Sleepovers and Safety Limits

This was supposed to be posted last night but I changed my mind. Anyways here it is: 

I was supposed to stay overnight at a groupmate’s house for our HUMAART reporting on Rodel Tapaya’s award-winning mural Baston ni Kabunian but my dad was not interested about the idea. According to him, he questioned the idea of sleeping over at a groupmate’s place if there’s Skype and instant messaging. He insisted on relying on the convenience of technology for some reason; also, he emphasized that I’m not living in a province. Nothing against his idea, but oh well. I am pretty sure he’s concerned about my safety especially we live miles and skies apart from each other.

I bet you’re expecting me to act like Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but surprisingly for you I am not being a spoiled brat as of this moment. Even though technically I am not allowed to go outside Metro Manila without adult supervision, I am glad my friends stand by me one hundred percent. So don’t expect me to go anywhere outside NCR with my friends in the meantime except for field trips and retreats until I graduate from college.

You’re vulnerable, you’re vulnerable
You are not a robot
You’re loveable, so loveable
But you’re just troubled

- Marina and the Diamonds, “I Am Not A Robot”

REVIEW: One of my favorite songs from Marina and the Diamonds aside from “Oh No!” and “Girls”. The tune keeps every listener’s heart to skip a beat due its dance-worthy beat apart. This song lives up to its title because the singer abominates her identity as a robot which also rings a bell to whoever she’s speaking to. Art and music unite to perfection with the accompanying video for the song. Brilliant use of cinematography and a defying concept, that is. Overall, it is addictive ear candy.

Everything physical you see in this world - your grades, your appearance, is merely a shadow. Getting a 4.0 doesn’t mean you are smart, neither is getting a 0.0 as a sign of dim-wittedness. A man can love you because you’re sexy, but once he looks around there would always be women who are sexier than you. So why do you all keep on wanting someone handsome, rich, and intelligent to qualify as the perfect man? Is it just because you want people to regard highly of you? That is the allegory of Plato’s story about the cave. Shadows are mere representations of relative things. Shadows are merely poor imitations. Therefore, shadows are not real. All you need is enlightenment. So go look for the sun that is a symbol of absolute truth, love, wisdom, beauty, goodness, and knowledge.

Miss Velasco during one of our INTFILO discussions about Plato

A Major (Major) Story

The past two weeks has been a rollercoaster ride for me that is why I haven’t posted anything about my offline life. For this week alone, I wasn’t on Tumblr for three or four days because I would either do my homework or fall asleep until God knows when. Even though I didn’t post anything here, I was always on Twitter to answer everyone’s question on what I’ve been up to lately. So for everyone who is wondering, I was tweeting about the following stuff: 

• The qualifying exam and interview for Literature majors last Friday (July 6)


• Shang last Saturday (July 7) to watch the Eiga Sai Filmfest for INTFILO class


• Quotes, quotes, quotes


• How I enjoyed watched The Amazing Spiderman two weeks ago


• …and stuff you won’t expect me to tweet and retweet from someone like me

So let me tell you about QLY-LIM.

It wasn’t as hard as we all expected. We were only about 35 who enrolled in the qualifying course, a number which was a shock to say the least. In our batch, there were 40 Literature students LR23 (my old block) and about 20 more were in another block. However at the beginning of the year, half of us shifted to different programs so there were only about 20 from my old block who were enrolled in QLY-LIM. I hate to assume, but this might call for a higher chance for all of us to proceed to our majors. 

The written exam required us to speculate on the poem “The Archaic Torso of Apollo”. No one among all those who took the exam were able to describe it as a “piece of cake”. After the exam, all of us were sharing our different interpretations of Apollo’s torso. Some emphasized about his manhood, some his godliness, some his not-so-pleasing character. We thought the analysis of the poem had a right-or-wrong answer, but the vice dean of the Literature department (also our exam proctor throughout the day) said it depends on the way we how well we explain our interpretations. Immediately after the written exam, I had lunch with my friends at Tokyo Tokyo followed by chillax time at the stairs of the Yuchengco Hall Museum. At around 1 PM, we returned to the third floor of Miguel Hall and waited outside for our turn to be interviewed. I was called up at around 2:20. After five minutes of a rather vigorous and friendly interview with the vice dean, I walked out of the classroom with a mental wave of victory.

