I sprained my ankle as I was alighting the bus on the first day of the JVP Midyear Evaluation Seminar.  It was a bad one; my feet made a 90 degree twist up.  It's not that painful but it's swollen like an elephant's and looks awful.

However, the bite of bruised tissues and locked veins and the sight of a swollen foot are nothing compared to the feeling of being unproductive.  Worse is seeing that you can contribute something but can't and so the activity doesn't come off as nice as when you're involved, the sight of the team failing because your unique contribution is not felt.

I know, no one's indispensible, but things are lost because someone isn't doing his part.  Had this person been up and about, the end picture will look totally different.  There's no assurance that it will be better; what we're sure of is that the team has lost the unique gift this particular person can effect in their collective destiny.  With him, it is a different story.

No one wants to fail either the self or the team.  But shit happens and shit destroys what could've been ideal.  What can we do?  We can be careful all we want and take the necessary precautions but an unwanted slip happens which we have no control of and it stops us from actualizing that ideal.  At the end of the day, we are nothing before the future.  We are a comma highly dependent on the contingencies of the present.  We really can do nothing.

Midway into the seminar, we went to the beach.  I had longed for this dance with the waters.  The volunteers and the staff rushed to the sea as soon as we got there leaving me behind, sitted on a monoblock chair, a crutch on my side, right foot on another monoblock.  I saw my future but was held back by my finiteness.  I can do nothing but wait for another time to break the waves.

Try I must and surrender I will.  I can do nothing but do nothing (and my doctor agrees).

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the JVP staff and volunteers for helping me get by each day of the seminar not making me feel inadequate.

To Srs. Magdalene, Jean, and Francesca of St. Francis Seraph Retreat House in Talisay City, Cebu for religiously taking care of me however stubborn I am in not being mobile and for allowing me to use the facilities they saved for their retired sisters, my heartfelt gratitude and prayers.  Many thanks too to Mang Sinon, the retreat house's guard, for massaging my feet when it got really swollen and the staff of Cebu Pacific for giving me VIP treatment from the moment we checked-in till our safe (and take note, ahead of schedule!) arrival in Manila.  To my mom and dad who immediately assumed the care-giver role on my return home, thank you very much. 

And lastly, to the doctors, nurses, clerks, and staff of The Medical City for their professional help and sympathies, my sincerest thanks.

meetjopeblack

We have yet a lot to explore in the Philippines.  We haven't been to Baguio yet or climb up to Miarayon and introduce you to Nanay Edith.  Or to Palawan or to Davao or to Zamboanga to bathe in the sun.  We can get married in Bohol, your family and mine, feasting in its pristine waters and crystal sand.  We have a thousand and one more restaurants to dine at.  We have free movie passes to films worth watching and not.  We can chat while waiting for the traffic to move.  We can shop till we drop in Tutuban and 168, in Greenhills, Galleria or Greenbelt.  We can browse books in Fully Booked or in Powerbooks.  We can scavenge for DVD's in Astrovision or at Emma's (I can start collecting films again!)  We can be quiet in Vieux Chalet, eating our lamb stew and herbed bread.  We can still learn how to skimboard in a new beach where the waves are just right and the slope is perfect.  We can bowl and beat each other. We can sing our lungs out for the 100.

I can't see you wither and die there in the webcam and not be able to resuscitate you, to save you because we are really miles apart deceived only by virtuality.  Come home.  The bed is ready.  There's warm water for your feet and a tight embrace for your spirit waiting for you here.  There'll be flowers and soft kisses which will bridge for us the unempty silence of unshared travails, suppressed emotions, and bridled passions.  One touch, one look, one kiss and you're truly home safe with me.

I'll be in the airport on your mark.  I miss you so badly.  Come home.

It was one of those bare-all talks while lights are off and both you and your roommate are still high on adrenalin and can't catch sleep.  You talk about anything, laugh about silly things you did once, ask questions of all sorts hoping to catch a scoop or something.  Chit-chat, that's the word.  Chit-chat till three in  the morning.  That's what we did one night last week.

I told my roommate about how my mind automatically shuts down when I encounter numbers.  I was reading this book by Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  It's about a (blank) year old boy (see how my mind fails me when it comes to numbers! I can't even remember that detail!) who was investigating on the death of their neighbor's dog.  (I read the back part of the book and it says he is 15.  He also has Asperger's Syndrome which I've yet to research on.)  This boy is a damn math whiz and for his age (which is really a no biggie!) he can do mental multiplication on two three digit numbers .  In chapter 103 (the book by the way has only prime numbers for its chapters), he narrates,

          [Rhodri] said, 'What's 251 times 864?' (At this point my brain goes blank.)
 
