Uniporme

It's been a terribly long time since I filled up my pages. I promised to revive this sorry excuse for a blog but unfortunately, since I don't have something worthwhile to talk about I decided to put it on hold again.

I'm screwed. I have a lot of things to do at hand in preparation for the compressed Midterms at school and yet I have to leave it all behind when I got to Bacolod on the weekend. Also, I can no longer roam freely around the campus. A new directive for the faculty to comply with is that we should wear a color-coded uniform for each day of the weak and that means I have to wear slacks. It should have been easy just to obey this new rule. Problem is, I hate wearing slacks and polo shirts. As for you who know me, I have always been the T-shirt and jeans kinda guy. So everytime I go to school, I am compelled to hide within the corners of my college office and only venture out into the wilderness if and only if it's utterly important. I have to decrease the chances of me meeting up with a superior and get reprimanded for my uniform. I can't even go to the canteen to have lunch lest I be confronted.

I certainly cannot understand the concept of me, the great Toto Dyud, wearing faculty uniform to "look" professional. That is pure bullstuff. As a teacher, I prepare well for my classes, even burning the midnight oil which I didn't do way back in college. I discuss well and with passion. There are many out there who wear their uniforms but suck at educating kids. They may look professional, but damn me they are tramps. There are many who are overly strict over matters that should not be of great concern like hounding students over the color of their hair, or ponytail, or missing pin or cufflinks. Trivial matters like that should not be too fussed over with. A simple comment to catch the student's attention is enough. Anyway, they are in college. They know what's right from wrong. You don't have to impose your will over them. I find some professors so pathetic they constantly report student activities to college heads. By constantly, I mean always. Like, don't they have anything more worthwhile to do with they bloody lives?

However, in a way, I feel sorry for them. Not only because they are losers who want to make young people miserable, but also because all their lives they followed the rules. They never broke them. They are these people whose lives are so patterned and predictable the only things that could break that mundanity is a stroke or a freak accident resulting in death. These are people who have nothing exciting to talk about their lives with their grandchildren only that they did very well in school. It's a sad thing really. Nothing worthwhile ever happened to their lives except that they went to school, graduated, worked, got married, had children, retired, and died.

Sooner or later, I will be forced to comply with the school policy lest I find myself out of work. But never fear, my adoring legion of admirers. I will still be the great Toto Dyud that you love and worship--- just a little more cultured, say, a little more "professional".

Octopus Man

For days now, I kept on seeing ads for the Discovery Channel documentary entitled "Octoman". I was actually intrigued by the documentary. Luckily enough, I managed to catch its premier tonight.

The Octopus-Man is a freakshow favorite here in the Philippines. He has seven limbs in total, politically incorrect as an octopus should have eight. I was surprised to learn he is an Ilonggo. Had he been a singer, an actor, an athlete, or a beauty queen, the media would probably have had his face plastered all over the frontnews praising how his talent or beauty has given "honor" to his country. Alas, beauty queen he is not. He is a freak of nature. He has had an unformed twin brother attached to him, hence the extra limbs. His only bet on newsworthiness is a short skit on features, Sagip Kapamilya, Wish Ko Lang, Maalaala mo Kaya or Kuya Kim's MatangLawin. If I were completely apathetic, I would call him hideous. The kind of ugly that will put Quasimodo to shame. I am not talking about his face (which is rather average), but his overall appearance is simply appalling.

As would have been expected, the only job he's been in is showbusiness--albeit not the red-carpet type. He is a carnival star, raking in his income by attracting fiesta goers to stare at his deformities. However, 10 years ago he decided to finally end his life with the moving carnival. He eloped with a magician's assistant, ran off to a far-off place somewhere in Panay island, and raised a daughter, who I find to be rather charming and pretty. Nobody knew where he went, not even the carnival people.

He was finally located by a researcher and was interviewed. At present, he is already suffering from quite a lot of ailments. To make the long stroy short, he was brought to Manila to be examined for his condition. Examination revealed him to have high blood pressure and so on and so fort. The hypertension and stomach ulcers were attributed to the extra appendages on his body. It was found out that his extra appendages were indeed a twin brother but he is parasitic by nature. Therefore, he shares the blood, nerves and nutrients of the Octoman.

After careful analysis, lab exams and all, it was revealed that he could be operated upon. What's more, the doctors are offering the operation for free. Octoman went home and discussed the proposal to his family. According to the doctors, he's got a good chance of success. Now here comes the anti-climactic part. THE FOOL DID NOT GET THE OPERATION! His reason was, God made me this way. I have accepted it and I will die this way. What the fuck was that all about? What a complete waste of airtime. What a complete waste of MY time! Damn, there are soooo many people who need operations everyday and they can't have it cause they don't have money. And here comes Octoman being offered a complicated operation for free to save his life and improve his quality of life and he fucking refuses it. Because God made him this way.

