Hazy

People who smoke while walking along Taft Avenue are people I do not understand. The reason why they'd want to add to all the smoke that perennially coats the air and is continually replenished by passing vehicles is a complete mystery. I suppose they want to die sooner and maybe take others with them (second-hand smoke is, of course, more potent than smoking through a filter).

But really, I don't think I'm in any position to judge, because I do not understand myself either. A few hours from now I'm taking a killer Calculus test and I know absolutely nothing about the topics. I just got done taking a Midterm exam (for Kom), again without knowing anything, and through an incredible stroke of luck it went out all right. At least I'm pretty sure I didn't fail it. I don't think I'll be as lucky for Calculus though. Which is why I should stop wasting my time here and start studying. I might still make up for my total lack of knowledge with my two remaining hours of free time.

God help me.

Priorities

Recently I discovered that I have a grand total of six exams lined up for me for this week and the next. And that's okay. Because I'm not going to get myself caught in that cycle again. I'm not going to obsess over everything that doesn't really mean that much when you think about it. I mean, how is knowing how to get the derivative of a stupid function supposed to help me with living my life?

Besides, I have other things to do. Like practicing for an acoustic event this Thursday, and maybe another one the week after. I'm not playing any instrument, but I do pretty decent vocals (I think). Anyway, it's a no-brainer, really. Do I do something fun and expressive and meaningful, or something mentally and physically exhausting, not to mention totally pointless? It's not even a choice.

Oxymorons

Cigarette ads are proof that the majority of people lie to themselves more than they would like to think about. After promising everything from magically acquiring the best cars, clothes, and women to becoming a rugged cowboy, cigarette ads promptly conclude with the ironic statement, 'Government/Surgeon General's Warning: Cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health'. Here we see the government coming up with the rationalization that 'We've done our moral duty to safeguard the health of our citizens with this conveniently vague warning, and look, we didn't even antagonize the multinational tobacco companies that bring us millions in revenue each year! Wow. We must be really smart.' That excuse would be perfect except for the fact that the government relies on a healthy workforce to keep itself afloat. But the government doesn't think about that. Oh no. Because that would bring about nasty issues like budget cuts due to loss of tobacco revenue, and then how could our politicians possibly steal government funds without us noticing? That would never do. That is why politicians choose a slow, agonizing death for our country rather than facing the truth.

The people who buy that advertising crap are, of course, the bigger idiots. But worse by far are the people working for ad agencies who actually come up with the ridiculous concepts. You have to give them credit though. They are smart enough to recognize that most people are perfect targets for manipulation because they're just too stupid to notice.

This is just like the very smart people at MTV who came up with 'Whatever things' and who don't seem to realize that they're contradicting themselves when they say 'Do not attempt these stunts EVER' and 'Would you like to know how to get on this show?' in the same advert. Or the brilliant people in pro-wrestling idolized by practically every male pre-teen in America who feel like they're doing a good deed when they advise their viewers to 'not do what we're doing at home' and actually expect their advice to be followed.

I feel so insecure in this world of incredibly intelligent people.

Where's Freud?

I had very strange dreams over the weekend. And stranger still, I remembered most of them. Friday night (I think, it might have been Saturday) I dreamed that I had been abducted by people who broke into my room in the night. There was this guy who had a knife and I remember the very real fear and thinking that I did not want to die and that I had to find a way out of the situation. Guy-with-knife lunged at me and managed to wound me a bit but I remember getting hold of the knife before he recovered his balance and gaining the upper hand. Then I stabbed him twice in the chest. He staggered a swayed a little and I remember feeling a bit uneasy because he wasn't really down yet. So I stabbed him again on his belly and twisted the knife around and sliced upward. I wasn't really aware of any blood, just that I felt oddly satisfied when I was done. Then I had to get away. I leapt into an adjacent building and then into another one and so on until I felt that I'd lost 'them'. After that my family somehow managed to get hold of me and they drove me to this vacant lot beside a shopping mall where I would have to hide away from 'them'. But I had to get into the mall for something and inside they were everywhere and they recognized me so I had to get away again. I got outside and ran into a park with ostriches inside and there I told my sister that I would have to stay deep inside so I could remain hidden.

