Notes to the otherside 063

Diary entry as of 6:19

So, I am in 5-hour rotation nowadays plus the usual posts of birthday greetings and last is about the age of moon; seriously, what is the meaning of these patterns? Can someone in the US or Singapore explain please?

Diary entry as of 8:31

Office, being grilled about my high school life and why cannot I remember my ESP teacher? haaaaay :(

Diary entry as of 9:50

Oh I love that poem and the movie adaptation was also good, it was graced by Takeshi Kaneshiro, swoon*

Diary entry as of 19:02

Hoooooooome

Diary entry as of 20:31

Hugs to my darling nightmare

Commitments?

New moon for all of us my beloved readers.

How was your new moon? Mine was full of stops and resting and just movies.

Yes I dabbled in movies, both local and foreign ones, to keep myself from thinking so much, if not then I might have done thinking overload, which is not good for mental health.

Well, honestly I am a bit ambivalent about my feelings over this weekend. Aside from slight fever and general feeling of being under the weather, my mind is actually in the crazy overprocessing of committing myself into 24months payment of something I have purchased using my brother's money. I mean I know I have commitment issues and just anything commitment issue like this one, like paying for 2 year loan is something I am scared of. 

I have not really done well with commitments. I have cold-feet about commitments, like payment, like work, like relationships. I know, I know, it is really one of my weaknesses. I am really thoroughly into long-term planning but the execution is not really word-for-word, like in any agreement. I get creative when I feel so suffocated by the words I fashioned into the agreement. I usually look for escape door right away when someone or something demands full commitment. 

By the way, when I said creative in the above paragraph, it doesn't mean positive all the time. I get creative because I wanted to escape. I wanted out. I wanted to be unburdened, my element of choice will always be the air, the wind, where I can be suspended, hanging into nothingness. I am not sure if anyone understands this. But if ever anyone understands that in me, I know it must have been painful for him/her because of the damages or the sabotages I have done or I am doing is really painful, it upsets security and safety, the very meaning of commitment. 

I keep on saying sorry, I keep on apologizing to him/her because I know I cannot be counted on when it comes to commitment. It is a kind of neat self-sabotage system in me. I keep on changing, I keep on changing my mind, I keep on unraveling the yarn, I keep on damaging the set-up, I guess it all boils down to my need to escape, all the time. 

How much freedom do you think you can bestow on me? How much freedom do you think you can allow me while we share our relationship? How much sabotage can you handle? How much pain can you take? Sadly, these are the things I keep asking myself too.

And in the process of allowing me that freedom, does your love diminish? Does your trust diminish? Does your belief in me and in us become non-existent?

I sometimes get scared of knowing the answer. I am still scared of being alone of course but it is part of me, my need for freedom. Is there someone ready to love that part of me, that very dark part of me?

See, that's why I know it is weird when someone reveals that they like me, I really had to reconcile their affections to me to my never-ending need to be free from something or from someone. There are times when I feel sad because when I 'go home' that someone has already moved on. Terrible isn't it. Sad isn't it.

Until now, I still have to process what is love, what is commitment, what is trust, what is betrayal, what is reconciliation, what is expected of me, what do I expect of you when you want to have this relationship with me?

This has been a sad post.

But somehow, I know sadness has a function in our lives. 

Even weaknesses.

Even our darkness.

Even our own cowardness.

I will continue again later, hugs my dears.

From my Hiding Place - Catalog 9

I have been really adamant to write because my writing would be tainted with so much pain, dark moods, sadness, grief and impossibly deep emotions that I can't even start to put down into words.

Somehow, in this bleak gloomy world, I don't want to add the same blood-dark tinted words to further lay waste in the collective glum of existence.

So, I kept my silence.

But this morning, I read some very assuring words from someone in the news, it goes a bit like this:

The beginning of the end of this madness has finally come. 

And I believed it.

Finally.

Finally.

Finally.

It was a terrible underworld journey but we are still here, walking boldly, carrying our lives and our loved ones with us, fully trusting in the crack of light as we await the new dawn.

The 'death' journey for me this past week was beyond words, it was a deeper kind of purification, something I am prepared for since it happens cyclically to me, but it was something new as well. I wish I could put them in words, but words elude me.

Let me try:

It was a noisy sleep. 

Noisy darkness.

The kind where you wish your brain just melts and disappears because you are haunted by so many worries, insecurities, questions, etc (maybe that's why there are dead people who have unfinished business?) 