Yes, I think maybe you would think I am being severely and unwarrantedly blasphemous. But damn is he stupid! If I were an Octoman and I prayed to God to make me normal, he wouldn't snap his fingers or zap me to normalcy. That is too predictable. God works in mysterious ways and he only gives opportunities that would make Octoman "normal". The first one he gave was that magician assistant and their daughter. The next one would be this free operation by experts. Now, which one is more disrespectful to God, my ranting about how people just accept how things are because God made them that way or him turning his back on a perfectly humbling philanthropic experience that would have been a work of mercy for the doctors?

Instead of I getting inspired by that docu, it made me angry and feel a lot less sorry for him. Stupid people irritate me. Stupid people making God as an excuse for their cowardice or melodrama make me furious. And stupid people getting airtime make me livid. I got all of that tonight.

From your biggest fan

His name is always on the tabloids reeling in scandal and negative publicity. That homo. That pedo. That has-been of a popstar.

Today his name is once again on the papers. This time, they announce his tragic end. It is a rather sad ending for a King who was brought down to his knees by the humiliation of his bankruptcy and alleged pedophilia.

Till now, I think everyone, fan and critic alike, were secretly hoping and waiting for a true comeback from the self-professed King of Pop. They were waiting for him to electrify the stage by his performances, shatter the mic through his vocal prowess, and ultimately revive his genius. That day never came. It will not come at all.

Jacko is dead. And the world mourns for what was, what could've been and what should've been. After all, MJ was a music icon, a big one at that. He sold the most records ever behind Elvis and the Beatles. He made MTV a household name with Thriller. In the music arena, MJ was as near to a god as anyone could've imagined.

I am a big fan. I mourn his death more deeply than I mourned Francis M's. I was a secret dream of mine to be able to watch a live performance by Michael. It is a dream yet unfulfilled. However, there is a silver lining to his death. Had he died 20 years after, his name would've been buried in bad rep so deep not even Tom Hanks can brink back any integrity into it. His sudden death would drive people to listen to his music once again, same as what happened to Francis M's. Through this, his name will be forever etched in history and his music will be played for all eternity.

Godspeed Michael. Rest in Peace.

Pay It Forward

Two days ago, I happened to catch on a movie entitled Pay It Forward on HBO. It stars Haley whatsisname, the child star on Bruce Willis' The Sixth Sense who immortalized the lines "I can see dead people". With him is Helen Hunt, Jon Bon Jovi and the remarkable Kevin Spacey. I've always been smitten by the subtle and powerful performances of Kevin Spacey since I saw K-PAX. However, I am equally impressed by this Haley boy who gained my well-deserved respect after this movie.

Haley plays a 7th-grader raised in a broken home with a mom who's a recovering alcoholic and is seldom home. Spacey plays his school teacher who inspired him to develop a Pay It Forward principle. By virtue of this principle, a person is required to do one big and extraordinary good deed to three people. Those three people have to pay it forward meaning they also have to do good deeds to three other people each. It is a rather ambitious endeavor, relying purely on a person's goodwill. And as such, failure will ultimately be its end.

Pardon my apathy. In real lfe, something like this will never happen. Doing something great for someone you perhaps do not know at all may perhaps be noticed and lauded by society, but more often than not it will be forgotten, shaken off as a happenstance that won't happen again, or not recognized at all. As part of the Filipino culture, doing a great deed for someone requires him, by virtue of utang-na-loob or indebtedness, to pay you back in kind. Failure to do this will deem him an ingrate, a leech, someone who doesn't know how to look back from where he came from. If you are the doer of the great good deed to someone without asking for something in return just a wish that he also pay it forward to someone else, you will be considered a showoff, a fool, a politician in the making, a naive creep, or someone who attaches strings to everything. It is a hopeless scenario if you ask me.

Inspite of it all, however, there is nothing wrong in hoping. There is nothing wrong in having faith in people. There is nothing wrong in believing that people do apply their better nature. Naive as it may seem, sometimes we don't have to make things all that complicated. Only adult minds make things complicated. At the end of the day, we all have to contribute if we want to make this cruel world less cruel may it be in deeds and dreams that may seem miniscule compared to what rich philantropists do. It doesn't matter. As long as we have faith, we all have the potential to make life suck less to ourselves and to other people. Though this sunshine disposition is usually out of my league, today at least it is in.

....... ZZZzzZzZzzz....

I am reviving my blog. Nah, resurrecting it back from the tombs of Aku. This doesn't mean I now have the luxury of time to write. Nor does it mean my passion for writing or for any other literary pursuit has taken the front seat of the present. I am writing because I am compelled by time. Or, more accurately, the seeming lack of it.

No, I am not dying and I am not sick. I am simply getting old. I will soon be joining the throng of once-so-young-but-not-anymore yuppies tearfully singing along the 4 Non-Blondes What's Up. Nine short months have passed since passing my Toefl exam. Nothing happened. Nothing's happening. I don't think that being a teacher has helped me in my pursuit for that elusive American dream. Even now, I am losing the spark, the flame of what moved me to become a teacher in the first place. Gone is the almost berserker-like fervor of which I envisioned myself transforming and educating the younger generation. All that is left is the pressure of meeting deadlines and completing school duties.

