love. a choice.

i think, that love is a choice that one constantly has to make.

time and again we'll be confronted with realities that supercede understanding and compromise.
love vs home.
love vs family.
love vs friendship.
love vs career.

etc.

it's as if things are mutually exclusive.

so couples should learn to work to make things work.

they should constantly reaffirm that choice.
and stand by it.
fight for it.
live through it. :)

Pretty disoriented.

Read: Pretty and disoriented. hehe.
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Just came home from Manila, and Baguio and the 9th NDC. Oh well. We (Team C) did not make it till Octofinals but our team B (David and Tateen) went as far as semifinals. Making it til quarters was team B (Sam and Marj) and AdDU also had three speakers who got into top-ten-best-speakership. Top 6 yata si David, then top 5 si Sam, top 4 naman si Marj. (Hoot hoot!)

I feel so proud for the club. Andrew told me that the schools in NDC are already expecting AdDU to reach AT LEAST semis in most national tournaments. The 9th NDC was my first national tournament and I think I did okay naman. I gave it my all. That’s enough for me. And hey, I love debating. Win or lose. J

I met a lot of great people in NDC. Hahaha. Those whom I debated, ate, danced, and sang, got drunk with. Can’t wait for MPDC or Vismin. Or the next NDC.
And guess what, we won the bid. The 10th National Debate Championships will be held here in Davao City! Haha! At last! I won’t have to worry about funds regarding my not-last NDC

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I feel so tired. I dunno why…but I took three baths since yesterday evening. I missed Davao so much. Here is the list of things I made sure I did during my first hour back here.

*hugged my family
*gulped a glass of Davao water
*overflowed the laundry baskets
*SMSed friends
*asked about AdDU HS training
*changed into comfy Davao clothes

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I finally got hold of the paper which had my poem in it. (Sunstar Davao Oct. 21, 2007; Sunday) Boy, was I proud. My poem sat next to stories written by members of the Davao Writers Guild. :) The poem is Minatamis [http://implicitinfluence.blogspot.com/2007/07/minatamis.html]. It is an “erotic poem” clothed with the metaphor of a plateful of the famous Filipino dessert, Minatamis.

My next goal is to go to Silliman. I’ll pass some of my poems to their National Writers Workshop---the biggest writing workshop in the country. The Silliman Writers Workshop is where Palanca awardees are bred. Besides, I can cross-train (debate!) with them Silliman debaters there too. :)

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I have good vibes this coming sem. *wink wink*

Coffee is the closest thing to love.

Yes, I am addicted to coffee. I was even laughing in my head when I read the photocopied paper in Psychology about addiction. It’s because I can fully relate to everything it talked about.

I repeat, I am addicted to coffee. I drink the instant ones, the brewed ones and eat the candied ones. It causes my heart beat to race. I sometimes hear my pulse because I think I just drank a lot of coffee. There are days when coffee to me is breakfast. One mug and I’m off to go. It’s like that. My mom gets mad but I don’t care. This is what addiction is.

Sometimes I feel guilty about it. I’ve already heard from a lot of people that drinking a lot of coffee is not good for the body. In fact, I have this friend who had a frightening story about her friend, who did not sleep for five days straight. She gagged on a coffee shop like someone who is epileptic. She lost consciousness and was rushed to the nearest hospital. This is all because of coffee addiction. Though it scares me a little, coffee to me is a love that turned into a vice.

Yes, the craving experience mentioned in the paper totally happens to me. My day isn’t complete without it. I am like turned-on by everything that smells like coffee. When I had my Humanities 1 class last summer, we were tasked to paint using coffee. I discovered that painting was so much fun when you use coffee. After the arts activity, I actually thought of painting my room with coffee. I just wanted to wake up to the scent of it.

I'm loving my Psych classes and our prof Sir Sanchez was right. When you eat/drink something, it doesn’t only involve your taste buds. It is a different experience. To quote a classmate, “eating is the highest form of glory because saints, warriors, terrorists and scientists stop whatever they are doing just to eat”. Sir said eating/drinking also involves the sense of smell. Look at how Jollibee effectively raised sales because of their “Langhap Sarap” tag. It also involves the sense of sight, which is why microwaveables don’t appeal to us that much. Sometimes it is joined with the sense of touch. I feel this whole experience everytime I drink coffee. The aroma itself felt so good I can almost taste it.

Though coffee is so much a part of my system now that if I don’t drink coffee for the day I become so sleepy during late afternoon, I limit myself to two cups of coffee a day at most. At random times of the day, I also eat coffee candy. I control a little because I don’t want to gag in front of class someday. I still love my sleep too. This is why even when my addiction can be cured, I don’t think I have the need to. It’s not at all very harmful anyway. I’ve also read that sometimes smelling a certain food will satisfy cravings. So I’m glad there are coffee candies sold outside the school.

