Tuesday, September 29, 2009

okay, wait lang.

i can't help it. as in. i really can't. even with combined efforts, parang i still can't. kung dinedemonyo ako, ganun talaga eh.

okay?

as in omg. i have to laugh. ang ayoko sa lahat yung asar-talo. parang tanga lang o. affected naman kayo? tuwa naman kayo sakin? well i'm sorry pero wala akong sinasanto. wala talaga. kahit ano at sino ka pa, if you rub me the wrong way, itatapon kita. tigilan ako sa pagiging plastic. hindi ko kailangan ng messenger. they have to tell me what they want to say. ano yan, bakit may speaker of the house? UUUHM. tapos talagang ganging up pa oh! kasi alam nyo na independent ako? sarap lang! as in WOW THANKS. to think kayo pa yung matanda. natuwa naman kayo sakin. ganda ko eh.

i'm so turned off. you're all so disgusting. if you want a fight, go tell me. i'm handling this alone but that doesn't mean i can't do it.

at hello naman sa, anong tinitingin tingin mo jan? eh kung magsalita ka kaya?! hindi yung asa viewing list pero wala namang sinasabi. parang tanga lang o. nasaan ang brain? sabi na nga ba nawawala ang brain eh kaya ayun, assume lang ng assume. UHM!

kadiri lang. i swear. kadiri. i thought you knew better. atenista pa man din kayo. ang alam ko walang atenistang bobo. apparently may nag-eexistensyang ganon. hay. kaloka!

okay wait. there are some things i REALLY REALLY REALLY want to say. i just need a go signal. as in, waiting to explode!

inconvenience.

al gore's right. and it's all happening. i hope we could still do something!

i have to wake up at 4am later because i'm going to ateneo and bringing my sister to work at 6am. so yeah i'll be in ateneo maybe at 7am. yay for volunteer work! i'm excited. the DSL has been restored this afternoon so things are back to normal. it was so confusing to have only 2 smart bro usb modems when all 5 of us are looking for people, checking up on friends, planning what we could do, among other things. oh well. for now, my downloads can wait.

i'm a bit apprehensive though because while it's a helpful thing to pack goods, a lot of the relief goods that i see are wrapped in plastic. i saw videos of the assembly line in school, where they all put the goods to the trucks, and it's a whole truckload full of PLASTIC! i'm afraid that while we may be providing temporary relief, we might also be causing further damage. i hope the plastic bags that are being used for packing relief goods would also be brought to the proper recycling facilities afterwards.

my sister went to work today and since they have a telethon thing going, she wanted to also be part of the relief operations apart from the donations we've done. but then she backed out because according to her, the ones calling might hate the fact that their telethon representative isn't a celebrity. HEH. so repurposing news that they send to the international networks is already enough help for her.

my former yaya (the one i had since i was a baby) came here a while ago. they're already cleaning their flooded house and she was asking for drinking water because they had none. my mom gave her a sermon on how she should already move houses and gave her one of the 5-gallon containers of water. i hope she got back to their house with the water still on hand. that thing's heavy! and i'm sure she shared it with her neighbors.

one of our maids also went back to her house to clean things. when she got back here, she told us that there was an 18-year old boy whose body was there lying around, and that boy saved a lot of people at the height of the typhoon. when i went online, i saw the news about the said boy. sigh. our maid also said that last night, mar roxas and noynoy aquino were in their area to give out food. hopefully the food they gave didn't have labels saying it came from them, unlike manny villar's neatly labeled styrofoam. there were also corpses of kids, adults, and nuns all over the area, but they've already been placed in coffins already, thank god.

i remember having my own share of being flooded when i was younger. i used to live in marikina (as in, a block away from the river!), then i moved to riverside, pasig. i hope all my former neighbors are safe. when i was in riverside, i think i was around 8 or 9 then. our house got flooded and there was water on our 1st floor at chest level. when the water was rising, my yaya and my family combined efforts and put EVERYTHING on the second floor - the sofa, the fridge, the microwave, everything! my mom was completely single then so we were all girls then at home (although my yaya then's lesbian) and we were all freaking out. i even remember a HUGE rat that crawled on my foot before my yaya stabbed the rat and i saw a part of the flood water turn red. leptospirosis, anyone? we were all stuck there for 3 days because the water took that long to go down. tito was nice enough to give us fast food although i don't remember how he got to our house. we had a neighbor then who was a basketball player, roaming the streets, but since it's all flooded, it was only his head that we could see. he was tiptoeing then!

when i was looking at my planner, i saw the schedule for JEEP orals. JEEP=junior engagement program=working blue collar jobs for 12 hours. i'd rather have orals for volunteer work for the typhoon victims. this learning experience has so much more relevance. na-waley yung jeep experience bigla. pati yung FA101 NSTP, waley! although i hope the shopwise employees that i worked with are okay. also the kids who helped us gather pictures in the aklatan area. i hope they're all okay.

