Cathy wanted to have a birthday party in Jollibee. It was something she fancied about ever since she was a child.  On her last birthday as a single, she opted to finally make that kiddie party a reality.

Everyone she told that idea to was not without a bewildered look on their face.  Everyone was asking if she was crazy.  Some were even telling me that I can still back out from the wedding given Cathy's madness.  I won't excuse myself; I too was not too comfortable having her party in Jollibee--but it's of another reason I wasn't wont to making her carry out her Jollibee thing; it's not because I perceive such parties to be silly.

What's wrong with having a party in Jollibee at 23?  Absolutely nothing!  Are there rules into the kind of theme or motif a birthday party should take form per year?  Are adults not allowed to celebrate like little children do?  Are birthdays only for kids?

Cathy is a free spirit.  She's very playful (childish at times) but never annoying.  She has a sunny disposition and is always very light and jolly.  You will very seldomly see her with a long face (except with me, to whom she usually makes tantrums! ;p) because everything's just taken by her in a stride to a fault.  So it's no big deal to get an invite to a kiddie party in Jollibee from Cathy because that's what she's about and that's who she is--the jolly B = the jolly Bustos! (bah! what was that?!)

The only reason why a Jollibee party is not a good idea to be hosted by a beautiful 23 y/o is that the party receptionist flirts with the celebrant while planning the event with her in front of the fiancé!  Kumag na 'yon!

Also, unless you're too keen on gender assignments and roles, you won't be bothered by Jollibee kissing and flirting with both males and females.  Or is it just I who's too malicious about Jollibee's behavior?

I received thank you notes from my former students who are graduating this March.  Just when I feel dissatisfied with the kind of work I have been doing this semester, when I feel like a parrot blabbing memorized words, or a robot performing pre-programmed actions, when in the middle of a class lecture my brain literally shuts down and I have to drag myself to think and speak and fill up the class period, I receive thank you notes for the inspiration that I was from my students.  I need an ego booster at this point in my career.  Thing is, I don't deserve it.  Even I myself wouldn't give me one.

I wish my current students can speak the same of me after this year.  I wish they really are affected by the questions I throw them.  I wish they are pushed to think and confront their selves so that after this year with me, they can stand tall--confident to present their selves to the world.  I wish I have that effect on them.  But that's just me tossing my penny in the fountain, because whether I read the student evaluation this semester or not (I promised myself not to this time because I have always have a hard time coping with the truth the students say about me and my teaching), I know I was unsatisfactory.  I need not hear it from them; I already know. 

I have tweaked and changed and overhauled my syllabus this semester.  This is the farthest I digressed from the plan.  My students and I don't meet.  My lectures seem to be uninteresting and so out of touch with them.  It's true, one has to literally do acrobatics to catch their attention lest they fall asleep.  Being strict with rules won't teach them about discipline either, from experience, I just get more annoyed by their wanton violation of the set rules.  Don't write the instructions, they ask.  Write them all down, they won't think creatively.  Crack jokes, I'm being silly and shallow.  Talk deep and they'll roll their eyes as if telling me, "who cares w' the fuck you're talking about!"

I love teaching.  But the age difference with my students is catching up on me/us.  It was so easy back when I was just 22/23.  Now, with a nine and ten year age gap, I am too old to be their friend but too young to be their guru.  I'm a joke to them and I better admit, it might be because of the hair or the clothes.

Inspiring others to live the good life, to work towards the full life is not something taught academically.  It's through example that one infects others to do the same.  It is the aura.  It is the charisma.  It is the pep talk.  It is the passion to make dreams come true.  All these I had once before which I admit, in all humility, are just memories of the past.  I am not that Sir Jope anymore with grand visions of the future and great dreams of heaven-on-earth.  I'm just that ordinary boy trying to live his own small time dreams.  For once.

I must have lost my gift as a teacher.   Walking back to the department after my 430 TTh class, I was asking myself, "when do you know it's over?"  As if I was slapped, something inside me screamed saying that I already know, for a long time now, that it's over and that I'm just not facing the facts.   The better question to ask, that voice inside me says is, "when do you say it's over?"

I pray for courage so I can finally throw in the towel and say with finality, "It's over, I quit."