And then the dream just stopped. The next thing I remember is that I was in a garden with potted plants around me and there was some old guy teaching me how to properly water one of the plants. It had something to do with draining out the excess water and measuring the water level in the pot. And then I woke up.

The next night I dreamed I was a street urchin and there was someone teaching me how to read in a room inside a mansion with lots of books and colorful furniture. And then I was outside the really tall, solid fence of the mansion and I was thinking of how to smuggle a frog into the mansion without anyone noticing. Then one of my street urchin friends stuck his head on top of the fence from the inside and told me that I was being tested by the owner of the mansion, who was the same person teaching us how to read. And I remember thinking that my friend wasn't really any help, and I couldn't figure out a way to get the frog inside.

After that, I was suddenly the ruler of a particular country and I had captured and defeated an enemy and I was deciding how best to get rid of him. I remember thinking I shouldn't let him rot in prison because he might be able to escape. So I decided that a public execution would do and I ordered him to be burned at the stake. And I watched with pleasure as his body was consumed by the flames. And then I woke up.

There you go. A glimpse into my subconscious. I don't exactly know what to make of it. And if you think it's all just rubbish, well, it probably is.

Fleeting

Things happen only once. And then they are gone. There are so many ways of going about the unchosen task of living. Everyone goes through life in his own unique way. But that fact - that things happen once and are never repeated - remains unchanged.



There are no rehearsals, there are no previews, there are no 30-day-limited-time-offers. There is only here and now. And then a different here and a different now. And then, well - no one knows for sure. Perhaps it goes on forever. Just like that. One step and the next. Life and death and whatever else there is that awaits us.



I am writing this down because I want to. Because I think it means something. Because I don't know the answers to what I haven't been asking.



I try to keep still but I never am, really. Everything just flows on steadily, unmindful of what I feel or think. I can't force things to stop or speed up. But eventually for me, everything will come to a halt. Abrupt or gradual, I don't know.



I would have asked a question by now if I had not known that it would be beside the point. Because my entire life is the question. And right now I have no answers. Just me. Lyle. Alive, typing, thinking, breathing, wondering.



Being.

Friday

Today is Friday the Thirteenth. I didn't even notice until someone told me this afternoon. And my immediate thought was, 'Well, Friday the Thirteenths aren't so bad after all.' Because despite all the little annoyances I've had this week, I'm still having an okay day. Here are the reasons:

1. Our artificially natural group presentation for that accursed subject, KOM 3 (Speech in Filipino, the HORROR) which we did this morning, went reasonably well. Our group was, surprisingly, not given the usual bashing by our beloved professor, despite having worked on a script for the supposedly 'extemporaneous' group discussion. Apparently, lines flow more smoothly and naturally to said professor's ears when they are memorized word for word based on a script. I'm not complaining, though. We deserved an uno for what we did, after all the work we put in.

2. After resigning myself to the fact that I did not know squat about the quiz we were going to have for Zoo Lab in the afternoon and watching everyone study study study and spout incomprehensible terms (to me, at least) and deciding that I could just not care for once what grade I'd get for a stupid quiz because I didn't really study anyway, it turned out that our instructor spent close to an hour or more in preparing the slides we needed to view and in that amount of time I was able to read up on everything and realize that there wasn't really that much I needed to stuff in my head after all.

3. My financial troubles have come and gone (almost). Wednesday morning, after completely running out of money and banking on my ATM to withdraw, I was informed that my ATM account had just closed and my mom would be opening a new one but I couldn't use it until today. That turned out to be untrue, because it turns out I need to wait until Saturday to get some freaking money. Fortunately, I received the money my mom sent by courier and I'll be all right until tomorrow when I'll hopefully be able to get the money I very definitely need.

There. Three good things that make me feel better about my day. And I have a weekend of much-needed rest to look forward to. There were some strange things that happened to me though. Like today someone (I don't know who) gave me flowers. Oookay. And my previously-misplaced Chem Lab manual mysteriously appeared on my desk chair (didn't happen today but I'm still guessing who put it there - maybe my subconscious did).

