Stop breathing, it's annoying!

        It's annoying, really, to have the obligation to be annoyed at everything on a monthly basis and then feel bad about it afterwards. Every month, hormones in the feminine head decide to mess everything up--from logic, to anger, happiness, and uncontrollable misplaced laughs.

You made her mad! Taken from www.chizofrenic.com.

     I noticed it when I was in high school, when a friend asked, 'It's your red day isn't it?' that I was among the unlucky majority that lose their heads when bleeding underneath. In college, I realized that it either happens a week before or during the period--you know--the instance of hating the Earth and its injustice and the cashier who was taking her time to make you wait.

And that someone is the people you live with. From www.deliberateblog.com

My roommates fear my red days because I get mad easily and then suddenly stops talking to them. My family, well, they've learned to live with me. When I do tantrums, my Mom just shuts her mouth, my brother becomes more understanding, and my Dad becomes more concerned ('Why do you want it? Ask your brother and hurry up!'  instead of the usual, 'It's a waste of money!').

Because denial. From www.weknowmemes.com

It isn't just the people around us that suffer though. We suffer, too, from guilt after realizing we'd done wrong. I suffer from making people feel bad about themselves, I make them feel as if everything's their fault.

It's annoying to have to be annoyed. Gaaaah!

Almost accidents

I have this expression when (almost) accidents happen--when I trip over, almost got hit by a car, or skip a step. It was Muntikan na 'kong/tayong/silang mamatay! and then it morphed into I almost died/I could've died!

Obviously, it's a form of exaggeration. Cham would say it for me when I forget. But I never got to fully appreciate what it meant until two near-death experiences.

First was when I was walking along Grove, the street right in front of our university gate, at around 2 pm. It was the field trip season so numerous schools visited our campus. (In high school, we unbelievably had our trip to the Museum of Natural History. Seriously, the Botanical Garden was so close then.)

And so there I was, walking dreamily when this imported huge Korean bus went straight through an electric wire and cut it in half. I saw it break before my eyes and I heard it crackle. A few seconds later and there was the wire, fiery and sparkly in front of me. It stopped sparkling in a few.

If I had walked three more steps, I could've been hit by the wire and ended up electrocuted. I'm not sure if I could've died--if the amount of electricity generated then was enough to stop my heart--but the mere sound of electrocuted chilled my bones. A few seconds were all it takes.

The bus stopped and then went on as if nothing happened. What a prick and lucky driver.

The second instance happened yesterday. Now, I know how to cross roads: I just so often forget to look right or left and end up almost always hit by cars, trucks, buses, whatever. But yesterday,  yesterday was different.

I went out of the house feeling frustrated because Mom kept telling me not to buy an umbrella (my brother had mine) because it would be expensive, blah. I had not a second of sleep, it was seven in the morning, and my head was practically floating, my mind still bent on frustration and hormonal madness, and my eyebrows met. I knew it because this time I felt my eyebrows meet. (Ash said she'd know if something was bothering me because of my eyebrows. I wasn't aware I was making The Face).

To the right I saw a woman hold a baby, what a cute baby, and then I crossed the road. For my last step I felt a gust of wind pass by my right leg. A jeep suddenly appeared beside me and there were passengers obnoxiously looking at me. My brain registered what just happened a little too late. I almost got hit, sugar honey iced tea!

The jeep remained unmoving as if the driver wanted to scold me. Thank God our driver seat are on the left side. I didn't even see his face but his passenger said, 'Miss, muntikan ka na!' and I acted as if they weren't there, as if I was still lost in thought as I was a few seconds ago when I crossed a one-way road haphazardly.

 I fudging felt it. If I were a step behind I would've ended up lying down on the ground, blood and all. The jeep was fast, I felt by the wind, by the effort of the driver to stop five seconds than usual if he just ignored it. We both must've felt it. And I did see myself on the ground if I had been a step behind. That was not my ideal death. My ideal death would be a gunshot through my brain.