          And I thought about this and I said, '216,864.'  Because it was a really easy sum because you just multiply 864 x 1000 which is 864,000.  Then you divide it by 4 which is 216,000 and that's 250 x 864.  Then you just add another 864 on to it to get 251 x 864.  And that's 216,864.

I told this to my roommate to win a vote of sympathy.  I was expecting he'd say, "that kid sure is a genius!" or something to that effect, but hell no.  He said, "Yes! That's really simple!" leaving me alone in the dark (trumpets honk).  And on he shared in how he can see through numbers its patters and formula.  He can see the logic behind numbers.  And it was so easy for him to do that.  He continued that when he taught Math in High School, it oftentimes upsets him when students ask him to show them step-by-step how he arrived at the answer.  He feels the answer/pattern is too obvious and it puzzles him that others can't see that.  He's not your typical long-method kind of boy solving Math problems.  For him, Math is a breeze.

A friend asked me if I'm familiar with a certain model, Victor Basa.  She said she envied this guy because at his age he already knows his talent and passion and is able to bank on it.  She asks why at her age, which is the same as Victor's, she hasn't found her passion yet much more, her self.

My postsecret secret unraveled before me.  I remember how I used to check on celebrity birthdates, see if we're of the same age, and compare my "achievements" with theirs.  Of course, I'd always be way way far behind which nails me to melancholy.  (For all you readers out there, if you want to wring out the miniscule amount of self-esteem in you, try comparing yourself with others.  You'll die instantly in despair.)

My roommate didn't end the night bragging about his being a math genius while rubbing in my poor math skills.  He didn't do any of that.  He was actually very sincere in trying to help me overcome my weakness by explaining to me the Math problems I find difficult and by highlighting the ones I'm good at, Geometry, that is.  He capped the Math sharing by saying that he, on the other hand, is no good in communications or in languages, which I believe is my forte.  I didn't feel he's just trying to boost my beaten morale; I believe he's honest in punctuating the insight for the night--We are different and there's no use comparing notes.  We are our own gifts and unless we see that, we'd lose all to nothing.

In the middle of the dark room, waiting for sleep to come, I saw the light and it woke me up from my hollow fantasies.

I don't have a need for this link anymore,

http://thecelebritycafe.com/birthdays/August/08/

and this too,

http://birthdays.celebhoo.com/cgi-bin/birthdays.cgi?day=8&month=august

I am my own self.  I must not hate myself for that.

I've learned one thing about Kamusta?  When one asks how are you, it's kindheartedness to return the gesture back with another how are you.  He might be in need and is just waiting for someone to catch the hint.

I failed miserably on this one with my uncle asking me that question over the phone last night.  Mea culpa.

So I thought I am flexible as I can adapt to any situation, adjust my plans depending on the need.  But I realized this is adaptability not flexibility.  I thought I am flexible because I really am indifferent to the coming into fruition of either of the opposite choices.  I mean I can be happy in either this or that.  Of course, preferences are still there.  I'm placing my bet on something but if it doesn't happen, I'd feel as good as it happening.  But that ain't being flexible, I thought, that's being able to cope well with what is.

I want everything laid down and planned well.  I can bargain, I can compromise.  We can discuss, we can shoot down my options even if it will pain me.  But once we've agreed on something, you'd hear me cuss when things don't go as agreed upon.  You'd hear a mouthful when you complain about something we decided on doing.  You'd see me go berserk when you break the rules we've set.  Why?  Because we studied this carefully, we agreed on doing this.  No one was forced.  We signed a virtual pact.  Why didn't you object when you had the chance?  Why didn't you air your sentiments when things weren't galvanized yet?

I'm no perfectionist, far from it am I.  I hate structures.  I hate rigidity.  Seriously.  I just want us to stand by the choices we made no matter how failed we are.  I believe our humanity is defined by the way we face the consequences of our limited anticipation of completion.   If we recant the things we professed, what kind of character are we forming?

I am not with no regrets.  I live with regrets and I'm learning to correct the wrongs I can do something about and forgive myself for the mistakes I can't undo.  I am not flexible but I know how to forgive.

Others may be flexible, I admire them for that.  However, I'm not.

Are you saved?  Accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour and you've reserved a seat in heaven.