Pasta on the teeth is said to cause migraine. It contains lead which causes this reaction in the human body.  I cannot attest to the veracity of this claim.  I've had silver fillings on my teeth since I was a child and I can't recall having migraine attacks (or perhaps I just didn't notice it back then). What I know from experience is that pasta fillings are heavy on the tooth and that our teeth needs a few days to adapt to it.  I went to the dentist last week for my annual oral prophylaxis.  The dentist saw a small break in my filling and she had to drill onto my teeth and replace the cracked pasta.  As soon as she had it corrected, my second molar strang with pain.  She had to remove the filling quickly and replace it with a sealant which according to her is lighter and is more connatural with the teeth (the procedure she did on me however is incorrect according to my real dentist--the pasta should not have been removed that soon and simply allowed the tooth to adapt to its presence first).

Pasta and teeth, they're like me and the seminary now.  I went to my friends' candidacy to the diaconate last night in San Jose Seminary.  It's probably been over two years since I last went there.  I felt different (different, like the ugly duckling different) especially when I stepped through the main door.  The place looked small and constricted whereas before, I perceived it to be huge, spacious, and liberating.  I heard mass and my body is just rejecting everything that's going on.  I was sweating profusely, thinking all the time, analyzing and questioning just about everything.  I was like a misplaced modifier in an eloquence of meanings.  Everything and everyone was in sync while I was out of tune.

The seminary is now full of new faces and strange vibe.  The sight is unreal; I felt it was so staged, ideal?  No!  More of surreal.  Everyone's a virtual character playing along the script of religious one-ness.  I didn't like it.  The seminary and myself are rejecting each other.  Expelling, exorcising the evil we smell in each other's skins.

I was once asked by a student about finding one's destiny:  if man's destiny is to love, he asks, can he not reach his destiny if he hates even just one person or thing?  It was an easy question: "no, he can't," I retorted.  "By default, one has lost the game even if he has the slightest tinge of hate in his body."

My past is filled with regrets--Oh wait, I think it's more of a remorse rather than regret.  I've done a lot of bad things, mean things, cruel things to persons who only have the best intentions for me.  In grade six, I was literally pushing away a classmate who only want to be friends with me.  In college, I did the same thing.  I played with fire and threw the stick away when it burnt.  I was too overconfident, worse, I was uncontrollably self-absorbed.  Cocky is not the right adjective but I was a little along those lines.  At work, I'm the know-it-all-guy with ideals one should level with.  I fight, stick to my guns, and quit when I feel like it.  So it is with relationships--I'm done with you when you're already humming the tune I started humming.

Last night while waiting for my files to be uploaded, I went online and chatted with old friends.  I bumped into one of my college... --fling is not the right word but it's the first word that pops in my head.  We exchanged hi's and hello's like nothing bad went between us.  I felt guilty the whole time chatting with her--the night by the way was so full of guilt and nagging thoughts--starting with feedbacks from my seminary friends about how I was with them when I was still in college.  I was undegoing an existential crisis last night--I wanted to heal and finally seal the past behind.  I apologized to my friend for the mean boy that I was to her back in college.  For years, I begged God for me to come face to face with the dark phase of my life and paint it with the colors of apologies and repair.  The last few months before my wedding is filled with opportunities for repentance and rebirth.  I'm slowly having it with my brother, last night was with the seminary and my ex-fling.  It will be a slow process; it's good that it has started.

I received forgiveness last night from someone I hurt so badly with the brutal things I said in my immaturity.  May I not be a stranger in my own skin now--and recover the destiny I lost in hating.

I'm waiting for my dentist to call right now so she can repair the damage done by the other dentist.   She will remove the sealant and replace it with a more permanent filling, that is, a pasta.  Foreign objects will always be part of the body like bad memories and misdeeds of the past.  The body has a marvelous way of adapting to pain and foreign bodies; the psyche has a special way of recovering--that is, through humility, repentance, and receptivity to love.

When you say "I love you" to the person you're going to marry, you're also already saying "I love you" to the person he/she will become 20 years from now.  That sure is a big leap, a scary one.  It's like crossing the street with one's eyes away from the danger side.  One crosses in full trust that after one mental snapshot of the road, there'd be no new cars coming and passing. It's actually suicide because whether that person actually stays in that relationship after 20 years or not, that person has sealed his/her fate to a word which is really only as good as the last minute that person was with his/her partner.  He/she reduced the dynamic meaning of "I love you" to its meaning in the here and now--sealing it to a singular form of love which is bound to become stale and eventually, to one's dismay, dissipate.  Dangerous, this is.

Overconfidence leads men to nothing but shame and suffering in the end.  An uncalculated risk, a decision based on the surge of emotions, or working on the it-won't-happen-to-me delusion--these are sure-fire ways to destroy one's self and consequently, to destroy a relationship.  Don't say "I love you" when you're not open to madness.  Don't talk about love if you aren't ready for commitment.  For love and commitment, although mutually exclusive, are two sides of the same coin.  To love is to commit and to commit would have to have love as its primary ingredient.

