i have been blog-dormant for the past few weeks, and this was not because i did not have enough thoughts to weave into paragraphs, it’s just that my thoughts have been in disarray. as a matter of fact, i know i have much to rant about and even more stories to share.

but fact is, my mind is fuck-lazy. just like always. and it can be pretty taxing to feign sincerity, especially when it comes to writing, so i opted to just shut my mind temporarily, keep all the words in my heart, and all the emotions in my mind.

i was waiting for the perfect moment of release.

suffice it to say, the past few days have been witness to a love that was hastily nurtured, and was ripped just as fast; friendships that have become life contracts, and those that have deteriorated into friendships that once were; life decisions that could possibly be life-altering; and the flippant regression of once steely resolutions of being stronger and weathering whatever shit life throws at me.

yes, i do believe i am in the throes of defining, or redefining, the life that is meant for me. and i know that this crucial phase will determine how i make it out eventually.

this is just a sample of how my mind has been wracked by all sorts of complications from the recent weeks, and i hope, i just do, that soon, i can weave my thoughts once more into something that makes sense.

that, i am.

it is exactly 2:50 am as i write this — and i am seriously pissed because this night was supposed to be different — i was supposed to sleep earlier than usual, err, with usual being 4 am or 5:30 tops.

and there was a reason why i was so bent on sleeping early tonight, or last night — because tomorrow is supposed to be a different day. at 9 am, i am supposed to head to one of the universities here and cheer my kids on for a parliamentary debate that me and theri worked hard for (err, this might be exaggerated, but considering my lack of anything worthwhile to do these past few days, THIS could possibly be my week’s highlight)

damn you, thoughts. you never let me sleep.

or perhaps, this is what happens to puyat torrent-downloaders who’ve had to sleep late for the past week or so. and i guess, this is what i deserve for fucking up my own body clock.

but anyhow, i plan to wage an all-out war against my rebellious body clock, and i intend to defeat you, thoughts. ha. i will tire myself today, not sleep (even a bit), and we’ll see who gets exhausted once this day is over.

i will win, thoughts. and you better put up a good fight. or probably not.

it’s your call — but be forewarned though, i will go to bed prepared.

‘why are you still single?’

then the look of pity cushioned by a gesture of concern.

‘what’s wrong?’

clyde (deep inside): first level of rebuttal, putang ina ka.

second level, i don’t need your pity, and you can pepper someone else with your concern –

because on the third level of rebuttal, i am perfectly happy with my current state, and no amount of pitiful gestures can make me feel miserable because i know myself, i know what i currently need, and i am not desperate.

gets?

one thing that i like about being in dumaguete is that everyone looks out for everyone. concern is everywhere, and i literally mean everywhere: it’s in school, in church, in family, and in all other social circles that are really just intertwined with each other. but this supportive social base is unfortunately, also the reason why we have to entertain the annoying snootiness of those who are convinced that they have the right to intrude just because they are part of any of your social circles.

first level of rebuttal: why is it so discomforting for these people when one’s status message says single?

let me substantiate this claim.

being in a relationship, mind you, is not something as trivial as choosing who your top friends in facebook will be, or deciding what’s going to be your pulutan for cali-tan (cali and tanduay, try it, it’s love). relationships are complex — almost as complex as love (if ever it exists), and so leeway should be given to those who:

a. have been burned before

b. are still unsure of the right person or,

c. just don’t feel like being in a relationship.

because personally, i believe that no one can really predict the path of our emotions. i remember, with fondness now but with contempt when it happened, how it took me two years to forget a surreal conversation that i had with a complete stranger in a bus ride in manila 5-ish years ago, whereas a relationship that lasted for seven months was nowhere near bothering me a week after it ended.

this, for me, shows the extent of its unpredictability, its complexity notwithstanding.

society, in all honesty, is actually very imposing with its standards of what is a happy life and conversely, what constitutes its miserable half. but these standards are almost always arrived at consensually, even if this concession is not really absolute and is thus, questionable still.

this is probably the reason why society thinks this way:

happiness = relationship.

and moreover, this is why those who are subsumed under this line of thinking feel helpless, hapless, and desperate when they are without a partner — they instantly feel that their temporary demise is a foreboding of things to come: a life that is sad and empty — that they will inevitably be alone and miserable. which is why they look for relationships even when it is clearly for the wrong reasons. they try to fill the void by feigning affection towards those who are presumably as desperate as them.

first level of clarification: you are not as unsell-able as you think you are — you just need to wait for the right moment and the right person. (but this has to be tempered by how you assess yourself physically, just kidding)

second level of clarification: screw societal pressure — they don’t get to fix your heart once it gets broken by a relationship that was not supposed to happen to begin with.