These are usually the lines of charismatics and christians so assured of salvation.  It's as if they've entered a warp zone of care-free happiness once they've professed faith in the Almighty.  I am in no position to question or attack what they call faith.  I'll leave it in the sphere of the personal; it's between them and their god.

Faith is precisely that--a personal response to an invitation to a relationship with God.  God initiates this invitation and one is free to respond.  Fr. Salanga intoduced this concept to me as "The Dance of Two Freedoms."  He says, man, on the one hand, is free to accept or reject God.  On the other hand, God is free to do what he pleases, including, punish us.  He is a god after all.  We can only pray that he'd choose to forgive us in the end.

All the talk on God and faith and heaven and hell spares us not from confusion.  Confounded by man's daily cares, he sometimes shuts off the Divine since everyday woes are enough to worry about.  To ascertain God's truth is pushing it too far; we can only leave it all up to faith.

However, I'm not keen on begging the question.  Yes, it's a noisy world and we're all confused in finding answers to both mundane and existential questions.  We put our decision-making in abbeyance, waiting, not for a deep voice from above to affirm our judgment, rather, for things to fall into place.  Ultimately, it's our feelings which will lead us to an insight of what we truly value.

In times like this, I light a candle...

...I go back to my center and listen to myself, clarify my intentions, and gear myself up for risks I have to make.  This I believe is what prayer is about and what having a relationship with Him is--it's having a relationship with yourself and hearing your own pulse.  An interior life!

God is in me and in the super-person of the dynamic interplay of persons and events.  If I fine-tune myself to myself, I fine-tune myself with the cosmos, the great order of things.  Only then will I reach my star, my heaven, my nirvana, my happiness, my self.

I find God.  I'm saved from useless anxiety.  I trust myself.  I trust Him.

I'm on my last straw.  I am this close to giving up, cutting off ties, and hibernating to oblivion.  Was talking to a friend the other night on my present difficulties and the only thing I got was a nod while her eyes are focussed intently on something else.  I though to myself, no one will ever understand me; why bother share my vulnerability to those who just don't have the slightest bit of sympathy.

But if I do that, would it solve anything?  If I remain silent and hang on to the idea that I am misunderstood or worse, that no one understands me, that no one can possibly touch the depths of me, then it's really a lost cause.  I've thrown my fate into the pit of no return.

I won't do that.  Like a dying man heaving his last breaths, he'd cling to dear life and speak his last words.  I will not stop delivering my soliloquy even if they may be incomprehensible, even if I'd be illogical, even if they were inaudible.  I'd try.  I'd stop making myself believe that I'm alone in my grief as I take my final bow.

I'm hanging by a thread.  Your word, your face, your memories have ebbed away.  It's my own promise I don't want to break, the last straw which is consumed by despair each day I realize you've lost your confidence in yourself and in the future.

Writing entries in my tabulas is therapeutic for me so I'm typing a new one. This one now. Sitting in front of the computer monitor strains my eyes so I go back to my room and scribble my thoughts on my yellow pad instead.

Passed by my dad's room to take a dump 'coz I feel it coming but my dad's in the bathroom. So I watched NFL as I waited for him to finish. I couldn't hold it off for more so I asked him to hurry while glued to the screen, chicken skinned. A player caught the long pass and ran two yards away from making a touchdown before he was pinned down. I thought this game is really barbaric--you pin down an opponent by chasing after him pulling his legs making him fall hard on the fake-lawn to prevent him from scoring. It's so coliseum-like (just saw Spartacus the other day, hence the reference) while the modern audience shouts, "kill! kill! kill!" My dad's done so I moved hurriedly in, pulled down my pants and underpants and warmed the toilet seat with my butt cheeks and thighs. I relieved myself, washed my hands after singing "happy birthday" thrice to de-germ myself as per advice of Dr. Germ of the Today Show.

I returned to my room, turned the airconditioning unit on, pulled a chair with pen and paper on my hand ready to write.  But my cellphone beeped.  I leaned over to get my phone and read, "Smart Buddy has a new...".  Annoyed by unrelenting cellphone ads, deleted it instantaneously and proceeded with writing.   But Jack Johnson's "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" song kept playing over and over in my head.  So I stopped and paused for a while.  I sang along to get it over and done with but the more I sang to it, the louder it got. So I decided to go to the parlor to have a hair treatment before classes resume. I brought  my pen and paper with me so I can continue writing my thoughts. But the beautician was so noisy and his/her customer too nosy, meddling with the former's artistic sense in hairstyling. I got distracted.  I put my pen and paper down and tried to get some sleep while the one giving me hot oil massaged my back. Left the parlor, drove home still singing "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle."