But it is more of a curse when you wake up and you have a vivid memory of the darkness and your death. You wake up and sh*t, you are still alive, though death would be kinder.

It is so easy to lose hope, lose humanness, lose yourself, lose faith, but I cannot and I do not.

I am tired of 'dying' it is not a good experience, it is something you want to forget after sleeping for two or three days straight, but you won't forget it. It is in every breath you take. It is like a dream that will haunt you, it can't let you go though you want to let it go badly.

But of course, after death, there's regeneration, rebirth, renewal.

Start from scratch again,

start again with baby steps

start again

start.

Moods #21

Liwanag sa Dilim | Rivermaya

Harapin mong magiting ang bagong awitin

Liwanag sa dilim

The old one closes and the new one begins

It was a relaxing but a difficult weekend at the same time

I finally had a whole day of just staying in the bedroom and not doing anything

Just letting the time pass without feeling so guilty at all

Reminds me of that liminal period after hell week and the start of a new sem, during university days

It was the 'in between days' - time for recuperating, for releasing all those heaviness, and to just be

But what surprised me is that it is now taking longer to recover from the slump than usual

It looks like my age is really catching up with me

But the slump is deeper and vaster than before

It seems like it is just the beginning

It is ominous

Signs of the time to come

.

.

.

.

The future is starting sooner than I expected

Moods #15

 

Interchange #38

I've Got a Dream / Tangled

She's got a dream (he's got a dream)
They've got a dream, we've got a dream
So our differences ain't really that extreme
We're one big team
Call us brutal, sick, sadistic
And grotesquely optimistic
'Cause way down deep inside

We've got a dream 

A project and a commitment

“That’s how Yubaba controls you... by stealing your name." - Haku, Spirited Away

When I was younger, I heard that naming people, pets, things or other possessions is very important. It was a kind of tradition passed on in my family especially when we got pets. Most of the pets we had were accidental, these pets chose us, not the other way around. The past pets we had were: kittens, birds, rabbits, puppies, I remember we didn't name these pets yet when other family member haven't seen them. So it was important that they were recognized and accepted first before we name them.

We usually based the names of these pets on their weird characters or their physical characteristics. There were names like: mingming, B1 and B2, porgitania, ali etc. Years passed, and I still hold naming of things and people very important. For example, for possessions, I name them depending on their use: for my phones, usually they have two names: Hermes Cadmus etc. For my usb they are a bit more elaborate like: Calligeneia. For my camera: Cleopatra. Of course, my laptop has a name. Also, my diary has names too. 

Well, actually the point of my post is that I have made up my mind that I won't name anyone near my living space or anyone I treat important, (or anything) carelessly. Which brings me to the importance of etymology. I was told by my friends that most of the name I used are either from Greek Mythology or other forms of gods/goddesses of the ancient world. Yeah, I am guilty of that. But also, I am expanding my horizons in naming objects or people, that's why my research now involves a lot about world literature on deities and heroes. 

Also, yeah, I have a long list of research topics that I am starting now. I feel that it will take a long time of research, as I have a lot of questions in my life right now. But I am just beginning to collect a lot of information by looking at many books and of course printing them. I feel like this research journey will cover 2 decades, something that I really have to commit myself into. I am actually excited, and I commit to report my research and realizations in this blog, because I want to update you my dear readers about what I have been discovering and learning. 

I hope you will join me in this very long journey and perhaps we can learn together as we follow this great quest of search for truth and answers. I will definitely put out some tags so you can follow me into these different topics that I am diving into.

Ode to online teaching classes

We have another Monday in our midst, my dear readers.

How's everything going in your lives and in your schedules?

I hope everyone is doing well and I pray that everyone will stay healthy.

So, we are in the middle of April, time flies so fast nowadays.

Now, I am caught in a weird flow of emotions.