Not Done

I have lived with myself for seventeen years now. I've had my ups and downs. I sleep and wake and live my life like most people do. I embody everything mundane and everyday and mediocre.

I don't like it though. There's something about the thought that makes me recoil inwardly with revulsion. And yet where would the world be without the nameless, faceless masses? If I hate the masses so much, do I expect the masses to hate themselves and live with it? Am I to live with the thought that I am the exception, that what applies to them doesn't apply to me?

I have always been alone. And different. Indifferent to the fact. Not completely, though. At the back of my mind there's a little nagging thought that I should pay a bit more attention to the people around me instead of being so engrossed with myself. But usually I ignore that feeling.

Come to think of it, there are many things I ignore. Because it's often easier to leave things out of your mind and distract yourself with other, less troublesome things.

I am alive. For now, I'll leave it at that. I'm recovering from whatever it is I'm afflicted with and I'm taking my recovery one day at a time.

I Think I'm Happy

My day started out all right. A 7 am class (Biology) and I wasn't even late. I had breakfast at the AS canteen like I usually do on my M-Th schedule. I was even in good enough humor to scribble some notes about plant cells - nothing taxing. And our teacher entertained us with stories about trees. And showed us a picture. Yes, trees can actually be interesting. I was content to listen and take random notes and think about a play we were having in the evening. After that was Zoology and apart from falling asleep in between the period I did well enough.



Chemistry at 11.30 was a different story. I didn't bother to follow what our dear teacher was saying. I was getting tired of hearing her voice. I quietly slipped out as she started one of her long, complicated, I'm-talking-to-myself-and-not-you lectures and spent a third of the period making visuals for a report for Chemistry Lab, which was right after her class. I've done this (sneaked out) a couple of times before and she's never noticed, bless her tiny heart. When I got back, I tuned myself out to her monologue and wrote random song lyrics on a scrap of paper.



Chemistry Lab was distressing. My group was in charge of handing out and returning materials from the stock room and instead of being able to finish early and get ready for the play like I expected, we had to wait while our classmates repeated a tedious experiment to get the expected results (they didn't) which caused a bit of a delay. When we brought back the items to the stock room, we discovered that a graduated cylinder was missing. I still can't figure out how it could have just dissapeared. And the thought of a petty pyrex glassware thief in our class is just plain creepy.



Anyway.



We got ready for the play. I was supposed to be this mime-looking guy. So they decided to put white poster paint on my face. My face did not like being treated like a poster. At first I felt all right but then my face started burning. A couple of minutes spent in front of a working air conditioner dealt with it though. And off we went to the Class 1972 Theater to compete with four other batches of Med students. We were fourth to present. The first two classes did comedies. Ours was a serious drama. With a touch of the absurd. Hence the mime-looking guy (my character was called Kapighatian, and along with other imaginary beings I was supposed to drive the main character to despair). After the second presentation we went outside and got ourselves ready. And then it began.



There were a few accidents. I won't mention them here. But I was happy with the way the play turned out in the end. Funny, though. We purposely left out humor in our play. But the Med people laughed a few times (Med people meaning those already in Med proper). And they acted strangely. In fact, I always seem to think there's something strange about them. And being around them makes me feel uneasy.



Oh well.



We didn't win, as expected. But we had fun. Took some photos. Yelled a lot (most in frustration). We had dinner in the Pit, this eating place on Pedro Gil. And we made noise. And had more fun. Then we went home. I thought sadly that our brief period of camaraderie and class unity had ended. But the event proved that we could do something productive together as a class and have lots of fun in the process.



Back in the dorm, I played three games of chess with Ants, the director and scriptwriter of our play. We often have these after-class-or-some-other-activity games. We watched some of the Grammy Awards. Then Ants went home. And I started writing here.



Strange. I don't know why I suddenly had the urge to give a summary of my day. Maybe because this isn't my usual ho-hum kind of day. And that for some unknown reason I happen to think I'm happy.