The song might be telling me something so I gave it a thought.  I realized how the earth's resources, the clutter in my room, the chimes in our house, the wood, the chandelier, the sofa, everything! are really just making a cycle. They're hopping from the factory to the store to a plastic bag or box to my my room and once I'm tired of them, I throw them away or have them on ebay or maybe, price them for a rummage sale. Then they shift ownership; they vacate the space in my room, in my house; they are not mine anymore. I forget about their existence, they're nothing now to me.  But, they haven't been totally eradicated from the face of the earth. They're just there somewhere in someone's apartment on display or in the storage room.

I can't stop thinking about how trapped I am like unwanted things you want to get rid of; caught in a grim lock, I'm just going in circles; getting nowhere.  "Me, Grimlock..." Remember the T-rex robot in the Transformers? That made me smile for a moment--recalling how simple life is enjoying ice cold Milo and TJ hotdogs while watching my favorite cartoon. If only we can resurrect the glorious easy past then I won't have to bother thinking what I'd do next--how I can become a bell boy or a baggage boy, how I can feed my family, or how much I have to  save to have Blackie overhauled and repainted, or when I can get my w800i or how my w900 in the first quarter of 2006? Thinking and thinking still. Night came and I should be off to sleep. But I can't sleep because I'm still thinking. I pop my 5 mg's and put an end to this.  Sleep.  A deep peaceful relaxed sleep.

Had to reinstall Windows XP on my computer.  Slept at around 2 a.m. still not finished with the reinstallation of important files.  Somewhere somehow in the middle of sleep, I heard someone, myself probably, tell myself, "ang yabang mo!" [You're too arrogant!]  Woke up with that thought as I started my day, installing and downloading more files.

Went to school with my reliable jogproof discman on my ears.  Listening to Spongecola's Bootleg and Palabas as I strut to my department.  I saw on my periphery the vocalist of the group and I, surprisingly, like a kid shown candies or what not, was starstruck.  I'm listening to their songs and here they are, real, in person, just within reach.

The Ateneo is a breeding ground for artists (and artistes!).  However homogenous the Ateneo seems to be, it has a free space for students to explore and divert from the mainstream; to just be themselves.  I've had students who want to penetrate the music industry. Or maybe that isn't really their plan, perhaps they only wish to express themselves through music and broaden their audience-reach--the Mike Benedicto and Karlo Miguel duo, Katwo Librando of Narda, and Ali Aslanbaigi, a member of an underground band.   They've invited me to their gigs but have declined them more than the number of their invitations as I'm not really a music-music fan.  Or maybe because I thought so highly of myself  covertly underestimating their talents. Or maybe because I sense no urgency for me to go; cynicism already has run me over thinking that their juvenile lusts will also eventually mellow down like mine and the music will soon fade out.  I'm wrong.  They're big names now in their own right, happy with what they have because they pursued what they truly want.  Spongecola's up there through their hits and their gift of musicality.

Big guns are walking past me around Ateneo.  I'm not better off because I'm their teacher.  I am just a regular fan idolizing gods and heroes of human achievements.  I'm proud of them young ones dreaming big and realizing it.   I envy them to be exact.

It's time to go back repairing and reinstalling my files.  I have to  reinstall that which will fire me up again and blow away the vapid hot air which corrupts the internal drive.  It will take me mornings after mornings to renew myself.  They're very much unlike automatic windows updates.  This one I have to do deliberately, consciously.

meetjopeblack

We've just finished our meeting.  Organizationally, I must say, ours couldn't be listed as one of the best.  There were a lot of unfocussed discussion in between and a few side comments here and there.  But, it wasn't that bad; Nikki was able to call us back to order calmly, quietly.  We're still efficient and productive in a very informal setting.  I find such meetings sweet to the taste.  It serves the palette just right--not too tight, not too rigid.  We're still our human selves in a meeting about formal, institutional, life-changing plans (for us and for the JVP volunteers in our hands).

One time, I was injecting nonsenses into the meeting which was picked up by a seatmate and then another, and another.  The agenda's on the brink of being sidestepped but Nikki, without hushing us or making sharp stares at the offenders, said "Ok," calmly. There was a certain command in his voice; we all stopped and carried on with the meeting.

