My Condolences and Some Tips

Ex-AFP chief Reyes commits suicide

By Dennis Carcamo (The Philippine Star) Updated February 08, 2011 09:58 AM 

A former chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Angelo Tomas Reyes served as Defense Secretary from 2001 to 2003 and became Energy Secretary in 2007 under the Arroyo administration. File Photo

(UPDATE) MANILA, Philippines – Former Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Angelo Reyes committed suicide this morning, shooting himself in the chest. He was 65.

......

Initial reports said Reyes shot himself using a .45 caliber pistol in front of his mother's grave at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City. Witnesses interviewed by DZBB radio station at the cemetery said they saw Reyes send his children to his car before a single shot rang out.

Don't call him a sissy. Give him sympathy because when the media is dedicating all its manpower into chewing your honor, family or basically your whole life into pieces, suicide is the least insane you would start to think of. 

But if you are suspected of stealing millions from the pockets of the poor Filipinos, please do the following before you drive yourself to the gates of heaven:

Confess before and not during or after suicide. Thats the highest form of swearing with your life plus you save yourself from speculations, name-calling and hassle. If you told everyone you were guilty, then you would die a robber but not a liar. If you told everyone you were not guilty and that is the truth, you only die because of too much prejudice from earth and that would serve heaps of konsensya to those who judged you unfairly. Let the biggest b-i-t-c-(x), karma, do its job.

P.S. Condolences to the family who lost a man. A man is such a great thing.

"Call me up before your dead, we can make some plans instead" - Loose Lips, Kimya Dawnson.

What I have realized

When people hate you then you fight back, its fun and painful and you might enjoy it. But if you have taken too much anymore and you start ignoring your haters, it is there you will understand how they will hunger for a bit of your attention. So don't hate, or you'll end up becoming a follower. hahahaha. HAHAHAHA.

And here is the Filipina Queen of Poise and Social Healthiness, Ms. Tricia Santos, acknowledging my idea in a way that can't be outdone:

This was shared by a crazy friend who goes by the name Ayanne. The Ayanne
who would die for a group hug with the Eraserheads. The Ayanne na walang malay, the Ayanne
na ang tanging kasalanan lamang ay ang magmahal...

Matter of fact, I'm starting to like her.

I'm happy

I'm really happy even though I feel like I've been ran over by a hundred bulls then put into war. I'm dead (and) tired. We had to do the Charleston in PE and a backbreaking stretch of tango dancing ("Just in case the scholars don't get into science, they can dance their way from unemployment"). Our PE classes are proportional mixtures of fun and muscle fatigue. Only every after PE class do I feel the right to submerge myself in a pile of chocolate with an open mouth.

No vision just instinct. Thank you Dana for taking these pictures!

Contrary to the happy life I live now is my immediate past. I was depressed - but it took me less than 24 hours to get over months and months of sadness. If you have been extremely sad lately, just try out this simple method I have used on myself:

1. Realize using your whole being that you are blessed. If you think you are not blessed, you are wrong.

Click read more for the perfect soundtrack (with lyrics)!

Forcing happiness and rushing identity

No one can deny the fact that soon I will be in college so I really have to get over with the identity crisis and the unhappiness. Today, I forced happiness into my system. Its a tiring job but its better than just watching yourself rot away.

From now on, I will avoid all negative thoughts, all disbelief in myself, all my regrets and I will gorge upon whole truths which my friends will willingly help me realize such as I am loved and that I am capable.

Fate got me slots to the greatest universities in the Philippines, Ateneo, De La Salle, UP, UST, and even topped it all up with a scholarship from Southville Foreign University. That only means the world wants me to happy. God wants me to enjoy life and for the past weeks, I was only waiting to achieve higher states of decomposition ungratefully. There is really nothing logical to do now but to love my own life.

I am heavily blessed and my eyelids just need further distance from each other to see all that. And I will have to use my heart, as the fox has pointed out:

"...C'est seulement avec le cœur que l'on ne voit bien ce qui est essentiel est invisible pour l'œil. (It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.)"

-the fox, Le Petit Prince of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 

Disgruntled

If there is one thing in life I would gladly forget, it would be having to deal with the future.

Way back before I was a graduating high school student, I was looking forward to be in college. I saw high school graduations as a point where all the roads are there, you choose the path you want and you go with it for the rest of your life. Period. I'll be graduating in less than 3 months and I am in a horrible state of not knowing what to do.