 On the way to school, I realized we all could've been dead one way or another. We could've been on the airplane that crashed, the building that was bombed, or the locked house flooded to the roof. Every second of our lives we could've died.

I've nothing left to say than to thank God for His countless chances and saving grace.

Hey society, I have something to say!

The face.

That’s my face when my Mom answered ‘I don’t know’ to Ninang's question ‘Does she have a boyfriend?’ Mom knows pretty well that I’m a single lady (so put your hands up!) so why would she say that?

Let’s count the reasons why.

(1)  The double standard that high school teenagers must not have a boyfriend YET, but in college they SHOULD have one.

(2)  A daughter without a boyfriend is not pretty. 

(3)  A good person would have someone to love her. You don’t have a lover? You must be a psychopath or something. Either that or you're ugly and fat. (I have to say, I scored high here.)

The amazing thing is, ladies are also pressured to have husbands before they turn 30. Beyond that and you have a slim chance of ever finding the love of your life. So my question is: why? Why is society so eager to pair up so-called soulmates to the point that some people settle?

Let’s count the reasons why.

(1)  Love is magical, when you find that someone you realize how incomplete you were from the beginning even when you’re pretty sure you were born with perfect limbs.

(2)  It’s scary to live alone from here on out.

(3)  You live as the loser who still resides with his/her parents and a dozen of cats without a hubby/wifey (Is that a thing? The wifey? I got red lines there).

(4)  According to romantic comedies and misinterpreted fairy tales, happily-ever-afters consist of kisses and weddings.

(5)  Kids are cute.

(6)  Species survival.

The last two I believe are the most logical reasons. The list is not exhaustive: go blame my grey matter and the fact that I experience society second-hand most of the time.

I just hate it. Even my father, after realizing that I can’t fry aubergine (Let me play pretend. Stop judging.) without running away from fright had this to say: I pity your husband. That’s also what he says whenever I can’t breathe without making whistling noises and inhaling in a pathetic manner: I pity the man who’s going to take care of you for the rest of your life.

Seriously, it’s like we signed a contract with inexistent (whoops) cupid or something. As a communication student, may we please use the Critical Theory? Why is this thinking dominant over living alone that the single ones have to suffer the same mockery from relatives, friends, and even teachers over and over and over? Here's what I have to tell you society: stop telling me what to do! Gah!

City of Bones: Unveiling Skeletons in the Closet

First, the obligatory disclaimer: I am not a good writer as evidently presented by my prose herein. However, I've read enough books to distinguish one writing style from another. There's also the fact that the following paragraphs are plainly my opinion.

While searching for a new book obsession, I came across this series from Goodreads. The title was inviting and it was on the popular section together with Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and freaking Twilight. It's called the Mortal Instruments. I got a copy of the second until the fourth instalments but not the first. Unbelievable, isn't it? I had almost forgotten about the series until I visited my phone's E-books folder. To keep the story short, I had just recently got a copy of the first book- the City of Bones.

The Book Cover. Taken from Wikipedia.

I read it with excitement. Here's another new world I'm entering! My impression was that the narration was not clear enough since I had to read the sentences twice to understand what was happening. But it was okay, I told myself, I just had to get used to the writing for a smooth flow and believable images in my head (Seriously, the book suggested rough images and metaphors and similes but you get used to it in time.)

Reading on, I started to hate the descriptions about unnecessary things. Clare, did you have to tell me this? Then stuff started heating up so I reminded my nosy self to go on. I couldn't help but think of Harry Potter, Twilight, and later on, Star Wars as I moved forward the storyline. On one hand, even though I hated Twilight I remembered not taking my eyes off its pages until I smelled, not unlike the way I read Harry Potter and Sophie Kinsella's chick lit. City of Bones in contrast, was tiring that I had to amuse myself with a movie about magic and dream on about the future before getting on the TASK to figure what happened next (Note: Reading becomes tiring when you begin to classify it as a task and not a pastime).