What is often overlooked in love is the concept of promise.  To love is to make a promise (here, I'm directly tying love to commitment).  One promises to love--every utterance of the words "I love you" is to sustain that loving note.  This means that one promises forever, to love forever in the here and now. Loving although historical (present tense that is) becomes transhistorical.  Loving unlocks the bounds of time and threads together the lingering past and the future in the present.  The present comes to its fullness as love makes the promise for tomorrow a promise to make tomorrow happen in the now.  When one says "I love you," that person will painstakingly labor to keep the fire aflame.  That even if tomorrow things may be different, things may not be as easy as now, and loving may be difficult to do, to love is to promise to keep working so that that tomorrow may not come.  True love will keep the love new every morning.  To love is to make change unchanging and to wallow in the freshness of the motility of newness.  To love, then is to go against the inevitable, that's why it is really a death sentence, a suicide.  But bold is love; it stares death in the eye and kisses it with the lips of life. Dying then becomes a pleasant experience because death is amazingly overpowered by love.    Death unifies the lovers and completes for them their love, where forever is forever and intimacy is intensified in the loving union of their limitless spiritual selves.

But before we go to death and the realm of spirits, let us first perfect the profession and sharing of love in life through our bodies, however menial and trivial their fruits may be.  Besides, when it comes to love, it's the plain and frivolous that makes it grand and deep.  And precisely this aspect makes love endearing albeit laborious and risky.

Plugged into: Aretha Franklin's Nessun Dorma

my fiancée...
I'M SO PROUD OF HER!

Plugged into: Taylor Hicks's Do I Make You Proud

Labis, ako’y nahuhumaling / Sa minsa’t bawat sandaling / Ika’y makapiling / Giliw, hayaang lumapit / Wag mo sanang ipagkait / Mamalas ang langit // Anong nadarama / Tuwing makikita kang dumarating / Tuliro, di malaman ang gagawin / At walang sinumang makapipigil sa akin / At wala ng ibang / Makapagbabago ng aking isip / Sa’yo // Wari di ko na malimot / Mga galaw at kilos mo / Sa aking pagtulog / At sa panaginip / Ika’y mamalagi / At di na muli malulumbay / Sa aking paggising / Anong nadarama // Anong nadarama / Gayong sa isip ko’y / Hindi ka maalis / Tuliro, di malaman ang gagawin / At walang sinumang makapipigil sa akin / At wala ng ibang makapagbabago ng aking isip / Sa’yo / Anong nadarama / Ngayon at nandirito ka sa aking tabi / Tuliro, di malaman ang gagawin / At walang sinumang makapipigil sa akin / At wala ng ibang makapagbabago ng aking isip / Sa’yo

We initially planned to go to the Mall of Asia to look for shoes but, fascinated by the lights from afar, we chose to explore the colorful display instead.

It was well worth our Php100.

Cheap fun. Fresh gimmick-idea. Enriching experience.

Plugged into: Didi's Nakikita Ko na ang Nakakasilaw na Ilaw

Still from the World Light Expo. They're the world champions (of breakdancing?), alright! And they're really--jaw dropping--good!

No racist slurs intended, but they look funny.

Something's just not right.

harutan. landian. startalk.

Plugged into: T-pain's "Immaflirt"

I follow the night
Can't stand the light
When will I begin to live again

One day I'll fly away
Leave all this to yesterday
What more could your love do for me
When will love be through with me
Why live life from dream to dream
And dread the day when dreaming ends

One day I'll fly away
Leave all this to yesterday
Why live life from dream to dream
And dread the day when dreaming ends

One day I'll fly away
Fly fly away...

--Satine, Moulin Rouge

While lifting weights this afternoon, with arias at the background and one white candle lit, a familiar glum hit me.  I am moving to a new house in a few weeks; I must begin to breathe my goodbye to the place I call home.

I ran to my room to look for the exercise my spiritual director gave me as a closure for my retreat.  This is my prayer now as I leave my home.

My retreat stay here has come to an end
and I think of the days that I have spent
in these surroundings...

I see an image of myself as I was when I came here...
and I look at myself as I am today
at the close of the retreat...  as I close this chapter with our house...

I come into the sanctuary of my heart
to seek the blessing of the Lord before I leave...

I sit down at his feet
and silently recite his name...
I pay attention to the sentiments that fill my heart...
and to what it is I am really saying to him
when I recite his name...