Idiots

The 'Survivor All-Stars' are dumb-asses. Well, not in everything, of course. But in one very big thing that I could not believe they screwed up on.



I just watched the first two episodes tonight. I thought they would be more competitive. And they were, in a way. Too bad they just revealed how stupid they were as well.



Each 'tribe' was given very few resources after being 'abandoned' in yet another tropical island: a machete, a pot/bucket, and a map to a water reserve, which turned out to be contaminated (the water was cloudy) which meant it had to be boiled to prevent the possibility of being infected with some disease and possibly having to go home and weaken the tribe. Valid point. So they had to figure out how to make fire. Big problem there. None of the geniuses knew how (couldn't they at least have figured that out when they decided to play the game for the second time?). And that was basically the story of the first episode and part of the second. How the 'Survivors' attempted and spectacularly failed to produce fire. In the need for water. Which they had but could not use. Imagine the angst.



Let me emphasize here the fact that there were eighteen of them divided into three 'tribes'. All of them faced with the same predicament. And none of them figured out the obvious solution that was just hanging above their heads. Coconuts. Duh. They needed to hydrate themselves. Coconuts were in abundance around them. They had a machete to cut them with. How could they not have seen it?



It wouldn't have annoyed me so much if I hadn't seen one of them actually cut up a coconut and do nothing with it. I think she just poured the liquid from the coconuts into one of the buckets half filled with the contaminated water from the well. Perfect. She really worked her brain cells there.



There's more to their stupidity. On the night of the first 'tribal council', it rained. Hard. I remember thinking, Poor tribe being forced to vote someone off. They won't have the chance to collect fresh water from the rain. Because by the time they got done it wasn't raining so hard anymore. Apparently, they didn't lose out to the others at all. Because none of the other teams had the same brilliant idea that I got.



And later, they kept on harping about how much they needed water and made it their major angst-of-the-episode. When it rained again in the morning and they were already really, really thirsty, some of the guys suddenly thought, Oh, we can get water from the rain! Imagine that. And so they held their tongues out and slurped up rain water as it fell from leaves or collected it into their palms. Brilliant.



I hope the 'Survivors' don't show the same degree of stupidity as they did in the first two. That would be just sad. Seriously though, I think the 'voting-off' portion of the game has really changed with the reduction of the number of tribe members from eight to six. It becomes easier for a single person or an alliance of two to manipulate the results, and swing votes are easier to spot.



If I have the time I might just want to see succeeding episodes of this new series. I am itching to see Richard-the-big-fat-naked-gay-guy-and-former-winner-who-doesn't-deserve-to-win-again get voted off. Yes, that will just be perfect. But knowing the players, well, they just might let him win again. They are idiots like that.

Rules

Awhile ago I took a palm-reading test and learned about the life, head and heart lines on the palm. According to the test I was good in 'believing in myself'. I suppose this is true in most cases. The problem being that I very often leave it at that and do nothing productive with it. What use is confidence when you're just lounging on your butt doing nothing? Where's the challenge I've been hoping to find? Or rather create?

The palmistry thing got me thinking about how people talk about following their head or their heart. Something emotional is supposed to be a 'heart' decision and something practical is supposed to come from the head. I am neither a head nor a heart person. I act by impulse. Whatever strikes my fancy in a particular moment. I'm never emotional and very seldom practical. I wonder how I should describe myself: a 'gut-feel' person?

I have a lot on my mind today. I can think of too many things to do with my time. This is in stark contrast to my usual state of a dazed stupor, content to just sit around and do nothing.

I need a break. And some quiet time to relax and to decide and make sense of everything. Rather than just barraging blindly onwards which is my usual strategy of doing things.

Disappointed?

The results are in. I was right in worrying about how my recently taken exams would turn out. In descending order: 78. 59. 44. I have never gotten grades like these in my life. Grades in almost equal proportion to the effort I put in. I have no right to be unhappy. But I am. When life gives you lucky breaks too often you start acting like you deserve them. This is my little dose of reality.