I certainly have good slots into the best universities in the Philippines, merci beaucoup to fate which has been on my side for a few weeks already, but still, I fear going into college. My parents and I certainly desire nothing but to add a Dr. to my name. I have been an aspiring physician since I got over my other dream which was to become a security guard and an astronaut at the same time.

Merry Christmas

So in a few hours, I'll start cooking penne pasta with my sister. We are planning a tomato sauce-tuna fusion that is edible. It being tasty would be a huge bonus. We are doing it for .... wait for it .... noche buena!

I wonder why Santa looks overweight.

Noche buena, formally Nochebuena or "Good Night" in Spanish, is a Hispanic tradition well accepted in the Philippines. Its a bountiful meal at Christmas Eve implying "what better way to celebrate the coming of the Savior than by gluttony eating a lot". My race just believes that abundance of food is a symptom of celebration and happiness.

We only do this once in over 360 days so you better get yourself a nice one. Advanced Merry Christmas!

I guess Christmas is in town.

For the past n years, Christmas in our house has failed Filipino standards. 


Read more on tumblr.

I'm seriously considering moving on to Tumblr because of the Follow feature but I have been with this blog for a very long time and ohwhatthe treachery it would be just to leave it hanging in midair after a more than a year affair.

Drifting in my mind

An expert from a conscious dream.

The problem is myself. I find it hard to realize that I am special and that I am unique. I only believe that I am mediocre and I despise that. Every time I say out loud that I love myself or that I look good, a part of me burns because I long for the day when I will truly learn to love myself, then I would stop longing to be someone different.

Over thinking only leads me to depressing ideas that seem to be the truth. I talk a lot, joke a lot and consequently laugh a lot but growing up will teach us that a laugh is not happiness. The complexity of the mind is a mystery and being that, I only look at it as a complicated maze where I am losing myself. 

My heart is speaking to my brain. Its saying that maybe, being a human is too complex for my soul. But I know that I am not average in the level of thought I put into things. Paralysis by analysis. Ugh. I never get paralyzed by thought! I'm more on the ADHD side of thinking. The thinking process keeps me moving and moving a lot which results to finishing nothing. I am a failure. 

What keeps me alive? The light at the end of this long tunnel and the curiosity on how it would feel to be happy because of what you are.

Maybe its just my fault that I put myself down too much that I do not appreciate myself; but what is there to appreciate in a barren but active mind. My mind is constantly in motion but it seems to lack in substance that is more related to life than science.

Science. It is supposed to procure answers but all it seems to do for me is to create more and more choices to decisions normal people should take, in short, it causes confusion and more 'Why?'s. Science is supposed to satiate the brain's hunger for content but for me, it keeps my brain hungry. I guess the brain's longing for knowledge is by the longing of knowledge to itself. Unless we figure out the universal answer, learning will be infinite.

 This is not wisdom literature, this is an excerpt from my daydream.

Early Bird Trust Issues

When I was writing a speech as Judas Escariot for English class, a rather random idea popped into my mind. Can you remember the last time you stopped yourself from telling the whole story to your mother thinking they would just forget about it? This is my answer to that:

I am in grade six and I was walking the way home from school. My route involves passing by the University Church which is grand with a high, platform-like roof covering its grand entrance several steps up high a wide staircase. It was a sight to behold and every time I walk its way, I wouldn’t miss taking a peek at its majesty. This day was different though because on the high roof, I saw a man wearing clothes similar to the school’s gardeners. Have they started to plant on that roof? I asked myself and took several steps nearer to home.

I heard the man on the roof shout at me because apparently, I was the only one near enough to hear him. I took another look and I saw him clutching a bible and a knife, he was tearing down his jacket and the shirt he wrapped around his head. I knew something was wrong. He was shouting at me and I was pretty sure he wanted to jump. Knowing I should listen, I listened and after I heard enough, I started running towards the nearby security guard station and informed them about the horror I witnessed. 

When concern becomes annoying

Its been a long time since I posted an entry. I went to Singapore, right? For that I missed a few classes and had to make-up for some assignments and take missed exams. Senior year in Pisay isn't really the most laid-back whirlwind around, to be blunt, I have been lost in schoolwork that blogging will become burden if I force it into my workload.

I am the type of person who doesn't enjoy seeing a problem then treating it immediately. I am the kind of person who sees an atrocity, waits for another, until I see a whole dozen of them then I start solving the problems. I like collecting tasks instead of doing them one by one because long streaks of work require less adaptive rituals than segmented labor. Anyways.....