Then I anoint myself and every part of me
--spirit, heart and mind and body--
through the recitation of his Name...

I review these days of my retreat the days of my stay here
--the persons, the places, the events, the things
that have been part of my experience,
and I gratefully breathe the Name on each of them:

The places: my favourite spots on the grounds...
and in the neighbourhood...
I fill them with his grace
that other people coming to these places will be blessed.

I anoint my room... and bed...
filling them with grace for future occupants for the emptiness that will be.

I do the same to other places in the house:
the dining room... the chapel computer room... the corridors my gym area... the showers...

I do these for the trees plants on the grounds
so that all who seek their shade comfort
will also have divine protection rejuvenation...
and for the birds,
that their songs will continue to do for others my parents
what they have done for me...

And those experiences I was given
--the insights, the grace-filled moments:
I anoint them too to make them fruitful...

I anoint the persons
who have been a part of my experience here...

Then I look into the future:
events that are likely to occur...
actions I shall perform...
people I am going to meet...
I make them holy with the ointment of the Name,
sending It on ahead of me,
so that everywhere I go
I shall be protected and fortified
and made alive...

I'm going to miss my home.  Sadness grips me; serenity carries me to the unknown.

Plugged into: Sebastian Bach's "Air on a G String"

Maybe it's the macho culture; maybe it's ego; maybe it's unjust social structures; maybe it's our ethos; or maybe it's all of the above.  Some say money should be the least of one's concerns and that no partnership, friendship or family should fight over money.  I say, it's always easier said than done especially when you're coming from that position where you have money to spend--all the basic needs are covered and one's money is just for leisure and luxury.  It's easy to say, "pera lang 'yan!"

My brother and I fought because of money.  I was asking him to pay his share of the amount we spent for the swing we gave mom one Mother's day.  He snapped and made me feel I was being an insensitive jew for asking what was rightfully mine at the time he was beset with money concerns.  Our relationship never was mended since then.

Right now, with no chance of getting a 10k increase in salary in the next couple of years, I'm facing a serious money problem.  Before marriage, we're now talking about how to pay for electricity and water and telephone and rent and grocery and gas... and the list goes on.  With only a few thousand pesos received per fifteen days and thousands of pesos to pay for, which does not yet include leisure activities and savings, where will I get the money even just to squirm my way through the city and to satisfy my future-wife?

Cathy got promoted and this will definitely help in our day-to-day expenses but how long will I suck on the money she's getting for herself.  She has her own needs too and things to buy for herself--marriage is no license to swim in the material bounty of the partner.  After all, may it be unsaid or may I be assured that there are no expectations when it comes to money and providing for the family, from what I heard, every woman wants to be pampered.  Diamonds remain to be a girl's best friend. 

Again, maybe it's just me worrying about nothing, but there is that stir from within to work doubly hard at least to match what she's earning.  Because!  History repeats itself? --haven't we seen this happen before in our respective families?  That at the end of the day, love is overshadowed by money matters because money matters!  And soon, the measure of being a good husband is not about your ability to love or your intention to love or your toiling hard to put that extra cent in your piggy bank.  It's not the effort that counts but the concrete actual measurable amount you can give your wife.  Call it capitalistic mentality, the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletarians, the popular media-ification of da sein turning him to an inauthentic one, whatever! This will be the single biggest issue I will have to face in my relationship with my future-wife, because I am affected by the market forces, by tradition, by the prying eyes of people outside our relationship--whether I want to admit it or not.  No one's "counting"; no one's keeping a list of what one has contributed in the relationship, money-wise.  Yet this soon, I find myself worrying and devising preventive measures from that thing actually happening because sooner or later, it will come.  It may not come from her personally, but maybe from the internal revenue "spies" within the family--mine or hers, or the filipino family in general.

Thing is, any increase in salary (or in the case of the Philippines, it's probably better called as "wage" is also always directly proportionate to the increase in perceived needs and desires.  No one will always have enough money to spend.  A couple understands that fact and couples, I'm sure, have systems in-place to cope with that reality.  But like any economic principle, Adam Smith and the fathers of economics, is good in paper but when political forces and other extraneous variables enter the picture, theories on relationships and love are crushed by the weight of one's desire to earn big and live a bon vivant.

*********

After discussing this with Cathy, none of these matter anymore.  Cathy's and my yes are enough to wipe away my tears of fear.  Steady, now I am.