List of students accepted into the Literature program would be posted two weeks from today meaning on the 27th. I really hope all of us would pass the QLY-LIM with flying colors. I wish all of us would see our names in the official list of passers two Fridays from now. I am praying everyone would leave William Hall with a smile on their face on that fateful day. The road is just the beginning for all of us to take. In the end, it is not all about who passes the qualifying course. What matters is who gets to survive six terms of majors and graduates with a degree in Literature in hand.

I really hope I would be one of those to emerge out of the water successfully.

Bonne Nuit

My mood is on a nosedive as I write this because my impulses are signaling me to go straight to bed and be a vagabond of this wonderland called dreams. Tonight I sent e-mails to five of Malate’s contacts to ask for their sponsorship in the forthcoming events to be held within the school year. Reading between the lines, it’s already evident that I made the decision to stay in Malate despite my schedule being tangled in beanstalks. Long story to tell about it, though. This morning I went to Persia Grill with my friends and we had the most wonderful time talking about stuff like we always do. Now I’m looking at what I’m typing right now and I am assuming this is the best I could write at my sleepy-yet-drowsy state of mind. My brain factory has shut down production as of this moment because the workers are about to put their dead-tired bodies to bed. Simultaneously, I am the boss of this little factory only I could visualize yet I sit in my little chair smashing the keyboard five words per four seconds talking about stuff we could all relate to. Due to my sleepy mood at present, I promise to all of you readers I would make my personal posts as entertaining as possible the next time I blog like this again so there would be more chances of having this blog of mine adapted into a screenplay with all names changed but based on true events.  

To all the meddlesome minds out there, bonne nuit is “good night” in French. Who doesn’t love the classiness of the French language? :)

Dear High School Body by Kristie Vosper

Dear High School Body,

It turns out that it wasn’t actually as bad as you thought. You were really beautiful. I wish you could have felt beautiful too. I really tried to help you with that, but it only lasted a few moments.

Do you remember that picture? Yes, that one. The one that made you feel ashamed. I wanted you to know that you’re the only one that thought it was bad. You’re the only one that was defining your value by the way you looked in that certain (not so great) angle. That picture didn’t really show you off, but the rest of us knew how much there was to your beauty and that is what we would see when we looked at that picture. I’m sorry it hurt you so badly.

There was so much time spent being preoccupied with your body and with comparing yourself to your friends in the mirror and in pictures. That inner body conscious dialogue filled up so much time. We could have been enjoying so much more of life. It’s really too bad. As I look at these pictures of you, I wish I could set you free! I wish I could have told you that it was all just fine.

You weren’t alone, by the way, no one was admitting it…but most of your friends were wasting moments of their lives too. You were all getting dressed in the morning hoping that whatever you put on your precious bodies would measure up, hide, and create a good day. Imagine that, a “good day” was all about how great your outfit was. I know you were desperate to feel at home in your skin.

I wish I could have shown you all the dimensions to your beauty. There were so many and those pictures you hated didn’t have a chance of capturing them. Your beauty was found in your laugh, your smile, your creativity, the way you loved others, your voice, your style, your way of seeing the world. I could go on and on, there is so much to you. You are multi-dimensional, like a diamond, there are so many angles and ways you reflect beauty in this world.

You were so beautiful. It was a privilege to make my home in you. You served us well. I just wish you could’ve realized how valuable you were. It broke my heart to see how deeply you were hurting. At the very least, I hope you’ll make peace with the truth that exactly how you are, you are enough. Your beauty isn’t defined by a pants size. It never was, it never will be. You are radiant and beloved by so many…and we all want you to be free.

If for some reason you are reading this and your present day body is still struggling with these same thoughts and prisons, do everything you can to become free from these lies because I can only imagine you have become more beautiful and dimensional as life has been lived through you.

Be free, you are loved, you are cherished, you are enough and not too much.

With Affection,
High School Soul