‘why are you still single?’

there’s that pity again. there’s that futile attempt at hiding their concern.

and here is my rebuttal again:

putang ina ka.

‘is it something that happens as we grow older or do we have problems because as older people, we tend to overanalyze things?’

jeneil asked as silence, for once, descended on our group that night.

her question kept us quiet for a little longer — because it got us thinking: as older people, are we messed up because we have aged considerably? or are we the very reasons why we live directionless lives as of the moment, exactly eight years after high school graduation?

of course, we were the perfect mix of people to answer that question — we had in our group a registered nurse who did not know what to do with her career path what with the retrogression in the US and all, we had someone who just broke off her engagement with her erstwhile fiance, still, there was one who did not know what his life meant as of the moment and where it was leading to, and then there was me, a college junkie who just finished formal schooling after over eight years (thank god it was only seven years and a sem, yehey).

we fell silent because we tried to look for a sensible answer to her sensible question.

then edon quipped: ‘are we really miserable?’

everyone erupted in laughter — not because the answer was an obvious no, but because we all knew that in our own unguarded moments together, especially with the presence of spirits around, we crumbled in the presence of each other — admitting human frailty in the company of friends who did not judge nor took pity because they themselves felt and understood how it was to be broken.

‘how could it have come to this?’

all of us looked in different directions — but there was a subdued concession among all that what kept us together, and what will keep us together in the years to come was the comfort of our friendship and the future rounds of tagay in between heartfelt laughters and sporadic emotional outbursts.

we had become the friday night drinking club — and we knew, in that solitary moment of silence and bliss, that we will be each other’s lifesavers in the days, and drinking nights, to come.

these past few weeks, i made sure i had fun — well primarily because manila will be my next temporary adventure this december, and partly because i wanted to make the most of my time here with my friends.

two weeks ago, i was part of a team that was to produce a video documentary for two of the province’s municipalities. together with micah, leah, maybelle, claudio, and the shada boys (hehe, swatches ka claudio!), we explored tanjay and amlan for two days. anyway, since i was only a writer for the team, i decided to take on the role of photographer and took snapshots which chronicled the entire adventure.

here are some of them, and i hope they give you some sense of how much fun we had there!

i for one have no natural flair for drama nor sensationalizing personal shit.

but anyway, just to give you an apt closure for this entire ruckus, yes, i am personally satisfied that the mutual feeling is one of good riddance. although i have this automatic mourning process once something is lost — be it a fleeting romance or the abrupt ending of a shared friendship — i am beginning to be weary of those which i need to let go, unlike those that i want to let go.

and after having gone through the rigors of scouring for friendships that will last a lifetime, i now know how to determine those who will stay with me — be it through thick or thin, drunk or sober, happy or lonesome — and who will crumble down and abandon the friendship when it severely needs rescuing.

trust, for me, is irredeemable and non-negotiable altogether. but that’s just me.

good riddance.

it never felt so assuring to say these words — no matter what you say, and no matter what impression you try to create, i know how things panned out, and i will forever be thankful for that moment of epiphany when i sensed — no — when i was shaken to the revolting truth, that letting go of unhealthy friendships can be so liberating.

good luck with your life.

it is quite sad and surreal that my last ndc as a debater would be during my first year in debating. for the longest time, and in my past life, i have always shunned the possibility of being a debater for several reasons: for one, i do not feel adequate to become one, for another, i have always been irritated with (the) debaters’ brand of obnoxious, exclusivist, and seemingly arrogant intellectual air — but once i allowed myself to be captivated by its bizarrely addictive appeal, i knew it would stay with me for a long time.

debating is so much fun, and challenging, and excruciating, and exhilarating, and demanding, and time-consuming — but none of its tiring attributes compare to the kind of high one gets when a good argument suddenly appears from nowhere, or how the heart leaps when the adjudicator nods with you as you speak.

but now, i momentarily bid debating goodbye — and to have ended my debate life by advancing to the quarterfinals (with my partner kristi in the photo) in the national debate championship (from over two hundred teams all over the philippines) in davao just last month is enough for me (although my competitive side craved for more).