JVP meetings usually are for updates and evaluation.  The floor is open for all comments and suggestions.  It's really a no holds barred thing during meetings.  We rely on trust--trust that the staff are all sane though with their own baggages and agenda (Well, isn't that already presupposed in meetings?  ...I guess I just have to put a stress on that because in some of the meetings I attended, we were just going nowhere because no one can transcend their own philosophical agenda. Oops!).  In JVP formation staff meetings, when there's a blitzkrieg of opinions regarding modules, new ideas, or tradition, the chair is always on his toes to shed light on issues and decide on the matter, firmly. (Side note: See, I'm learning organizational development by observing JVP meetings and functions.  I've learned a lot through the years! Bless them.)

On the way home, listening to Spongecola's Gemini (and actually singing along to it)...

let me know if i'm doing this right
let me know if my grip's too tight
let me know if i can stay all of my life
let me know if dreams can come true
let me know if this one's your's too
coz' i see it
and i feel it right here
and i feel you right here

...things made sense:  There's a time for free-wheeling discussion.  There's a time for consultation.  But there are times too that one has to put his/her foot down and be autocratic for the sake of order.  Flexibility in planning and execution are most welcome, but when things become unsteady, one has to stand, refer to the objectives, and stick to them until everything has settled.

This too applies to matters of the heart.  I'm putting order into things.  My grip may be too tight this time, but I want our dreams to come true and that we stay together all of our lives.

                                        How many times do you have to shake your weiner after peeing? 

                                          They say it should be a hundred. Isn't that already wanking it?

I don't like track number 1 so I pressed the shuffle button wishing serendipity would choose track number 8.  And luck of lucks, it picked song number 8 from 21 choices.

"What if it played another number?"  This was what hit me.  Definitely, I wouldn't be as happy.  I risked my chance on the shuffle button when I could easily press the button for the number I desire.  Was it for the thrill of the uncertain or was I just too lazy to press forward seven times?

I believe it's the latter.  Who am I kidding?!  The next time I risk on shuffle, chances are I won't be as lucky.  And my happiness?  --Pawned to nothing.

Would Jesus be happy to see us fighting over his divinity?  I found an apt answer to this question in Prof. Randy David's article in the Inquirer yesterday.  In a nutshell, he says, Jesus is the secularization of God and in him, we find the template on how it is to be truly human.  I took the liberty in lifting the professor's Christmas article from Inq7.net.  Read on:

Public Lives : Kenosis: The message of Christmas

First posted 09:46pm (Mla time) Dec 24, 2005
By Randy David
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on page A11 of the December 25, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

I GREW up believing that Christmas is a time of joy, merriment, and love-but never quite knowing why the birth of the infant Jesus in a barn should occasion such sentiments. I learned that this was not an ordinary child – that he is God's son sent into the world to save man, but I never quite understood why man needed to be saved in the first place. The meanings that this story held for me faded as I got older. The coming of Christmas became no more than a prelude to the New Year, a welcome break from daily routine just before the year finally comes to an end. Like a clever adult, I began to think of Christmas as nothing more than a time set aside for children.

The message of Christmas has however returned to me since encountering the Greek word "kenosis," which leapt like an early Christmas gift from Gianni Vattimo's book "Belief." The dictionary defines this word to mean the act of "emptying." In Christian theology, it refers to the voluntary act of abasement by which God the Son becomes man. Not being a theologian, I turned to my younger brother, Fr. Ambo David, who is a biblical scholar and knows Greek, to shed some light on the significance of this unique word. Specifically, I asked: what is God "emptying" by becoming man? And why would that be a momentous event for Christians?

Our discussions have deepened my appreciation for what my brother does as a hemeneuticist of the Scripture. I can only attempt to synthesize here what I take to be the product of a fusion of horizons-mine from postmodernism and sociology, his from hermeneutics and theology. By deciding to become man, God emptied himself of all divine powers so that He could properly become of this world, in a word-secular. By becoming man, his life became finite, and He proved this by dying on the cross. This suggests, Vattimo argues, that secularity is the true destination of Christianity.

This exploration, to my great astonishment, ironically led me back to the writings of that sharp anti-Christ-Friedrich Nietzsche. It was he who took up the famous formulation "God is dead" and wove a whole philosophy around it. He wrote: "After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for centuries in a cave-a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we-we still have to vanquish his shadow too." This oft-quoted line from the German philosopher is usually taken to be emblematic of his nihilistic philosophy, the sustained questioning of all that hitherto has been valued, and a declaration that man must strive to be the inventor of his own morality. Reading these lines, I have always been convinced that Nietzsche was merely using God as a metaphor for Universal Truth.

