26 July 2007

pastime to exorcise a green-eyed monster

two days or two hours of no communication could either relieve you or drive you nuts.

it drives me nuts.

numbers don't matter. two minutes? two hours... two days! yes, i punctuate it like that. but it's not the same for us all. people punctuate differently when (im)properly motivated. to each their own.

panic attacks. it's common. insecurity fuels panic, and uncalled for scenarios build up in your mind. and unnecessary feelings surface to add more to the already existing surface tension. so unnecessary emotions build up. why oh why do we have to have habits of conjuring up ghosts to scare only ourselves? this is a human habit i have long wondered about. strangeness... to the max.

let me get rid of it. now na.

*

been enjoying my pack of sampoerna menthol lights, a pasalubong from my friend ging who came from bangkok where we usually get this brand. made by the same manufacturers of gudang garam, my usual brand, only better and finer and smoother.

made contact with this brand some years back, when my former malaysian boss went home for a vacation and came back with goodies in tow. that's the life in women NGOs, we share lots of stuff. and she has this habit of bringing pasalubong to everyone from her travels like all of us. it's the culture of sisterhood, i guess -- to share. and my house houses an eclectic collection of asian and western knick-knacks to prove it.

i was new then in the org, and she asked if i smoked, and said yes, and so she pulled out a pack of reds sampoerna, and i was hooked. but my palette looked for the comfort of menthol, so happy was i when i stumbled upon this specificity in one of my earlier bangkok travels. and i just had to buy one ream, man. sarap e.

nice to enjoy this again, here, now, during this time. i feel better now.

and yes, it's not an awful waste of space anymore. she made contact na.

silly praning me...

*

but wait. i hope this doesn't mean dependence. or interdependence. i am so shunning that concept. yes, this is a new social experiment. live day to day, one day at a time, and cherish every hour, and regret no bad hour passed. whatever.

*

i am saddened by some sisters' fate in the love department lately. near or far from me, relationships crumble just like that. but such is the fate of relationships nowadays. like job security, love security doesn't exist anymore. and in this day and age of multi-whatever (-tasking, -media etc), it's faster to move on. the question is, are you/we willing to move on as quickly? i hope you all are.

i feel for you gals. tomorrow will be a better day. trust me. you know that already. just one word: enact.

(((((((hugs from the leaflens))))))))

semisonic's adage still holds. every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

and we all know it.

*

segue.

got a taste of the university council meeting earlier where i joined as salingpusa. you could only join that if you already have the rank of assistant prof and above. so my instructor ass was hauled there by the dean and our director because, "unranked" as i was, i was indeed the "major author" of the curriculum revisions of my department/institute (meaning i was the major arse who culled their comments, made further studies and penned the drafts). which means it's a big deal for those in the academic circles. never did i realize its gravity until it was pointed out to me by colleagues and friends like wendell the assoc dean of cal who kept on raving about it to our fellow writer colleagues in a recent book launch (to my chagrin. who could remain anonymous in events like that if he raves like that? but his heart is in the right place so we forgive him). and yes, this from the same gay guy who ranted before that i could give angel aquino a run for her modeling money because of my very femme-y looks some one decade ako when we first met (when i was looking like a walking ad for a shampoo commercial then, yes). yeah i fooled a lot of people back then when i was/am in my "passing hetero" mode. but i digress.

so the UC meeting was so boring and full of people who are full of it. and i couldn't believe how some of them could be so plugged up their arses that i wondered if i would ever suffer the same fate if i stayed on for a decade more in this university teaching. i just couldn't believe that these people who taught/teaches the future of the country could be so stuck in the prejudices and bigotries of the(ir) past. like mr. kontra made lots of kontra about queer cinema kanina. and just hear the smirks and snickers when he started talking about the term queer. i could not believe that some of these arses have buttplugs so stuck up way way way up theirs that they would react that way. contrary to the virginia slims ad, we haven't gone a long way yet, baby. and what, it's the centennial celebs next year, right? hah.

sad. so sad.

kaya pala you never see the innovative teachers in that meeting. or in any other meeting like that, for that matter. they're out there busying themselves with finding the right teaching tools, finetuning their alternative teaching skills, researching about their more innovative teaching methods, all that self-improvement schtick. ang mga uma-attend ng mga meeting na yan ay karamihan mga naaagnas na sa unibersidad na di na lumalabas sa totoong mundo para mahawakan at maramdaman ang totoong buhay, na stuck na sa insecurities nila na kahit napakarami na nilang nakamit sa buhay ay insecure pa rin sa kalagayan nila sa buhay. sad. so so sad. super sad.

but i'm confident i'm not headed towards that direction. a lot of us young faculty still have the sense to involve ourselves in our multiple lives outside of the university. and i do mean multiple -- from the jobs to the rakets to the personal arts/advocacy/business involvements down to our multiple love lives / orgasms, we are just soooo out there. unlike these old farts, we are more concerned with what our students would learn rather than what our department would look like/project outside/within the university. quality not quantity, substance not image. no, we're not after image. we're after content. in this university of contradictions, i am discovering new things to be sad about and old things to be proud of. hope to find more of the latter. as in. now na. need it bad. as in. you have no idea.

*

cute nito no. the movie in my mind as i muni-muni this: STAND AND DELIVER starring subic-born texas-raised lou diamond phillips. na siguro ang tunay na pangalan e luis diamante. iningglis lang.

but i'd rather be pretty and spunky michelle pfeiffer in DANGEROUS MINDS. and i can rap the theme song pa of that movie! hehe. what can i say? i love old school rap. don't give me none of that materialistic misogynist hiphop shit. rap is it, baby. rap is it. good ol' fashioned beats with rhymes that comment on social issues that affect the personal and influence the political.

word up.

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