But it was forgivable enough. By the middle I started to read on continuously that I finished the City of Bones in two days. It made me laugh although everything about it was predictable. It made me tear up as Clary (protagonist) remembered Luke's (protagonist's father figure) part in her life. The rest was, EH.

I wasn't sure what to think of the book. It was average: as earlier implied, something I just had to finish. The world of Shadowhunters, demons, mundanes, werewolves, and vampires altogether could've been more exciting but the writer failed to present it to me in awesome ways as J.K. Rowling did. I researched on how people saw it and boy, those reviews made me laugh.

Research revealed that HP and City of Bones seem similar because it was originally a fan fiction by Cassandra Clare to the former. Some reviews listed the City of Bones characters paralleled with those from HP. They also saw it as combination of a variety of other movies and books weaved poorly by clumsy narratives and 'infodump.' Infodump is the term for when the writer becomes so excited to tell you of this fantasy world s/he invented and tells every information in the most inconvenient ways (Seriously, why did Jace define what demons are in front of a demon? Imagine yourself being robbed and the robber tells you, 'You! You're human, a four-legged mammal with brains and I am going to steal from you. Muhahaha!')

What is more disturbing is the fact that as Clare wrote her fan fiction for HP, she actually plagiarized a lot! She took four or five paragraphs from a book in 2001, only to have a disclaimer that practically says 'I was inspired by Wrong Novel Title written by Somebody Unimportant I don't Remember Her Name.' Here's the catch: As someone had argued, for her to have written word per word of the paragraphs she must've had the printed copy of the book herself as she wrote the HP fan fiction. So much for a journalist's professionalism. (Link here to the informative post about Clare's fan fiction plagiarism.)

I read more reviews of the book and the movie (Did I mention there was a movie? Yeah. There was a movie released last August this year.) than the links posted but who cares.

The movie poster. Taken from MRQE.

Here are the links to the reviews:

Movie Review
A review about the similarities of the fanfiction and City of Bones she didn't bother finishing it.
This review has awesome introduction. Seriously.

I saw the film. Honestly, I found it more entertaining than the book. It didn't religiously follow the sequence which pissed a lot of fans. It also had spoilers like Clary's powers and the potion Jocelyn, her mother, drank. Honestly, without those additional information I wouldn't be so interested to watch the sequel much more read the second installment.

It's amazing how I was more interested about the background of City of Bones than the story itself. The writer had some skeletons in her closet and it was presented in more colors than she did in her book but that's just my opinion.

An Eye-opening Experience

Honestly, I didn't like poems that much at all. For me they were broken narratives, broken phrases, and broken thoughts of the mind strewn by rhymes. The fault is not on the poems. They were beautiful but I was blind to them.

In my head poems mean reading more than twice the same sentence and still without understanding. There was this Literature class that got me into poems though, and since then I've become more appreciative of the genius minds of the poets.

Edgar Allan Poe. Image taken from
www.theguardian.com

Do you know Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe? We learn it from high school but I didn't fully understand it until I was in college, especially after learning about its theorized background story (Thanks to the movie The Raven, I became curious about this genius and his works). His The Raven is also a masterpiece, but even after reading it five times I still didn't fully understand it and had to do a research on it. Maya Angelou's Phenomenal Woman and Still I Rise are also empowering. Of course there are various more poems and poets like William Shakespeare, Robert Frost, and Pablo Neruda but I wouldn't pretend to be a poem critic. I remember reading Romeo and Juliet and losing my mind.

The thing is, poems are powerful especially when you have to read between the lines. At first you think it's about riding a bike and then a few lines later you realize it's about life. Other poems are also songs but those kind usually need no second look. Nonetheless, that shouldn’t disentitle them as masterpieces.

About my Literature class, we had a poem-making exercise. I was really troubled knowing I lacked the creative knack necessary for beautiful strings of words but heck—I did my best. Still, the best part is that I’ve opened my eyes to this new world. An artful one.

