. When I came in, my impression was that we - the COMELEC - were about to leave the office for good.

And really, we are. The elections are over, the votes have been counted and the official list of winning candidates had already been sent - in short, we have nothing else to do for this semester. And since the COMELEC only borrows the room where our current office is for the duration of the election period, it's almost time for us to turn it over to a new set of occupants.

We'll be back by July, but when I think about July now it seems so very far in the future even though it's only 4 months from now. I'll be a senior by then, writing my thesis (hopefully with a partner), running the logistics of the Freshmen Elections. It seems to me that I'd have to wait for a long time before that would come to pass, before I could borrow the key to the room again and turn on the airconditioning and use the private bathroom inside. I have no illusions about the state of our room, but I can't help but feel fond of it. When I'd be asked what place in Ateneo would I miss when I'd graduate, I already have my answer, and it's the Ops room.

So there. We haven't been extremely disorganized with our stuff, so when we pack them up this Monday and bring them to the office we officially share with the student council's judicial branch (we almost never go there, since there's always another place in the campus we can go to when we want to kill time that's smaller, less cramped and cooler) I don't expect it to be a hassle. It'd probably take an hour if enough members show up.

*

When I came into the office this afternoon, I was wearing long sleeves and slacks because I had to attend the induction of the students who've been elected. Last year's and this year's batch of COMELEC Commissioners were supposed to attend, but the only ones from last year who came were ate Krista and me while the ones who came from this year were Patti, Luis and, well, me. (I applied for, and was granted reappointment.) The main reason why we attended was the free dinner we enjoyed after all the speeches, to be honest, though Patti had to be there since she played a part in the ceremonies. We stuffed ourselves full and I actually had a decent conversation with ate Krista, who's always been prickly whenever I talked to her before. (In fairness, the prickliness was justified.)

*

Tomorrow morning I'll be visiting GK Sitio Ruby for the last time and tomorrow afternoon I have an extremely difficult test in Econometrics and tomorrow night I'll be attending the end of the 9-day prayer vigil for the soul of my late grandfather, so this is the last of the February madness posts. It really has been a hectic month for me, and I hope the pace of life for me would slow down this March.

Yesterday noon a Grade 4 Atenean was run over by a car at the Grade School parking lot.

This is an excerpt of a story about it that came from one of his teachers:

"Cool shades." I think those were my last words to Amiel Alcantara, 4-Manobo, who just crossed the great divide this afternoon while we in Grade 6 were administering the IPSLE.

He just had an asthma attack this morning and was brought to the infirmary. Around dismissal time, at the parking area of Ateneo Grade School, he was sandwiched between two cars (one was Grandia) while he was getting his footlong sandwich which fell on the ground. The woman who was driving the car accidentally stepped on the gas pedal instead of the break and the very unimaginable thing happened.

From what I heard, Amiel died on the way to the hospital. He must have died in agony.

His parents and the woman who killed him must be feeling horribly right now.

The anger that fueled my rant last night is gone now. I've had a good night's sleep and I've learned from Patti that she really didn't have anyone that she could send to help me yesterday so I ended up letting go of it, and anyway I've never really been able to stay angry at someone for very long. So there.

*

The voting stations had not yet been set up by 9 o'clock this morning, which is when they're supposed to open, so I once again had to haul tables and chairs with the first COMELEC guy that came into the office today. Apparently, the reason why this happened is because the guy in my staff that I had put in charge of setting them up decided all of a sudden yesterday afternoon that he couldn't do it and then failed to inform us about his decision. WTH.

I've decided to fire that guy from my staff, but to be honest I'm still deeply troubled about that decision because I'm not firing him just because he f-ked up the logistics of the voting stations. The other reason why I'm firing him is because he has these peculiar mannerisms that weird out the rest of us in the office. Should I rescind that decision? I still want to fire him, but I feel so guilty about it.

*

The elections are now ongoing, so I don't have much office work to do. I ate 2 meals in 2 hours, resumed modding my Rome: Total War game and went to the Loyola Mountaineers' wall climbing booth at Cervini Field. I'm unwinding myself from all the stress I got from the last two weeks. I still have eyebugs, but I'm sure that by next week they'll be gone.

*

GMA has just declared that Monday is a holiday for students. Yay! More rest for me.