I am a minor and I can't deny the fact that sleep is becoming a luxury for me. I sleep, at most, 6 hours a day and having the idea that a person needs at least 8 hours of sleep everyday is bugging me. I feel like I'm committing a mortal sin everyday by not sleeping as long as the experts want me to. Science high schools with poor time management is barely about sleeping. 

Someone who sleeps under the same roof with me noticed my cold relationship with nightly hibernations and he/she is very vocal about her concern. Come one. If only it was ethical that you did my work while I slept so you can shut up, I have done that already. Concern, when effect-less, is very annoying. When you see someone in pain, don't moan with him/her if you can't help.

(PS: The experts also say grumpiness can be caused by lack of sleep)

The Capital City

I have hazy memories of the capital city. My trips to Manila were usually limited to a few hours or at most, a night and a short day. I was ecstatic that last Friday, me, my five other classmates and a teacher, went to Manila for a quiz bee (and a lot more). Wihi! Two nights in the National Capital Region. Of course, I was excited. NCR is the nearest domestic address we have to "the city that never sleeps" and I'm going with friends who fall under the same age group and with the same preferences as me.

(Read more for more fun...)

The Diary of a Journal

As an aspiring writer, it is only proper that I keep a journal.

Its been a few years since I started keeping journals and success in such I define by filling up whole notebooks. I'm a big failure since I only get, at most, at the first third of a notebook. I find it hard to write an entry in the journal, later only to be compelled to blog it. At the end of the day, I realize I have made two copies of an entry. Knowing you turned your efforts into carbon copying is demoralizing so a few journal entries later, the journal is closed, sealed and thrown away in the vastness of our drawers. I start to settle with only the blog.

Still being a firm believer of journaling, I formulated a solution. I bought another set consisted of a notebook and a pen from the local thrift store at our province (total cost was like 25 pesos) and decided to open a new journal and start writing. From now on this journal will be a place to deposit all my hate and obscenity. It will offend society but will be truth to me. The entries in it will be too evil to blog and to scandalous to talk about so the journal should keep to itself. No more carbon copy work!

I bought the notebook for a severe bargain so don't dare comment on the rather abnormal cover design.

I now have several entries on this journal and it is starting to talk about eating disorders, bastardization of conventions and concentrated vanity. This journal I will gladly keep to myself.

Can you believe this?

 It has only been at most five days since I last went to school and I’m missing it already. Having to stay in the province until the end of the week-long sembreak is starting to take its toll on my city-grown consciousness.

The catch is I am actually getting tired of having to do nothing. If 24 hours in a day can seem tight in the city especially during school days, a 12-hour day of doing nothing in the province is already very generous. Although I get tired easily and I can’t seem to finish tasks in the city, here in the province, every task I am given seems to lack magnitude. When I was asked to work on some paper invitations, I finished too fast that after some tinkering with the printer and the scissors, I was back to relaxing again! I know what a torture it is to be forced to work but I didn’t expect being forced to relax is much more painful!

I just miss school and all the responsibilities. It is during these times do I realize that men were never made to rest a lot. Muscle atrophy is ugly.

(Although my report card isn’t as diamond-studded as my peers's, I actually enjoy school. I learn a lot more than what is asked during exams and teachers are my idols - being taught by your idols is always a pleasure. Here I am who asked for vacation, got it and trying to return it. Next time I want something, I really need to think about it.)

A weekend away

Thanks to the barangay and SK elections, Monday was declared a holiday and I had a chance to visit my home almost a hundred kilometers away from the city. Its my first visit since the start of my senior year because I couldn't snatch ample time to visit the farmhouse.

We now have a  egg-laying chickens. They scare me a lot.

The egg on the right is your average. The one on the right is a mutant. Scary. We might be hatching Godzilla soon!

I had these hugging monkey dolls maybe since conception.They have Velcro straps so you can "un-hug" them if you like.

I finally moved on to the continuous inking system. I can't pay an additional 10 dollars every time I buy a new Epson cartridge for the whatever smart chip they installed on it! Like, are they scared their cartridges will rise up and kill their owners that they see a need for the chips to guard their ink?

Charice and Pempengco on Glee Season 2!

One of the few things the Philippines is internationally recognized for are its child singers and as Charice Pempengco's small frame resonated awe-inspiring notes on Oprah, I was pretty proud. I even started singing myself and realized later that not because Charice is Filipino,every Filipino can sing. I'm a little racist at that, I guess.