Mom is my Yellow

The class was asked to think of our favorite color that would resonate our past or the present, and then write a poem about it. I thought of my yellow sarong, the one from Mom, and how bright it was.

The level of my creativity is lower than my grades so I'd rather not publish it here.

Essentially, it's about how my Mom is my yellow and how her whole person has been and always will be my sun. When the world was rude to me she was kind. She is flawed, yes, but for me I couldn't ask for more than what she gives.

My Sun and I.

I've been hearing rude comments about her. Those people who dare talk bad about her in front of me. It hurt me to the point that while I was telling this to Ash, I started to tear up.

I don't want to be like them. I tell my Mom what I think and she listens and all those badmouthed prejudiced people know nothing of her reasons because they don't tell her and she doesn't share.

And I remind myself to never be like them. I hope I'll never be like them.

What I hope for is to be bright to my family and the important people around me. It need not be the world. A few is enough. Even the sun can't light up the whole universe.

How to get over someone who was never yours

          Feeling blue because the person you thought who loved you actually found someone new? Are you devastated because for nine years (length of time may vary) you felt the inconsistencies of loving someone who suddenly turned his/her back on you?

         Your situation may be different, but the point is, you love a person who is in love with someone else! You must be crying, sad, and inconsolable. But be inconsolable no more: here is the solution you've been waiting for- the how-to article that could actually channel your time and energy from mourning and feeling heartbroken into moving on (even though s/he wasn't yours in the first place)!

1. TELL EVERY DETAIL TO YOUR FRIENDS. Tell your friends how you found out the truth (e.g. by stalking). Every word, every letter, every tiny detail that broke your heart- tell them every damn thing.

You know what to do. (Photo taken from the Internet)

NOTE: Make sure that they are your real friends with ears that will listen. You don't want to have to repeat the story because they were busy doing some Calculus. This step is very crucial to the moving-on-from-someone-who-was-never-yours process so follow it religiously.

2. MOURN AND CRY LIKE A BABY. If you think you've moved on because you never cried over him/her, then you're wrong. That person made you believe in fairy tales, in Disney's happy-endings and ever afters- how could you not cry when s/he's found new love? Cry! Cry because your heart is broken and the dream you've been dreaming about for a long time could never be yours!

CRY! I said cry! (Photo taken from you-know-where)

NOTE: It is advised that you cry on your own so that you get to reflect about what happened without distraction and fake embrace about how it will all get better when all you feel is the world crumbling down under your feet. But if you think it will make you feel any better, you can cry on someone's shoulder.

3. STALK THE LOVERS. You know you shouldn't but you want to do it anyway. If the play-by-play report of their first date from Gateway to SM North (locales may vary) will crush your broken heart some more, then go: it's a free country even for stupid people like you.

You want to see them happy? Suffer! (Photo taken from someone else)

NOTE: The lovers may actually read your How-To article so be extra careful when providing context clues.

4. STOP STALKING THE LOVERS. This step needs no explanation at all.

She looks like a friend I know. (Photo downloaded from a site somewhere)

NOTE: This will be hard, but you have to do it after some time. Block his account if that is what it takes: no need to be a hypocrite about it. Delete every message, call history, or image that will trigger your brain to remind you of the past. Forgetting is hard if you remind yourself time after time.

5. MAKE A POEM, WRITE A SONG, A SYMBOLIC STORY, OR SOMETHING. Be literary, be artistic. Let the pain and the sorrow flow through you and then be a sport about it: damn, be creative about it! Who knows, you may be the next Taylor Swift!

Lyrics from Taylor Swift's 'I Almost Do'

NOTE: I need a copy-reader for this story I am writing...


          Getting over someone is never easy, even if that someone was never really yours to begin with. But you know what they say: life goes on. As cliche as it sounds, losing a person is not the end of your world. You may never be the same person you were, but who is?