Sympathy

I have barely three months to prepare for my comprehensive exams and i have not started any form of review. I expect sleepless nights a month before the compre. Indolence at its best. I intend to graduate October but the way things are going, it's near to impossible. I have to pass my comprehensive exams, at the very least. I'm thriving in an orderly chaotic life with lots of Taking Back Sunday, Bomberman, and almost weekly provincial field work. I had a close encounter with tarsiers last Wednesday when i went to Bohol. They look friendly, or rather bored. The caretaker said that they were sleepy, hah, at least they have big eyes to fake it. Since they are nocturnal creatures, they're supposed to sleep during daytime. But they're forced to be awake so as not to let down the visitors who came from far places just to see their big eyes batting. My heart goes for the tarsiers.

Bye, Bye Kurt...So it goes...

I received a text message from my best buddy, Karen, informing that Kurt Vonnegut died at 84. We lost a literary hero. With books like Breakfast of the Champions, Slaugtherhouse –Five, and others, Vonnegut’s writings made our College days tolerable; satiated our hunger for real literary experience. I remember the time when I borrowed Breakfast of the Champions in the library; the book was old since it was still published in 1973 but when I read the first few pages, I became an instant Vonnegut-convert. Karen and I cannot get enough of Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout’s characters. For a week or so, we think, write, and feel like Kilgore Trout, sketching anything we can think of in my “green book”, like Trout’s girl’s underpants. With lines like “If you want to hurt your parents but don’t have the guts to be a homosexual, go to the arts instead”, we were hooked. We followed Kurt’s life and writings, even to the point of emulating him. In one of his writings, he made some comments about getting old. For someone who once attempted suicide, he regards death from old age as a semi-colon, not a period (as what he thought Hemingway did when he committed suicide). In most of his writings, he never failed to mention about the pains of getting old. The only thing he said that stops him from committing suicide again is because he wants to set a good example to his children. Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he'd prefer to go out in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He died from brain injuries after a recent fall from his Manhattan home. We are crestfallen. It made me remember one of his thoughts about death from his novel Slaugtherhouse Five. It captures everything:
The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

So they finally took notice....

Martin Scorsese finally won an Oscar! To say that it was unexpected is an understatement. I am a Scorsese fan and when I heard that he’s directing The Departed, the Hollywood adaptation of Infernal Affairs, it was a sweet anticipation. Having seen Scorsese’s previous films like Gangs of New York, Raging Bull, The Taxi, etc., The Departed, although chic and precisely made (with a fabulous casts), somehow lack the “winnability” to win an Oscar. He could have won many years ago with his more intense films. Still, I think Scorsese’s first Oscar is long overdue and the many years of going home empty handed had compounded many times over. It’s a guilt-free victory.

sullen thoughts....

There are varied reasons why people are holding on to us and would not let us go. Sometimes, it is not only that we are good, or nice, or generous, but rather it is more about their dependency, their psychological need that sadly, could never be satiated. Well of course, it’s always easy to let go of someone who does not serve whatever kind of purpose. Since our organization is undergoing some major movement in terms of structure, it follows that people, as part of that organization, should also be a part of that step forward. My boss, whom I regard dearly, would not let me go for the mere reason that she just can’t. I think that it’s not because that we were together for a long time, or I could write (her thoughts), or she needs my thesis to evaluate her program, or that I’m polite or respectful. I always believe that no one is indispensable. Our country has a surplus of talented and intelligent people who could write and speak excellent English, make and analyze intricate plans, and are well-motivated. She plans of putting or continuing the same organization with only the three of us (another officemate). She did not even ask if I’m interested with the prospect. She laid my future, for at least three years, to fit her own needs; meanwhile, suspending my life. I was caught red handed; unable to speak nor to react. She really had her way with people. I felt helpless. It is just so ironic that for someone who advocates for human rights could not let her thoughts be heard and just went blank. My head is throbbing and I think caffeine could not save me this time.

Farm Fairy Days '06