if you don't know how to fix something, don't destroy it. if you don't know how to fix the earth, why are you destroying it? sana wala nang makalat. OC pa naman ako and i'm really strict about order. if there's something i don't like, kahit ano (or sino. haha) pa yun, itatapon ko yun :| as in, go to hell. i'll see you there. waley!

for now i'm just glad that my friends are okay. some of them took a while to respond to our efforts in contacting them, but thankfully they've already replied/answered their phones and are safe. don't care na about the things you lost. we can help you get those back. i'm not ready to lose anyone. walang magulo.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

the boat (aka manila) is sinking. group yourselves accordingly (continued)

GAME! let's all group ourselves accordingly - let's bring together those who can help, group the goods we can give, and go in groups to reach out to those who need relief. all i've done so far was donate to that red cross thing. there's also a plastic full of clothes by our main door, which has been there since forever. we've been wanting to get rid of them, so i guess we will, and it's going to go somewhere good. makes me want to go to MVP because that's the help central right now, but i'm not sure if my folks are risking another trip to ateneo after getting stuck in ateneo yesterday for 10 hours or something. OH NO! they can't risk another trip to ateneo! i won't be allowed to go to school forevaaaaah! HEH. but yeah i wanna go to MVP. though i guess our org room doesn't qualify as a relief center. it's too messy and cramped, people wouldn't get any hint of comfort if they stay there.

i also learned that in times like this, "group ourselves accordingly" makes sense, but not quite. it's like abstractio - pagsasama-sama ng magkakahiwalay, at paghihiwalay ng magkakasama (take note, i studied philo last night. with candlelight. i think i now know why. i was trapped in time and space, and after texting so many people to make sure they're okay, i didn't want to be scared shitless while waiting for their replies). pagsasamahin mo lahat ng magkakahiwalay dahil kahit ano pa sila in terms of social status, they're all victims and they all need help, be you an atenean, la sallian, artista, common tao, rich, poor, whatever, you just have to blur all those divisions and just go out and help. besides, the flood victims are also atenean, la sallian, artista, common tao, rich, poor, whatever. ang galing how there's hardly any concept of social status in times of disaster. it kind of makes me want to have more times like this, if this is the only thing that could genuinely unite people.

oh and i'd like to give a little shoutout: bad taste huh? as if you know the context of what i'm saying. which makes YOU stupid for not knowing what goes on beyond what i said. stupid stupid stupid!! :D *evil laugh*

aaaaanyway, rain rain, fuck off. i won't be nice enough to just tell you to go away.

although if the rain could talk, i wonder what it was saying when it was pouring wildly yesterday. maybe it's like hearing your mom give you a sermon:
1. still a bit calm - i'm going to teach you guys a lesson
2. getting stronger - oh yes, i shall.
3. climax (as the flood rises quickly) - PUTANG INA NYO! PUTANG INA NYO! KADIRI KAYO! YOU SHOULD ALL BE OC PEOPLE AND YOU SHOULD RECYCLE AND YOU SHOULD STOP BEING SO MESSY AND SO GROSS! JUST LOOK AT MANILA! HELLO! STOP BEING USELESS BITCHES AND CLEAN YOUR STUFF! THE DRAINAGES ARE CHOKING! IF YOU KEEP DOING WHAT YOU'RE DOING, I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU CHOKE AS WELL! YOU SHALL ALL SUFFER BECAUSE YOU'VE BEEN MAKING ME SUFFER FOR THE LONGEST TIME! SHIT KAYONG LAHAT!
4. getting softer - okay. so, what are you going to do now?
5. complete stop - go, do it.

the boat (aka manila) is sinking. group yourselves accordingly

TODAY, I LEARNED:

1. that being a dedicated worker may come at a price if you're too dedicated
2. it's such a downer when it's supposedly your last time to do something and you have been waiting to just get it over and done with and POOF. the event gets postponed
3. that i'm always either just at home or in school when intense floods happen and people get hurt. it made me realize that i feel uncomfortable with the fact that i am comfortable. because i know that other people just aren't.
4. (in relation to the previous number) WHICH MEANS, i get to miss out on all the action just when things are getting exciting. MY LIFE IS BORING. I NEED ADVENTURES.
5. that there's nothing like feeling secure when you know that the people you love are secure.
6. that i do love my friends after all and i do look out for them, especially in times like this.

i awoke today with a lot in mind: the FA101 project with a september 26 deadline, having to sleep at 4:30am just to get that project done, being FOH head for the LAST TIME (which is a truly comforting thought), and first on my schedule for the day - ushering for spring awakening.