I have been having my online classes, and it has been wonderful,

my students

the parents

my classes

they are all wonderful

but of course, there are difficult times too, especially when I have 

to give them their reports, I usually pull out an all nighter or two to finish

almost an average of 20 reports every two weeks

but that's part of the journey of online teaching

So there, I have established that my online teaching journey has been 

a mix of wonderful and difficult - and because of those qualities I love it even more

Thing is, I may have to cut some parts of my online teaching time 

to make way for a new schedule

That's where this weird flow of emotions is coming from

I have this sudden surge of sad emotion bec I think maybe this will be the 

last few weeks where I have this time of teaching them, bec definitely I 

will have to adjust the schedule

I mean sometimes when we do something daily, we just go through the motions, 

we begin the class, we reach a comprehension, we use the new words of concepts 

in our sentences and then we have culmination activity then homework, that's 

basically the rough run down of my classes

This gets on and on, then it gets too familiar that I may have let it sink to predictable

patterns and I have unintentionally killed the excitement, 

but now, since I might have a new routine soon, I suddenly realize the real value

of my online teaching classes, it may have been not very exciting anymore

but I am secure in its familiarity 

Ah, the impermanence of life

But day by day, I am learning to stay in the here now, 

to seize every moment of the day

and just let life unfold without me being a control freak about the future

Moods #4

 

Time to surrender

 Never has this song resonated so much to me until today💦

The Killing Moon

Under a blue moon I saw you
So soon you'll take me
Up in your arms
Too late to beg you or cancel it
Though I know it must be the killing time
Unwillingly mine

Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him

In starlit nights I saw you
So cruelly you kissed me
Your lips a magic world
Your sky all hung with jewels
The killing moon
Will come too soon

And yes, too late to beg you or cancel it right?

Might as well learn from this new realm

A new week, a new addiction

These days I am diving into reading. Got it from Romina, she influenced me to read fanfiction again. Actually my love affair with fanfiction was really potent 2 years ago, there was a time that I would only read fanfiction all day, before work and after work. What really brought my addiction to it was the story between Kenshin and Kaoru, it was AU (alternate universe) and I kind of love that universe more than the original one created by Nobuhiro Watsuki. The title of this AU is Vaster than Empires by Ayezur. It became a ritual for me to reread it every month. Seriously terribly my apex of addiction. I devoured the story line by line, chapter by chapter, even close to memorizing it word for word. I couldn't think of any other stories, even a Gaiman story for that. Only this one. I even shared this gem to many other friends, they liked it too. But of course, when the addiction subsided, I earnestly searched for other Kenshin Kaoru fanfic, I wasn't disappointed. There are thousands of stories to go through, but of course I had to filter them out because I need something as potent as the one by Ayezur. 

In my passionate conquest, I came across other brilliant stories: Kinenbi (oneshot), Beyond Reason and Measure, Kokoro Kara, Longing to hold you, Never bet against a redhead (59 chapters), Reflections and Fulfillment (oneshot), Saving Forever, The Bridal Discussion, Through Long Days of Labor, True Love's first kiss. I tediously saved them all in my evernote, chapter by chapter so I can visit and read them anytime even offline.

The addiction to Kenshin/Kaoru fanfic eventually subsided, I was utterly thankful because I had it so bad. Just think, I will just read and read about them for around 6 months long, no other stories, no other characters, just the two of them. Most people will let go of their addiction maybe after two to three months, but for me two to three months are just approaching the peak of it. When it is potent, I really get stuck and that's not nice. Believe me. Because after the addiction subsides, I will avoid them for who knows how long. I am like that. I don't want to ever be near it. For. A. Long. While. But of course, there is love there, but just I need to avoid it. Until it becomes unfamiliar again and I will have new reasons to explore it again. That's about the cycle of addiction for me.

Now, there is another excitement in the air. As mentioned above, it was because of Romina. She ignited another fancy in me that I couldn't resist. She knows how to rein me in, it started with a letter. If someone will ask me how great romantic stories begin, I know the answer. Through a letter. And it is the deal. Always the deal. The story's title is: Letter from Exile one Merciful Morning by Textualsphinx. 

It is a fanfic pairing between Hemione Granger and Severus Snape also known as HGSS. I know right, not everyone is prepared for this mix. At first I felt, mmm, maybe or so-so. But after reading the oneshot fanfic, oh my am I hooked? The letter is something that we all want to hear especially when it is penned by the terrorizing Potions Master. It is his most vulnerable piece yet. How can someone like a towering figure of a professor fall in love with the most brilliant female student? Mmm, read the letter guys. (Read between the lines: professor/student, how about the age gap there?) (Also, Hermione is the sunny bright one and Severus, just as his name implies, the unfathomable dark one)

Hello addiction my friend, it's been a long while. Let's get acquainted again.

Heart and love, heaviest burdens

And just like that, it's Monday once again my dear readers.

