the worst thing a proctor can do

It's a lazy Friday afternoon. It's elective day. That means the class-turned-exam rooms are barely filled with examinees (the rest of them are at home cramming their papers, which can sometimes be the greater evil). Our IEL 2 exam was making the cogs in my brain work like horses (Question No. 1 said, "Choose 2 or 4 items to define. 10/5 pts. each." Do I choose 2 or does the prof want 4?) when all of a sudden, our proctor takes out her nailcutter and yes, cuts her nails.

Studio 60 (Chandler who?)

Twenty minutes into the pilot episode and I've got half of a National Book Store receipt filled with quotes (I couldn't find any other scrap paper). This is an insightful new series where Matthew Perry (Chandler of Friends fame) reinvents himself as Matt. He gets all the punchlines right. Yeah, he's a good actor!

JERRY: Get him off or you don't have a job tomorrow.

CAL: I'm running a live national broadcast, can you threaten me later?

--

MATT: I had them move the follow-spot over. I said "He's never not been there for me", and then there was a klieg light on a basket of dinner rolls.

--

MATT: I'll bond you.

DANNY: What?

MATT: I'll pay for the bond.

DANNY: How much money do you have?

MATT: Well, with my alimony and my percent of the first dollar gross on this movie...65 dollars.

--

MATT: Why didn't you tell me? When I screw up you know about it.

DANNY: When you screw up I read about it.

MATT: No, I tell you, you're the first one I tell. Now we're back in the NFL and only one of us can screw up at a time and I think we both know that most of the time it's gonna be me. You're the big shoulders.

DANNY: I hear you.

MATT: Good, 'cause I'm pretty stoned right now and I can't really remember what I said.

http://www.studio60theseries.com

http://www.geocities.com/seekergurl/studio60.html

and of course, everything's on http://www.wikipedia.org

I've stopped

I've finally decided to be selfish
- to stop letting you choke me to death
with your cursed lifelong commitment to be sad.

I've stopped dying in letting you go.

Caxton by Noli Adrian de Pedro

Caxton
(from the collection, Poems for Leticia)

See this is what I tried to do:
I caught all the birds I have ever seen,
or never imagined or could not imagine,
and put them all in a cage devised
to fit the roof of your hands. Each of them
was put into a calm, folded-down secret,
bones and colored feathers, all posed carefully
for the image of beautiful flights, for
a live and silent world happy with its fiction.
This aviary that I wanted you to have
is in itself a bird with no flight.
Its wings stunned purposefully.
It is a Caxton tamed, patient for
the pleasure of your eyes and fingers.
I taught it to teach you of flight.



-This poem is from the latest Malate Literary Folio that Ryan gave to me last Tuesday. (Ryan is from La Salle :) It won 3rd place in the 21st DLSU Lit Awards which a co-Heightser, Mookie Katigbak, judged. I edited it a bit. Otherwise, I think it's lovely and reminiscent of Jeline De Dios' and Jeanie Nieva's poetry.Caxton, by the way, is an English publisher who printed the first book in English in 1474.

excerpt from Neil Gaiman

Do I believe that something strange was happening? I suppose I must do. Perhaps it was simply that, for a brief while, his madness was in step with the madness of the world outside. I don't know.

-Neil Gaiman, The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories

Walking Down the Pirates' Cove

I, for one, support piracy.

Call it file-sharing, dibidi sa SM (sa Muslim) or what-have-you, but the fact remains that these babies are cheap, sulit copycats. For a student like me, and even for those already earning their keep, going through the selections in Quiapo, Edsa Central, Makati Cinema Square and Ruins is as fulfilling as joining the foray into the wagwagan a.k.a. ukay-ukay and finding treasures for two bucks.

Now why? Why do we do this? Why do we shamelessly rip off music and pass it on to friends (and customers) for a tenth of the original price? It's simple economics. It's plain supply and demand. Waking up today at 2 past noon, I decided to head off to one of my favorite haunts (guess which among Quiapo, Edsa Central, Makati Cinema Square and Ruins, except if you're a cop, in which case I don't want you conducting raids). I had P500 to spare and ended up with three 9-in1's, three new TV series (with at least the first season complete), two singles (Amelie and Pulp Fiction. Damn, why I can't find Kiss Kiss Bang Bang?), and three albums (Jason Mraz, Eraserheads originals and Up Dharma Down, to compensate for their perpetual lack of Cynthia Alexander. Did anyone ever pirate her albums?). All for P500. Cheap thrill. Yet, these babies will serve to enhance the scarce and diluted aesthetics in my life (I'm in law school. Art around here is practically nil.)

I flagged down a bus after almost two hours of fruitful shopping. I love you, Amelie, but I don't have P950.

one December afternoon

ThePalladium girls (L-R): Doranne, Janina, Thea and me

I have to learn how to put links. Meantime...

Meet Louie and Jessie at http://www.sarjie.multiply.com

Eragon

"I'm one part bravery, three parts fool."

Thanks, T, for this afternoon.

I'm Coming Home

Just this morning, hope came in the form of a text message containing an email address. I was to send my resume, sample syllabus and references to a former professor in the Legal Management department of the Ateneo de Manila. I might be teaching basic Intellectual Property Laws in my Alma Mater soon. :)

Break new grounds!

Defeated Tree

defeated tree
don't stare at me
i wasn't your enemy

reluctance

So many things are ending for me this New Year. One of them is Palladium, the school publication I've headed last year. Ryan, my friend and successor, called a meeting yesterday of the new editorial board. He invited me, and since I had nothing better to do I decided to go. As the new editors came through the door one by one, I started feeling old and displaced. They probably felt awkward seeing the former editor-in-chief in this gathering of new faces. I felt alone and I sensibly was. I busied myself with the literary folio laid before me, trying to find company with words among the poems printed on its pages. This worked quite well. The new ones were spared the trouble of behaving too politely and spent no time in talking among themselves. I was spared the necessity of speaking. I didn't feel myself capable of any words as I tried to tune out their voices. Their laughter was not one where I'll be in the middle of. Their worries are no longer going to be mine.

The meeting started after about a half hour. I caught sight of my cubby hole stashed high with my readings, calling cards, forgotten water bottles and a seashell. Loneliness seeped in and rushed coolly in my veins. Palladium was my home for two years. Its office was a fortress when life in the classrooms outside it become too much to handle. More than anything, being with Palladium has made my resolve to be a journalist more firm. I'll be finishing my law degree and taking the bar yes, but it doesn't mean that I have to give up my Muse. In many ways I pray that my heart for journalism and my career in law will intersect. There are not many successful lawyers who are also journalists out there. They're quite rare. Father Bernas is one. I want to be another.

Halfway through the meeting I felt like leaving, and I would have had I not been so inconveniently seated in the corner of the long table. I watched Ryan talk and I felt proud. I have found a worthy successor, and Lord knows I will never leave something as precious to me as Palladium in the wrong, or worse incompetent, hands.

At 2 a.m. this morning I was still busy talking with a couple of my fellow outgoing editors. I burst in tears after I said to Ryan I'll miss him and Palladium (I'll have to clean out my office drawer and surrender my office keys soon).

Letting go is a violent process. I was overcome with reluctance, which I've realized was so different from what my predecessor felt when she turned Palladium over to me. She was quite happy and relieved. I, on the other hand, was crying like I did at dawn. Sadness bent me low. They say other people fight harder battles, and I should be thankful all I'm sad about is my term ending. But this is one of the hardest ones I have battled so far, although it's smaller compared to others'.

I guess I just have to be thankful to the Divine for paying me some attention. Or why else would He bother pruning me?