the rain was kinda hard though i didn't know how hard it was until i got all dressed up and ready to go. got a call from my mom that they're all stuck in ateneo because my brother who's in 7th grade has salu-salo. i wanted to leave the house at 11 so i can make it to the 12nn call time. it was almost 11 so i was semi-panicking. i kept thinking, I CANNOT BE LATE! I CANNOT BE A FLAKER. I AM NOT A FLAKER.

so my mom told me to tell the maid to hail a cab outside the village because i said that i had to go to rcbc no matter what happens. hell, i didn't know it would be impossible. at that time, i called bea to ask if the show's still on, and she said yes so i panicked more. i had to get there asap, no matter what. i can't fail.

got messages from bluerep that rock and rule's gonna be postponed. more work for me. wow :| then atlantis cancelled the show half an hour later. no one could get to rcbc perhaps. although i did have the option of going to school with my brother then maybe taking the train or making sabay with the people in school. had i done that, god knows where i'd be now.

thank god i'm not as professional as i think i am (at least during calamities).

i stayed home with my sister and watched episodes 3 and 4 of glee. just when episode 4 started playing, the power went out. that bitch. so it was me and my sister, in our room, at 1pm, doing nothing. the rain got ultra strong and since i live on a hill, i didn't have to worry about safety. i saw people climbing uphill, some with only one plastic bag (which isn't very environment friendly) containing belongings as some houses have already been submerged. imagine, one whole house, and all you're getting is one little plastic bag containing things that matter most to you. it felt so depressing. there i was, watching them through the window of a house that sits on a hill and has thick walls and stuff.

i felt trapped in time and space, so i just ate cereal, hallucinated that there was wii fit, had conversations with my sister and studied philosophy. i felt like studying. I DON'T KNOW WHY.

our maid who went on a day off suddenly arrived with her family members, as their house had already sunk. she said that the passed through the roofs of the houses just to get out alive. my former teacher had a house built around a year ago and the flood in their area reached the second floor. i got a message from her that she's safe (even if it meant using her baby's kiddie pool as a boat and getting out of the house through the balcony. the balcony!), but lost contact with her later on. i hope she's fine. another friend got stuck in edsa then landed in a mall so maybe that was the most comfortable place to be, next to home. some of my friends still haven't answered so i'll keep praying that they're fine.

i hope everyone's okay after the perfect storm. i'm not waiting for it to happen again, but i also hope that i could be part of the whole fiasco next time. it was boring to wait at home. and yeah, i want to help those who need help.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

i WAS bored.

i think my last blog was before Tick, Tick... Boom! opened. WOW. i remember telling sam last year that she can't possibly survive one whole month without blogging.

pauline eats her words.

since TTB closed, i became very, very restless as i didn't have any involvements in the newbie production. the week after TTB, i went home in the afternoon and slept to my heart's content. it was a good 2 weeks that i spent in despair because i got used to having rehearsals til around 10pm and hardly having any sleep because of school work and rehearsals. it was such a shock to be doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and being just a regular student. it was HELL.

***
1. so i asked bym what i could do to be involved in the newbie prod. he made me FOH head. i'm still finding my way around it because i'm quite clueless :| that means i have to take care of ticket reservations and handling the ticket/program sales from sept. 16-26

2. i also told sam to confirm our ushering gig (i headed the last ushering gig so i passed the torch). GAME. i'm ushering from sept. 26 to oct. 17. i originally wanted to usher for all the shows but it's my mom's birthday on oct. 18 and i'm assuming they have plans? so there. i'm kept busy until sembreak! perfect!

3. i also enrolled in voice lessons (i know. FINALLY.) and it's been fun so far. one problem that my teacher notices is that i seem to be a perfectionist. when i flat or when i hear something wrong, i cringe out of frustration. also when we vocalize i tend to look at the piano to see where i'm going and i shift to panic mode when i think it's high. he now covers the piano whenever i look, so i was totally clueless today when we vocalized. i reached Eb3-G6 (Eb below middle C, and the G on the second octave above middle C). so i was like WTF seriously? hahaha.

it's quite surprising that we're discussing meron in voice lessons. yes, the meron that we have been discussing in philo. i also heard him say "danasin mo". WTH. though i guess it's highly beneficial for me in a sense that i'm taking philo101 right now and 102 next sem, so since my voice teacher's been discussing philo and its relation to singing, i may have examples that i could throw when it's time for orals. i love how things serve more than one purpose. oh and i like what i'm experiencing so far. it's only been the second session, but i'm learning so much. i think i'll continue it (i'm not sure if my parents think it's a one-time thing, so i'm saving up for the next sessions because i might need to)
***

i've been having amazing discussions in theatre history, philosophy and in voice. what makes it even more amazing is that they're all talking about the SAME things! as in, perfection, meron, death, ritual, being trapped in time and space, the absurd, etc.

i'm learning so much.

and... i'm not bored anymore. i am (kind of) content :D