Now that she's casted on Glee, I can't wait to finish the episode! I'm already on the start credits and I saw this:

Every other cast had their names spelled out, even if it covered Sue's face except Charice'. We need international recognition for our crazy last names too!

In weird ways.

My school has this line of huge white boards with wheels on the 'lobby' and teachers have been using it as a venue for all their concerns and whatever else they need to communicate in text rather than in speech. A certain section was dedicated to the lost and found handled by an awe-inspiring faculty member. 

In the lost and found notices, creative students of my school express their feelings through erasing certain parts of words to make the notices funny incoherent. Look what happened to the "eyeglasses" here:

I do not admire this form of joke, in fact, I believe this is vandalism and is a direct violation of the Scholar's Code. Frankly though, it suggests our students can be creative (but I imagine a multitude of profanities in a Rorschach test), they only need the proper medium to employ. In the meantime, this is actually funny on the surface but these boards are on the lobby and you can't welcome guests or anyone for the matter with a phrase synonymous to "watch out for behinds".

Obsessed with Beauty

It was already dark on my way home when I saw a spaceship tricycle. It had high-frequency blue lights everywhere that I swear it would almost look like a ball of burning ethanol from afar, all the other parts that were not covered with blue LED was black metal. It was a cool cross between the future and the old concept of Pinoy tricycles.I was lucky it was the first on its line, meaning I got to ride it. After a few minutes of waiting, I got to ride it alone.

Inside the contraption, you can find.... another set of blue lights! I was cursing then on because the two-minute ride can turn into a giant headache anytime. After a the first thousand of indecency, I noticed awkwardly placed megazillion watts speakers. They were so epic that the whole clunk of metal vibrates at every strum of the baseline. He was listening to the radio and it was late in the afternoon. The dance beats were causing turbulence.

18:24 H: I arrive safely home. 

I don't understand why we are so obsessed with aesthetics in a major major way. The tricycle could have burned 6x more fuel with all the bling but the driver is still confident its all worth it. (Escapism?!?!?)

We Give Them A Reason

Being Filipino, I was alarmed when HK citizens started calling us names and started hating our race. Here is a reason:

Photos from the crime scene foregrounded by monkeys

 

WTF?!?! All of you are in uniforms you could have not worn if you didn't go through elementary. In elementary, I was taught about respect. Ignorance is not a reason here. Visiting a crime scene for a candid photo shoot is a grave insult to the lives lost and the families in mourning of the hostage incident. Some Filipinos can really be stupid. Stupid to the max. Stupid to the highest level stupid.

Forward, Backward

In the title, I have just outlined the method of the Philippine SWAT Team in handling extreme hostage-taking situations. Silly but its true and it is honestly painful to admit that that the people who are supposed to handle life-threatening situations are only armed with guns and an elementary dance step.

 

No matter how much I hoped that I will hear, see, feel none of the hostage taking, the media coverage was just impossible to ignore. Of course, being a Filipino, I had to react, not necessarily in defense of our country but in showing that I honor the gravity of the event.

First of all, I am not ashamed of being a Filipino. I have never been and I assume I will never be. I am only ashamed by our fondness with 'rude awakenings'. We wait for a bomb to explode before we decide on the budget for training a bomb disposal team. We like learning the hard way.

Of course, I detest the SWAT. I also hate the idea that there were at least a dozen brains who decided on the proceedings in the negotiations. I suggest they should have established a group that managed everything. If you let a lot of people to decide, you will only get confusion.

There is a lot to scrutinize about the whole ordeal but I am very tired and too stressed to even note the most obvious. Common sense will do it for you, I guess. (But it didn't for most of the authority.)

Follow-ups:

• During the final assault, 15 hostages were in the bus. 7 of them survived.
• The (fly)SWAT(tters) deployed tear gas and later realized they forgot their gas masks in their service vehicles. Genius!
  

Better than pepper

Its been a long time since I got sucked into the movie theater.

Earlier today, I had to choose between Step Up 3D and Salt. I could not afford another headache so I avoided the 3D glasses.

It was a good decision. In the static, model face of Angelina Jolie I saw the most complex yet so truthful character I have ever encountered in my time in cinema. My phone and my co-watchers, basically the world, were all drowned into the darkness by the movie's constant high.Although some parts were very predictable, other parts where mind blowing. I still see the end-part helicopter dialogue being rolled on my on-board mental projector. For a hot pursuit movie, it was really good. It went beyond just being chased around the movie screen.

You should really go and see how a distinct face portray emotion without much contortion.