Plugged into: Akon's "Don't Matter"

Heard this over the radio. Can't remember which station: Wave, Tm, 88.3?  The dj said they went to a tea house somewhere along Ayala ave.  There was a couple beside them pouring their selves a cup of tea.  They were drinking and exclaiming how good the tea was.  Imagine huge smiles on their faces as they sip their teas.  This dj and his friend asked for tea as well, fascinated by the couple's rapturous experience over an ordinary house tea.  Came in the tea pot.  Tea poured on the dj's cup.  Dj lifts the cup near his lips.  Inhales its flavor and... "Yuck pa-re, amoi i-he!"  with his distinct coño accent, then to the waitress, "Miss, ang tea nio, amoi i-he!"  The waitress rushes to replace the tea pot.  The dj tries to kiss the cup again.  "Miss!  Amoi i-he pa ren!"

It was a hilarious story.  The scenario, the accent, the image of what might probably be North Park or Next Door, the jampacked resto with customers wanting to re-smell their teas, and oh, how can we forget the couple who were enthralled by the house tea!

Was the dj being overly demanding?  Was he being snooty?  We Filipinos, have a special way of saying and receiving negative feedback.  We don't say it outright; we mask it in jokes to pad the possible sting.

A student failed to show up in her oral exam sched.  I waited for her but she didn't come, so she's getting an NE (No Exam).  After thirty minutes, she came all beefed up for the exam.  I asked her what happened; apparently she thought hers was an hour later.  I saw tears welling up in her eyes.  She was asking if she can take the exam that moment.  I said no and that was the most god-awful thing I ever said to a person.  I was about to cry myself.  I felt the intensity of fear in her, worrying she might fail in my class.  I knew how hard she prepared for that exam.  But... I can't.  I couldn't give her that.  It would be unfair.  All I was able to say is "I'm sorry" which I don't even know if I delivered rightly.  I had to run back to the department to regain my composure because I was near crying and I was about to give in.

I must not.

I went back to Dela Costa Consultation Room 8 with the final verdict.  It's the moment of truth for the both of us--I had to deliver my line with coldness while seeing the face of utter dejection.  I must be man to not hide in my usual comic nonchalance.  I must make a point and deliver it well even if it will sting.

The law stings.  Fairness stings.  The truth stings.  To be square about a tea smelling like pee will sting.  To tell a student she ain't got no chance will sting.  We gotta do what we gotta do not by mandate, not by any personal or political agenda to lord over other people, not by duty, but out of the mere fact that a tea really smells like ihe and a student failed to fulfill her responsibility as a student.  Covering up for them won't do anyone any good.  And the truth isn't hilarious; it stings.

Graduation.  It's that time when students take a bow from their academic life.  Four or five years (and for some maybe eight, nine, or ten years!) of staying up late, of sacrificing gimmick nights for projects or test reviews, of reading piles and piles of photocopied materials, is finally over.  Graduation marks the end of rigorous "apprenticeship" and the beginning of actual practice.  Graduation, with or without honors, is a medal of victory in itself as one has completed and passed all the requirements for a specific degree.  It is a badge of honor because having your name called up the stage n graduation day means that one has the work discipline and the right ethic to hurdle the  demands of the university.  One has made it!

That's why the toga and the cap (medal for Ateneo college graduates) are important symbols on graduation day.  One wears the traditional "costume" as a symbol of newness, a symbol of completion and a symbol for new roles to fill.  It's like a superhero's costume. An ordinary person is transmorphed into an extraordinaire and one feels that change once he wears the robe.  Ah, maybe magic kamison or blusang itim would be better analogy.

After two years of being conferred my M.A. degree in Philosophy and four academic convocations where we, faculty, have to wear our blue robes, I am still given my undergrad degree toga.  You can just imagine how demeaning that is to one who worked hard for a degree.  --I vowed not to let it happen again this time around.  To avoid the possibility of me wearing a wrong toga, this year, I heavily underscored my M.A. degree on the request form.  Alas, two days before the graduation, I received my toga in a plastic bag and was pleased to see the letters, M and A on it.  Finally, they're giving me the toga that's right for me!  Opening it up to check the fit, I was flabbergasted to see that mine's an M.A. toga alright, but not an Ateneo M.A. robe!

It's like ordering angus beef and you get batangas beef instead.  Or Novellino for Moët & Chandon.  Or working your socks off for an extra pay and at the end of the sem, you're told you won't get any but a medal of valor for a job well done.  You get the picture?

Talk about fairness and rights! Damn, I worked hard for my Ateneo M.A. and this?!  The sad truth is that many of our new graduates will also land a job they do not deserve, probably because they are overqualified for it or underqualified?  --but since they are well-connected...  ah never mind.

Plugged into: Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want"