I have yet another exam to take tomorrow (I mean this) afternoon. And as usual I know absolutely nothing about what I'll be tested on. Also, I have to finish the portion of the lab report that I have to redo because the other one I made was on the wrong activity. How stupid is that? Well, my life has always been perfect.

I know I should be studying or writing (the report) or cleaning up my messy room but I am compelled to do this. I want to keep a record of everything because I feel that somehow that gives them a degree of permanence. I want to make myself feel that I didn't just breeze through life and leave nothing behind. As if I never even existed. Even if all I have to show for it are random thoughts.

Smooth

Tuesday night I went to Malate with Elaine, Gerald and Louie, all IMED friends. It was the first time I spent my night out there. Which should actually be surprising: though I live in Ermita, Malate is just a short walk away. I went out with the specific purpose of getting myself drunk. I had never been drunk in my life. My past alcohol intake has been very minimal. I wanted to know what it would feel like.

It was a small place, with tables placed close together around a dance floor. Loud pulsating music. People smoking. Dark, with colored lights moving around. I told myself I wouldn't dance. I didn't care to. Besides, when we got there, no one was dancing yet, except for this girl that I was told was getting paid for it. She was supposed to be there to 'encourage' people when no one wanted to dance. I don't think she was doing her job very well, though. She didn't encourage me, anyway. It was around 10:30 pm. We spent some time waiting for our orders (I ordered a mocha shake for starters) and after a while Elaine, Gerald, and Louie started dancing around with only the girl I mentioned for company and I had fun watching them have fun. They tried to make me join them once or twice and after a while I thought, what the heck, I've got nothing to lose so I went out there and it was okay. But I thought it would be better if I got a little drunk first so I ordered two beers and waited for awhile.

I do not like the taste of beer. Maybe alcohol in general. But I can sort of stand red wine, which is the only other alcoholic drink I've tried except for white wine and vodka(I think). I was determined to get drunk, though, and I didn't really start gagging or anything. I got through the two beers. I spilled a little I think. I started getting a little tipsy and getting the urge to pee every few minutes. I danced a few more times, and started getting more comfortable with it. I do not know whether to credit that to alcohol or just my improving mood. I had another beer. My head felt a little heavy (Elaine said that was a sign) and I waited for myself to blank out and lose control. It didn't happen. I was in perfect control of my faculties, albeit a bit unsteady on my feet. But I could remember everything. And my memory was one continuous flow until around 3 am when we decided to leave.

I'm not entirely sure whether I accomplished my purpose that night. I might have gotten drunk but most probably didn't. I'd rather not repeat it though. I had a 'hangover' the next day (whatever it was it wasn't a very nice experience) I figured that that plus the awful taste would cancel out the 'happy feeling' drinking brought, which in all likelihood might have just been a mood swing in itself.

Regardless of all that, I had fun with my IMED friends and I might want to repeat the experience (sans drinking) in the near future.

Normalcy

A lot has happened in the two days that passed. And right now I am left numb. Which is strange. Because I happen to think that my experiences were pretty intense. And now I'm thinking: is this what everything leads to? Do we live and feel and find that there is nothing afterwards? There are memories, of course. But they can never really capture the essence of actuality. And they fade with time. Leaving behind vague fragments of the past. And of course death is the biggest mystery of all. Because despite any amount of faith in an afterlife, we are denied the certainty of what really happens afterwards. Will there even be a reality then?

I don't know. That's for certain. And no one else alive knows either. It really is the great equalizer. Every human being faces the uncertainty of death with an equal amount of vulnerability. I remember someone saying, "People are never born equal." I suppose this is true. But we are equal in our lack of certainty about death. And for that matter, every passing moment.

I did not intend to be philosophical. But I just have to wonder about the point of what I'm doing. Because I'm not doing it very well. I keep on immersing myself in all the trivialities of existence - eating, sleeping, studying, socializing. They take up all my time. But I think, it would be very sad if I spent my entire life this way. This is not what I'm supposed to do. This is not what I'm supposed to BE. I'm something else. I can feel it - beyond all this. Deeper. More real. Which is why I keep thinking that I've never lived a single day in my life the right way. I've never really been what I feel I should be.