I'm not even sure of when and where I lost the spark. Perhaps because it is with the indifference shown by the students. Or with their apparent lack of appreciation for your sacrifices. Maybe it's because I finally understand that I may not be able to become as magnificent as I have always thought I would be. Or maybe it's because I feel that my charisma alone will not change the mediocre minds of the many sheeps I tend to everyday. Or perhaps it comes with the hopelessness of having to look after sheeps with brainpower comparable to that of a microscopic amoeba.

Or maybe I am just getting old. It is human nature I believe. Few mentors maintain their level of enthusiasm for instruction throughout their lifetime which explains why only few of them get remembered. Little by little, you get dragged to the pits of mundanity. Until eventually, everything becomes routine. Now everything is routine.

I am old. I am bored. Nothing has happened. Nothing's happening. Pray, something will happen soon....

April Reign

I got so stuck on Facebook I almost forgot the password to my own blog. Haha. Well, I went home under a humid midmorning sun and wasn't really expecting rain. As soon as I got home, I rushed straight to the PC to play,of course, ate my lunch, and went for a quick siesta. Then suddenly I heard the crackling sound of whips from the sky. Rain fell so hard and so quickly, I rushed to turn off the aircon and the PC avoiding the possible risk of them imploding due to electrical surge or whatsoever. Lightning and thunder rolled with the heavy rain, totally unexpected on a summer midafternoon.

Little by little, the horrors in those documentaries by Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Edward Norton are starting to unfold before our very eyes. This is the effect of climate change and global warming. Last year, Panay experienced its worst storm ever with 200-800+ people (depending on the source) dead. The extremely heavy, storm-caliber rains experienced just this afternoon is also a direct consequence of that. How did this happen? In simple terms, I will explain it like the omniscient philosopher that I am. Bwahaha! Due to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere ( from fossil fuels, factories, dumpsites, cattle and swine farming etc), the temperature of the earth gets warmer. If the temperature gets warmer, of course evaporation from oceans increase in volume. Increased evaporation equals more cloud formations. More cloud formations equals heavier rains. And the cycle would begin again.

A bigger threat with these crusades to fight global warming is the mere fact that people don't want to give up the lifestyle that is comfortable. Because of GW, people turn on their aircons. More aircons equals more energy expenditure. More energy expenditure equals more fossil fuel burning. More fossil fuel burning equals more global warming.

Feeling depressed now? Just wait next time when I have the energy to write about galcial melting and its effects on the price of ice water on the sari-sari store. Haha. For now, I'm signing off again.

The Most Dangerous Zodiac Sign

Is a crab. Cancer. Just returned home from my granddad's home where we attended Uncle Warren's wake. Uncle Warren died of cancer. I will always remember him as a very kind uncle who keeps on feeding you salad every five minutes just becoz he's already drunk. He almost always seem to be drunk, with the red chest and slurred speech. You see, my uncle is an alcoholic. Not the noisy, irritating, out-of-control type (like yours truly), but rather he's the attentive one, the caring one who comes to you and asks you "Nagutom ka to? Kuha taka salad ha". The only problem is, he does that every five minutes or so. As long as you are in his line of vision, you will always be full. He's the eldest of my dad's siblings (they're 9 kids) and he will sorely be missed. Yesterday morning, we bade farewell to my grandad and mom and all the uncles and aunties and cousins that were there. I was saddened when I kissed Auntie Janet (his wife) goodbye and she said, "To, ikaw na lang siguro mabantay Ceres ke wala na si Uncle Warren mo". Ahay nasubuan ako. As long as I can remember, basta magpapuli na kami nga daan from Nabas, Aklan it was my Uncle Warren who always volunteers to go out in the hot summer sun to wait for a Ceres bus. And now he's gone.

Because of this zodiac particular zodiac sign. He died of lung cancer after years of smoking and drinking. Nope his liver was not so bad. He died of pneumonia secondary to chemotherapy for his cancer. This scares me in a way I've never felt before. My Auntie Mila, my dad's sister and who probably is the most beautiful among the Lasernas, also has cancer. I remember her Greek features, high nose, porcelain skin and beautiful eyes. I haven't seen her for a long time but my cousins told me she had been reduced to skin and bones. Her painscale is at 10/10. I can't imagine why good people such as them get to die painful deaths. There are so many assholes in the world who deserve this. Not them.

I'm scared. Not just because it's confirmed that we have familial tendency for cancer. Not just because I can't afford cancer treatment. But more so because I don't have an unwavering faith in my God. So far, I seem to have lost it (again) somewhere along the way. And that bothers me. Much more than this zodiac sign of a shellfish with pincers.