"Let us beware," Nietzsche writes, "of saying there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is nobody who commands, nobody who obeys, nobody who trespasses. Once you know that there are no purposes, you also know that there is no accident; for it is only beside a world of purposes that the word 'accident' has meaning....When will all these shadows of God cease to darken our minds? When will we complete our de-deification of nature? When may we begin to 'naturalize' humanity in terms of a pure, newly discovered, newly redeemed nature?"

Ahead of his time, Nietzsche sensed that the old certainties, including those of science, are either dead or dying. Nothing stands any longer as a stable measure of truth, justice, or beauty. Kenosis has thus come to mean secularization in all its open-endedness. God has finally let go of His own creation. He has given man the freedom to be alone in the world. But as a parting gift, He has sent his only begotten son to the world-not to serve as God on earth, but to be the exemplar of a human being; not as a master, but as a friend.

I love this message. It tells the story of a God of love rather than of a God of Truth or Power. It resonates well with the mood of our times-with what one writer has called "the dissolution of the markers of certainty," and with the openness to paradox and indeterminacy that living in today's world seems to require of us. The growth of this openness has, of course, been very uneven. Many people become disoriented by the erasure of the old symbols of authority. They seek easy closures by recourse to authority. In their everyday lives, they clamor for an all-knowing Big Brother to tell them how they should live their lives. In politics, they gravitate around strongmen who could provide willful leadership. They find ideological refuge in various forms of fundamentalism. They look for principles first rather than for practical solutions to changing problems.

When God emptied Himself of all powers over our world, we became free to define our mode of being, to choose our own meanings, and to establish the rules that will govern our relationships with one another and with the world. Nothing else should henceforth constrain us except the power of our imagination.

Yet the old metaphysical shadows continue to stalk us. Even as we are already shaping ourselves in limitless ways, our minds cannot seem to grasp the message of kenosis. As Nietzsche wrote: "This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds though done still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars-and yet they have done it themselves."

A meaningful Christmas to one and all!

Saw the interview of the author of the book, The Fine Art of Small Talk at Today this morning.  She said the best way to start and keep a conversation is to master the art of asking questions.  Yes or no questions or questions about political stands are a sure-fire way to kill a chanced exchange.  I thought her book would be a good read for all who's in the habit of entering tete-a-tete's but know not.

It's a word, a phrase, or a sentence which makes or breaks an opportunity.  So also, one look, a mistake, an unintentional gesture, can put someone in the gallows.  This is the harrowing truth I learned from the movie Au Revoir Les Enfants.  A jew in hiding was caught by the nazis when his friend gave him a quick look out of complete perplexity on what the hunt (for jews) was all about.

Yes, the thought of losing everything because of one stupid mistake is cruel and lacks compassion.  But such is life; we can only counter it by learning to stay away from the circumstances that will lead us to the point of no return.  Otherwise, it's truly au revoir!

Yahoo. Google.  Friendster.   A friend asked me to do some detective job on her crush.  The name sounded familiar; he's from Ateneo too.   I knew I encountered that name sometime before.  But when? Where?

Google said he was quoted on saying something about accepting the challenge on the youth's behalf.  Must be a highly-politicized lad.  No picture though.

I know I know him.  I met him before.  That name.  It sounded so closely familiar.

Friendster.  I typed his name in the user search and voila! --perfect description given to me by my client.  He's the one.  Let's see his pic.  I know him.  Fucker.

I read the testimonials and checked out more of his pics and friends.  The testimonials aren't that flattering.  Two teased him for being gay or bi (whichever he prefers).  A lot say he's their drinking buddy--a drunkard, is he?

The personality of this man slowly solidified in my mind.  He's no good for my friend.   No good.

But then again, fuck yahoo, fuck google, fuck friendster, fuck me!  What the hell am I thinking?!  Just because I found something on the net about this person, I've already come up with an undisputable mental picture of him-whom-I-really-know-nothing-about-except-that-he's-an-acquiantance-from-long-ago?  How could have I encapsulated his being only by reading his testimonials and seeing his friends?

They say, tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are.  Who the hell started this joke?  No one can divine who the person is through the people around him and the words he spoke, alone.

Stop google-ing, dear friends.  It's fun yeah, but it's an injustice too for the people you seek a relationship from.  It's psycho-sick.  No good, no good.