Undecided

I would write some more and I have plenty of things to say but it's getting late (for me, it is) and I have to do two extremely annoying things I've been putting off over the weekend:

1. My share of our Zoology Lab Report
2. A worthless Kom activity

I have to say bye for now. But awhile ago I was just so completely incensed by the absolute injustice of everything - Well, it seemed like everything at the time but actually it was just this one thing. And now, I feel nothing. Just the usual nagging urge when I have to do something I really really dislike. In this case the two I enumerated above. Oh well. The really nasty things are yet to come. And for the moment, I have Poirot and A Separate Peace to look forward to after all this dirty work.

Guilt

I am a frog murderer. I killed two frogs two weeks ago I think. And the full realization came to me only now, after the recent onslaught of exams that occupied me the past few days. I was supposed to do a decerebration procedure, which involved cutting up the top side of a live frog's head and pulling out the brain. All that to assess what aspects of the frog's motor responses are controlled by which parts of its central nervous system. I would have objected, too, being the compassionate creature that I am, but the lab instructor said, "Oh, the operation is absolutely painless to the frog. Nothing to worry about." (not the exact words, of course, but a close approximation) and so I complied.



There were a few complications to the whole thing. First, my specimen was not exactly a frog. It was a toad. Which meant it was big and its skin was thick and bumpy. Second, I was supposed to cut through the maxillary (jaw) bone and parts of the skull, and all I had were crappy scissors from a human dissecting set that were clearly not made to cut through bone, as I was made painfully aware of the moment I began. Again, the lab instructor said, "Oh, I'm sure those scissors will do. You go right ahead." Third, the instructor was pretty vague about how to go about the whole thing. She merely told me to cut behind the eyes and take off the head and the brain with it. Not exactly illuminating.




There's more. The lab was in its usual state of sweltering heat, I was sweating like crazy, and moments after I began my first attempt my phone started vibrating in my pants pocket and just kept on going (it was a phone call, never mind who it was), which is something you never want to happen to you while dissecting a toad, particularly if you're a compassionate creature like myself.




The 'frog', too, was not behaving like it should have been. The chloroform was supposed to have sedated it and kept the whole thing painless, but unfortunately it didn't do its job as well as it should have. The 'frog' was a good actor though. After we patiently held out a chloroform-soaked cotton ball in front of its nose for some time, it appeared limp and relaxed. But when I made the move to begin cutting it up, it squirmed around and refused to keep still. Strange. Like it had somehow sensed its own death. Anyway, we had to re-apply the chloroform a couple more times until I got fed up and decided to finally get on with it.




It took me a while to cut through the jaw bone. By that time, there was yellowish-white goo that had oozed through both sides of its upper back, which I later learned was poison. Perfect. Also, a lot of blood was spewing from the cut I made, and it didn't show signs of stopping. I didn't even get to start on the more solid bones of the skull when we realized our 'frog' was dead.




Her name was Lucy, by the way.




It turned out that we cut in the wrong place - behind the exposed tympanic membrane (eardrum to laymen) when the cut was supposed to be in between the eyes and the eardrum. Well, it wasn't exactly a blunder. After all, we did cut behind the eyes like we were told.




So we decided to try again. This time with another live toad we left nameless. I was seriously doubting my scissors' capacity to do the job, but I thought maybe the right cut would make the difference. Apparently it didn't. Granted, there was no marked bleeding when I cut up the jaw, and the toad still showed signs of life, but the scissors just could not cut up the thick bone on top of its head, and in the end we had to give up trying. Which left the nameless toad with a fractured jaw and (I assume) a large amount of pain. We pithed the toad, which is just a nice way of saying we killed it by poking at and in the process destroying its brain and spinal cord. And we wrapped it up in an old newspaper with Lucy and threw it in a trash bin.




And now I'm tormented by all the ifs and could haves and I still think I could have prevented the senseless waste of amphibian life if I had just prodded for clearer instructions from the instructor or used better instruments (a scalpel, maybe, or anything else sharp) or whatever else I could've done to change the outcome of things. But it's no use. I guess my conscience will never rest.