the motions, the newly-acquired friends, the adjudicators, the irate debaters, the intrigues, the issues: everything will remain with me, and everything will remain in me.

debating has been very good to me — and nothing can ever quantify my gratitude to the wonders that debating and debaters have done for me — for it is here where i learned to accept that certain things are what they are, and no amount of effort can alter the course of inevitability of these established truths.

debating is a respite — it is my own solace from the gibberish of the world and the clutter of a society that has long been held hostage by materialistic consumerism (hahaha!).

seriously, i am going to miss this part of my life — and i do believe, with a certainty that cannot be questioned, that nothing can ever fill the void

the past few days have been alternating swirls of boring days and uneventful nights.  i have actually much to talk about — rant about — but it feels like it would require a major motivation on my part to muster enough adjectives, words, and paragraphs to let everything out — and i am in no condition to feign diligence because fact is, i am still caught in the web of complications that have always been there — complications and me: a fatal mix really.

but anyway, i am gearing up for my next adventure: manila. just like the rest, i will be in a very tight rat race — and i just hope i will make it out alive. here’s to luck, of which i am most needing and wanting.

Last night, I had a few good laughs as I stumbled across my first debate portfolio – a blue envelope containing the first set of debate-related papers that I acquired in last year’s Visayas-Mindanao Championships held in Cebu. Back then, I only had a month’s worth of experience as a debater, so during the tournament, I had to put on a confident front and convince everyone that I knew my stuff, even when in reality, I did not understand the juxtaposition of the words ‘paradigm’ and ‘tokenistic’ to the issues surrounding Wowowee and its apparent nature of being exploitative rather than beneficial to the toothless mothers and desperate garbage-pickers who account for its massive fan base.

I felt silly over my adj exam results (pardon to those who are not familiar with debate jargon):

Question number 4: An OO that doesn’t challenge a squirrel may be penalized.

My answer: Yes, he should be penalized but only minimally – after all, everything still hinges upon the prerogatives of the LO, and enduring the aftermath of his lack of dynamism should be enough penalty for him.

Question number 9: Once the OO has accepted the definition of OG, the closing teams may no longer challenge the definition.

My answer: Of course not! (with such enthusiasm mind you J) If the parameters/issues/clashes prove hard to work with, then the closing sides may present a counterprop – it’s the adj’s call later on, depending on what he feels is right or appropriate.

Hahaha!

And by a bizarre twist of fate, and however revolting and downright scary, I got a relatively high score in the adj exam – which catapulted me to the position of adj chair in the first round. Imagine my horror when the teams were already in their seats, waiting for the round to start, and I was panicking inside because I did not know how to formally begin the round with the PM’s speech. Good thing a panelist sensed my apprehension, and so he scribbled these words (that I also retrieved from my debate portfolio, haha) for me to read: I call this house to order on the motion that this house will ban all forms of animal experimentation. I had to refer to his note during the next few rounds because I had to solo adj in the subsequent rounds. Haha! J

Then my adj notes – aah, my adj notes. In retrospect, I was an asshole adjudicator back then. See, I have this ‘personalized’ style of adjudicating, whereby I scribble down notes in the local vernacular – even when a debater says that a certain development is bad, I scribble it down in bisaya, such that it becomes ‘makadaot ni siya’. Haha! Because personally, I understand it more when the language is more intimate and easily comprehensible. But on the downside, I had several comments which I would rather not share because they were downright condescending – yes, I also write down my feelings towards the debater as a person, and his arguments as well. Evil, I know – but then again, this is my way of personalizing my adjudication notes. J

And, just to satiate my strong urge to share some of the highlights of the tournament back then, I will share some of my adj notes which will surely stay with me for the rest of my debate life.

Motion: This house condones anti-drug vigilantes

PM’s Speech: the mechanism will consist of the following: (1) the proper packaging of medicines; (2) how to look for the perfect ingredients; (3) how to disseminate the information that these herbal medicines are available for consumption.

Definition of term: vigilantes – tasked to distribute these herbal medicines.

Arguments: (1) economic development since these products will be distributed to the grassroots; (2) promote a healthy lifestyle as these vegetables can be grown in school backyards; and (3) poor people will be acquainted with the healing power of vegetables.

Hahaha!

So little time, so many debate motions. Cheers guys and see you all in davao!