Words elude me lately, so I will just make this post short and sweet.

The photo above is a short exchange between Sophie and Howl, in the movie Howl's Moving Castle. The movie is such a heartwarming one. In this scene, Sophie is returning Howl's heart inside himself. And Howl for the first after a long long time finally felt whole again because he has his heart restored. We can see that Howl said that he feels terrible, that there's weight in his chest, and Sophie reassured him that A heart's a heavy burden, implying that indeed, it is going to feel so heavy because the heart is internally heavy, but worth having, no matter what.

What's lovely is that Sophie labored so much to return Howl's heart back. And Howl's forever grateful to her. It is a story that can remind us of the power of love and that these feminine and masculine energies need each other to help each other grow. In a weird way, somehow, I had quite a vivid dream about this last week, I was going out a corridor and a familiar guy was lying on the floor, clutching his chest, and saying his heart is a bit sick. I went to him and comforted him, automatically knowing, in the dream that he needs to restart his heart, so I helped him. Weird synchronicity.

Which eventually reminds me of Joni Mitchell's song Tin Angel

There's a sorrow in his eyes
Like the angel made of tin
What will happen if I try
To place another heart in him

In a Bleeker Street cafe
I found someone to love today
I found someone to love today

Happy New Moon everyone. 

cat and dog

Something about April

.... and blogging.

April, oh the month of April, almost five years ago, I published the very last entry in this blog. And then life happened so I wasn't able to write for a long time. Until now.

Yes, I am now trying to revive this blog which I have been neglecting for so many years. It doesn't deserve this kind of treatment. As you can see my dear readers, my very first entry here was in year 2011, wow, almost a decade ago, those early years of raw emotions, rants, young-ish view of life, heartaches, failures, disillusions and more. It had been a place of my intimate thoughts. A space to pour out emotions. A small digital vault where I can write about what moves me, touches me. It means so much to me that I can't really let it sink beneath the frame of my life now.

So I am reviving it.

💗

New Moon, New Path

Yay! I so love vacations.  

Travel time!

Breakfast and lessons on growing

I treat my 20s as an intense period of learning. It is with deep connection to my tendency of stubbornly following my original plan, that I cannot change my mind in the beginning, middle or near the end of a goal that I set myself to do. But as life has been teaching me this past few months, there are a lot of things out of our control, therefore, more or less, it is convenient to change our minds from time to time to be able to achieve our goals. Being stubborn and hardheaded about changing plan had been my Achilles heel ever since, but this Cebu experience is really set to teach me about giving enough room for adjustment when plans fail. It is again one of the comfort zones I need to leave because I need to grow.

As I am typing now, I am expressing my joy after eating my freshly cooked pechay in olive oil and soy sauce and egg peppered with thyme leaves, I served it with three slices of bread.

Ah wonderful! I am really heartened by the magical taste of these yummy treats for myself.

Actually I originally intended to cook egg, cook pechay and wait for canteen to open so I can get rice. That means an hour of wait because our canteen opens around 7am, but I finished cooking at 6am. But heck, my table is set for breakfast already and I realized the food in my plates are enough. I must savor the flavors while its hot. And my choice proved to be right.

Satisfied with my simple but healthy breakfast, I look outside my window and welcomed a new day coming. The sky is filled with bluish hope, this should turn out to be a good week.

Although there comes a point when we need to make more adjustment than we were used to, we should be happy to welcome the change, as it teaches us to grow slowly, gently. Growth as we all know is painful because we will never know what will come next, it is altogether a new territory. I come to a point when I just trust the process, to just let go and let new experiences stir us to greater awareness and emotions. Of course, we must not miss the beautiful sky outside the window as we go through the bumpy ride of Growth Avenue. We must open ourselves up more to changes that come with growth, who knows we might be giving ourselves a rare big chance of putting healthier and yummier food in our table. 

Know your true name

 Spirited Away or Sen and the spiriting away of Chihiro (Miyazaki, 2001)

[Chihiro is being called Sen]

Chihiro: Granny... I just want you to know my real name! It's Chihiro!
Zeniba: Oh, what a pretty name! Be sure to take good care of it, dear!

Falling in love with new theme

Can i say i luuuuuurve my new theme in tryfictionbyjoyce blog

Til summer comes again

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know with a white quilt and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep darlings, till the summer comes again."

Lewis Caroll, Alice in Wonderland