This year's CB and SB Miting de Avance sucked, just like last year's did. The venue was crappy, the program started late and ended very late, the sound system malfunctioned, and the audience could have fitted into one classroom instead of the two we used. Worse, the Ateneo COMELEC's budget is so tight right now the guests we invited so the candidates can answer their questions didn't even enjoy the courtesy of a merienda. Which they really ought to have had, since the event lasted for 3 hours.

I'm so tired right now.

This year's Top 4 Miting de Avance was held this afternoon at Escaler Hall, and, as has been the case for, well, most of the activites the Ateneo COMELEC has held during this election season, I was the one from COMELEC who was there. It really ought to be Patti, since she's the Chief Comish and I'm just the Logistics Comish, but since she couldn't make it because she needed to review for her long test in Finance (which she's taking right now) she ordered me to go in her stead.

(To be honest, I'm amused by the dynamic between us whenever something like this happens, because we always end up like this:

Patti: Uy, baka iniisip mong trabaho ko talaga 'yan pero ipinapagawa ko siya sa 'yo.
Jomar: Uy, baka iniisip mong di ko 'yan trabaho pero inaangkin ko siya sa  'yo.

But I digress.)

What can I say about this year's Top 4 Miting de Avance? I'd like to make 3 comments:

1. Its logistics were much better than last year's. I should know, because it's my second time to handle it. (I'm a two-time Logistics Commissioner.) The venue and the sound system's better now (Escaler Hall > MVP roofdeck) and we gave the guests we invited so the candidates could answer their questions more time to prepare than the ones we invited last year. The only f-k up in the logistics I could think of is that for some reason Matanglawin didn't come.

2. I found something to like in each of the candidates' presentations. I liked the stories Gio told about individuals he knew who were trying to improve the way things are, I liked the passion Jauro had when he talked about his plans to make the average Atenean be more involved in the Sanggunian and in social justice issues, I liked the clarity in Rob's vision of what he wanted to accomplish.

3. Nevertheless, it's very disappointing since it failed to attract the average Atenean. It seemed to me that most of the audience were people who can be expected to come, namely, candidates, their strongest supporters, the guests we invited and a couple of OSA representatives, and in my opinion it indicates that the Ateneo's student government is still run by a – this would sound harsher than I mean it to and I really don't want to spark a controversy by saying this – clique of people who are naturally inclined to politics. This has to change.

So there. Again, I really don't want to spark a controversy with what I've said, and I really hope that I wouldn't get impeached for this. 

I finally finished editing the DevEco paper this afternoon. I pissed two more people in the world during the process and it's a day late, but at least I've finished. And the part that I can say I've authored is 3 and a half pages long. And I could have written some more if the paper's absolutely deadliest deadline had been tomorrow morning. To be honest, the reason why I've volunteered to do this is because I've lost my talent in writing for some unknown reason two and a half years ago and I want to get it back, so I guess I ended up pissing off my groupmates for a selfish reason.

I'd feel worse about it if Den blew her top last night, but since we had The Talk this afternoon she was mellower than I expected her to be. I dunno about Alex. Oh well, I'd find out tomorrow and I'd  just have to continue moving forward.

*

Editing the paper tired me out so much. My mind's been on it since last Friday and I kept myself from sleeping two nights ago because I wanted to meet the deadline, and as a matter of fact yesterday was the first time I took a nap during class since high school. To be honest, I didn't really sleep long last night and since I've used up all my cuts in DevEco (I think) I might not sleep tonight so I can make it to class.

OK, that's all for now.

Just as I expected, today was a really hectic day for us in the Ateneo COMELEC and I think Patti, Rizza, Luis and I had the worst of it. Patti because, well, she's the Chief Comish, Rizza because she was handling the applicants for membership that came in today when she wasn't supervising the processing, Luis because the Office for Student Affairs rejected the design for our promotional materials and me because, well, I had to reserve promo boards for the candidates and make the Powerpoint presentation for the candidates' assembly today. Also, Patti made me give the presentation to the candidates for the top 44 positions in the student council.

To be honest, napakasabaw ko na ngayon kaya magtatapos na lamang ako sa isang hiling, na sana'y manalo sa darating na eleksyon ang mga... Wait, I'm supposed to be nonpartisan in matters like this, so good luck and God bless na lang sa mga tatakbong kandidate this election season.