As you can notice, this blog entry is a testimony of my coffee addiction. That alone will tell you how addicted I am. For the record, I’m happy that I’m addicted to coffee.

At least I’m not doing drugs.

Sweet Matthew

Sweet Matthew
What am I losing you to?

The me who loves you
And the me who loves me
Compete
Like two big plates
Of viands on a
Buffet table

And I wait for your
Next infidelity
So precariously…

Sweet Matthew
What am I losing you to?

I’ve read the papers
I’ve read her letters
And baby asks too much.

I don’t know how to answer
When there is sweat on my ankles
Dried brandy at the
Sides of my lips.

It’s apparent.
I grip at the ends of your mercy.
Even when I tend your abode
Even when I tend to
Your immediate desires.

Sweet Matthew,
Come back home.
Baby asks too much.

*I Googled "Matthew" since Matthew is the subject of this poem. Screened images and chose this Matthew as model for my poem. His name is Matthew Bomer. Cutie eh? =)

HEAR THIS.

I have something to say.

I think, that something is just THERE to make things wrong. It is an implicit force driven to clothe intentions with wrong intentions, of kindness with deceit and of truth with fallacies.

It is a covering; like that of a kwek-kwek...thick, ugly and consuming.

It blurs our perceptions of people, moreover, it filters the good things that people give to us. It rearranges the sequence of sensitive events, those which break hearts, homes and institutions.

It is the reason why when one offers to help, one is usually accused of having motives, or of not helping enough. It is the reason why we always think twice if one says s/he love us ("i love you.." "really?") but we don't think twice when somebody tells us that s/he hates us ("i hate you").

It is always determined to make things wrong. It is an unseen enemy. Unsought. Unstoppable. Inevitable.

The Dissected Break-Up Speech

“See, I’ve been thinking about us lately..
--He’s telling you that you will be talking about your relationship

“and I feel like
--He wants to be heard first

“we should take a break.
--he pauses, then inspects your reaction. (deep breath optional)

“Things have been very hard for me
--you are thinking why he never talked to you about it

“and I don’t want them to be harder in the near future.
--he needs something convenient

“I don’t want you to be hurt more in the process
--he sounds as if he cares. Then you wait for his next phrase.

“that’s why I’m telling this to you now.
--he sounds as if he is actually doing you a favor.

“but don’t think that it’s your fault
--he assumes that you blame yourself but really, you are still in the process of digesting things

“it is mine actually
--he takes the blame for it. He expects you to say it’s not his fault

“I feel that I need space
--he doesn’t need you anymore

“in order to understand myself
--really now. Is this the first time?

“to find reasons in the things I do.
--he acts pitiful. He wants you to pity him.

“I don’t know why I’m feeling this way
--*blank stares* he is thinking of what to say next

“I loved you, I’m sure.
--he wants to reassure you that everything was real and reasonable

“but I can’t keep you waiting
--he reinforces that it is reasonable by assuming that waiting is such a bad thing to occur to anyone

“I don’t want to deny you of your freedom
--again, he makes it look as if he’s doing you a favor

“because I still care for you.
--he wants you to feel better to feel better about himself.

A Love Letter

I like thinking that sometime in my life I have met you.

And though meeting you is not very convenient, I still like thinking of you and my life with you in it. Amazing how the past days have become. I have not been the usual me. I just find myself missing you more. And missing you less…because I know I’ll see you soon. Plus I’ll be seeing more of you. Such a nice thought.

I’m fighting the urge to SMS you because I don’t want to be too obvious. And trust me, this is not usual. I surf the net to check how you are but I do not find anything interesting. Nothing new. Just the same you; the same you I had come to like so profusely these past few days.

Conversations with you (at night) had been one of the bests I’ve had in my life. I have never felt more understood. Whenever you speak with me I feel like a kid, listening to his soccer coach who is also his dad. So full of amazement and respect. And a pinch of love. Those are the kinds of nights when I wish that God would forget to put oil in the earth’s axis; then the earth wouldn’t rotate, then the night wouldn’t end.

Right now, everything is blurry for the forecasted “us”. But I know---because I feel it in the depths of my heart---that someday, we will make such a nice couple. We will live a fruitful life. We shall conquer the world together and every night, you shall sleep with poems under your pillow. Every morning, you shall wake up to my songs in the shower.

We will put up a business together. We will support the kids that worship the same art that we do. We will be happy and we'll grow old together.

And if you are reading this, you will know that I am talking about you. You will smile because I have become such a sissy. But you know, I think I love you. There are just too many to love.

But I’ll see you soon. Promise.